From the Outside

by Clare Johnston

  Ben couldn’t believe how easy it had been to enlist her help so he thought it wise to wind up the call in case he said something to change her mind.

  ‘Thank you so much.’ He was just about to say goodbye when she abruptly cut in.

  ‘Do you still draw, Ben?’ He detected a softness and familiarity in her voice that immediately threw him off-guard.

  ‘No. Not for some time now.’

  ‘What a waste.’ She paused. ‘I’d very much like to see some more of your work if that would be possible? Perhaps you could take some pieces along to Jason’s exhibition?’ Ben deduced from her tone that his compliance on this would help ensure her continued cooperation.

  ‘I don’t know, Emily. I’m not sure where they are.’

  ‘I did something for you, Ben. Please do this for me.’

  ‘Alright,’ he said. ‘I’ll take whatever I can find with me for you to look at.’

  ‘Excellent,’ she paused. ‘I’ll look forward to seeing you.’ He heard the phone click and she was gone.

  Later, as Ben walked to Sarah’s house on what had turned out to be a beautiful evening, he played the conversation with Emily over again in his mind. The fondness with which she spoke about his art work, the vulnerability she allowed to creep through that had made him feel they were in some way connected. Could someone like Emily possibly be interested in him, he wondered? It had been a few years since he’d had any kind of romantic involvement, but he couldn’t help but think there was something in her tone which was more than just professional interest. Ben laughed to himself as he realised he was probably delusional – no doubt a mid-life crisis, he thought, that had made him believe women were starting to throw themselves at him.

  Rounding the corner to Sarah’s street his thoughts changed to figuring out why his sister-in-law had invited him over for an evening meal. At the time, she simply said, ‘It would be nice to catch up’. Ben imagined she was having an issue with her laptop again, or had a leak that needed fixing. It had never even entered his mind that Sarah could actually enjoy his company – could want to be around him. To Ben, Sarah was still so closely connected with me that he hadn’t noticed her migrate towards him. He hadn’t thought about how relaxed he had become in her company, or how big a part of his life she was now. Sarah was still up there on her untouchable throne in his eyes.

  He stopped at her front door and rang the bell. She answered within a few seconds and Ben immediately noticed she had started wearing make-up again. She must be feeling better, he thought, reasoning that this would also account for the change in her behaviour towards him lately. She was becoming much easier to deal with – helpful, caring almost.

  ‘Hi,’ she said breezily. ‘Come in. Dinner’s ready.’

  He noticed her little bump as she turned away to lead him to the kitchen. He guessed she was probably wearing maternity trousers already as he could see an elastic expanse of material at her waist, supporting her stomach. He wondered how long she’d waited to wear trousers like these. Her joy at being pregnant was so obvious and so charming that he allowed himself to feel another little buzz of excitement at the thought of being a special uncle to this child.

  ‘How’s my little niece or nephew doing?’ he asked brightly.

  ‘Just fine. I’ve even started feeling some flutters of movement.’

  ‘That’s fantastic,’ he said, throwing his jacket over the back of a kitchen chair and sitting himself down at the table. ‘I can’t wait to meet whoever’s in there,’ he said pointing towards her swollen stomach.

  ‘Well, Uncle Ben, you’ve got a few months to wait yet, but it’ll be worth it. Would you like a glass of wine? I’m afraid I can’t join you but I can watch enviously.’

  Ben felt tempted, but his reduced drinking was beginning to pay dividend – his mood and confidence had improved, as had his energy levels – and he knew it wouldn’t take much to throw him off track. ‘Nah, don’t open a bottle on my account. A glass of water is fine. I’m trying not to drink much in the week.’

  ‘I can see the difference in you, you know – since you’ve cut back. You look much brighter and more youthful.’

  Ben wasn’t aware she’d ever really known about his heavy drinking, but he guessed it must have been obvious.

  ‘I’m feeling pretty good,’ he replied cautiously. ‘It’s nice to be busy.’

  He watched as she carefully dished the risotto she had prepared for them, sprinkling what looked like flat-leaf parsley over it, before she topped it with grated parmesan.

  ‘This looks great,’ he said, inhaling the aroma as she put his plate down in front of him.

  ‘My signature dish, aka the only thing I can cook without messing it up,’ she smirked, taking her seat at the table directly opposite him.

  ‘I wanted to ask you something, Ben?’

  Here we go, he thought as he waited for Sarah to assign him his task for the evening.

  ‘Should I have worn my overalls?’ he quipped.

  ‘No, nothing like that,’ she glanced down at her plate nervously, before fixing on him again. ‘I wanted to ask if my baby can call you Daddy?’

  Ben heard his fork hit the table.

  CHAPTER seven

  EMILY HAD SHOWN next to no enthusiasm when I first asked her out. Instead she sniggered, ‘I don’t think so’, after I cornered her outside the girls’ toilets at an under-18s disco. But her haughtiness just reeled me in further so I asked one of my friends to do some investigative work and find out what her interests were. When I discovered Emily had a love of art, I realised I was in luck – because I had talent on tap in the shape of my brother.

  So I wooed Emily with a series of drawings – along with a smattering of watercolour paintings – I knew would impress even the toughest critic. To my surprise, it was easy to persuade Ben to provide the artwork. I’d approached him cautiously in his room one evening with a view to bribing him. I’d seen him smoking down the lane a few nights earlier so I had plenty of ammunition. But, incredibly, he agreed to help without even the slightest threat being uttered. I didn’t even have to tell him what to draw – he did the lot himself. Course, I didn’t realise then that he had a bit of a crush on Emily himself, but his creations absolutely did the trick. I penned a different note on the back of each one, posting them individually to her home and eventually including my telephone number with the fifth. She called that same evening, sounding very nervous, and asked me outright if I was the artist. ‘Of course,’ I replied proudly. ‘I hope they didn’t disappoint,’ I added, smirking to myself.

  ‘A gift like yours could never disappoint,’ she said. And that was that; we were inseparable for over a year until, that is, I decided to take up with Becky Rutherford, a junior tennis champion who netted almost as many boyfriends as she did trophies.

  When Emily and I met at a fundraising event two years ago, she asked me if I was still painting and drawing. She appeared to know everything about me – as if she’d charted my every move since we left school. I told her I still sketched the odd thing now and then, but generally didn’t have much time for art any more. ‘How terribly sad,’ she said, looking both concerned and perplexed in equal measure.

  Clearly, she had never forgotten the first major talent she had spotted – but the rest of us did. Ben’s was a gift that was at first neglected and then buried. What part in that did I play, I wondered? Had I, along with our father, worn Ben’s self-confidence down until there was nothing left?

  It proved to be a restless night as Ben tried to sort through the day’s events. First Emily opening the lid on his unfulfilled promise – something that had caused him years of angst – and now Sarah effectively asking him if he wanted to be a father to what would have been his brother’s child. He had asked – diplomatically he hoped – for some time to think about it, but it had taken him all night to reach a decision. It was quite a leap from being an uncle to ‘Daddy’ as she had put it. But she had certainly thought it through, carefully setting out how
this didn’t mean she was asking him to live with them – although she thought she could use some extra support in the early days – but just wanted him to be the official ‘first man’ in the child’s life. Looking at it like that, Ben thought it made sense. He had also concluded that I would have wanted my son or daughter to have a constant male figure in their life after recalling how I once told him how sorry I felt for a boy in my class at school whose father had died of cancer. ‘He’s only got his mother now,’ I’d told Ben, astonished such a thing could happen. ‘I can’t imagine losing someone so young. Everyone should live until they’re old,’ I had added naively.

  And as soon as Ben considered what life would be like if he didn’t take on this new role, instead watching from the sidelines as he had always done, his decision was easy. He batted away his concerns about what would happen not if, but when Sarah found a new partner – a thought he found strangely troubling – and focused on what was best for the child. He would tell Sarah tomorrow that he would become the baby’s father-figure and they could see in time whether calling him ‘Daddy’ felt right. With that decision he swallowed the nagging anxiety about what would happen if, further down the line, she changed her mind.

  The next morning Ben headed into the centre early to start tidying up the recreation room, which was soon to host Jason’s showcase event. But when he arrived outside the entrance he found Jason curled up in the doorway fast asleep. Ben wondered how long he had been there.

  ‘Jason,’ he said, shaking him gently.

  ‘Sorry pal,’ a groggy Jason muttered, peeking up at Ben through one half-opened eye, the other still jammed shut.

  ‘How long have you been here?’

  ‘All night,’ said Jason, stretching his arms above his head and yawning before rising to his feet. ‘My dad threw me out when I told him about getting my pictures shown in the gallery.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Ben, although he suspected he already knew. He had been down this road once before.

  ‘He says drawing is no job for a man, and if he ever caught me in a gallery showing off a bunch of pansy pictures he’d not let me back in the house.’

  ‘And what do you think, Jason?’

  ‘I think I’m homeless.’

  Standing outside the sprawl of flats in one of Edinburgh’s most notorious housing estates, Ben wondered if it had been such a good idea to offer to try and talk Jason’s dad round after all. So much of the area had been regenerated that this long, wretched-looking building stuck out as an obvious eyesore seated at the top of a hill off the main road running along the shore to Leith. Ben smiled to himself as he imagined how an unsuspecting passer-by could be ambling along, past the array of advertising agencies, architects offices, bars and restaurants, thinking what a thoroughly vibrant area this was then, taking a wrong turn, be met with this imposing sight. The building was not pretty - not for the stranger looking at it, and particularly not for the people living in it.

  Things didn’t improve much inside, and Ben took a deep breath before climbing the stairs to the fourth floor where Jason’s family lived. Stopping at the top of the steps, he leaned against the wall for a few seconds until he got his breath back. He vowed to himself that he would join a gym some time soon. Once reasonably composed again he started down the hallway until he found the door he was looking for.

  He knocked tentatively.

  ‘Who is it?’ A gruff voice bellowed from the other side.

  ‘It’s Ben Melville from the Melville Youth Centre,’ Ben answered in what he feared sounded like the pitch of a five-year-old girl. He swallowed hard as he heard keys being jostled, wrestling panic thoughts of being sick on the doorstep. The door opened.

  ‘Aye?’ The gruff voice had a face, and it wasn’t attractive. A short and stout man blocked the doorway, dressed in a stained green T-shirt and black tracksuit bottoms.

  Ben swallowed again before attempting small talk.

  ‘I don’t know how you manage these stairs every day – nearly killed me.’ He laughed nervously at his own joke while the man he presumed to be Gary Weir remained poker faced.

  ‘I dinnae take the stairs,’ he grunted. ‘I send the wife oot instead.’ Ben laughed a little too loudly and wished he could make a hasty retreat.

  Instead, he held out his hand towards the man who, surprisingly, shook it.

  ‘Ben Melville.’

  ‘Gary Weir. Whit stupit ideas have ye been puttin’ intae ma son’s heid aboot drawing?’

  ‘Can I come in?’ asked Ben nervously.

  Gary stood back from the door and pointed towards a dark room at the end of a very short hallway which was crowded with shoes and boxes. Next to the door, coats had been haphazardly flung over a stand that could only be identified by its base. Ben cautiously entered the flat before stepping into what was a tiny room by anyone’s standards. It housed a two-seater sofa squeezed against the back wall covered in newspaper and children’s toys, and an arm chair that looked like it belonged in the tip. A TV on the far side of the room screened a mid-morning chat show which, by the very high volume, Gary had clearly been watching.

  ‘Sit doon.’ Jason’s dad jabbed his middle finger towards the sofa while he sat himself down in his armchair. Ben attempted to clear himself a space to sit on without drawing attention to the fact he was doing it. But he need not have gone to the effort. When he was finally seated he noticed Gary’s eyes were still firmly fixed on the TV where a warring couple were squaring up to each other while the over-animated presenter pretended to attempt to defuse the situation, without defusing it. Ben wondered why they didn’t just replace this crap with WWF wrestling and be done with it.

  He cleared his throat before addressing Gary whose attention he felt would be difficult to hold.

  ‘Jason told me this morning that you’d had an argument about his ambition to become an artist.’

  ‘It wisnae an argument,’ Gary clarified in his unique style. ‘I telt him nae son ae mine wis gonnae make a livin’ fae drawin’ stupit pictures. If he’s that much ae an artist why doesn’t he pick up a brush and paint some walls? It would be a hell ae a lot mare use.’

  ‘I understand this may not be what you had in mind for Jason,’ Ben wasn’t quite sure where he was going with this, ‘but I have to tell you that he’s not just some two-bit street artist. He has an exceptional talent which has already been noticed by the leading gallery owner in Scotland.’

  Gary fleetingly drew his eyes from the brawling on the TV to look at Ben.

  ‘That right,’ he said, clearly unimpressed.

  Ben cleared his throat and decided to alter his tactics.

  ‘I was like your son once, Gary. I loved to draw and I was good at it but, like you, my father thought it was no job for a man so he stopped me from taking it any further. It’s taken me almost thirty years to get over my anger and disappointment at being prevented from doing the one thing I loved – and that’s thirty wasted years too.’

  Gary was looking right at him now so Ben knew this was going to have to be his best shot.

  ‘Jason respects you and he’ll do what you tell him to. But he’s got a chance here to make something of his life and to be someone. The art world is not for the weak. Real artists work damn hard and have to fight their way through the thousands of others masquerading as talented painters and sculptors, to get their work noticed and be taken seriously. Jason is already half-way there. He has the support of someone who knows the business and can get his work out there. This is his chance. He’ll never forgive you if you don’t let him grab it and he’ll spend the rest of his life hating you for it.’

  ‘Ye finished?’ barked Gary, his cheeks glowing red with rage.

  ‘Yes,’ said Ben, unsure of what was coming next.

  ‘Good. Cos ye’ve got a bloody cheek comin’ in here and tryin’ tae tell me whit tae think. You ever thought how the other folk round here are gonnae start treatin’ that lad when they hear he’s an ‘artist’?’ Gary sounded out the word in an overtl
y camp, theatrical accent.

  ‘He’ll no stand a snowball’s chance in hell ae walkin’ doon the street without gettin’ the absolute piss taken oot ae him – or worse. And I’ll tell ye somethin’ else. The last few years have no been easy for ma boy. He’s had nothin’ but shite tae get through and he’s just startin’ tae sort himsel’ oot. He doesnae need tae be drawin’ attention tae himsel’ right noo. So just keep yer nose oot ae things ye dinnae have the first idea aboot and go back tae helpin’ some wee lassie get a supermarket job.’ With that, Gary turned his attention back to the TV and left Ben to see himself out.

  Jason could tell from the look on Ben’s face that his attempt to talk his dad around hadn’t been successful.

  Ben pulled up a stool and sat down in front of Jason who he found slouched in an arm chair in the recreation room sketching something in a notepad and looking very demoralised.

  ‘I tried,’ Ben shrugged before offering an apologetic smile.

  ‘I knew he’d throw you out,’ said Jason. ‘My mum’s gonna be devastated. She’s only just got me back home.’

  ‘Why, where were you before?’

  ‘I went a wee bit off the rails for a couple of years and I wasn’t around much. Staying with mates and that,’ Jason said, his eyes fixed to the floor.

  ‘Were you in trouble, Jason?’

  ‘Sort of.’ Jason shuffled in his seat and transferred his gaze to the window. ‘I’d rather not talk about it, eh.’

  ‘I understand,’ said Ben. ‘Your dad might come around yet, Jason.’

  ‘No. He’s a stubborn old bastard. He’ll sit it out.’

  ‘Well, I’ve got a very comfy sofa that’s yours until you work things out, or get on your feet. Whichever comes first.’

  ‘Cheers pal,’ said Jason, still looking utterly dejected. ‘That would be great. I won’t stay for long.’

  ‘No problem,’ Ben smiled, though inwardly he was less than thrilled about the idea of flat sharing. He’d lived alone for over 20 years and wasn’t quite sure how this was going to work out.