He descended the steps of Dig Nation, where he was to meet Peter at the end of his lunchtime shift. “Hey there,” said Fiona as he entered.
“Hiya.”
“How you doing?” she asked. From the sympathy in her voice he guessed that Peter told her everything. He wondered how far that sibling communication went, what other sorts of things he told her about.
“I’m doing okay. Just taking it day by day.” He smiled, but it was an effort. The first of the month was coming, and he had little money left. It bothered him to consider how much he had in the bank just a season ago. Poverty was new to him and it was not comfortable. Worry drained the enjoyment from circumstances he knew he should be enjoying.
“Is Peter here?”
“Yeah,” said Fiona, “I’ll tell him you’ve come for him.”
A moment later, Peter appeared from the kitchen, untying his apron and lifting it over his head. He raised a section of the bar and walked through to give Stefan a hug. He lifted Stefan’s chin with his thumb. “That bad, eh?” Stefan shrugged. “Okay, come with me, miseryguts.”
He draped his apron over the bar. “Hand me my jacket, will you, Fi? I’ll be back in time for the supper crowd. If anyone comes in, we’ve still got some jacket potatoes and the cold rolls.”
“Alright,” she said, “but if you’re not back in time I’ll kill you. I am not going into that kitchen.”
“Okay,” he agreed. The chill of the afternoon hit them as they left the bar, and they walked close together as Peter led them across town. Stefan told Peter about his worries. He confessed his old rate of pay on The Green Brigade, and divulged how much he had in the bank when he’d first come to the country. He knew Peter had never known that kind of money, and felt awkward about that disparity in their lives.
Peter didn’t make it easier for him. “And you spent that all on a play? Which is now over.”
“I think it’s still running somewhere in Spain. Or maybe they’ve moved on by now.” He sighed. “I know. It made sense at the time.”
“Here we are,” said Peter. He led them down a path lined with shrivelled trees and winterised flower-beds. He pointed at a series of huge glass buildings ahead. Their steamy windows held in a blaze of vibrant green. Peter paid their admission, and they walked into a room whose air was rich and clean, with the heavy, moist feel of breath. Ferns covered the ground and palms rose to the glass roof.
Peter took them over a walkway into another room that contained a pond. They sat on its edge and Stefan reached for one of the huge, leathery green lily-pads, pulling it close.
“I know how you can get rid of this rent problem,” said Peter.
“How? Sell my blood?” He raised an eyebrow. “My sperm?”
“No,” laughed Peter, “move in with me.”
Stefan stared at him. This thought had never occurred to him; he wouldn’t have dared entertain it. “Really?”
Peter put his hand around the back of Stefan’s neck. “Really.”
“What do I tell my landlord?”
“Well, there are good excuses and bad excuses.”
“What’s the difference?”
“A bad excuse is boring.”
~
The landlord watched quietly as they moved the last of Stefan’s things from the flat. When Stefan handed him his keys, the man shook his hand and said, “I’m so sorry, son. So young. But don’t you mind the statistics. Yeh’ll find a donor yet.”
Stefan nodded a solemn thank you, and headed down the stairs. Peter closed the back doors, and they got in. The landlord waved as they pulled away. Peter’s laugh spluttered out of his lips as they turned the corner.
“You’re a bad influence on me,” said Stefan.
“Hey, you were going to break your lease anyway. Nothing’s any different than it would have been, except now this guy thinks he did you a big favour.”
“You’re still a bastard.”
Peter smiled.
Fiona met them at the door of their flat and helped them carry Stefan’s bags and boxes upstairs. “Like I don’t see enough of my brother, now I’ve got to deal with you, too,” she said.
In his best schoolboy voice, Stefan said, “Thank you, Fiona.”
“And you’re not getting off easy, boyo,” she said to Peter. “Whatever he pays is coming off my share of the mortgage, too.”
“Okay.”
Peter pointed to a closed door. “That’s where Sarah stays. Except she doesn’t. She made it big working with a firm in London and she’s never here anymore. But she likes to keep a place here because Edinburgh’s home. It works for us.” He pointed to another room whose door was also closed. He whispered as he pointed, “She Who Must Not Be Named. Do not cross her path. Should you see her outwith her room, do not, I repeat, do not make eye contact with her.”
“What’s her name?”
“Oh no no no. Don’t,” said Peter, “don’t think you’re going to have some special influence and tame her. Many have tried. Many have failed.”
They moved down the hall. “Fiona’s hardly ever here, either,” he continued. “She’s usually at her boyfriend’s with the bairn. When they’re here, they’re in the bedroom. So we’ve pretty much got the run of the place.
“No you don’t,” called Fiona from somewhere else.
“And we can have sex on every single surface in this flat.”
“No you can’t.”
“Come on, let’s figure out where to put all your stuff.”
~
“Where do these go?” asked Stefan, carrying a tray of clean pint-glasses. The bar couldn’t take him on as a paid employee, but if he volunteered there, the owners didn’t mind him eating whenever he wanted.
“Just over there,” said Peter, pointing behind the bar. On the other side of the bar a young man sat down, wearing khaki trousers and a T-shirt silk-screened with the image of a South American revolutionary. “Be right back,” said Peter, leaving Stefan.
“Hi there,” he said to the customer, crossing from behind the bar.
“Hi. I’ll have a—”
“Just a quick question first.”
“Who’s that on your shirt?”
“Uh, Che Guevara.”
“Ah. You’re a fan of his?”
“Well—”
“I was just wondering if you could remind me what country he died in.”
“Um—”
“Seems to me he wrote three books. Don’t suppose you could name any of them for me, could you?”
“Uh—”
“Yeah. And what was his real name?”
“I don’t—”
“Get out of here!” shouted Peter. He grabbed the boy’s coat and handed it to him, then booted him playfully toward the door. “Posing little wanker. Out!”
“So,” he said, returning to Stefan, “you want to try what I’ve made for lunch?”
~
Stefan woke up with an urgent need to pee. He climbed over Peter, pulled on some shorts, and padded out to the hallway. As he passed by the nameless flatmate’s door, he stopped and tried to look in. A lone eye flashed in the doorway, and the door slammed shut. Fiona’s door was open, and he saw her son sleeping there in his white wooden prison of a cot. He continued toward the toilet.
The door was locked. He heard Fiona giggle, then her boyfriend’s low voice and the splash of water. They both started to groan, and he heard a rhythmic banging against the tub. He hopped back and forth on his feet. He tried to imagine going back to bed, but he knew he wouldn’t last that long.
He padded to the kitchen and looked around. There was nothing big enough to hold all the liquid inside him. Frantic, he tiptoed at the kitchen counter and urinated into the sink.
“Heya,” said a voice behind him. Horrified, he turned his head and saw Peter. “Oh,” said Peter. “That looks like fun.” Peter stood beside him, a few inches taller, pulled down his underpants, and joined Stefan in peeing.
“That’s the evil flatmate’s f
avourite cup,” he said, adjusting his aim.
“I love you,” said Stefan.
Peter laughed, finished, and went back to bed.
Stefan guiltily and thoroughly washed the dishes, then joined him.
Hours later, the alarm clock buzzed. Peter groaned, rolled onto Stefan, and turned it off. “Hey you,” he said. “My brother’s getting married next weekend, and his fiancée asked me if I had anybody special I wanted to bring. I thought you would do. Wanna go?”
Stefan smiled.
Seventeen
Heathered Moon
Peter put his suit-bag into the boot on top of Stefan’s. His had what looked like a sleeping bag compartment on the bottom. “What’s that?” asked Stefan.
“That’s for my kilt,” replied Peter.
“Really? You’re wearing a kilt?”
“Sure. My dad bought it for me yonks ago. Barry’ll be wearing his, too.”
“Ooh, I’m gonna like this,” said Stefan. He was about to make a lewd comment, but Fiona stuffed her baby into his arms.
“Hold him,” she said. “Oh, and if it looks like he’s going to throw up—I dunno, just hold him away from you.”
Stefan looked at the wriggling little person in his arms. The baby’s eyes were sparkling and blue like blown glass, and stared with a soul-piercing intensity Stefan found unnerving.
“Everybody in,” said Roddy, Fiona’s boyfriend. “If I push it, we can get there in two hours.”
Peter folded himself into the back seat of Roddy’s tiny French car—much like a refrigerator box painted red and given wheels. Stefan handed him the baby, which Peter strapped into the small plastic seat between them. Fiona and Roddy got into the front seats. Roddy slid his chair back on its rails.
“Oi!” cried Peter.
“Sorry, I have to have room for my legs, or they’ll fall asleep.” Peter looked at Stefan and rolled his eyes. Between them, the baby’s head rolled as if on waves, then it burped loudly.
Fiona turned around. “Something he ate isn’t agreeing with him. You’ll probably need this.” She handed Stefan a small yellow towel that was already moist with something. The baby looked at him, smiled, then made a distressed face and brought up a trickle of thin, smelly liquid.
“Let’s go!” said Roddy.
~
“How’s everyone doing?” asked Roddy, then leaned to his right to blow smoke out the open window. The smoke promptly curled backward on the wind into the rear of the car.
“I need to pee,” said Peter
“I’m hungry,” added Stefan.
“Pull off the motorway up ahead, and we’ll find a pub,” instructed Fiona, exercising some unspoken authority as the driver’s girlfriend.
The town was tiny, and Stefan thought it charming, with its few small buildings and the view across the water to the massive green angles of island-mountains. They stopped in front of the tiny stone post office and got out of the metal box, groaning and stretching. Next door was a low building with a pebbled, whitewashed front and large windows of rippled glass. A hanging sign for one of the national breweries marked it out as a pub.
“I’ll be in in a minute,” said Roddy. The others went in, toting the baby, seat and all, because it was easier to remove the seat from the car than the baby from the seat’s buckles. They ordered drinks, then the waiter returned and asked if they knew what they wanted to eat.
“I’ll go ask Roddy,” said Stefan, eager to be as helpful and useful as possible, still overjoyed about being invited to a family function. He bounded from his seat through the heavy black front door of the pub. “Roddy—?” he started, but stopped when he stepped into a cloud of something that he didn’t recognise, but knew was not cigarette smoke.
Roddy took a long last drag of whatever was concealed in his hand and spoke, his voice a cartoon bubble of smoke: “Yeah?”
“What do you want for lunch?” asked Stefan, not sure what else to say. As the child of musician parents, he wasn’t unaccustomed to people who used drugs. He just didn’t like the idea of being chauffeured by them.
Roddy spent much of lunch laughing at the objects hung on the pub’s walls. Fiona didn’t notice, too busy tending to the baby, whom she tried, unsuccessfully, to feed morsels of her own lunch.
“Peter,” whispered Stefan, tapping Peter’s arm gently. Fiona and Roddy looked at him. The pub was quiet. In the distance, a television showed a rugby match, but the sound was off. Peter raised his eyebrows. “Uh, nothing,” said Stefan.
They paid their bill at the bar and shoved themselves back into the car. Roddy started the engine and they pulled away.
The route took them along a narrow trunk road that twisted along the side of a loch. A forest lined the other side of the road.
Stefan clung to his seat with one hand, while his other held on to the baby-seat, as if he would be able to hold it there should anything go wrong. Why is the baby somehow more important than the rest of us? he wondered. He pictured a yellow hazard sign on the back windscreen: Frightened voice-over artist on board. He’d been in a car several times with his mother when she shouldn’t have driven, yet somehow they never acted out the public service announcement version of drunk driving. He felt he should be courageous and challenge Roddy, taking charge of the car himself. That scenario played out badly in his mind: He’d never driven on this side of the road. No, it would have to be Fiona or Peter—
The car swung around a tight corner. Stefan grabbed the baby’s towel and threw up on it himself.
~
“You look awful,” said Peter, putting a hand on Stefan’s shoulder. He turned back to the clerk on the desk who was checking guests into the manor. ”Yes, it’s ‘Hailes’, I’m the groom’s brother.”
“It says two here,” said the clerk.
“Yeah, me and him.”
“Oh.” The man paused, then handed Peter a set of long brass keys.
“C’mon, Ste, let’s get you upstairs.” He picked up their bags and they climbed the stairs to a large, open landing with an antique table that held a large vase erupting with flowers. Stefan stopped and looked at himself in a gilt-framed mirror on the wall. “Yeah,” said Peter, “you look a tad peely-wally. I didn’t know you got carsick.”
“I’ll be fine now that I’m not trapped in a car with your sister’s stoned boyfriend!”
“Oh,” said Peter, unlocking their door, “was he—?”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t know. He’s always like that.” He dropped the bags on the bed and looked around the suite. From the bathroom, Stefan heard him say “Wow.” He poked his head around the corner. “I think you need to have a bath.”
“Okay,” said Stefan, smiling. He joined Peter in the bathroom, where perched on lion’s feet was the largest bathtub he’d ever seen. Peter cranked open the large brass taps, and Stefan quickly pulled off his clothes, then grabbed at Peter’s.
“Easy, tiger.”
“Well hurry up!”
“You seem to be feeling better now.”
Naked, they climbed into the tub, but the water, hot as it was, seemed like it would never be able to fill the tub. They knelt, holding each other, rubbing each other’s backs. They kissed. Both hard now, they alternated between tugging at each other and holding each other close, grabbing one another’s backs and backsides.
“Forget this!” said Stefan, and climbed out of the tub. Peter followed, yelling in the cold air, screwing the taps closed. They ran, dripping, across the room. Stefan yanked the covers back on the bed, they both jumped in, and Stefan pulled the heavy covers back on top of them. They squirmed close and wrapped themselves around each other. Peter’s squirming became rhythmic, and Stefan joined him. To his surprise, he felt that old familiar tingling already. “I’m gonna come!” he said through clenched teeth.
“Go on, I’m right with you.”
Stefan came quietly, laughing. Peter arched back and grunted loudly. Stefan wouldn’t have been surprised if he turned into a werewol
f. But his animal noises gave way to a tiny squeak of pleasure as Stefan felt hot wetness shoot up his chest. He laughed.
“What?” said Peter, his body relaxing now, all traces of animal gone.
“Nothing,” giggled Stefan, “come here,” he said, and pulled his lover against him. In moments, he found his thoughts slipping through time and space, stitching together disparate things. He dreamt briefly that he was at home in his basement bedroom, hearing his mother singing upstairs. Then he was in the gym of his high school, dancing awkwardly with a girl at arm’s length while the other couples looked like they were trying to walk through each other. He looked back from the others to find he was dancing with Peter. A teacher stood on the stage and interrupted the band—who happened to be a young hippy act called Delonia and Robert Mackechnie—and made an announcement: they couldn’t leave because there was a terrible snowstorm outside. To prove his point, he opened a side door, and a raging white cloud burst in and completely surrounded him. When the door hissed shut again, he was gone. Peter looked at Stefan, shrugged, and they kept on dancing.
~
A knock at the door woke them up. “Peter!”” yelled someone. To Stefan it sounded like “Pee-uh.”
“One minute,” Peter said, dropping out of the bed. He ran to the bathroom and came back wrapped in a big white towel. He opened the door. In the hallway stood someone who was unmistakably Peter’s father. He had Peter’s black brush of hair, but had it combed back carefully with some kind of oil in a style he’d likely worn since the early Sixties. He was slightly shorter than Peter, and his distended belly made his son look reedy by comparison, particularly as Peter wore only a towel, ribs and slight muscles bound beneath shockingly white skin that contrasted with the rose of his father’s face.
“Hey, Da,” said Peter, “come on in.”
Stefan, horrified, tried to make himself invisible by burrowing under the covers.
“Is Ste with you?” asked Peter’s father. “I thought I was going to get to meet him.”
Idea in Stone Page 23
