She tripped over the kerb and righted herself.
She got as far as Fergus, who touched her arm. ‘Thank goodness you’re safe.’
Martha was close enough now to feel the spray from the hoses. It was turning to steam as it hit the flames at the open windows. She could hear the water sizzling, mingled with the crackle and crunch of the fire destroying her home.
Fergus nodded beyond the first fire engine. ‘Your mother has been worried sick.’
Martha followed his nod and saw Elaine staring at the house, arms wrapped around herself like she was cold. She couldn’t be cold, the heat from the fire was overpowering. Elaine’s face was radiant, lit up by the flames.
Martha watched her for a moment, didn’t want to break this spell. She would have to go over and speak to Elaine and acknowledge what was happening and they would have to face up to the fact that their home and all their possessions were gone, disintegrating under the weight and heat of the fire, and the tons of water flooding into the rooms, battling the flames into submission.
The longer she put that off, the longer she didn’t speak to Elaine, the longer she could still pretend she had a home.
Elaine turned and looked right at Martha, then ran over and put her arms around her.
‘Oh, thank God,’ she said.
She squeezed Martha tight. Martha felt the roughness of Elaine’s jacket zip against her chin as she pressed her head into her mum’s chest.
‘We didn’t know for sure,’ Elaine said. ‘Cal said you had his car, that you’d gone somewhere, but there was still a chance you were inside.’
She let Martha go and they both turned to the house, warm spray on their faces, like having a shower.
‘Where’s Cal?’
Elaine didn’t take her eyes off the flames. ‘Talking to one of the fire officers. He spent ages trying to get hold of you.’
‘My phone was off,’ Martha said.
Elaine took her hand, both of them still staring at the house. A section of roof cracked then collapsed, sending a blast of heat around them.
Elaine squeezed Martha’s hand, and it felt like Martha was a little girl again.
‘Where were you?’ Elaine said.
‘Nowhere important.’
37
They decamped to Fergus’s house.
After the initial surge of activity, the outsized firemen in clumpy boots, the flash of their lights, the searing heat and choking smoke of the fire, after all that, this was the dead zone.
Cal and the fire officer had found Martha and Elaine holding hands. The officer suggested they might as well wait indoors, there was nothing they could do to help, and it could take several more hours to be completely sure that the fire was out. Then the forensic people had to go over the place, look for a cause.
Martha didn’t think about that.
It felt like a betrayal to leave their home still burning in the street, like leaving a dying deer in the middle of the road and driving off.
But now they were sitting drinking tea.
Or rather Martha was standing, staring out the window, her tea cold.
Fergus came in with a tray of biscuits, Bourbons and those pink wafer things. Martha thought the idea of biscuits was obscene, this whole situation was obscene.
She couldn’t see their house from here, but she could see the fire engines, the firefighters, a handful of neighbours still out there, though they were dispersing. And she could see smoke and spray, their home’s death rattle.
‘I can’t stay here,’ she said.
‘There’s nothing we can do out there,’ Cal said.
‘Tea and biscuits, though?’ Martha said.
Fergus lifted up the tray, not realising she was being sarcastic.
Martha shook her head, as much at herself as him.
Elaine was on the sofa, mug of tea clutched in her lap, head down. She lifted her head and seemed to see the room for the first time.
She looked at Billy. ‘Who are you?’
‘I’m Billy, a colleague of Martha’s.’
‘At the paper?’
‘Yes.’
‘Were you with her today?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why was her phone off?’
Martha turned. ‘It just was.’
Elaine frowned. ‘I thought you were having the day off after the treatment.’
Martha rubbed at her temple. ‘I got bored. Anyway, I wasn’t actually at work.’
‘Where were you?’
Martha thought for a moment. Not a good time to bring this up, but when was it ever going to be?
‘Me and Billy were at Carstairs.’
Elaine looked confused. ‘The mental home?’
‘The State Hospital.’
‘What?’
‘It’s what they call the place now. But yeah, the mental prison.’
Elaine still gripped her mug in her lap. ‘Why were you there? I thought you wrote obituaries.’
‘It wasn’t work, I was looking for someone. Johnny Lamb.’
Martha watched Elaine closely, looking for something. A reaction, like a cheap soap actor.
Elaine stared at the wisps of steam curling up from her mug.
‘Does that name mean anything to you?’ Martha said.
Elaine stared out the window. Two firemen clumped past.
‘Should it?’
‘Yes, it fucking well should,’ Martha said.
Cal turned. ‘Calm down, sis.’
‘I will not calm down.’ Martha turned back to Elaine. ‘Is there something you want to tell us?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Johnny Lamb, our dad’s brother? Our uncle, who we’ve never heard about until now?’
Elaine was still staring out at the fire engines, face blank.
‘Maybe now’s not the time,’ Billy said.
‘Fuck that,’ Martha said.
Fergus was cowering in the doorway, Betty behind his legs.
‘Martha,’ Cal said. ‘Billy’s right, now’s not the time.’
‘Then when is the time, Cal? It seems there hasn’t been a right time to mention this in the last twenty years. Don’t you find that a little fucking strange? Don’t you find it just the tiniest bit weird that our mother never once, in two decades, felt the need to tell us we had an uncle in a psychiatric prison?’
Elaine put her mug down on the coffee table and got up. ‘I can’t talk about this right now.’
She walked towards the door.
‘Wait,’ Martha said.
‘No,’ Elaine said. She had tears in her eyes as she turned. ‘I’m going to see if there’s any of our home left.’
‘We have to talk about this,’ Martha shouted after her, but Elaine was already at the doorway, Fergus shuffling sideways to let her past.
Elaine walked out the front door and over to the guy in charge of the first fire engine.
‘What the fuck?’ Martha said.
Cal sighed. ‘It’s been twenty years, it can wait a few more hours, no?’
Martha turned to him, her eyes wet.
‘He’s not in Carstairs any more,’ she said. ‘He was transferred to the Royal recently. Dad signed for him.’
‘Shit,’ Cal said.
Martha gazed out the window. Elaine was gesticulating with the fire officer. Martha thought about the gas fire, the blanket. Someone had mentioned forensic officers. She tried to remember. Short-term memory loss. The ECT. A long-lost brother no one talked about. She felt the crushing weight of it all and reached out to touch the glass of the window. It felt cold, and she couldn’t imagine the heat just a few yards away, destroying twenty years of her life.
38
Martha was raging drunk.
She sat in the middle of the room, surrounded by the mess she’d made.
She’d spent the last two hours rummaging through the contents of Ian’s flat, turning out drawers, emptying shelves, frantically raking through piles of crap, looking for answers.
&n
bsp; Cal and Billy couldn’t talk to her.
She knew she was being stupid. Irrational.
She sucked on a bottle of gin they’d found in the back of a cupboard. Winced. Made a face. Who the hell still drank gin in this day and age? It deserved to die in the twentieth century, along with all this other old crap.
What struck her now about Ian’s stuff was how dated it all was. That he was set in his ways might’ve been expected, but a Walkman still being used in 2014? Really? She’d seen a cassette player like his, a yellow version instead of red, on a school trip to the Museum of Scotland round the corner. A fucking museum. That’s where Ian and his mysterious brother belonged, dead and stuffed, on display in some dusty glass case down the end of a disused corridor in a museum no fucker ever visited any more.
But that wasn’t true either.
Because Johnny was still alive. Still in the land of the living, very much still with us.
At least she thought he was.
It had been too late to make enquiries at the Royal after the whole business with the house. She’d phoned and tried to use her insider knowledge as an outpatient, but she got nowhere with the night-shift nurse, and was told to call back in the morning when someone would be able to help.
Elaine had gone to a neighbour’s house, Barbara at number 11. Martha couldn’t remember Elaine ever mentioning Barbara before, let alone being best mates.
By the time the sun had dropped behind Arthur’s Seat, the fire at their home was under control. What was left was a soggy skeleton of brick and rafters, gallons of black water pouring out into the gutter and taking their family history with it.
Nothing to be done until morning.
Martha and Cal had turned down the offer of a bed at Barbara’s and had ended up here at Ian’s flat. Might as well make use of the place, since they had nowhere to call home now.
As soon as they came through the door, Martha began turning the place upside down looking for answers, for some confirmation that this Johnny character existed, that he was in the world, breathing and speaking and shitting and pissing.
She’d tried to speak to Elaine again. Nothing. A brick wall. That annoyed her more than anything, her mother using the shock of the fire to avoid talking about the past.
The fire.
Forensics.
Christ.
She drank furiously as she threw clothes, papers and other crap around. Cal and Billy tried to calm her, but everything they said made her more angry. Why did no one else take this shit seriously?
She remembered the notebook of Ian’s she’d taken that second night here in the flat. She pictured reading it in front of the fire in her living room. The room that was now a blackened shell. She pulled the notebook out her bag and rubbed at the cover with her thumb, thinking of Ian’s hands touching it.
It was all her fault.
She tried to think positively, tried to picture the reboot of her mind this morning, resetting the synapses. It had lifted the weight from her, but everything else, all of life, had swamped back in and suffocated her.
Johnny Lamb.
Johnny fucking Lamb.
She swigged more gin, made the face again. Her eyes were unfocused, her brain more so. Cal and Billy sat quietly on the sofa, watching her.
Johnny Lamb, why are you such a fucking secret?
Gig #3, 04/6/92
She sat alone in the Bull, a pint of Stella and a torn-up beer mat in front of her.
Ian was a selfish, thoughtless prick.
She’d been fixing her make-up forty minutes ago in her flat when the phone went. He was cancelling on her. Wasn’t the first time either. Claimed he had to work on at the paper. Didn’t mention Rose, but he didn’t need to. She had suspicions, but she didn’t want to be that girlfriend, accusing and paranoid. What was it Kurt sang? Just because you’re paranoid, don’t mean they’re not after you. Or in her case, just because she was paranoid, didn’t mean Ian wasn’t fucking that big-titted bitch behind her back.
So, fuck him, she had come out on her own. None of her flatmates were around and there was no point asking Gordon and Sam, they never went out any more. She pulled the two tickets from her jacket pocket:
DF CONCERTS presents
AFGHAN WHIGS
plus Special Guests
at THE VENUE, EDINBURGH
Thursday 4 June, doors 8 pm
Ticket £5 plus booking fee
She looked at her watch, then glugged her pint. AC/DC on the jukebox, ‘Highway to Hell’. This was an old-school rock bar, full of leather and tassels. Not her scene, but there was something honest about it. She gulped the rest of her pint and left.
Outside she sparked up a joint as she headed down to the Venue. A whole joint in a oner was too much for her, so she nipped it halfway, waited for it to cool and stuck it in her pocket. Pulled out a wrap and dabbed speed on her gums. Ran her tongue round her mouth, sucked at her teeth.
She headed inside, nodding at Big Ian on the door. It was hot and sweaty inside, already three-quarters full. L7 were playing over the PA. She liked that an all-girl grunge band was getting somewhere, but if she was honest, she wasn’t mad about their tunes.
She got a can of Red Stripe at the bar, better than risking the watered-down draught.
‘Hello, gorgeous.’
She turned.
Johnny Lamb.
She felt a buzz go through her.
She’d met him twice since Soundgarden in February. After that first encounter, she teased Ian about never mentioning him, and Ian had clammed up. The times they’d met, it wasn’t intentional, Ian apparently set on keeping them apart. When she kept on asking, he mumbled something about Johnny having a dark past, being unhinged, but he never elaborated. Which only made her more interested.
She looked at him now, wondering what secrets lay behind that curly fringe, those sharp blue eyes. She was glad Ian was working late at the paper, tonight was going to be a good night.
She raised her Red Stripe. ‘Hello yourself.’
He took the can from her hand and drank, handed it back.
‘Thanks,’ he said.
‘You cheeky shit, you owe me a drink.’
‘Fair enough.’ He leaned on the bar and got served straight away by a girl with a Black Flag tattoo on her arm.
Cracked the two cans and handed one to Elaine.
‘On your own?’ he said.
‘Yeah, your brother bailed out last minute. Had to work.’
Johnny shook his head. ‘He works too hard.’
‘Tell me about it.’
‘Very serious boy.’
‘Yeah.’ Elaine looked around. ‘You with people?’
Johnny followed her gaze. ‘I was,’ he said, waving vaguely.
‘Shouldn’t you get back to them?’
He threw a smile her way. ‘They won’t miss me. I’d rather stay here with you.’
She knew what he was doing and she let him, didn’t close it down. Why should she?
She nodded her head towards a dark corner and walked. He followed. She liked the simplicity of that, the power of having a man in her control. She pulled the speed wrap from her pocket and held it out.
‘Want some?’
He smiled again. He was full of smiles. She couldn’t picture him doing anything crazy.
He took it from her. ‘Don’t mind if I do.’
He unfolded the paper triangle and dabbed at the speed, three quick movements, his tongue flicking in and out.
‘I owe you now,’ he said.
‘You don’t owe me anything.’
He held out his hand. ‘Here.’
Two pills.
Ecstasy.
‘I’ve never taken E before,’ she said.
He raised his eyebrows. ‘There’s a first time for everything.’
She looked round at the crowd waiting for the band to come on. The Lemonheads were playing over the PA, not ‘My Drug Buddy’, that would be too perfect. ‘Stove’, from the album before, about
getting a new stove and missing the old one. Except it wasn’t about stoves at all.
She took the pill and placed it on her tongue, washed it down with a swig of Red Stripe.
He grinned and threw the other pill into his mouth, then held his beer up to her.
‘Here’s to a good night,’ he said.
*
Afghan Whigs were so different from the other bands kicking around. For a start they wore suits and had short hair. They just seemed grown up, like men amongst the angsty boys of grunge. Greg Dulli’s concerns were a league above the teenage troubles of Soundgarden. And they had soul. They played a Prince song, covered ‘Heatwave’, then, for an encore, did a heartbreaking version of ‘Band of Gold’.
Elaine soaked all this up as the waves of euphoria swept over her. She knew it was chemically induced, but so what, weren’t all emotions just chemical reactions in the brain?
Johnny smiled at her as the band left the stage.
‘Amazing,’ he said.
‘Yeah.’
He was talking about the band, but maybe something else too. She wanted him to be talking about her.
She wasn’t angry at Ian any more, he just wasn’t a concern. She couldn’t see how he could feature in her future.
Johnny, on the other hand.
She leaned in, grabbed his hair and kissed him hard. He kissed her back.
*
By the time they staggered out it was getting light.
The pill buzz had died down, but Elaine still had a warm glow in her stomach. They were arm in arm, laughing at nothing. She sparked up the half joint, took a deep drag and passed it to him.
Waverley Station was closed, so they couldn’t cut through. Instead, they headed down Calton Road then up New Street. Halfway up the road there was a turn-off into a derelict car park. Elaine grabbed Johnny and pulled him that way, into the muddy half-light. They were right next to the train tracks here, just over a flimsy mesh fence, the car park overlooked by East Market Street to their left. Above, towering over everything, the arches of North Bridge.
She pulled him into a dark corner under one of the arches. The flap of pigeon wings far above. She was giggling as she kissed him. He responded. She pulled him close, stumbled backwards till she felt her back against the stone wall. She grabbed his arse and felt his cock hard against his jeans. She ran her hand under his T-shirt, felt his muscles. Felt herself getting wet already. His hand was on her breast. She took it and slid it down to her crotch, then moved it up and down till he got the idea.
The Dead Beat Page 13
