Children of Albion Rovers

by Laura Hird

  Elizabeth and Billy were walking to school. ‘Have you seen the “Emperor’s Warriors” yet?’ asked Billy.

  ‘No. What’s that?’

  ‘Exhibit at the City Art Centre. Good grief. Like it’s been on the telly and everywhere.’

  ‘Yeah? Well we’ve been settled in for a couple of weeks already, but we haven’t got a t.v. yet.’

  Elizabeth knew all about how to make contact with a new city and had started talking to Billy the first day at school, after she’d overheard him talking in the staffroom. He was the youngest teacher at the school.

  ‘You manipulate that cigarette in your mouth like a tough little Nelson Algren character,’ she’d said to him.

  ‘What? … Now he was a New Yorker like yourself wasn’t he?’

  ‘How d’you know where I come from?’

  ‘Everybody knows. You’re a celebrity.’

  ‘My God. Is that so? No, he’s Chicago I think.’

  From this first exchange, Liz and Billy walked to school together most days. Liz’d been worried at first that the way Billy talked had been calculated for her benefit. Condescending flags of welcome. But she soon found out nearly all the kids used U.S. phrases from time to time.

  Liz’d come over from New York with her friend Aimy to share a flat together in Edinburgh. They’d met at the co-operative, well-woman type clinic in New York where Aimy had practised. Aimy’d originally come from Edinburgh. In N.Y. Liz’d had an ex-boyfriend of hers marry Aimy so’s she wouldn’t get deported. Aimy’d had the opportunity to do research back in Edinburgh and to work at the Sick Children’s Hospital, while Liz taught at the little school.

  Liz and Tom clicked with books. They talked about Paul Bowles and Hubert Selby. Liz knew a girl who baby-sat for Kurt Vonnegut and Liz’d been to his house and’d met him. Billy knew a great-grand-daughter of Yeats’s. Quite quickly they’d done with the name-dropping and favourite films. As they walked to school, Liz recalled how at first, Billy thought she was a lesbian and how they’d had a good laugh when she’d told him she lived with her gynaecologist. She thought that from book talk on towards Billy’s bedroom, in stages of a casual pace, had been a natural progression for like-minded boys and girls. Not that there was anything uneasy in the first place, it had somehow cleared the air. The crisp Autumn morning gave rise to happy thoughts about herself and her life. She’d bought a new outfit that weekend. The clothes felt stiff and fresh. Not feeling much like talking, she listened in to the unfamiliar swish of her underskirt. Billy said she looked ‘schoolmistressy’, though she still wore sportshoes, carrying heels for class in a leather handbag.

  Tom and Liz turned a corner and school faced them at the bottom of a long avenue which led down into Edinburgh’s Southside. The road was busy with parents driving their children to school – some fancy cars, Liz had noted on her first week, though a handful of well wrapped-up kids did pass them on foot. The school building was a two storey affair of newly blasted sandstone, with high 1920’s windows which were being washed.

  ‘They’re getting it ready for us Billy.’

  ‘How about we go to this exhibition then, this afternoon? Seeing as we’ve the half-day.’

  ‘O.K. Sure. I’ll see you at half ’one.’

  As they walked across the playground, she warmed to the bustle of the children’s play. A little blonde girl flashed her a brilliant smile, ‘Good morning Miss Straus.’

  In school, Liz put her heels on and did up her long dark hair with kirbys. As she took her spectacle case from her coat pocket the bell rang. First thing on a Monday was a double period of English. She entered the class and the pupils’ chatter soon abated. They all stood and chorused their ‘Good morning’ in unison. After the usual banging of desk lids and scraping of chairs the lesson began. ‘Now. Listen up you guys. I do hope you’ve all done your composition homework. Miss Gray, yes you on the left, Sally, what was our topic?’

  ‘A Description of Nature miss.’

  ‘Correct.’

  Sally Gray read out her homework and the lesson went on with each taking their turn to read out. ‘… We saw a tree and it was silver and it was skinnier than all the other trees in the forest. It had hundreds of birds’ nests in it, but my Uncle Andy said it was a disease …’

  ‘I’m sorry I’m late miss.’ A boy who seemed rather taller than anyone in the class stood by the door. He wore no coat but only a woollen Fair Isle pullover, worn jeans and tennis shoes. His hair was longish and damp-looking. Over his shoulder was slung a canvas satchel. ‘Come in Barclaye. You’re late. Again.’ There was an element of the ironic aside to the class in Liz’s tone, but she was genuinely annoyed. A smart little boy called Jamie sniggered at the back of the class. Barclaye took a vacant desk beside him. ‘You’re stinking. You’ve had it.’ Liz asked him if he’d done his homework. ‘Oh miss no. I forgot. Honest. I just couldn’t get a minute to do it.’

  ‘Then Mr Barclaye Reid, I must insist that you stay behind at the conclusion of this lesson.’ Anger made her address the pupils in an overly formal manner, and she never needed any more than this to produce acceptable behaviour. This Barclaye Reid though was beginning to perplex her.

  She’d had complaints about Barclaye’s habitual lateness from Mr Galbraith, the fat history teacher. Mr Galbraith had a huge, wet bottom lip and swayed back and forward on the balls of his feet as he talked. He gesticulated wildly with his arms as if he’d been about to grapple Liz at any moment. She hated his guts. Galbraith had talked about how he’d love to ‘melt’ Barclaye and he’d told her to be sure and send him along to him should he be late again.

  As the class left after the lesson, Liz summoned Barclaye to stand by the blackboard. He slouched against it, crossing his legs at the ankles. She was struck by his hands: The long fingernails and the two rings of a cheap metal which had rubbed off verdigris at the base of his fingers. ‘Why are you always late Barclaye?’

  ‘I don’t know miss, I left the house in plenty time.’

  ‘How far from school do you live?’

  ‘Oh, quite far, but not very very far.’

  ‘But you’re consistently late, now how can this be? Do you want me to send you to Mr Galbraith?’

  ‘No miss.’

  ‘And what about your parents?’

  ‘My father’s dead. My mum’s a cleaner at The Commonwealth Pool.’ Liz sighed and felt her face redden a little. ‘Well I guess I’ll have to have a word with her.’ Barclaye didn’t seem at all put out and said, ‘O.K. miss. O.K. She finishes at two.’

  From the car park at the back of the school, Barclaye led her over some busy roads and through side-streets behind terraced houses. They walked over a weedy patch of open ground until they paused for a while on stone steps which led down a slope into a park. There wasn’t a soul about. Liz was impressed with her first, close at hand view of Arthur’s Seat. Somehow she’d expected there to be a fence around it, but there was none. She thought it looked like a huge volcanic stump like you see in the desert in westerns, except here there was grass around the slopes. Behind the plug that made up the sheer crags lay a rugged area of green peaks and valleys. The highlands on your doorstep.

  Barclaye was excited, trying to take everything in by whirling round on the spot, ‘This is a short-cut miss,’ he said and they went down the steps into the park. As they passed a little grove of elm trees he said, ‘You see that building there miss? Through the trees? Behind that wall? That’s a brewery that’s connected with an underground tunnel that goes right away up to Arthur’s Seat miss. I’ve been right along it but it’s boarded-up now. Once when I was out picking mushrooms in the shadow of the brewery wall, a huge rat came out at me from under a pile of grain. That was the day my big brother Murray said they were for soup for the boys in Saughton Jail miss. The boys like their soup up there, no kidding, because my brother came back drunk late that night miss and he woke me up and gave me a fiver.’

  They came onto the pavement that rings around the base of
Arthur’s Seat and by the loch known as St Margaret’s. ‘That’s where The Queen lives over there,’ Barclaye said, pointing to Holyrood House.

  ‘Why do they call it Arthur’s Seat Barclaye?’ asked Liz then wished she hadn’t.

  ‘I’ve really no idea. Mallard ducks, some teal and tufted ducks on the pond. Over the crags is Duddingston Loch though miss, much better for nesting. Miles of reed and marshy ground. Woods as well.’

  ‘Oh Barclaye, you steal birds’ eggs?’

  ‘Not at this time of year miss, April or May’s best for nesting. You get ducks, waterhens, coots, pied wagtails, even terns nested there one year. They built nests, wove little platforms low in the reeds but didn’t lay any eggs. Terns are sea-birds really. Once we saw a heron’s nest but we couldn’t get to it. You get every kind of goose at Duddingston Loch as well, but they don’t nest, they just come here in the winter.’

  ‘I sort of get the idea you come here a lot.’

  ‘I’m here all the time miss.’

  The pavement became steep and curved up round the hill. Liz followed as Barclaye broke from the pavement and tramped up a path between what seemed a forest of gorse bushes. ‘I thought … it sounded like a curlew there,’ she said.

  ‘No miss,’ Barclaye said shyly. ‘That was starlings. Starlings can make the noise of any bird.’ Liz thought she’d better not say any more.

  As they pushed on, on an upward track through rough grass, the sun broke and sent a slow-moving wave up the hill. Liz found that she still had her heels on and had left her sportshoes at school. After a few more yards, she stopped at some withered stalks of lupins that had curled like ferns. She took her shoes off and her feet felt cool on the dry, springy grass. Looking over Leith and out to the sea, she felt dizzy to think she was so high up. To stabilise herself she looked at the ground, then gestured to Barclaye and pointed to some black pearls among the grass.

  ‘Pellets miss,’ he said.

  ‘Pellets?’

  ‘Rabbits’ pellets miss.’

  ‘Oh.’ Liz carried her shoes regardless, and soon there was no path at all. Barclaye was headed in the direction of the crags. As high as they could go, they came to a small gully that wasn’t many yards from the edge of the crags. ‘Stand still,’ said Barclaye and thoroughly inspected the grass all around them. ‘I don’t see any rabbits’ stuff around here,’ said Liz.

  ‘There’s no animals here, not mice nor voles or anything miss.’

  The gully seemed a lovely, secluded spot and as they walked down into it, Liz noticed there was no breeze and everything was still. There wasn’t the slightest track here. Barclaye was picking his way carefully between certain clumps of grass, certain flat stones. Liz kept directly behind him. Looking in the grass, she saw feathers to the left and right, almost in a uniform pattern. The feathers were about three inches long, light grey with a single red spot 3/4 way along the shaft. ‘You’ve got to watch up here miss, people fall off the crags all the time, three or four last year.’

  They were on the upward slope and nearly out of the gully, when Barclaye knelt and parted a veil of hanging moss. Liz knelt beside him. He exposed a little cave shut over with three pieces of slate, each cut in a cone shape. Very delicately he removed slates behind which were seventeen little coffins, two tiers of eight and one starting a third tier. The coffins were about as long as a dialing finger and an inch wide. He lifted out the top-most coffin. It had incredibly fine tin ornaments placed regularly over the lid and sides. He lifted off the lid and inside was a little man made of wood, fully dressed in fine-fitting burial clothes with sleeves and trousers. His facial features were perfectly formed as if he could speak, his eyes closed, his cheeks slightly puffed. Barclaye brought out another coffin and inside was another little man. Though the wood was older, it appeared this was a younger person. Most of the coffins on the bottom tier looked badly decayed but the one on top had obviously been placed there quite recently. Liz felt she shouldn’t touch them, but without saying anything, Barclaye showed her six of the figures, all of them individually dressed and each with their own distinctive facial features. Seeing that everything was as it had been, Barclaye put the slates back and closed the cave over.

  Liz followed Barclaye’s measured tread in silence away from the gully. Taking a southward path down, they came onto a road and Duddingston Loch came into view. It was quite late now and the light seemed thinner. She had a vague, not unpleasant feeling of being tricked. They sat on a bench together.

  ‘Well … we’re late,’ said Liz, bursting out laughing.

  ‘D’you fancy a fag miss?’ said Barclaye, offering her one.

  ‘A fag!’ She giggled uncontrollably and lit them up from a lighter in her shoe. Barclaye laughed as well.

  ‘I’ve never seen anything like those little men,’ she said, putting on her shoes and trying to replace kirby grips. Her head tilted back and she saw the clear blue sky above her, empty but for a single white vapour trail. ‘You know, they didn’t look human those little men, maybe they’re the effigies of little extra-terrestrials …’ she said, nodding towards the sky.

  ‘Well, whatever. I hope you’ll not be taking today’s route to school in future.’

  Barclaye was quiet for a minute.

  ‘I’ll try not to be late again miss. Would you like me to walk you home?’

  ‘Thanks, but I’m sure I’ll be able to find my way from here.’

  They said goodbye and she took the road down to the bottom of Arthur’s Seat. From the pavement she looked back and saw him up on the hill as if he was checking she’d be all right.

  Well that’s an attempt at a varnished tale Davie lad. Wee bit quality lit’. I was wondering where those photocopies I made from The Proceedings of the Society of Scottish Antiquarians had gone. I must’ve sent them to you because I know that one of them was about those wee coffins. The old antiquarians didn’t know what to make of them. I had a loose theory which I’m glad I didn’t tell you. It was when whaling ships left from Leith, there was always a service at St Mary’s Chapel on Arthur’s Seat to pray for the safe return of the men. And that after this service, should there’ve been any man lost at sea since the last service, he was buried in tiny effigy at a secret mass tomb on Arthur’s Seat. That was a bit cheeky of you there though, anyway it’s an old-fashioned story.

  She’s away with it all though Davie. I’ve no papers, letters, Fuji standard 8 in green reels. Reels and reels. Shots of the flat fields and marshland around Hackney. Getting a flat in Hackney was easy. At first I just stayed in an hotel. Last pint with the landlord at the bar. Up at 8.30 for breakfast, usually kippers. Then the bus at the market in the car park. Into Victoria, swift walk in the green park before Picadilly and the West End. Back for tea-time to Hackney Wick, to Well Street. All the arseholes on the bus in, checking The Guardian media pages for jobs.

  Sunday walks along the quiet canals. I remember it in Fuji colour – a startled duck, its tail cutting away since from the sluice gate and up into the sky. Kelly by the bank in a tartan coat. A milk vending machine in the street. The bookshops. I’ll come to the bookshops later. As I said it was easy to get a flat. The woman in the agents said, ‘Go and see this flat, you’ll definitely get it you will. First white face we’ve seen today.’ The flat was above a reggae club that played some nice dub sounds.

  At this time I was at, what I called then, the work of the soft pencil. 2nd hand books. Edinburgh to London and vice-versa. It’s easy to learn what’s under-priced and what will sell. Edinburgh bought old natural history, or technical books, and books on Scottish subjects. London bought art, poetry, occult. A good score was a copy of Lautremont; a big book with the text like a postage stamp in the middle of the page, twelve colour Dali plates. I loved the Singen, sorry St-John Perse French/English text in the beautiful Bollingen Editions. Many more. 8 Poems by W.B. Yeats illustrated by Austin Spare, valuable as it was published in 1916 (a big deal for Yeatsophiles) but by far the best score of all was a very slim
volume of poems by Paul Eluard translated by Samuel Beckett.

  Michael Markovsky was given to inappopriate outbursts of rage or despair. Davie the boy was mental as you know. Transported from his native Poland, Michael’s father had survived being a work slave for the Nazis in Czechoslovakia. After being liberated, and after months of marching, he got a ship bound for Glasgow where he met Michael’s mum, an Irish woman. Now you can’t go for any of those ‘national types’ generalities but for sure in Michael’s case this Polish/Irish mix was genetic rocket fuel.

  Michael had been in Oxford (Jesus College). By the time we met, I was 23, he was 25 and already had had a heart attack and burst piles. He’d wiped the floor with the Shetland fiddlers at drinking. You were impressed. He was on his 3rd university having matriculated at Aberdeen, disappearing with the grant money. Here at Edinburgh he was studying Sanskrit in a class of 2. He moaned that he had a complete set of Chapman (a local Qual’ lit’ periodical) but none of the Edinburgh bookshops would take them. I told him to try Aberdeen and he explained he couldn’t really go back there.

  At first we hung with like this Polish group at Gayfield Sq., drinking vodka and smoking opium; an unusual combination you might think. The White Night was never whiter, or in my case never whiteyer. Michael was a great man for wine though so we cooled out the Poles, and started drinking claret. He told me that from his house in the High St., David Hume would wave to Adam Smith across the Firth of Forth in Kirkcaldy. One of those stories you might think but I liked it. It gave me an insight into Oor Davie Davie. A man all of Edinburgh loved, but some people wouldn’t get on with him because he didn’t believe in god.

  Michael knew I was trying to write at this time and took me to some parties where literary people were at. I never met any literary people. I remember one guy in a bow tie glowering at me as I tossed peanuts at his young son who was having great fun snapping at them like a dog. Michael and I are in the living room. A piece of cheese cake falls on the floor in the kitchen. ‘Sorry you’ll have to leave,’ said a girl.