The Ossians

by Doug Johnstone

  He thought about the seagulls, their hearts bursting inside their ribcages. Did birds have ribcages? He wondered if their tiny brains had any comprehension, as they saw the headlights bearing down on them, of what was happening. He wondered if their souls were fluttering up to heaven, a whole flock of them squawking and flapping and creating a stushie up there. Even in the state he was in, Connor realised this was ridiculous. He had to get back out the tunnel and into the room in front of him, fuzzy though it was. Even as he thought this, he imagined riding a flying bike with ET on the handlebars, alongside a noisy, cawing flock of seagulls, the face of Ossian, flowing white hair and blinded eyes, replacing the full moon behind them. Ridiculous pish. Get back to the room. It’s not that hard, it’s just a few hundred miles away. He decided the room could wait a while and closed his eyes, which made little difference since he wasn’t focusing anyway.

  After what seemed like a few hours he felt his brain come back together from the ends of the universe, opened his eyes and managed to get a bottle of beer from the worktop to his mouth. The coldness of the beer surprised him, and he almost choked. The room was only a few feet away, and he could hear voices. He was back. He got up and walked uncertainly over to where the rest of them were sitting.

  ‘Back in the land of the living, eh?’ said Paul.

  ‘Aye,’ he said slowly and sat down. Then after a while, ‘Anyone got a joint?’

  Danny passed him one and he felt his heart relax as he inhaled the sickly grass smoke.

  ‘What did I miss?’ he said.

  ‘Usual pish,’ said Hannah. ‘Kate was telling us about the time the pair of you went joyriding.’

  ‘I did explain it was our neighbour’s car and it was only round the block once,’ said Kate, taking a drag on her fag. ‘And that we had the keys, and managed to get them back into their house without anyone finding out.’

  ‘How old were we?’ said Connor, shaking his head.

  ‘Thirteen?’

  Connor could hardly remember it. The event had become replaced by the telling of the story and he could no longer be sure that he saw the events in his mind as they’d really happened. He remembered the rush as the engine started. They managed to get the car to move, stuttering at first, then smoothly. He thought his heart would burst out of his chest with the adrenaline of it. He’d felt dizzy with excitement. How easy it was to get high back then. Fucking listen to yourself, he thought. You arsehole. You’re only twenty-fucking-four, and you sound like an acid casualty from the sixties. It’s pathetic. Then he thought, stop fucking analysing yourself so much, it’s this that’s killing you; the constant prodding and poking into the scabby wound of your mind. Then he thought, shut the fuck up.

  His head was pulsing with pain. He went to the bathroom, sat down and swallowed a pill from his pocket without looking at it. His mobile rang and his heart sank. Must be Nick checking up on him. He pulled it out his pocket.

  ‘It went fine, leave me alone,’ he said.

  No noise at the other end. Connor waited.

  ‘What the fuck is this, the silent treatment?’

  Nothing.

  ‘Don’t be a dickhead, Nick.’

  Still no sound. Connor looked at the display. ‘No Number’. He felt cold.

  ‘Who the fuck is this? How did you get this number?’

  ‘Your secrets are safe with me.’ The voice was quiet, high-pitched and calm.

  ‘Look, who the fuck is this?’

  Silence.

  ‘What fucking secrets?’

  Connor thought about the note in his pocket with that same phrase written on it. If someone had gone into his pocket to place a note, maybe they could’ve got his mobile as well, figured out the number. He was momentarily impressed that he’d even thought of that. But who the fuck was it? He didn’t recognise the voice at all.

  ‘Look, I don’t know who you are, or what you think you know about me, but you’ve got it all wrong. I don’t have any fucking secrets, so there’s nothing for you to know. Just leave me alone, you little shit.’

  ‘I know about the drugs.’

  ‘Bullshit. What drugs?’

  ‘And I know about the gulls.’

  Connor almost dropped the phone. That was only a couple of hours ago, how could the same person who left a note in his pocket in Dundee have seen them running over the birds two hours ago? A stalker? A guardian angel? A fucking psycho? The police? Why would they be playing this stupid cat and mouse game?

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Connor. ‘Leave me alone.’

  He hung up and switched the phone off. Fucking hell. Fucking fucking hell. This was totally freaking him out. He couldn’t even begin to work out what the hell was going on in his current state. He staggered to his feet, fumbled with the door handle and headed out, hoping to find a joint to calm his frazzled nerves.

  They drifted to bed around five, Connor crashing with Hannah on a sofa bed in Gerry’s lounge, but knowing he was never going to sleep. As Hannah’s breath fell into heavy, regular washes of noise, he slipped out from under the duvet, pulled his clothes on, skinned up and headed out the door.

  He found the beach at the bottom of the street. The tide was out and the snow had stopped. The lights of tankers blinked far out to sea – red, green then orange – and half a mile down the coast the light at the end of the North Pier winked accusingly at him every few seconds. There didn’t appear to be anything happening over there, so the voice on the phone hadn’t done anything about it. Why phone and say ‘your secrets are safe with me’? Why tell someone you know secrets about them if you’re not planning to do something about it? And how could they know about the gulls, the drugs and every other fucking thing he was up to? If he didn’t already have a twin he might’ve thought it was an evil sibling, separated at birth, now stalking him, getting ready to pounce and reclaim a life that should’ve been his. He smiled at the absurdity of the thought then lit the joint, sheltering it from the wind off the sea, and inhaled deeply. This was the safety zone, the stoned comedown with the lapping of the waves as rhythmic, therapeutic massage for his mushy mind. He smoked the joint hungrily, letting the grass cover everything in a thick blanket of forgetting.

  But he couldn’t forget the gulls. It was terrible. He tried to tell himself it hadn’t happened, that it was all a ketamine trip, but that was bullshit. He reminded himself it was Gerry who went for it, even though he and Danny had said not to. He still felt responsible. Someone had seen them, and phoned to tell him so. Which meant what? Fucked if he could work it out.

  He looked again in the direction of the North Pier. There was a figure standing on the beach two hundred yards away. He froze. The distant street lamps left the beach mostly in darkness. He stared at the figure, who seemed to be looking back in his direction. He finished the joint and began walking towards the person, trying to keep his heart from racing. The figure remained motionless. He was tall and thin, Connor could see now. He moved faster, walking at speed and feeling his lungs start to burn a little. He was about a hundred yards away, the figure still standing there, hands in pockets, watching him approach. Connor broke into a jog, anxious to see the details of the figure’s face, but there wasn’t enough light. He could see a pale face and dark hair, but couldn’t make out any features. He was about fifty yards away when the figure seemed to wake up from a trance, turning and bolting along the seafront. The wet, compacted sand was firm underfoot and Connor sped up, sprinting now, with the figure ahead of him, running away, coat flapping behind him. It was a similar long coat to Connor’s. His lungs burnt as he ran, but already the figure was getting away, his long legs increasing the distance between them with every step. ‘Who the fuck are you?’ shouted Connor as he ran, the valuable air leaving his lungs with difficulty. ‘Why are you following me?’ He couldn’t breathe any more and was slowing down. The figure was some distance away now, escaping effortlessly. As Connor slowed then stopped, doubled over and gasping, he watched the figure take
the steps up from the beach to the promenade three at a time, before stopping at the top. The figure turned and looked back at Connor for a few moments, then got into a dark car parked at the side of the road and sped off.

  Connor stood there on the sand, his heaving and wheezing matching the rhythmic slap of the waves on the shore. He sat down on the beach and looked out to sea, where the coloured lights of tankers were still blinking at indecipherable periods. He felt dizzy and confused as he watched the lights blink, each flash in the darkness frustrating him more as he failed to decode the message he was sure they were trying to send him.

  His hands and feet burnt with the cold when he slipped back into Gerry’s flat. He’d been looking behind him for the whole walk from the beach, but hadn’t seen a soul. He now felt the urge to look back out from the front of the house, so from the hallway he opened the first door on that side of the flat. In the dark he could make out Gerry in a double bed with Paul on the floor at the other side of the room, both sleeping. He quietly closed the door and opened the adjacent one, which led to a spare room. He stumbled in and headed for the window. Outside the street was crystalline emptiness, the slippy pavements glistening up at him and the snow-streaked birch trees twinkling in the streetlight. There was no movement out there whatsoever. It was like the icy backdrop of a pantomime production, inert and lifeless. He didn’t know how long he stood there, but he didn’t see a single thing move.

  Gradually, he became aware of a sound in the room. It was breathing. He turned, and now that his eyes had got used to the dark, he could make out a figure on the floor in the corner, next to a scabby sofa. He tiptoed across the room. He stood over the figure, looking at it for a very long time. It wasn’t one figure, but two, tightly entwined and sleeping peacefully inside a single sleeping bag. Kate and Danny both had smiles on their faces, and their arms around each other, Kate cuddling into Danny’s chest. They looked peaceful and happy. The sleeping bag had unzipped a little, and Connor could see that neither of them was wearing any clothes, on their top halves at least. He looked away from his sister’s breasts quickly, and stared at their faces for a long time, thinking about events over the past week.

  Eventually, he stepped carefully over the couple and headed towards the door, quietly closing it behind him as he left.

  7

  Inverness

  ‘Two sides to everything, two sides to everything

  We are a Saturday night, we are the Northern Lights

  I am the evil twin, I am the state we’re in’

  The Ossians, ‘My Evil Twin’

  ‘How are my favourite little rock ’n’ roll cousins, then?’

  Murray stood in the doorway of his flat, arms spread out, a large joint hanging from the corner of his grinning mouth and his right eye closed from the smoke. A barrel of a man with a shaved head and wearing a paisley-pattern silk shirt, Murray looked every one of his thirty-nine years, and looked as if those years had been a heap of fun.

  Kate and Connor’s cousin lived in a street full of bed and breakfasts on the banks of the Ness, upriver from the city centre. Having spent the last two decades avoiding wearing a suit and tie for a living, Murray Alexander now worked as a graphic designer for a cool little company that bashed out sleek-lined brochures with fashionably chunky lettering for other cool little companies scattered around the north of Scotland. Twenty years in and out of bands in Inverness, Glasgow and London had given him a knowing look and a Buddha-like placidity of the been-there-done-that variety. At the height of the grunge years, his band The Clean Livers had been touted as the next big thing. Single of the week in NME twice, a tour supporting Mudhoney and a dozen interested record companies had ended in nothing. Now the grungy garage-rock they used to peddle was back in fashion, and Murray couldn’t care less. Every Sunday night he played earthy country tunes down at the Market Bar for beer and fags, and was happier than he’d been in a long time.

  He slapped Connor on the back and kissed Kate on the cheek as they came in, then held the front door as the rest trooped by, handing Danny the joint at the back of the line. The living room was open-plan with wood-panelled walls, and filled with piles of records, CDs and books in every available space. Two dirty cream futons and a green beanbag were arranged in front of a small portable television in the corner, and a large burgundy rug covered most of the floor. A beaten-up sunburst Fender Strat and a rose-coloured twelve-string Rickenbacker sat on guitar stands next to each other, facing into the room like an old married couple in the pub. A Tanglewood acoustic lay face down on a futon.

  ‘Take the weight off,’ said Murray, lifting the acoustic out the way and leaning it carefully against a wall. ‘I’m just having a wee Friday afternoon G and T, anyone care to join me?

  ’They all said yes and he laughed.

  ‘Shit. Bad crash. Who wants to help in the kitchen?’

  ‘Come on, Uncle Murray,’ said Kate, patting his arse as they made for the kitchen door. ‘You can tell me all about the action up here in Inversneckie.’

  ‘Hey, less of that uncle shit,’ said Murray and laughed a big, throaty laugh.

  Connor stood at the window. The Ness was being pelted by heavy rain, dimpling the surface as ducks bobbed their heads under, unperturbed. Well-groomed trees lined both sides of the water, strung together by unlit fairy lights, and the pink crenellated battlements of a twee Victorian castle could be seen in the distance. There was no hope of sun. The skies had descended over Inverness, and rain battered off the clean-looking streets as office workers bolted to pubs and cafés for Friday lunch, covering their heads with bags and newspapers.

  Murray and Kate handed out tall glass tumblers of gin. Connor tasted his. Not nearly strong enough but it would do for now.

  ‘And how are you, my troubled cousin?’ asked Murray, clinking glasses and taking a swig.

  ‘Oh, you know. Troubled.’ Connor smiled back at him. Murray laughed.

  ‘You do realise you take life too seriously, boy.’

  ‘So people tell me.’

  ‘How have the gigs been going?’

  ‘Not bad. It’s been three days since I’ve had a punch in the head, so things seem to be improving.’

  ‘I was going to ask about your face,’ said Murray. ‘No offence, but you look like shit.’

  ‘None taken,’ said Connor. ‘Isn’t Fight Club chic back in yet?’

  ‘Fuck that,’ said Murray, patting his stomach like a puppy. ‘Corpulent chic, that’s the new craze. And I’m rocking that look right now.’

  ‘Murray says this town is full of goths and hippies,’ said Kate, plonking down on the beanbag. ‘Doesn’t exactly sound like our kind of place, eh?’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Paul, ‘you’ll knock that shit out of ’em.’

  ‘The kids are all pasty-faced and black-clad these days,’ said Murray. ‘I blame Marilyn Manson and My Chemical Romance. Most of the idiots my age around here are dropouts with rat-tails, knitted coats and flowers in their hair. Fuck knows where they get it from. When I were a lad’ – he put on a Yorkshire accent – ‘the kids round ’ere knew ’ow to kick out the fookin’ jams, so they did.’

  Hannah flicked through a stack of novels piled to waist height. ‘How bad can it be tonight?’ she said. ‘It’s Friday, after all. What’s this place like that we’re playing, Murray?’

  ‘The Crow? All right, actually,’ said Murray. ‘A bit out of town and a bit seventies-looking, but they’ve got a decent reputation.’

  ‘What about the support?’ said Paul. ‘Have you heard of The Stretchmarks?’

  ‘You’re asking the wrong man,’ said Murray, sitting down and supping his gin. ‘I haven’t been to a proper gig round these parts for years. Not seemly for a man of my rapidly advancing years.’

  Kate sat down next to him and cuddled up. ‘Aw, come on now, Grandpa. Want me to get your pipe and slippers?’

  ‘What a grand idea,’ said Murray. ‘I’ve got a pipe somewhere. And some decent hash for once. Hydroponic
shit grown by a mate of mine.’

  ‘Hydro what?’ said Danny.

  ‘Means it was grown without soil.’

  ‘Bollocks. How the hell do they do that?’

  Murray adopted a teacherly voice. ‘It’s not new, they’ve been doing it in the States and Australia for years. I don’t know the ins and outs, they just grow it in some magic solution of pixie dust or something. It’s all the rage up here in the sticks. Don’t you southern folks know anything?’

  ‘Sounds too healthy for our busy lifestyles,’ said Connor. ‘We like something a bit more artificial that’ll fuck you up properly.’

  ‘Don’t you talk about being fucked up,’ said Hannah, giving Connor a sideways look. ‘Not after last night.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ said Murray, raising his eyebrows. ‘Do tell.’

  ‘Your man here was on the horse pills last night,’ said Danny. ‘Fucking shapeless.’

  ‘I had a very relaxing time, thank you,’ said Connor, meeting Danny’s gaze. ‘Just as well, after last night.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Kate.

  Connor took a long slug from his glass before saying, ‘Oh, you know, just the stress of not getting in a fight. I missed the adrenaline and testosterone kicks.’

  Danny looked at Connor, who took another drink and turned away.