Tombstoning

by Unknown

  There was a calendar behind the bar, flaunting a bland picture of Highland beauty. David realized with a start that it was the eighth of August, which meant it was fifteen years and two days since what would’ve been Colin’s eighteenth birthday. That meant fifteen years and three days since his funeral. For the first few years the anniversary had produced a sense of foreboding in him, an uneasy tension, but somehow, somewhere along the line, he had forgotten about it. This year it had zipped by through the week and he’d been utterly oblivious.

  And now there was this invitation from Nicola. He had the printout of the email in his back pocket, pretending to himself that he’d accidentally left it there when he came out the bog earlier in the day, but he knew he wanted that contact with her, that reminder of her, close to him this weekend. His mind was now racing with memories of Arbroath and school, the pubs and parties, fights and snogs that made up the final few months of life there. He sensed a rush of energy, and it felt like the inside of his skin was itchy. His teeth seemed to throb and his throat was dry. How could the dim and distant past affect him like this?

  He finished the dregs of his pint and got another round in. These days he was very definitely on weaker cooking lager. For years he had pummelled his body with executive – Stella, Kronenbourg, Staropramen – but now his body was rebelling. His hangovers got worse and he seemed to get more drunk, despite drinking less.

  He returned to the table. The rest of them were still sniping at Still Waters, picking over the debris of the latest botched job – a half-arsed site for a charity that was delivered over budget, past deadline and with only half the functionality they’d promised – and what it might mean for the future. All their coats were already on shaky pegs, and they were speculating who would be next out the door. This wasn’t exactly what David had pictured when he’d done his computer science degree all those years ago. Back then it was as if computers had barely even been invented, and if ever there had been an opportunity of getting in on the ground floor it was then. After his degree and a couple of years kicking around doing fuck all – working in pubs, mostly – he’d done a Mickey Mouse web-design post-grad at Napier, just when the internet was getting going. The millions were there for the making, as Amazon, Ebay and Google had subsequently proven, but none of that success had come David’s way.

  He was also on his own. His friends in Edinburgh were either people he’d known since university or random mates he’d picked up on the way. With precious few exceptions they were all either married, engaged or in long-term relationships. Several of them now had kids. He had been shocked the first time he’d had to hold a friend’s baby. They’d let him hold on to their child? What the hell were they thinking? But him, he had no one. Sure there had been women, although not nearly as many as maybe he would like to think when he totted it all up, but for whatever reason (and he couldn’t really think of any, now that he tried to) none of them had stuck around very long. And of course, he had never kept in touch with schoolmates. Christ, what was that Lemonheads’ song he listened to all the time back in his student days? Something about a ship without a rudder. That just about nailed his life at the moment.

  He dipped in and out of the conversation around the table, gazing absent-mindedly at a dark and dusty portrait hanging over the empty fireplace in front of him. The guy in the painting looked like a right stuffed shirt, from maybe two hundred years ago, and his eyes gazed impassively back at David.

  Just then Spook suggested they fire up into town, maybe the Basement, make a night of it. David couldn’t face it. He’d had a few pints and, sure, he wanted to get hammered, but not with these people and not in the Basement, which, anyway, he’d been going to for so long it made him feel like a fucking granddad. He scooped the last of his pint and, shaking his head at the protestations from the motley assortment around the table, got up from his stool, doing a John Wayne dismount, and headed for the door.

  It was shockingly bright outside the Antiquary, and David squinted reflexively into the sun, raising his hand to shield his eyes. The mugginess of earlier had burnt off, and the Scottish summer sun was doing its best to burn pale northern skin into the evening. David was a bit unsteady, having had a few pints on an empty stomach. He decided he couldn’t be arsed with the bus home, and flagged a passing taxi.

  ‘Rankeillor Street, mate,’ he said as he keeled into the back, ignoring the signs to put his seatbelt on. It was only then he remembered with a groan that it was the first weekend of the festival, and the traffic across the centre of town would be a fucking nightmare. He was in for a long, bumpy and expensive ride.

  So what about this class reunion? he thought. Of course, he wouldn’t go. He couldn’t, not after all these years. It sounded from Nicola’s email that all these people had kept in touch with each other over the last decade and a half – she’d said that the organizers phoned her up, hadn’t she? – how the hell was he supposed to fit into all that?

  Who else would be there? He found himself struggling to match names and faces from his class. He wondered what it was like for those people who had never left Arbroath, wandering around town repeatedly encountering faces, places, street names, buildings, parks from the past – it must be like walking through a history book, or a graveyard where through some freakish twist you can see all the ghosts, the decomposing corpses risen again to wander forever, never finding peace.

  Then again, he had his history in Edinburgh, he had lived here almost as long as he had in Arbroath. That sudden thought shocked him. He worked it out – in three more years he would’ve spent half his life in this city. But those were adult years, grown-up years, even if they hadn’t really felt like it. The Arbroath years, they were rammed full of all that formative childhood crap, the stuff that supposedly made you who you were, not that David subscribed to that point of view. You made up who you were in the present, moment to moment, and that could change any time you liked. When he moved to Edinburgh he’d changed from David to Dave, not such a big leap, dropping a syllable from your name, but it signified everything, a new start, a new person, a newborn life, with no history, no past, no baggage. A clean slate.

  Who was he kidding? He had carried Colin’s death around with him for years. He had never talked about it. Ever. To anyone. Why not? Truth be told, what was the point? The past was a foreign country, or whatever that saying was. Damn right it was. He had basically started a whole new life in Edinburgh back in 1988, and had never looked back.

  Until now.

  He wondered again who would be there at the reunion that he might know. What about the other two from the ADS? The ADS – it seemed so puerile now. The Arbroath Drinking Society had been named as a piss-take of the Arbroath Soccer Society – the equally pretentious name that the footy casuals had given themselves. The casual violence surrounding football had seemed all-pervasive at the time, and their wee joke at the arseholes that perpetrated it was intended to make a point, something which was now lost.

  There were four of them in the ADS. Himself, Colin, Gary Spink and Neil Cargill. They were best of friends in fourth year at school, when they’d formed the drinking club, and it had lasted as a benevolent clique for two years. By the time they left school, though, the four of them were drifting apart, but they still clung to a last childish emblem of camaraderie, more out of convenience and an embarrassment about admitting that their lives were going in different directions. Colin was about to embark on a career as a professional footballer with Arbroath FC; David was off to uni; Neil, with nothing better on offer, had signed up for a life of military discipline in the Marines and was heading for basic training at the end of the summer; and Gary, well, Gary was stuck in Arbroath with the prospect of working for a bank, building society or worse.

  Then Colin had died. After the funeral David had left town early, speeding over to France to help his folks renovate their barn. From there he had gone directly to Edinburgh, and had never since spoken to anyone from Arbroath.

  Until now.

>   He just couldn’t go to the reunion, he thought as the taxi pulled into his street and he started rummaging for notes and cash. But then he thought of Nicola again. Jesus, Nicola Cruickshank, he said out loud, shaking his head. He paid the taxi driver and stumbled out the cab into his home.

  David’s flat was a typical bachelor affair – two black leather sofas and a large flat-screen TV in the living room, generic film posters from his past (Trainspotting, Reservoir Dogs) lining the hall, and a messy bedroom dominated by a massive king-size bed. Among the debris in the living room were CDs, DVDs, magazines, empty lager cans and a couple of large pizza boxes. David finished another lager and surfed channels, cursing with each flick the banal choice of Friday-night television.

  He should’ve stayed out. What use was sitting here on the weekend, alone, doing fuck all? No use, that’s what. But then he thought of the rest of them in the Basement, and he felt a shiver of repulsion at that prospect too. He mentally surfed through his other friends in town, but couldn’t come up with anyone he wanted to talk to, let along meet up with. Where did that leave him? Back here on his own, that’s where.

  He made for the drinks cabinet, a classy wooden globe, and poured himself a house measure of Lagavulin. As he sat back down, the sofa gave a sigh under his weight. He took the email printout from his pocket and read it again.

  A school reunion was not an attractive prospect, that was for sure, but Nicola Cruickshank? That was a different story. He dug his mobile out his pocket and thought about phoning her for the next fifteen minutes, his body enduring little ripples of nervous excitement each time he went to dial, then stopped. Eventually he downed what was left in his glass, poured himself a bigger one, sat down with his mobile in his hand and dialled the number at the bottom of the printout.

  Who the hell was that now?

  Nicola had not long got Amy to bed after the usual lengthy struggle of wills between parent and child, and before that she’d had her mum on the phone for over half an hour. Bless her mum and everything, but she didn’t half go in for pointless gossip. She had just poured herself a second large glass of wine when the mobile went off. She fished it out of her bag and checked the screen. She didn’t recognize the number. Probably some arsehole trying to sell her something, she thought as she pressed ‘reply’.

  ‘Hello? Is that Nicola? Nicola Cruickshank?’

  It didn’t sound like a call centre eejit.

  ‘That’s me.’

  ‘This is Dave, Dave Lindsay. Erm… from Arbroath, I suppose.’

  Nicola laughed out loud and followed it with a little squeal, much to her own amused disgust.

  ‘David Lindsay. How the hell are you?’

  ‘I’m good, thanks, a wee bit tipsy, truth be told. How the hell are you back?’

  ‘Pretty good, pretty good.’ Nicola found herself laughing again. ‘Well, I suppose the appropriate cliché is long time no see, isn’t it? I’m guessing that you are the David Lindsay who works for Still Waters, then, and that you got my rambling email today?’

  ‘I am indeed the Dave Lindsay of Still Waters fame, although for how much longer, Christ only knows. And I did get your email, yes, although it wasn’t really rambling at all, it was… it was nice to hear from you after so long. Listen Nicola… I… I suppose I don’t really know why I phoned, except that you mentioned in your email that I was welcome to call any time, so, well, here I am phoning you. I hope it’s not a bad time or anything… is it?’

  ‘No, it’s fine, I’m glad you called. So, what do you think then?’

  There was a silence down the line, followed by what sounded to Nicola like glugging.

  ‘Think about what,’ said David cautiously.

  ‘The reunion.’

  ‘Oh yeah, the reunion. I don’t really think it’s my bag, if you know what I mean. I’ve never even been back there, not once in fifteen years, not since…’

  ‘Don’t be soft,’ said Nicola, deliberately filling the gap David had left at the end of his sentence. ‘It’s the same for everyone, David. I don’t suppose anyone’s seen anyone else for years, but that’s kind of the point, I guess. Everyone’s in the same boat. Come along, it’ll be a laugh. And even if it’s shit, it’ll be a shit laugh, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘All the same…’

  There was that glugging noise again.

  ‘What are you drinking?’ said Nicola.

  ‘What?’

  ‘What are you drinking? I can hear you slugging away on something.’

  ‘Oh, whisky. Lagavulin.’

  ‘An Islay, very nice.’

  ‘You know about whisky?’

  ‘I know about a lot of things, none of it very useful. I’m on the Chenin Blanc myself. Are you at home?’

  ‘Yeah, and you?’

  ‘Afraid so. All on my lonesome. How sad is that, sitting at home drinking alone watching shite telly on a Friday night.’

  ‘Snap.’

  ‘So, listen David Lindsay from Arbroath,’ said Nicola, ‘are you sure about the reunion? You can’t be persuaded to come along, keep me company amongst the scary freaks that all our ex-classmates will have turned into?’

  ‘How do you know I’ve not turned into a scary freak?’

  Nicola laughed, wiggled her nose a little and took a swig of wine.

  ‘That’s a very good question. I suppose I don’t. But then the same goes for me. Maybe we’re the scary freaks, and everyone else has turned out normal. Shall we go to the reunion and find out?’

  ‘I really don’t think so.’

  ‘Tell you what, why don’t we meet up, and I’ll have a go at talking you round in person?’

  Nicola was surprised at the idea which leapt from her mouth before it had even properly formed in her brain. There was a long pause at the other end of the line. Did he want to meet up with her? Did she want to meet up with him?

  ‘Why not?’ she heard coming down the line at her. ‘Where and when did you have in mind?’

  She had to think on her feet, she hadn’t expected this at all.

  ‘What are you up to tomorrow afternoon?’

  ‘Nothing yet.’

  ‘OK, I’ve got a few hours spare while Amy’s at a friend’s birthday party, so how about if you meet me outside the Museum of Scotland on Chambers Street at two o’clock. How does that sound?’

  ‘Cool.’ Then a pause. ‘Who’s Amy?’

  ‘Oh shit, didn’t I say already? Amy’s my daughter.’

  ‘You have a daughter?’

  ‘Very well deduced from my last statement. Yes, I have a daughter. A gorgeous little eight-year-old who is equal parts sweet angel and stroppy bitch. Do you have any kids?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, I guess we can do all this chat tomorrow,’ said Nicola. ‘If you still want to meet.’

  ‘Sure, why wouldn’t I?’

  ‘Just checking. Right, two o’clock outside the museum. I’ll see you there?’

  ‘OK. Have a nice evening, sitting in drinking on your own.’

  ‘Right back at you. See you tomorrow.’

  ‘Yeah. See you.’

  Nicola pressed ‘end call’. What just happened? Had she just organized a bloody date? No, it was just two old school friends meeting for a chat. After fifteen years? OK, that seemed slightly odd, to just arrange to meet like that after so long, but where was the harm in it? She re-ran the conversation in her head, what she could remember of it. He didn’t have kids, but she didn’t know if he was married or not. Mind you, now she came to think about it, she hadn’t explained her situation (or lack of one) with Amy’s dad either. So they were quits on that score. What did it matter anyway, she wasn’t looking for anything out of this, just to meet up with someone she knew and quite liked at school to swap stories about how their lives had turned out.

  He had seemed… well, she didn’t really know how he seemed on the phone. Cheery? A bit pissed? Maybe he was really drunk and he wouldn’t remember the conversation in the morning. She would g
o to the museum, see if he turned up. She loved that place anyway, ever since they’d tacked it on to the old Royal Museum a few years back. Of course you couldn’t keep the whole history of a country in one turreted building, but it was a good start, and she liked the peace, the airiness and the dignity of the ancient past that the place seemed to hold, despite being new.

  Yes, she would go to the museum tomorrow, and see what happened. What the hell harm could it do?

  2

  A Declaration

  Christ, I’m not as fit as I used to be, David thought as he puffed his way up Chambers Street. He was ten minutes late and he was working up a sweat in the close August heat. He had worn two layers, a T-shirt over a long-sleeved top, assuming it would be cold out, but the day had thrown him a curve ball and was almost relentlessly bright and sticky. The arse of his jeans was wet with sweat and his feet were hotting up in his Golas.

  He looked ahead at the museum but couldn’t see anyone waiting. Shit, she’s already left, he thought; either that or she decided not to come at all. He couldn’t blame her, it had seemed surprising when she suggested it in the first place. Maybe she’d been drunk last night, and had forgotten the conversation. No, she had an eight-year-old daughter, she wouldn’t be sitting loaded in the house with her, would she? Why not, he supposed – there were no rules about that sort of thing, were there?