‘Two people are truly together,’my Dad told me once, when he was giving me my degree course in the meaning of life, ‘only when they can fart freely and as loud as they please in each other’s company.’ I remember looking at him, appalled, quite certain that my Mother had never farted in her life.
I chuckled in the dark, quietly, lest I disturb Prim’s melodious sleep.
‘... at this moment in time, absolutely out of the question.’ She had said, but with a delicious smile that told me she was in no way offended that I had put the proposition to her. And so we had retired, she to the bed, and me to the instrument called my sofa-bed. I can never decide whether it is an instrument of torture or of music. Some nights it’s both as your toes and knuckles hit the sharp-cornered metal frame or as the springs dig into you, singing out tunelessly as you twist and turn, trying to negotiate the pathway to sleep’s dark gate.
I rolled over on to my side and the full spring orchestra played. The twang even startled Wallace. I heard Prim start from her sleep, and saw her silhouette as she sat up.
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘This thing can be bloody noisy.’ I bounced on the machine to show what had wakened her. ‘I’ll try to lie still.’
‘No, it’s okay. I had a good kip during the day, remember. What time is it?’
‘Around five, I think.’
‘Ow. D’you want to swop over? You take the bed and I’ll have the sofa?’
‘Thanks, but it’s okay,’ I said to her. I paused. ‘Hey, now we’re awake how about you telling me your life story. Let me into all your secrets. After that, how would it be if we get up and go for a walk up Arthur’s Seat, to watch the sun come up behind Berwick Law?’
There was silence as she weighed my latest proposition. ‘Yes,’ she said at last. ‘You know, Oz, my love ...’ Her tone may have been bantering, but my heart jumped as she said the word. ‘... I reckon that if I stripped everything away from you, right at your core I’d find a hopeless romantic ... just like me. Yes, let’s go for that walk.
‘But first, the unexpurgated adventures of Primavera Phillips. If you think you’re ready.’
Twenty minutes later, there was nothing I didn’t know about her. She had been born in Auchterarder to her oddball parents thirty years before. Her mother - when she wasn’t reading Barbara Taylor Bradford - had been a social worker, but was now a moderately successful writer of children’s books. Her father’s modelmaking had evolved from a cabinetmaking and furniture design business. She and her sister Dawn, who was five years younger, had been educated solidly at local authority schools, until they had been old enough to escape from their home village.
Prim had trained as a nurse in Glasgow, and had worked in Edinburgh Royal, before joining the dedicated staff of St Columba’s Hospice. ‘If you’d been there a few years earlier, you’d have nursed my Mum,’ I said, when she told me. ‘That’s a vocation, and no mistake.’
‘Yes, I thought it was, but it wore off after four years. I found that was I drinking too much; worse than that, I was drinking too much on my own, at home. I was narky, too, all the time. I wasn’t me, any more.’ I sensed her looking at me in the dark, suddenly, strangely intense. ‘Never forget that, Oz. I always have to be me!’
In the gloom, I could see her scratching her nose. ‘I don’t know why, but while I was working there, gradually I gave up men. Not that I was promiscuous, mind you. Up until now, I’ve had six lovers, but hospice work turned me into a celibate.’
I propped myself upon an elbow. ‘What are the chances of a miracle cure?’
‘Let’s just put it this way,’ she said, with a laugh in her husky voice. ‘A vacancy may arise in the future. Your application for the post has been noted, and is under consideration. You will be advised of the outcome in due course. For now, that’s all I’m saying.’
I tried to look solemn. ‘Thank you for that information. You may keep my application and my CV on your files until further notice.’ I’ve never been much good at solemnity. I grinned in the dark. ‘So when did you notice the first signs of a thaw?’
‘This afternoon. When I woke up in your bed with that weird bloody iguana alongside me! I looked across at you, and saw you at work, and I thought
“Look at that daft bugger
there!
What’s he like?”
And all of a sudden I felt that, yes, it might be possible to get some fun out of life again.’
I almost said, ‘Oh it is! Let me show you!’ Instead, trying to convince her that I really am responsible and self disciplined, I steered the conversation back on course.
‘Why did you leave the hospice? Had you just had enough?’
‘Yeah; as much as I could take. One thing more than any other finished me, though; I had this pal on the staff. She hit the compassion wall, and left. A year later, she was back as a patient We couldn’t tell her anything about what was happening, of course. She knew it all. The day she died, I resigned, to give myself a chance to forget. I never will though. I’ll never go far enough to forget that.’
‘Is that why you went to Africa? To forget?’
‘No. I had reasons, two of them. First, I was overcome by a sudden inability to sit still. It didn’t matter where I was, I felt shut in. Second, I wanted to help people live, not die. I got very grand, and decided to go on a personal crusade. So I answered an ad, and went to work for a UN-sponsored agency in Central Africa. I thought I’d be teaching nutrition, working with babies, that sort of thing. So I was, for two months. Then a Civil War started, and the casualties started to arrive.
‘I had no idea what modem armaments can do to the human body. Now I have. I’ve patched them up, and helped cut bits off. But there’s worse; you have no idea what people can do to other people. That wee man yesterday, he had a quick finish, believe me. The story I told Dylan was true, but ...’ Even in the night, I could see her shudder, suddenly,‘... what they did to the women!’
‘Was it like that for a whole year?’
‘No, I couldn’t have taken that. We were rotated. Most of the time we were in a hospital in a safe zone, but every so often we were asked to go up front with the troops.’
Now it was my turn to shudder. ‘Weren’t you in danger?’
‘I don’t think so. We had UN soldiers as our escort. They taught us to shoot, too, and gave us handguns.’
‘Christ, I must remember that!’
‘You do that! I’m a crack shot.’
‘Me too,’ I murmured, too quietly for her to hear.
In which the Earth moves ... again.
Back to back like old school chums, we dressed ourselves in heavy sweaters, jeans and boots ... Primavera seemed to have everything in that vast holdall.
I drove us down Holyrood Road and into the Queen’s Park, up the hill to the wee loch, where, thanks to the trippers, no ducks ever had it so good. The moon was long gone, but there was a hint of daybreak in the east as we set off up the steep slopes of Arthur’s seat, so that we could see the path well enough. Prim took the lead; gallantly, I thought, I allowed her to go ahead. It took me around three minutes to realise that she had mountain goat in her ancestry. Our conversation dried up as I saved my breath to keep up with her brisk pace. Up and up we climbed, scrambling hand and foot up the final stretch, until we came to the summit of the old volcano, to stand beside the Solstice cairn.
At our backs, the street lights of the Old Town shone softly, and the floodlit buildings stood out on the hill, with the Castle at its summit. Before us, as we looked east, recovering our breath, the day was beginning to assert itself. Around twenty miles away, we could see the outline of North Berwick Law, a slightly scaled-down version of the hill on which we stood. All down the Forth, in the mouth of the estuary, lighthouses still sent out their signature beams; on the great seagull’s head that was the Bass Rock, away across at Barns Ness in Fife and most distant of all on the Island of May.
I took out two Mars bars which I had secreted about my person, and handed one to my lady. ‘There y’are, Springtime. Our first breakfast together!’
She looked and laughed, ‘Did you make these at the same time you made those tuna rolls yesterday?’
‘Aye. I’m a dab hand. They’re not a patch on my Curlywurly though!’ See me, see sexual innuendo!
We looked eastward again and saw the line of light along the horizon deepen, and eat its way upward into the sky, diluting and beating back the darkness. Patches of morning mist lay in gullies along the plain between the Lammermuir Hills and the sea, moving and shifting very slowly, as they began to yield to the rising temperature.
‘It’s like being in an aeroplane, above the clouds,’ said Prim. ‘Do you do this often?’
I looked down at her, held in the circle of my arm, and I smiled. ‘Never done it in my life before. It’s been one of those things you think of doing, but never quite get round to. Tonight, this morning, whatever, I realise that I’ve been saving it to share with the right person.’
‘That’s very profound, for you, Osbert.’
‘Aye, but don’t worry, I’ll be back to normal soon.’
Around the Law, in the distance, the light began to intensify. We watched as it strengthened; we watched the rotation of the planet at the horizon dipped, revealing the great golden ball, and the day began. ‘D’you realise what’s happening, Primavera? The Earth’s moving for us!’
She squeezed me tight, almost crushing my ribs. ‘I was right, Blackstone. You’re a romantic to the core.’ She stood up on tiptoe and she kissed me, softly, her arms round my neck, my arms encircling her narrow waist. ‘D’you still fancy me, then, even in this gear?’ she asked.
‘Dressed from head to toe in a black bin-liner, I’d still fancy you,’ I said in a sudden outburst of total candour. Something welled up in my throat, and I realised it was a lump.
Suddenly there was a noise below us, a panting, scrambling noise. We looked down in surprise, to see the first of the morning joggers cresting the summit. She pulled herself on to the small flat peak and fell face-first against the cairn, gasping.
‘Morning,’ said I.
The woman looked round. ‘Christ, you’re early,’ she spluttered.
‘Oh, I’m sorry to disappoint you, Miss,’ I said. ‘I’m not him. He’s got a beard, and he wears a dress. You never know though, if you wait long enough, this is the sort of place where he might turn up. More likely it’ll be in Glasgow, though. He’s more needed there.
‘Come Magdalene,’ I said, tugging Prim’s waist, and wincing as she nipped my bum to shut me up. ‘We’d best get back down.
‘So long,’ I said to the speechless, knackered jogger. ‘Enjoy the morning, it’s worth the effort.’
We picked our way down the almost sheer path from the summit, on to the gentler, but still steep descent. Two more runners were starting out from the road below. As we walked hand in hand, more relaxed than on the ascent, a flight of swans made their way slowly and clumsily across the sky, on their way to St Margaret’s Loch and another hard day’s work, posing for tourist photographers and gobbling stale breadcrumbs.
‘They’re not very good at flying, are they,’ said Prim.
‘Thank the Lord for that. They’re good in the water and aggressive on land. If they were air aces as well the CIA would be training them as operatives!’
As we walked on down the path, a piece of the day before came back into my mind. ‘Prim, that bottle in the kitchen. Prozac. Why should Dawn be on the happy pills?’
She looked up at me anxiously. ‘I don’t know. It came as a shock to me. Dawn’s always been moody, very up one minute, very down the next. Maybe, with me being away, there’s been no-one to help her through the down bits.’
‘Not even Willie Kane?’
‘Seems not.’
There were three more parked cars when we reached the roadway, one per jogger, I assumed. We drove around the south side of the great hill, until the Old Town stretched before us again, blinking itself awake. I parked and we walked up to the High Street, to pick up the makings of a real breakfast from Ali’s.
The turbanned one was on duty early as always. If there are people there and pennies to be taken in, Ali will take them. ‘Hullaw ther, Ozzie,’ he bellowed. I’ve never been quite sure whether Ali accentuates his Scots accent. ‘Hullaw tae you, hen,’ he added, catching sight of Prim.
‘Ali, this is Miss Phillips. Remember her and don’t give her any of your past sell-by stuff.
‘See him, love,’ I said, pointing to the grinning Asiatic. ‘This one is Edinburgh’s cheekiest grocer. Ali thinks customer relations means ... No. On second thoughts I don’t think I’ll tell you that!’
Ali’s one of my best pals. He and I, and eight other nutters, play five-a-side football together at Meadowbank Stadium, every Tuesday evening in life. We arrange our lives around our weekly session, which, like most informal football clubs, is simply on excuse for a few bevvies.
Ali’s at his best as a defender. Me, I see myself as a cultured midfielder, in the Jim Baxter mould. The truth is, the Great Jim and I have one thing in common. We’re both Fifers; that’s it. Where he could have opened a combination lock with his left foot, mine is purely for standing on. The other one isn’t up to much either, except that in our team, I am the acknowledged master of the toe-poke, a distinctive way of shooting, stiff-ankled, with great power and accuracy. The toe-poke is derided by all serious footballers, and brings me much scorn, but usually from opponents, as they pick the ball out of their net.
That morning, instead of a neat through ball, Ali passed me bacon, eggs, rolls, bread, orange juice, honey, milk and, on a ‘Please,’ from Primavera, square, spicy, sliced Lome sausage. Continentals look down on the British as sausage-makers. Their idea of sausage is something to be sliced razor thin, something that looks as if it came out of an animal, rather than being made from it. Give me German, French, Italian or Spaniard, and let me confront any one with a square slice of Ali’s Scottish sausage, grilled, in a white crusty roll. That would put the buggers in their place.