Have you got anything to tell me, Liz?
You’re poised between life and death. You reflect the light of both states. Tell me. Explain to me.
TWENTY-TWO
I’m at the station early today. Overeager. I don’t like stations much. When I was a kid we never went anywhere by train. I only see this one because it’s the quickest route between Darlington and Edinburgh. Straight up and down, like falling. I hate the mass of people. Last time I was here it was to meet Cameron, the last Friday night we had. There were rugby supporters everywhere. I hate the board with its spinning letters and numbers. They flap down and change and I’m never sure that I’m looking at the right thing. Aren’t buses easier? You jump on when they stop by you, jump off when you arrive.
I’m too early but I hang about in Burger King.
It’s Craig. He steps off the train with his big rucksack. When he comes up the platform we clap eyes on each other straight away. He’s in a tracksuit and he’s trying to look bluff and matey, to look like he’s used to travelling about. But I can see he’s relieved to find me straight away. When he comes up he’s lurching with his bad foot. I’d forgotten what it was like. I always forget people’s details.
A wary distance between us, though we’re both grinning.
“Is Penny here?” I ask. “I didn’t know you were coming too.”
Craig looks abashed. “Penny’s still at home. She gave me her ticket.”
“What’s happened to her?”
He shrugs. “It was all last-minute. The hospital phoned. Something about her mam.” He shifts the weight of his backpack.
Has Penny sent him up to fetch the money? Is he here to nose on me? I help him with the bag. “Tell me when we get sorted,” I say, sounding friendly, I hope. “We’ll get a cab to mine. It’s not far.”
The cab swishing onto Prince’s Street. That corner thick with tourists, where there’s always a lone bagpiper having his photo taken. A Japanese husband is making his wife stand next to the piper. Under the clock. Under arches. Onto Leith Walk. Craig’s looking out, interested.
Craig puts on this serious voice. “For some reason, me and you, we’ve always managed to see eye to eye,” he says. We’re in the cold-floored kitchen of my flat. I make tea and coffee. I lay out warm tomato bread, different cheeses, pesto, olives. Giving him a posh kind of cheese sandwich. He’s saying, “Even though…even though we’re different, we’ve still managed to talk man to man, haven’t we, Andy? We’ve still been proper mates.”
I shrug. I don’t feel like making it easy for him, whatever it is he’s come all this way to say. I’m in a black jacket and T-shirt. Tartan Waverley Trust ribbon. My hair newly shaved. I look queer as fuck and he knows it.
Craig tries again. “Everyone sends their love, you know. Penny, Mark, my mam, your uncle Ethan. They all want to know what you’re up to. What’s happening. How you are.”
I sit down. “Have you really come just to pass on their love?”
He laughs ruefully. “To tell you the truth, I had to get away from Aycliffe, too.”
“You and Penny…?”
“She can’t be doing with me any more.” He looks out of the tall windows, makes appreciative noises over the view. “Well and truly fucked and chucked. That’s me.” He smiles. “You’ve done all right here, haven’t you?”
“Maybe.”
“I wanted to see where you escaped to. I wanted to see what it was like when you leave Aycliffe.”
“This is it,” I say.
Gamely he delivers himself up to my care. Entertain me, Craig says.
I thought about the things you did, the places you go with guests. It was only by showing off my new city to Craig that I realised that this is where I live. I saw how much I knew of it. How great it is here.
We walked to the Botanical Gardens, one of the last warm days of the year. Through the futuristic silver gates into rolling fields and dark, secluded trees.
Under the white crystal dome of the hothouses we sat and talked and looked at the orchids. They nestled behind the protective rubber of their leaves: hot pink, acid orange and green, fine white china trumpets of flowers. I had never been here before.
“Why didn’t we bring the bairn?” Craig said. “It would be a trip out for him.” He was talking more easily about Jep now. At first he’d been wary about even touching my son, as if he’d catch something. Now, when we were home, he’d sling him about fondly, tickle him, lug him around. What do they call it? Dandle him. I was starting to see that Craig would make a good dad. Rush of hormones telling me: he’d make a good father. I was nearly phoning Penny, telling her: he’s good with bairns.
Today Jep was in the care of my neighbours. Craig didn’t like my friends much. He thought they were posh. When they were round or we were out with them, he kept his head down. Glowered at them, which embarrassed me. It wasn’t helped by the fact that they’d assumed for the first week that he was my new feller. Craig was mortified. “Why do they assume that? That we can’t just be mates?” I shrugged at that.
“It’s amazing in here,” Craig said as we inspected the South American room. Lilies on ponds, their rubbery hides grown monstrous, covering all the water. In the room that was meant to be a desert, Craig revelled in the cacti. He stayed there ages. I couldn’t stand it. It was musty and hot. He was pretending to be in a western, scuffing through the sand, bending to glare at funny, stumpy things. The needles on them!
He pointed out the century plant. A dull-looking thing. At Easter, the sign said, they’d had to punch a hole in the glass roof for it, this cactus that flowers
