Chapter 20
fichead / twenty
Oban was an inconvenient place to meet. Perhaps Innes had chosen it for that reason – it was unlikely they would run into anyone they knew.
The mainland port town had been charming once, but it was spoiled by a busy one-way system that snaked round the half-dead centre.
It was all tearooms and tourist shops, and Cal had walked from one side of town to the other in less than twenty minutes.
The town square was little more than a traffic island, bordered by raised flower beds and littered with loitering pensioners with their coats on top of coats, sitting alone on damp benches, looking slightly lost, as though they’d been dumped there by their families.
Cal sat on the ground with his back against a low wall. He tugged at his hair. He tied it back. Then he let it down. He ran his fingers through it, then sniffed his fingers to see how greasy they were. He tied it back. Then he let it down again.
Small feet appeared at his side. Low flat shoes led to thin blue legs which led upwards to a beige padded coat that looked warm as an eiderdown. The woman wore a gold crucifix on a chain. She smiled at him as she handed him a cup of coffee. “Here you go.”
“Oh, no. I’m not—”
“It’s all right, son. Take it.” She pushed a pound coin into his protesting hand. Then she gave him a laminated card: a poem printed over an image of footprints on a sandy beach. “This rain is to get worse. Have you somewhere warm to go?”
“Yes . . .” he hesitated. “I think so.”
She stroked the back of his hand. “Well, God bless you all the same.”
When she had walked away, he pulled at his holey Aran, sniffed it and wished he had worn something cleaner.
He flipped the card and read the poem. It was a sweet message about faith, that said you never walked alone because Jesus would carry you in your hardest times.
He imagined showing it to his father and hearing his fury that the Fenians thought Jesus was some sort of seaside donkey.
It was well past the time they had agreed on, thirty minutes past, then an hour, then two.
The same schoolboys who had come out for lunch now walked home, school shirts untucked, anoraks zipped up over their mouths.
Every time he tried to accept that Innes would not come, his mind wrapped him in doubt like a protective cocoon and he held on for ten, twenty, thirty minutes more.
Innes had agreed to let him tag along on the condition he wouldn’t mention the trip to his father.
They could not leave together, Innes had been firm on that.
So, Cal told Ella he was planning on visiting his mother, then he snuck away on the Tarbert ferry while Innes travelled further north to Stornoway and caught a boat to Ullapool before driving the long miles south again.
It had taken Cal over half a day to get to Oban, a few hours more and they could have met in Glasgow or Edinburgh.
But when he had mentioned this to Innes, when he had argued that there would be a better selection of vans in the capital, Innes had backed away from the trip and so Cal had stopped pushing.
He looked around. These were not the bright lights he had hoped for.
Feeling the notes in his pocket, he calculated how far the remaining money would take him.
Glasgow surely, and, if they still accepted his matriculation card, he could afford the overnight bus to London.
He got to his feet and dusted himself down.
When he looked up, Innes was coming towards him, his palms out like a plaster saint.
“Aidh—I’m sorry,” he said, slightly out of breath. “There was a crash outside Ullapool.”
“Oh, no. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. But the traffic went on for days.” He ran his hand through his thinning hair. “Tell me you’ve not been waiting here. You should have gone to the library or to a tearoom.”
“I was afraid I would miss you.”
Innes glanced around the modest square. “Did you manage to slip away OK?”
“Yes, fine.” Cal shouldered his backpack. “Do you want to go look at these vans?”
“Isn’t it late?” Innes said. “Maybe we should leave it until tomorrow?”
“OK. Then what do you want to do instead?”
“Aidh—I’m not sure. What do you want to do?”
They tried to get their bearings. They walked to the waterfront and stared at the boats, but they had seen enough sea to last them a million lifetimes.
They came back to the square and found the shops were shutting.
In the end it seemed like there was nothing to do but to go to a pub, so they went back to the seafront and chose the first pub that they came to.
The bar was in a renovated bank. The prices made Cal finger the notes in his pocket again.
Innes bought the first round while Cal went to use the toilet. When he returned, Innes was sitting at a table near the front, watching the door as if he might slip through it again. He smiled up at Cal. “I can feel the cold come off you.”
“It’s in my bones.” Cal stood over the table, dripping slightly.
The barman frowned at him like he might be bothering Innes, like he was just another chancer selling butcher’s meat or Spanish cigarettes.
“You know, that’s the second time today someone’s given me the sad eye.
I thought if I looked like a tramp you’d get a better price on that van. ”
“Good thinking.” There was a pint on the table, Innes pushed it towards him.
“Well, slàinte,” he said, lifting it. “Here’s to our night of freedom. There must be a nightclub in this town. We could go dancing later.”
“Jesus save us.” Innes lifted his pint in salute. “Slàinte.”
Cal pulled out the stool and lowered himself onto it. He sat blinking, wiping the last of the rain from his brow. The bar had been renovated into ubiquity. There was nothing worth looking at, still their gaze fluttered around the room like two birds unable to settle or land.
“Why do I feel like I’m doing something wrong?”
“Don’t worry. I’m at my mother’s and you’re shopping for vans.”
Innes nodded but Cal could tell he wasn’t convinced. He was staring into the distance, trying to foresee some future outcome, arguing a conversation that might or might not happen.
“There wasn’t a crash on the road, was there?”
Innes’s eyes came back into focus. He shook his head.
“Maybe I’ve had more practice with lying to my father. We’re grown men, Innes, and if we want to be friends, if we want to have a couple of pints and look at sheep vans, then we should be able to do what we like. Besides, you invited him, and he said no. You asked for his help and he refused you.”
“Yes.” He straightened up. “Yes, he refused me. Of course. You’re right.”
“Then tell your face.”
Innes rubbed his face and for a moment it almost worked.
As Cal drank his pint he studied him. Innes’s tawny hair was tousled and there was a pleasing asymmetry to his features, a slight spoiling that stopped him from becoming too handsome.
He was wearing a black leather jacket that Cal had never seen before.
The style was dated, but the leather was stiff which said he didn’t get to wear it often.
It was the type of thing Glasgow hardmen wore, or the men who stalked the dance floors in basement nightclubs, drinking alone, standing on the periphery where the lights couldn’t reach them.
He was freshly shaven. There was a daub of shaving foam underneath his left ear.
Cal drew his attention to it and Innes licked his thumb and wiped it away. He blushed.
They drank their lagers quickly, as though hoping they might find something to say at the bottom of the glass.
“Did you hear?” said Innes eventually. “They moved Doll into the byre. They’ve set him up with a bed and a chest of drawers and Donnie says he’s quite comfortable.
We had our prayer group and Doll was pretending he was delighted.
Says he feels more independent now that he can come and go as he pleases.
And they’re pretending they’re delighted, because now they have a little more room.
But let me tell you . . . nobody’s delighted. ”
“And what if it snows?”
“Aidh—what if it snows.” He lifted his glass and paused. “Donnie said he caught his girls by the shed. They thought it’d be funny to serve Doll some hay on a plate. They had a carrot and were poking it through the gaps in the door, taunting him like a mule.”
“They’ll be sorry if they break his temper.”
Innes gasped his usual ingression, but this time it caught and melted into a sigh. “Aidh—I am not a father, but I’m certain I would never put my son in the shed.”
“It’s a pity we don’t get to choose.”
Innes coloured again. “And your father really didn’t ask you where you were going?”
“He did. But I said something about my mother and he stopped listening.” Cal lowered himself into his eyeline. “Please. Don’t worry.”
“And did he ask anything about me?”
“You know what he’s like. He never passes remark on anyone.” Cal put his hand on his heart and said in a grave tone, “Our words are seeds, Innes. Our words. Are seeds.”
“Uncanny.”
He smirked, pleased with his impression. “But we’ll have to come out eventually.”
“Come out?”
“Yeah, you know. As friends.”
Innes smiled a lopsided smile. Cal supped his pint and wondered what it would be like to actually kiss him. He wondered if the old virgin could ever be gay. Or if he was not, he wondered if he could seduce him anyway.
A group of middle-aged women burst into the bar, all sugary perfume and sea-damp air.
They were rowdy with emancipation and as soon as they were over the door, they started to undress, peeling off scarves and matching work blazers and revealing silky, low-cut tops.
They ran their eyes over the men, then they turned away, the weekend too young to settle for a pair of damp farmers.