— Sorry … it’s just … she blinked at the silver light spearing in between the blinds of the big window behind him, — they buses are mental …
— I really think we should consider getting you transferred, maybe back to the RCP. It’s my fault, I shouldn’t have got involved …
An other-worldly glint sparked in Alison’s eye. Her mouth twisted in sulky defiance. — If it’s your fault, how is it me that’s gettin transferred?
Alexander starkly saw her as a young lassie, and for the first time, experienced a fleetingly snobbish sense of her as common: as a schemie. And it shamed him, thinking that way. He could say nothing in response. It wasn’t fair; he knew that. Yes, he could cite his status and crucial role in fighting this plague, but he didn’t think that was what she’d want to hear. It was time to be honest, as callously forthright as she had been with him, when she’d told him she was seeing other people. — Tanya and me … we’ve decided to make another go of it, for the kids’ sake.
Alison felt herself burn at this news. She didn’t know why; she’d neither wanted nor had any sense of her and Alexander ever being a long-term thing. Perhaps it was just the shock of rejection, or maybe being with him had bestowed more than she’d realised. — Good for you, she responded, with as much grace as she could muster. His doleful stare told her she’d not done too badly. — I’m pleased, and I’m no just saying that, Alison declared, even though, on at least one level, it was a lie. — Kids need both parents, she continued, mustering conviction. — I never wanted tae marry ye, Alexander, it was just shagging. Get a grip.
That slightly mocking, somewhat arcane expression of hers, struck at his core. He loved her, and felt so downcast at the irreparable nature of it all. — I really don’t know if it’s appropriate that we continue working together –
— Oh fuck off, yir really starting tae creep me oot now, and that’s pittin it mildly, she scoffed at him, her laugh hollow and bitter. — I’ve had shit going on, you’ve had shit going on, we shouldnae have ended up in bed, but we did. It’s over, and I’ve nae fuckin interest in broadcasting it tae the world.
— Right … he said falteringly, feeling small, wee-boy weak.
His passivity jolted something inside her. Alison thought about her mother, dying, yet unable to rage against it. The lines from that classic Dylan Thomas poem resonated in her. She had gaped at that withering body, so ruined and decayed it was practically a corpse long before her last heartbeat. It was accompanied by the realisation that she herself was moving forward in life, at the same time as her expectations and ideals were being profoundly shaken. What was it, all this council stuff, this nonsense about fucking trees? It was a pile of meaningless shite, for pompous little cretins to get self-absorbed over. — But ken what? Ah’m gaunny make it easy for ye, she said, in a sudden low growl. — Ah resign. Fae the council. Ah’ve had it here!
— Don’t be silly, you can’t lose your job, Alison, I won’t let you do that, Alexander said, sensing his words falling hopelessly into the widening chasm between them.
— Fuck all tae dae wi you, she said, and walked out of his office, through the open plan, not looking at Bill and Carole, slamming the door shut. Heading down the oak-panelled corridors and across the marble-floored hallway, through the heavy revolving doors, she reached the pillared square outside the City Chambers. Tore up the Royal Mile, the opposite direction of home, feeling better than she’d done in ages, all the time knowing it wouldn’t last.
He was weak, she thought with contempt. She’d also been weak, but she’d been that way with an essentially feeble man. Perhaps that was a blessing. You couldn’t know.
Ye couldnae know anything.
The city was beautiful. It was perfect. Yes, the schemes were horrible and there was nothing in them, but in the centre you had everything. Alison walked on, allowing herself to be awestruck at how amazing her home town was. The light, pouring over the castle, turning the streets of the Old Town silver. It was the most beautiful place in the world. Nothing could compare. The trees were beautiful too. You couldn’t let them take away the trees.
Alison passed under some scaffolding as four drunk, arm-in-arm girls waltzed by, singing as if on a hen night, though it was still morning. She turned, enviously, to watch them sashay up the road, desperate to know the story of their mysterious joy. It inspired her to keep her faith in impulse, propelling her into a functional bar in the shadow of the castle. It was early, and still devoid of custom. A heavyset, sulky girl, with judging eyes, dispensed her a glass of white wine. She sat down on a seat under the window, picking up a discarded Scotsman. The thought amused her: I grabbed hold of a tatty old Scotsman in a grotty bar. Again.
She rubbed the long stem of the glass between her thumb and forefinger, regarding the urine-coloured liquid nestled inside it. Then one sip of the sour vinegary substance almost made her puke. The second one was better, and the third seemed to satisfactorily reset her taste buds. She browsed the paper, arrested by an editoriaclass="underline"
The Scottish Office and Edinburgh District Council are to be commended for their timeous action in tackling the most serious epidemic to face Scotland’s capital. The rampant assault on our treescape, and thus our history and heritage, posed by the terrible Dutch elm threat concerns us all. The disease has taken its toll, but the casualties would have been so much higher had not the current strategy of felling and burning infected trees been so swiftly and decisively enacted.
Alison felt her eyes go down the newspaper to the readers’ letters. There was something from a general practitioner in one of Edinburgh’s big schemes. It warned that random testing had uncovered an inordinately high instance of infection by the Aids virus. She studied a sore track mark on her thin wrist.
A notion gnawed at her consciousness; trees rotting away on one side of West Granton Road, and people, inside the varicose-vein flats, so called because of their patched-up cladding, similarly decomposing. All that death. All that plague. Where did it come from? What did it mean?
What’s gaunny happen?
She left the bar, pondering this on the way home. A strong wind had started up, swirling through nooks and crannies, seeming to shake the city like it was a film set. Strange that a place built around a castle rock could seem so rickety, but that rock was now covered in scaffolding, as they tried to treat it and prevent it from crumbling. Cutting down Lothian Road, she walked to the east end through Princes Street Gardens. Heading down Leith Street, then Leith Walk and reaching her Pilrig flat, she hung up her jacket. Then she looked at herself in the bathroom mirror. Thought about her mum, how she loved to meet her for a coffee, to show her a top or shoes she’d bought, to gossip about neighbours or relatives, or talk about what they’d watched on the telly. Soaping and rinsing her hands, she recalled that she’d put the towels in the wash basket. She went to the press to get some fresh ones. Then it caught her eye, stuffed forlonly at the back of the cupboard; the shaving bag Alexander had left. She, unzipped it open and regarded the contents of brush, razor and block of shave stick. Picking up the brush, she held it against her chin, to see what she would look like with a goatee. Then she put it back in the bag and pulled out the bone-handled razor. Opened the blade. How light and lethal it felt in her hand. Alison rolled her sleeve up over her biceps and cut across the vein and artery. Warm blood splashed onto the tiled floor.