— It takes time, Cathy. I know that, he said, his finger tracing a vein on the back of her hand, which he pressed as if to urge her to continue talking.
— It’s just … she hesitated, — wi Billy getting intae bother n Mark bein away in London …
Davie turned round, breaking her grip, but only to take Cathy in his own arms. He stared into her big, haunted eyes. The light from the window revealed some new lines in her face, and some of the older ones cutting a little deeper. He pulled her head into his chest, not just to comfort her, but because this sudden confrontation with her mortality was too much for him to endure. — What’s wrong, love?
— When ah wis doon at the church, the other day, lighting a candle for Wee Davie …
David Renton senior forced himself not to roll his eyes or unleash an exasperated breath, his habitual responses when he learned that his wife had been at St Mary’s.
Cathy raised her head, digging her sharp chin into his collarbone. Her body felt so slight against him. — Ah saw the laddie Murphy thaire, she coughed, wriggling free from his embrace, moving over to the ashtray on the table and crushing out the last of her cigarette. She briefly hesitated, and then promptly lit another, with a semi-apologetic shrug. — Ye should’ve seen the mess ay um, Davie, he looked terrible; skin and bone. He’s been taking that heroin — Colleen telt me when ah saw her in the Canasta. She flung him oot, Davie, he wis stealin fae her. Her rent money, her club money wi the Provi …
— That’s terrible, Davie said sadly, thinking of his own mother alone, in that house in Cardonald, then Mark, on a couch in some dismal squat in a far-off city which briefly flared with menace in his imagination, before he converted that vision into a swish flat full of swinging metropolitan professionals. — It just makes me gled that Mark’s in London wi Simon, away fae that waster!
— But … but … Cathy’s face creased into a self-caricature that unnerved him. — … Colleen said thit Mark wis the same wey!
— No way! He’s no that stupid!
Cathy’s eyes and mouth stretched, pulling the skin on her face taut. — It sort ay explains a lot, Davie.
Davie Renton couldn’t bear to hear this. It just couldn’t be true. — No, he shook his head in grave finality, — no oor Mark. Colleen’s just upset at whit’s happened tae Spud, she wahnts tae make oor Mark a scapegoat!
The lid grumbled, farted and rattled against the pot, and Cathy was over to the cooker, reducing the heat and giving the stovies a stir. — That wis what ah thoat, Davie, but still … ah mean, ye ken how secretive he is. She looked at him. — It took him ages tae tell us aboot packin in the university … n then thaire was that girl he was seein …
Davie gripped the windowsill. Leaned forward, felt the pressure in his tense shoulders as he looked wistfully outside. — You know, he spoke to his ghostly reflection, — ah used tae think that if he brought shame on this hoose it would be through getting a lassie pregnant or something, ah never thoat it wid be drugs.
— Ah know, ah know … sometimes he jist seems awfay weird … sometimes … Cathy pushed out some smoke from her lungs, — … ah mean that thing wi Wee Davie … that wis twisted. Ah ken it’s an awfay thing tae say aboot yir ain flesh n blood, n ah love him tae bits, ah wis that proud when he went tae the university … but …
Davie rested his forehead against the cool glass pane. He recalled his last conversation with Mark, his tones high and distressed, telling his son they were planning to shut the door on the working classes in education. How it was the last chance for people like him to get a degree without being in hock to the banks for the rest of their lives.
Mark had just kept repeating ‘aye … aye … aye …’ as he crudely stuffed clothes into his holdall, then came out with his usual nonsense about starting a band in London, just like the last time he went down there. — That punk rock shite’s tae blame, it’s that rubbish that turned his heid, Davie Renton mused, turning from the window, recounting the proposition he’d put to his son, — Tear everything doon; aye, fair enough, but what are ye gaunny pit in its place?
— Drugs, Cathy cried, — that’s aw thir pittin in its place!
Davie shook his head, — Ah cannae see it but, Cath. He’s in London wi Simon. Thir baith gaunny be startin oan the boats soon. They’ll no let junkies on a boat, Cath. Dae ye want somebody whae’s hallucinatin on heroin, shootin up that LSD or whatever they call it, talkin tae pink elephants aw day when thir tryin tae sail a boat? No way. This is the sea. Thi’ll no tolerate that sort ay thing at sea, Cathy. They have tests for that sort ay thing. Naw, it’s just that daft bloody hash. It makes him dopey. Wi his bloody brains n aw.
— Ye think so?
— Aye, course ah do. He’s no that stupid!
— Cause ah couldnae take it, Davie, Cathy gasped, stabbing out one fag and lighting another. — No eftir Wee Davie. No wi oor Billy up in coort!
— Simon’s doon thaire, he’ll steer him awright, n thaire’s Stephen Hutchison fae that band n aw, he’s a nice laddie, they widnae git mixed up in anything –
The phone’s shrill ring from the lobby halted Davie. Cathy ran to pick it up. It was her sister. They would talk for ages, Davie considered, comparing misfortunes. Feeling redundant, he left the house to walk down by the docks.
The port, swathed in an omnipresent drizzle, had become a home from home, reminding Davie of his native Govan. He recalled how he’d come east to be with Cathy, moving all those years ago from tenement to tenement and shipyard to shipyard, getting work at Henry Robb’s. The old yard was now deserted; it had shut down a couple of years ago, bringing to an end over six hundred years of shipbuilding in Leith. He was one of the very last men to be paid off.
Wandering around old Leith’s complex maze of streets, kicking through the thaw’s debris, Davie marvelled at the disparate buildings constructed by the merchants who’d brought the wealth into Edinburgh city, when it owed its good fortune to maritime trade. Great stone contructions with gilded domes and pillared, pseudo-Athenian temples proliferated. They were once churches or railway terminals like the Citadel Station Davie trudged past, but now temporarily designated shops or community centres, covered in tawdry, incongruous fluorescent-coloured posters advertising bargains or activities. Many were in disrepair, succumbing to vandalism and neglect, now augmented by rashes of public housing; cheerless sixties utilitarian designs. Consequently, there was nowhere else in the world that looked quite like Leith. But the place was a ghost town. Davie looked down a set of old railtracks leading into the defunct docks, recalling the swarms of men toing and froing from the shipyards, docks and factories. Now, a pregnant girl rocking a pram on a street corner argued with a flat-topped youth in a shell suit. A lonely baker’s shop in a rash of TO LET retail outlets had one window smashed in and boarded up. A woman in brown overalls and stiff lacquered hair looked warily out at him as if he were responsible. A stray black dog sniffed at some discarded wrappers, displacing two seagulls, who screeched in protest as they glided above him. Where had all the people gone? he wondered. Indoors or hiding, or down in England.
As the urban gravity of central Scotland seemed to inevitably dictate, Davie Renton found himself in a pub. It wasn’t one that he frequented. A vague, distressing odour lingered about the place, detectable through a fug of cigarette smoke. However, it was a tidy shop in other ways, the bar and tables gleaming with polish. The barmaid was a pretty young girl, whose bashful and awkward demeanour suggested that her looks were a recent acquisition she’d yet to fully grow into. He felt for her, working in a pub like this, and forced up a cheery front as he ordered a pint of Special and a whisky, surprising himself by his actions, as he seldom drank with gusto these days. It was a young man’s game, best done when you were free from nagging thoughts of your own mortality. But he finished it quickly, and requested the same again, staying at the comforting bar. It was good. Davie felt warm and numb. It was slipping down easily.