Espedair Street

FIFTEEN

In the hall now, at Arisaig, watching the little kid on the trike, trailing coloured streamers, round and round.

A train woke me, just as the dawn was seeping from the sky above the dark hotel. I dozed, rang reception to order a taxi to Glasgow, had my breakfast, then went back to the city, taking a newspaper with me and sitting in the back of the cab, partly to avoid smalltalk with the driver. A young Arrochar lad, he was content to listen to the radio while I tried to find out what else had been happening in the world recently.

I went straight to Wee Tommy's ma's, but there was nobody in. Next came St Jute's and then the Griffin, to see if McCann had replied to my note. There was nothing fresh on the pile of junkmail inside the folly's door, and no sign of or message from McCann at the Griff.

I went back to Tommy's folks' house and put a note througn the door telling them to get in touch with my lawyers. Then I went to see them.

Mr Douglas, senior partner at Macrae, Fietch and Warren, said he would contact a firm specialising in criminal work, and a good advocate, and would have the former find out where Tommy was and whether any other lawyer had received instructions to defend him. He was sure they could come to an arrangement. I signed a letter authorising him to make all necessary disbursements to deal with Wee Tommy's case, as soon as his family got in touch.

Macrae, Fietch and Warren's offices are on Union Street. I left them, buzzing with energy, wanting to do something. I marched up the road to the side entrance to Central Station, found a phone and rang the Griffin. Bella answered.

'Aye?'

'Bella; it's... ah... Jimmy Hay,' I said, my mood of busy happiness evaporating instantly as I realised I didn't even know what name to use now.

Bella wheezed. 'Aw aye; that Jimmy Hay the Dan Weir?' She laughed bronchially. I was left, stunned and dismayed, unable to tell whether it really was all a big joke to her or she was being deliberately unkind.

'That's right,' I admitted quietly, as Bella's cackles subsided.

'Okay then, Jimmy; ye'll be wantin that boyfriend of mine Ah suppose, aye?'

'Eh?'

'Ma boayfriend.' Bella wheezed and laughed at the same time. 'Haw, heid-the-baw,' I heard her say to somebody else, 'it's that big ugly guy wi the funny hoose.' I closed my eyes, wanted the ground to swallow me up. 'He's just cummin,' Bella said. 'Here he is noo.'

'Aye?' It was McCann.

'McCann?' I said, fearfully.

'Ah, it's yersel, is it?' McCann said.

'Yes,' I said, feeling foolish now, not knowing what to say. Ah; what the hell. 'Are you still talking to me?'

'Ah'm talkin tae ye noo, am Ah no?'

'I know, but are you still talking to me? You know what I mean. Are you mad at me? I mean angry?'

'Course Ah'm angry, but that doesnae mean Ah'm no talkin tae ye.'

'I'm not a real capitalist, McCann; I don't own any shares...'

'Aye, aye. Look; dinnae apologise to me, son; life's too short. Buy us a drink an Ah'll tell ye what a lyin basturt ye are.'

'Right! Stay there!' I said.

'No the noo,' McCann said, exasperated. 'Ah've got tae go fur ma check-up at the infirmary; Ah only came in fur a quick hauf on ma way; Ah wiz pittin on ma coat when ye rang.'

'When'll you be free?'

'Ach, they take ages; might be oors. Ah'll get back when Ah can, but probably no before five.'

'Okay, I'll see you then.'

'Right ye are, then.'

'Oh!' I said. 'McCann; do you know anything about Wee Tommy? I've put a note through his mum's door and told her to use my lawyer; I'll pay.'

I wanted to bite my tongue.

McCann tutted. 'Aye, money talks, eh?' He sighed. 'Naw; I havnae heard any thin more. Ah heard the polis came tae see you, that right, aye?'

'Aye. Look, can you think of any other way of getting in touch with his mum and dad?'

'They might be at his auntie's. Ah'll call in; it's on ma way.'

'What, now?'

'Aye, if ye'll let me aff this fuckin phone...'

('Hi you; swear box!' Bella shouted in the background.)

('Aw, shut up, wumin,' McCann muttered.)

'That'd be great... or I could phone them,' I suggested.

'They're no oan the phone,' McCann said loudly. 'Noo will ye let me go? Ah'll have tae run if Ah'm tae see them an get tae ma appointment. Goodbye.'

'Take a taxi!' I yelled. 'I'll p...'

But he'd rung off.

I stood for a moment, holding the phone and remembering something about names... (The first time I'd met Wee Tommy, in the Griffin, I'd leaned to McCann and muttered, 'He's nearly the size of me; why's he called "Wee"?' and McCann had muttered back, 'His da was called Tommy, tae.' I must have looked puzzled. 'Couldn't they,' I said, 'have called him "Tam" instead?' McCann had just looked at me.)

Names; Wee Tommy... Jumping Jesus, he must have known all the time!

The policemen had asked for me by name. 'Daniel Weir?' they'd asked. That was what they'd said, and it didn't seem to mean anything special to them, I'd have known. But they knew my name, and the only people they seemed to have talked to had been Wee Tommy, his pal at the supermarket, and Wee Tommy's mum. So Wee Tommy must have told them. He'd known, or guessed, who I was.

I left the phone and wandered across the station concourse, grinning. I didn't know what to do next.

The big black electronic noticeboard flashed yellow with changing orders of departures. Intercities to London and Bristol, a slow train to Edinburgh (I didn't even know about that; I thought all the Edinburgh trains left from Queen Street), trains to Stranraer and Ayr and Largs and Wemyss Bay and Gourock ... passing through Paisley.

The next Paisley train was at platform thirteen. It left in five minutes, according to the station clock. They operate something called the Open Station system here now; no ticket checkers at the barrier, you just walk onto a train, and pay the guard when he comes round if you haven't got a ticket.

Fifteen minutes later I was in Paisley, heading for Espedair Street.

Paisley had and hadn't changed. Busier with cars, maybe not quite so busy with people. Newer, brighter, sometimes different shops. A few higher buildings. I walked through the angled sunshine of a December's day, experiencing a strange mixture of elation and... I don't know what to call it; exalted bitterness seems closest. I sang to myself, inside my head, the songs I had heard the previous night, in the hotel, through the wall and through the years, remembering Christine's voice and the taste of her lips, the way she moved on stage and the touch of her body.

I walked and remembered, and I found I was humming a new tune, to the beat of my steps, and heard new words combine to fit the tune. And the words said:

And thought: Ha ha! As I walked to Espedair Street.

Which was a real disappointment, to be honest. They seemed to have knocked a few bits of it down, but I couldn't be sure which bits. It looked less homogeneous than I remembered, more mixed up and unsure of itself. There was a new pizza place just at the Causeyside end; it looked out of place to me, something bright and plasticky from another age, another planet.

Across the other side of Causeyside Street was the Waterloo Bar, where Jean Webb and I had sat that day, twelve years before. It didn't seem to have changed much. I thought of going in for a drink, just for old times' sake, but didn't. I walked down Espedair Street instead, trying to remember which flat had been the Webbs'.

Just an ordinary street; low tenements, more modern low flats (I couldn't even remember if they had been here the last time; the street looked different), semis and detached houses, an old, derelict school, and a new snooker club in an old factory building. I turned around at the far end and started back, oddly deflated.

I tried to recapture the feeling of anticipatory joy I'd experienced that day I'd met Jean, or the sensation of sublimely resigned bliss I'd experienced, seven years later, after visiting her mother, walking down the same street under that stunning sky. Of course no echo of emotion sounded from either occasion.

I walked, humming my new tune, while the words said.

I stood at the traffic lights on Canal Street. There was a man waiting on the other side, looking curiously at me. Suit, coat, briefcase; not the sort of person I'm used to having stare at me. It had been years since somebody recognised me in the street and let me know; an intensely embarrassing experience.

This man looked like he wanted to talk. I considered walking away down Canal Street, so I wouldn't pass him... but what the hell. The lights changed. We met in the middle of the road; he put one arm out, as though to stop me, put his head to one side and squinted with one eye. 'Dan Weir?' he said.

'Yes?' I said. He smiled broadly and put out his hand, shaking mine. 'Glen Webb; remember me?'

Jean's brother; the one who'd been in the army, if I was right. I nodded. 'Yes, of course.'

He glanced at his watch. 'You got time for a drink?' He half-turned, to head along with me. He seemed honestly pleased to see me.

I shrugged. 'Well, why not?'

We went to a new, overly plush bar called Corkers; subdued lighting and plump green upholstery. A fan on the ceiling; is this the new insignia of yuppie hangouts in Scotland? Isn't a place proper without a prop? I had a pint of export, ignoring the attractions of inferior British copies of anyway awful American lagers. Glen Webb had a non-alcoholic lager .

'Thought it was you. Hope you don't mind me accostin you in the street like that.'

'No, that's all right.' I said. 'Doesn't happen very often these days.'

'You retired now, aye?'

'Aye, sort of,' I said. I'd never thought of it like that, but he was right. 'What about you? You look prosperous.'

'Oh, I'm doin all right for myself. I'm working for a firm in Glasgow now; just on my way to do somebody's books.' He laughed, and I thought: wrong brother. This was the accountant who'd been in England. 'Well, this is a right surprise. I was just talkin to Jean about you the other day.'

'How is she?'

'Fine. A lot happier now she's settled down again.' He took a sip of his gassy lager. 'You knew she'd got divorced?'

'No,' I said, surprised. And, right there and then, before the words were fully out of his mouth, something inside me seemed to leap.

'Did you know Gerald? Her husband, did you?' Glen asked. I shook my head. 'Ah, well, he wasn't a bad guy really, but I think they just... drifted apart, you know? And then she found out he was seein this other woman...' He shrugged. ' All sorted out now. You knew they had a wee girl?'

'Dawn,' I said, pleased to be able to remember.

'Aye. Well, Jean and her live in...' He frowned. 'Damn me, I can never remember the name of the place...' And I was sure he was going to say 'Bahrain', or 'Adelaide' or something, but he didn't. 'Arsey? Harris-egg ... something like that. I've got the address somewhere...' He reached down to his briefcase. 'Near Fort William; on the Road to the Isles.' He searched the briefcase for a few moments, then shook his head. 'Must have left it at the office. Never mind.'

'Arisaig?' I suggested. He snapped his fingers.

'The very place. Anyway; the two of them seem to be happy enough there. What about you? This you makin a sentimental journey, or what?'

'Yeah, I suppose I am,' I admitted.

'Aye, I always come up this way myself, just to look at my mum's old flat. Daft, isn't it? Doesn't even look the same since they were all renovated.'

'Aye, I know.' I supped my beer meditatively. 'Yeah, it is a bit daft.' We sat in silence for a moment. 'How's your mum?'

This time, I was sure the answer would be 'Dead', but I was wrong again. 'Ah, she's no too bad. She's in a wheelchair now; my aunt Marie looks after her.

'Aye, she was in the wheelchair last time I saw her.'

'Of course, aye; she told me about that. Thinks you're wonderful.'

'What? Who does?'

'My mum. Oh God, aye; she thought it was great, you calling in like that. Her with a famous rock star in her wee flat, taking tea.' Glen laughed. I shook my head, looked down. This has been my Modesty Act for so long it's no longer an act. I felt the way I had when I'd just left her flat that time, the way I had at the far end of Espedair Street quarter of an hour earlier; saddened.

'Whereabouts you livin these days?'

'Oh, I... move around a lot. I'm in Glasgow, just now,' I said, lying, and wondering why I lied.

'Ah, well, if you're ever moving around in the Highlands, you should drop in and see Jean. She'd appreciate it. Still talks about you a lot. You've got a couple of fans there, her and wee Dawn.'

'Really?' I tried to make it sound self-deprecating without making it sound insulting to them. I busied myself with my glass. My heart was misbehaving. This was absurd.

'Aw , aye,' Glen said, smiling. 'Great to be famous, eh?'

I agreed it was, most of the time. We spent another five or ten minutes talking about other old friends we had in common, and people we'd gone to school with, until Glen looked at his watch and started draining his lager. I finished my pint. 'I've got to go,' Glen said, taking up his briefcase. 'Here;' he handed me his card. 'Give us a ring if you want Jean's address... or my mum's; you're always sure of a cup of tea there.'

'Thanks.' We went to the door. A light shower had started outside and we stood on the pavement, under an awning, while Glen dug into his briefcase for a small umbrella. I looked up and down the street.

'Aye, you'll see a few changes in the old town, I suppose.'

There were actually fairly few in sight from where we stood, but I knew what he meant. I nodded. 'Aye. There weren't any places like this here then,' I looked back at the bar we'd just left. 'The Waterloo doesn't seem to have changed much, though... not from the outside, anyway.'

Glen Webb unsheathed the little Knirps and fiddled with it. 'That your old watering hole, was it?'

'No,' I said. '... I think the only time I was in there was once with Jean; I was celebrating because we'd got our first advance. Practically kidnapped her to get her to have a drink with me.'

'Oh, God.' Glen grinned, opening the umbrella. 'You wouldn't have needed to kidnap that lassie.' He nudged me with one elbow. 'If that was the time she told me about, she was nearly asking you to take her with you.'

Did I stare? I don't know. I looked at the man, and listened to the traffic roar. 'Aye,' Glen chuckled, 'you'd a narrow escape there.' He held his hand out again. We shook hands. 'See you again, sometime, Dan. Give us a ring. Take care now.'

'You t-too ... goodbye.' I said.

Glen Webb walked off into the bright drizzle. I stood, brows furled, thinking furiously.

I walked back to Gilmour Street, over glistening pavements, under slowly darkening skies, wondering if I was stupid enough to do what I was thinking of doing.

McCann was sitting with a half and a half in front of him when I strode through the doors of the Griffin. 'Oh fuck, it's Bill Haley. Ye want a drink?' McCann stood up.

'A pint of heavy,' I said. I rolled my eyes. 'Bill Haley,' I snorted.

'A pint of your finest heavy beer for Zippy Stardust here, Bella,' McCann said. I didn't bother to ask whether it was a deliberate mistake. 'Well you're lookin pleased wi yersel,' he told me. McCann's forehead was not a pretty sight, but I'd seen him with worse damage.

'Come and sit with me a minute, McCann,' I said. McCann looked at me oddly.

'Your check-up all right?' I asked once we'd sat down.

'Right as rain. They asked me aboot this, mind.' McCann pointed to his bruised, cut head.

'What did you tell them?'

Ah said the wife fell down the stairs.'

'The wife fell down the stairs?' (Apart from anything else, McCann is a widower.)

'Aye; on top of me.' McCann winked.

I shook my head. 'What about Wee Tommy?'

'Ah found his maw and paw; they were at his auntie's right enough. In a right state. Ah gave them that number, of yur lawyers. They were very grateful. Wee Tommy's in court Thursday; Ah called in again on the way back from the hospital an his dad wiz back an say in according tae yur lawyers they think they can get him oot on bail. That okay?'

'Perfect. I'd come along on Thursday, but I might not be here. I'm leaving; probably just a holiday, but I'm going tonight. Or tomorrow mornmg, anyway.

McCann didn't look surprised. 'Aw aye? Where aboots ye goin?'

I took a deep breath. 'Arisaig.'

There are times when you can't do the sensible thing, when you can't act like a responsible adult at all; you just have to do whatever insane thing comes into your head. When bad people do it they end up murderers, when good people do it they end up heroes, and when the rest of us do it we end up looking like total idiots. But when's that ever stopped us?

I'd got the train back to Glasgow Central, couldn't see the shuttle bus for Queen Street, judged it would take ten minutes for me to get to the front of the taxi queue, so walked the quarter mile. There were only two trains a day to Arisaig on a Tuesday, and I'd just missed the last one — the 1650 to Mallaig — by five minutes. I'd stared down at the empty tracks, fuming.

Then I calmed down and tried to think rationally — however inappropriate that might have been, given my current state of mind. I was crazy doing this anyway, but I was totally mad to think about going right now. I had to see McCann; I'd agreed to meet him, and I still didn't know what was happening about Wee Tommy. There were a couple of other things I had to do as well.

I went to see when the next train was and picked up a timetable. 0550 tomorrow; ten to six in the morning, for God's sake; a sleeper from London. I bought a ticket and booked a seat (first class; old habits die hard). Due in to Arisaig at 1118. I got myself a cheapo digital watch in the station and set the alarm for 5 a.m. It seemed like a long time to wait. I had a horrible feeling I'd talk myself out of it by then.

Oh heck, might as well go the whole hog...

I ran to Macrae, Fietch and Warren's again, had the receptionist ring the Griff to say I'd be there in half an hour, and caught Mr Douglas before he left the office.

'I beg your pardon, Mr Weir?' he said when I told him what I wanted to do. He'd gone a bit pale.

'It's perfectly simple,' I told him, still breathing hard from the run. 'Let's get my Will out and we can have it drawn up from that in five minutes.' It took twenty, and Mr Douglas frowned when we took out the bit about being of sound mind, but it was done.

'I cannot believe, Mr Weir,' old Douglas said, adding weight to his words by the slow removal of his half-moon glasses, 'that you are not going to regret this... hasty decision.'

'I'm sure I shall,' I agreed, feeling pompous. 'But it has to be done.'

Mr Douglas just sighed. He'd refused to do it at all (referring to my 'excited and agitated state') at first; we compromised by dating it for the following day, to give me time to change my mind. I signed it and caught a taxi to the Griff.

'Whit?' McCann said.

I jangled the keys under his nose. 'It's yours. Take them. I've kept the Holland Street key because I'm going to stay there the night. As of tomorrow; all yours.' (Technically a lie, but what the hell.)

'You fuckin crazy ?' McCann had never looked so puzzled, or so worried (not even in Monty's).

'McCann, I've been crazy for years; you know that. Will you take the goddamn keys?' McCann drank from his beer glass, looking sideways at the keys in my hand. He shook his head. 'Naw; Ah want tae know whit's goan on.'

'McCann,' I said, despairing, 'it's perfectly simple; I've had some very bad and... maybe, some very good news, over the last couple of days. I came close to killing myself... or I think I came close... But even then I was,' I waved my hands in the air, jangling the keys, 'I was of sound mind. I still am, and I'm going to go over the hills and far away, to see an old friend who mayor may well not be pleased to see me but I've got to see her... and, anyway, I need to make a break, I need to get away from myself. I've seen my lawyer and what's going to happen is it's going to be as if I had died; I've signed a document which more or less has the same effect as my will; all the money goes.

'You get the folly and everything in it. Do whatever you want with it. At the moment everything in the folly includes a pigeon, and you've got to make sure it gets out somehow, also there may be some tapes and stuff like that, and a few personal things, but otherwise it's all yours. Also, I want you to see a woman called Betty gets in touch with my lawyers too. She'll turn up at the folly; you'll know her.

'I'm getting the early train tomorrow and for all I know I might be on the next one back, in which case I'll see you in here tomorrow and we'll both go to court on Thursday; or I might be away longer. It depends. All I'm asking you to do is keep in touch with my lawyers to check out what happens with Wee Tommy, and take the keys of the folly.'

I held the keys out again. McCann glared suspiciously at me. 'Please, McCann,' I said. 'Don't do this to me. I know I don't deserve it; I lied to you and I'm sorry... but please, please take the keys. It's important to me.'

McCann put his glass down. He looked at the keys in my hand, then into my eyes. He took the keys from me, eyes narrowing.

'If this is a joke, Ah'll break your fuckin neck, pal.'

I sat back laughing, but with a niggling worry in the pit of my belly, thinking about Glen Webb, and wondering at what might be my own absurd gullibility. 'If this is a joke,' I told McCann, thinking of the wild coasts beyond Arisaig, 'you probably won't need to.'

And so I sat in the Griffin bar with my friend McCann, and after a few drinks it was almost as it always had been, and we talked and laughed and I told him a little about my previous life, and I don't think he believed me when I told him how much money there was, or where it was going (but he approved, in theory), and I reassured him I wasn't going to be broke, even though the future royalties from all the old stuff would be distributed as well. A gentleman called Mr Richard Tumber was going to get a phonecall in a day or two which would delight and amaze him. I'd make a new record, but I was starting from nothing again; I needed an advance.

We left, and McCann went home and I went back to St Jute's and tried to sleep but couldn't, so sat up, in my high tower, on a vigil in which I looked out over part of the city and part of my life, remembering and regretting and re-living and sometimes smiling to myself, and realised that there were an awful lot of things in my life I hadn't got round to, and killing myself was just another one of them, and knew that I was doing a foolish thing, but that sometimes only foolish things worked.

In fact I was doing two foolish things, which is exactly one more than you're ever allowed to get away with at the same time ... but that couldn't be helped, because both giving it all away, and going off on an absurd, naive, immaturely romantic and probably doomed quest for an old love were required; they were the only possible things I could think of which might get me out of the rut, the inwardly spiralling groove I seemed to have been in for the past few years. So I had burned my bridges and I was leaping before I'd looked and I was already anticipating repenting at leisure. What am I doing? I asked myself.

Espedair Street. I worked on the song through the night, verse and chorus, not using a guitar or the keyboards but just singing it to myself in my head and gradually working it out. I wrote the words down on the back of Glen Webb's card, in tiny, tiny writing.

It wasn't really Espedair Street or Ferguslie Park or anywhere you could point to on a map; it was somewhere of a different sort, an amalgam of places and feelings and times, and a place only I knew about. The song was finished before it was time for me to go.

I left a saucer of milk and some crumbled bread and biscuits out for the pigeon, then went down to the crypt and gathered up the back-up master tape of all the songs and music I'd been working on over the past year or so. I should really have told McCann I might want to come back and use the studio for a wee while, but I'd forgotten. Maybe I could rent the place from him for a few weeks. Whatever. Not to worry.

I trimmed my beard and cut my hair. I stopped and thought for a minute, then found an old canvas bag and stuffed a few spare clothes into it. Taking the shooting stick/umbrella seemed like a good idea, too; I'd carry that. A bottle of blue Stolichnaya nestled into the clothes in the canvas bag, looking quite at home. Emergency rations.

I took a last look round the old place, feeling happy and sad and full of hope and dread all at once, then left by the Holland Street door and put the key back through the letterbox. It was a fresh, cold, dark morning and I walked quickly to Queen Street to catch the train.

The train left on time, its diesel loco chugging into the tunnel heading north out of Queen Street. We moved through the dark city, past housing schemes and old factories and stagnant canals to the suburbs, curving west towards the north bank of the river, which we neared after the city dropped behind. I saw the lights of the Erskine Bridge, near where I'd stood hitching in the rain, two days earlier. The lights of cars moved on the motorway on the Clyde's far bank.

The carriages were old; the train used steam heating, and the smell of it, damply warm and enveloping, filled me with an odd mixture of longing and contentment.

Between Dumbarton and Helensburgh, with the lights of Greenock glittering on the far side of the river, I looked back and saw the first hint of dawn in the clear skies over Glasgow.

The train climbed into the hills; Loch Long was dark, its mountains tree-lined. Navigation lights winked as the young day went from grey to steely-blue. We crossed over to the shores of Loch Lomond between Arrocher and Tarbet. The train laboured out of Arrochar and Tarbet station, percussive voice echoing in the hills, and we rumbled past the hotel I'd stayed in the night before. It was this train, twenty-four hours earlier, that had woken me.

The loch was blue, smooth, quiet under the line of mountains.

I passed a while singing 'Girl On A Train', and humming 'Chattanooga Choo-Choo' and 'Sentimental Journey', trying to remember the words.

Rannoch Moor was a desert of snow. The train startled a herd of forty or more deer, brown-black shapes leaping and running across the white. I went to the buffet, where the smell of steam was even stronger, and ate a bacon sandwich and drank a can of beer. Back at my seat I nibbled at a chocolate biscuit and watched as frozen Loch Trieg appeared way below us; the train slowly descended the mountainside to meet it. The sky was clouding over.

Ben Nevis stood lumplike, still mostly visible, over Fort William. I got out while the train waited in the town's station, ate a pie in the station buffet and bought a newspaper.

The train set out again, heading out the way it had come in, before swinging left for Mallaig. It crossed the Caledonian canal, then swept and wound its way along lochsides and through the hills and the tunnels and over viaducts and bridges, until — suddenly — there was a sea loch, shores matted with weed, waters diced and parcelled with the floating structures of a fish farm.

The line wiggled and twisted through a neck of land, then, in the midst of tumbled rock and tall, crowding trees set in dark flowerless masses of rhododendron bushes, the sea appeared, its horizon bordered by far masses of cliffs and mountains. I felt ashamed that I couldn't tell whether I was looking at islands in the distance, or parts of the mainland.

Then Arisaig at last, under high grey clouds and a fresh north wind. I'd been humming the new song to myself for parts of the journey, but now it suddenly changed and I found myself humming 'Cry About You':

Superstition. Rabbits' feet, blue blankets; a rosary. Something to hold onto and make you feel you weren't completely alone after all. So my song was my comfort and my heart was knocking at the door of my ribs like it wanted to get out, and I found a phonebox in the village and rang Glen Webb's office in Glasgow to get his sister's address, only to find he wasn't in that day and they didn't know where to get in touch with him.

I went to the nearest hotel and sat in the public bar, wondering what to do next. I asked the barman if he knew Jean Webb, but he didn't. This was a small village and I found it ominous. What if Glen Webb had got the name wrong? Why hadn't I waited, done some checking, for God's sake?

According to the timetable I'd picked up in Glasgow, there was a train — the same one, turned round, I guessed — leaving Mallaig at twenty-past twelve. It'd be here eighteen minutes later... but it would only take me as far as Fort William. Shit.

I ought to get on it anyway. This wasn't working out. I was a crazy man. I shouldn't be here; I'd done an insane thing and given everything I ever owned away, and I should get the hell down to London now and tell Tumber I was going to make another album and could I have lots of money immediately?

But maybe it was just fear. I knew I wanted to see her. Even if it was only for an hour, just a few minutes, I had to see her, just to say... oh God, what? I nearly asked you to come away with me a dozen years ago? I'm a lunatic who at the moment is totally penniless apart from what I've got in my pockets and some plastic money I can't afford to use and don't qualify for any more, so please let me stay with you, I'm very good with children, honest?

Insane, insane, insane. And how likely was it she was... unattached? Just her and an eight year old who'd probably take one look at me and run screaming. It didn't seem likely. She must have come here for a reason; some huge, quiet, kind Highland man with a soft voice and hard hands... Jesus, I could almost see him now...

But I still wanted to see her. I'd come here; I couldn't just turn back. Besides, she might hear I was here, after all; they can't get many six-six monsters stopping off in Arisaig in the middle of winter. And how would she feel if she knew I'd been here and not come to see her, if Glen was right about her being pleased to see me? But I knew it wasn't going to work; you just can't do things like this and get away with it. So why not leave now, with the dream at least still intact, so that you'll never know whether it might just have worked? Wouldn't that be salvaging something? Isn't that where the smart money would go? God, impossible to know what to do. I reached into the coat pocket where my change was. My fingers closed round a coin.

I thought, If it's heads, I'll stay here and look for her. If it's tails, I'll get up now and go to the station. Train to Fort William then train tomorrow — or even taxi if they'll take me that far — to Glasgow; London and Rick before teatime.

Heads I stay, tails I go.

I brought the coin out; it was a fifty pence piece. And it was tails.

I put it back in my pocket, in with the rest of the change. I finished my drink and took up my bag and took the glass back to the bar.

One thing about not knowing what to do, and tossing a coin to decide, having made up your mind you'll definitely do whatever the coin says: it sure as hell lets you know what you really want to do, if it says the wrong thing.

I left the bag with the barman, booked a room for the night and I went to the local post office, to ask where Jean Webb lived.

'Och aye; Mrs Keiller, aye, she said her maiden name was Webb.' The old lady in the post office seemed to be quite used to having hulking, brutish strangers ask after local women. 'She has the one wee lassie, that's right.'

'Yes, Dawn,' I said, still desperate to prove I knew them and I wasn't some homicidal sex maniac come to rape and murder them both. The old lady didn't seem bothered in the least.

'Aye, that's her name. They've a house at Back of Keppoch.'

'Is that far?'

'Och, no; just over the headland. A mile, perhaps.' The old lady looked at the clock above the counter. 'Of course, she'll be at work right now.'

'Oh.' What had I been thinking of? It hadn't occurred to me she'd be working. Idiot.

'Aye, Mrs Keiller works in the office at the fish farm, at Lochailort. Do you know where that is? You'll have passed it on your way.'

'Um, yes...

'Here, I'll show you on the map.'

I bought the map in the end. Mrs Gray— Elsie — said if I wanted I could phone the fish farm from there, if it was urgent. I declined the offer. I'd go to Jean's when she got back from work.

I sat in the bar, gazing out to the rocky confines of the sea loch beyond the roofs of Arisaig, sipping export shandies, because the last thing I wanted to be, when I saw Jean, was drunk.

I am a sentimental man, a weak man, a pliable man, and nobody is better at twisting me round their little finger than I am.

I am totally selfish, even when I'm being selfless. I give everything away, I come up here on a hopeful, hopeless mission of the heart, seeming to give all for love, but I'm not really. I've come here for, at the very least, absolution. I want Jean to confess me, to say that it's all all right, that I'm not really a bad man, that the last twelve, thirteen years haven't been wasted; oh God, she's not going to say, Stay with me and be my love, but she might put her hands on my poor fevered brow, she might let me kiss the ring. Absolution; forgiveness, hail Jean, full of grace...

We are all selfish. Sell up and go to the slums of Calcutta, work with lepers in the jungle... at my most cynical I ask whether even such things are not selfish, because it is easier for you to live with yourself having done that, knowing you have done all you could, rather than suffer the cramps of conscience. Throw yourself on the grenade; you do so knowing you are the hero, and there will be no more times when the terror of death might make you turn and flee.

But maybe I'm just a bad, cynical man.

So, Weird goes looking for his old love. Surrender. It looks like adventure but really it's hiding. Ah, Jayzuz, the ways we invent to get away from our responsibilities.

The only thinking animal on the goddamn planet, and what do we spend most of our time trying not to do?

Correct.

We join armies, we enter monasteries or nunneries, we adopt the party line, we believe what we read in ancient books or shit newspapers or what we're told by plastic politicians, and all we're ever trying to do is give somebody else the responsibility for thinking. Let us enter this order, obey that one; never mind we end up being told to massacre or torture or simply believe the most absurd thing we've ever heard; at least it's not all our fault.

Nothing to do with us, John; we just did what we was told...

And Love; isn't that just another route to the same thing?

I did it for the wife and kids. That's what it's all about isn't it, I mean? Sacrifice; work hard...

Ah, God, it's better than outright selfishness, spending all the money, beating the wife and terrorising the weans, but amn't I just using something similar to get away from my own responsibilities? Simulating my own financial death through a legal trick, going off on this ridiculous adventure... playing, just playing. Looking for a way out, a way back to the cradle and the milk-wet breast.

Who am I trying to kid?

(Answers on a postcard, please, to...)

The winter afternoon darkened.

I ate in the hotel, studying my newly bought map, humming my new tune and playing around with it. The map showed there was a walk round the coast from Arisaig to Back of Keppoch. I thought about taking that route to the address Mrs Gray had given me, but it was getting dark and I'd probably break my neck falling over some cliff. That would be ironic; putting my Will into effect while still alive and then dying the next day.

I'd take the main road and risk getting run over by a car instead.

I got to Jean's house just after four. It was new, a bungalow, one of about half a dozen under a group of pines, looking out over a curved beach and a rocky bay to the Sound of Sleat and the distant mountains of Skye.

The house was dark. I sat down on a wall, to wait. I hoped there was nobody else in any of the other houses, a couple of which had lights on, who'd look out and see me sitting there... then felt annoyed with myself, for being so easily embarrassed, so prone to guilt. I put my chin in my hand and tried to ponder the links between guilt and embarrassment.

I decided I wasn't smart enough to figure it out, not right now, anyway. But is there a song in it? That was the question. Never mind was there any truth in it; was there a song?

No idea. I sat on the wall and I sang silent songs to myself.

A car came along the road, lights bright in the gloaming. It stopped outside the house. Faces looked towards me. Somebody got out on the far side. I heard people talking, in the car. The person on the far side was talking to the driver and somebody else inside. I heard a young, female voice say, 'Wait a minute, then.'

A young girl walked round the car. Slim, dark, short haired; schoolbag, uniform. She walked right up to me, lifted her face to mine (I'd slid off the wall). 'Excuse me, are you Mr Weir?'

'Ah... I... yes.' Surprise. How did she know? It took a second or two for me to realise this must be Dawn. 'Are you...'

'Dawn. Pleased to meet you.' She put out her hand. I shook it; it felt tiny and fragile and warm. Dawn; her grandmother had described her as 'bright'. I smiled, remembering. She turned back to the car. 'It is; it's a friend of my mum's.'

'Right you are, Dawn. See you tomorrow.'

'Aye. Thank you; good night,' the girl said.

The car drove off. Dawn turned back to me. 'Would you like a cup of tea, Mr Weir?'

'Call me Daniel, please,' I said, inside the house. Dawn had made tea. She poked at the banked-up coal fire.

'All right. Would you excuse me a minute?' She went back through the kitchen. I sat, holding my cup of tea. The living room was a little bare, but warm. The house still smelled new; paint, new carpets. TV and video and hi-fi; a home computer on a shelf beside the TV. I saw these things with a sense of relief; they didn't seem too badly off, even though the room did have that vague air of containing only half the contents of another room, in another house, somewhere else.

Dawn came back struggling with a huge wicker basket full of chopped logs. I managed to put my teacup down without spilling any and jumped up to help her, far too late, as usual. 'Oh, thanks,' she said, as I helped her lower the basket to the hearthside. She chucked a couple of logs on to the fire. 'Mum should be back in a wee while. How's your tea?'

'It's fine,' I said, sitting down again. Dawn sat down too, straight-backed, in a seat. She was thinner than I'd expected, especially about the face. I tried to remember what her father had looked like but had only the vaguest impression, and even that somehow included a pair of overalls, whereas the one time I'd met him he'd been wearing a suit.

Dawn was looking at me. There was an uncanny sense of calm, almost serenity about her. It made me uncomfortable.

'How did you know it was me?' I asked her, breaking a silence only I seemed to find awkward.

'Mum described you,' she said. 'She's got all your records,' she added. 'You haven't made any recently, have you?'

'No, not for a while.'

'Why's that?'

I opened my mouth to speak, then couldn't. I closed it again. I put my cup down, suddenly consumed by a ridiculous urge to cry. I coughed and cleared my throat. 'That's a very good question,' I said. 'I think it was because I was... fed up. Fed up with ... recording, with music.' The urge to cry vanished as quickly as it had appeared. I sat there, looking at this calm, self-possessed kid, and felt about three years old. I shrugged. 'I don't know,' I admitted.

'Oh,' she said, politely, and sipped her tea. A car engine sounded outside: Dawn got up and left the room. Lights swung over the closed curtains of the living room. My heart started misbehaving again, thumping madly. Great; I was going to have a heart attack just sitting here. That should make for interesting legal complications if anybody contested the Will.

I heard the outside door open. I stood up, smoothed back my hair. Footsteps. Then, 'Hello, honey...'

'Mum...

'Mmwah' (the pronounced noise of a quick kiss). 'Look, can you put that lasagne in the microwave? I said I'd help decorate the hall; I've got to... What is it? What? Through... ?'

I cleared my throat. Jean came through the door into the room, looking puzzled, and a little concerned. I smiled, gave an awkward sort of wave with both hands, jerking them out from my body once, then back again. 'Hello... Jean.'

'Daniel...' She put her scarf and bag down on a chair, came up to me. 'Hello.' She laughed, hugged me. I hugged her back, smelling the perfume of her dark coat and her short, still wildly curly brown hair; a few tiny threads of silver in it now. She drew back, still holding my arms. Her face was a little fuller than I remembered, but it seemed to have matured, rather than aged. 'What are you doing here?'

Dawn sidled in through the door, looking bashful.

'I was nearby... I thought I'd drop in...' I said, and felt a quiet moment of despair, that the first thing I'd said to her was a lie.

She laughed, shaking her head, brought a handkerchief out of one jumper cuff, put it to her nose. 'Sorry.' She sneezed. 'I've a cold.' She looked up, eyes bright, shook her head again and said, 'Oh, this is good; it's so good to see you again. How are you? What have you been doing? Have you eaten yet? I've got to dash out... or you could...' She turned round to look at Dawn, leaning her back against the far wall, looking and not looking at 'Has Dawn...?'

'Dawn's given me some tea,' I said. 'I... I heard you say something about...'

'The hall.' Jean turned back to me. 'We're putting up the decorations tonight, for the dance tomorrow. Why don't you come along?' She patted me in the ribs with the back of her hand. 'You're just the height to reach up into the corners.' Before I could reply, she turned to Dawn. 'You want to come, love?

Dawn shook her head, smiling shyly, and looked down.

'Homework,' she said. 'My turn to go to Alison's.'

So we dropped Dawn at another house and headed towards the local community hall, in the village, in Jean's car. 'I thought you must have a car. You're not travelling by train, are you?'

'Um ... yes, yes, I am.'

'What, just you? I thought you'd have managers and minders and groupies and hangers-on and...'

'No, just me.'

'Well, it's great to see you again. Are you going to stay? We've got a spare room.

'Umm ... well, I thought I might. I did ask them to book me a room at the hotel.'

'What?' She sounded slightly shocked, almost insulted and thoroughly amused, all at the one time. 'Oh, we can't have that. If you don't stay with us people'll think we don't wash the sheets or something.'

'Well, I thought people might...'

But then we were there, and the car was parked. The sunset was really over, but a thunderously deep stain of red still lay across the furthest limit of the western sky. I looked out to it for a moment. Skye was somewhere out there, more felt than seen.

'Bonny place, isn't it?'

'Aye, it is that.' I looked at her. 'What brought you out here?'

'Friends,' she said, 'I know people here. What brought you?'

'Oh... I wanted to see you.' She was silent for a moment. 'Very good,' she said, and I could almost smell her nodding more than I could see her. 'Good. Right; come on in to the body of the kirk.'

We walked towards the village hall. 'Hope people don't mind me showing up...' I said.

'Why should they?' she said.

'I don't know. I worry about just... turning up.'

'Thank God you have. I'm a terrible blether, Daniel. I told people I knew you and I think they've been waiting for you to appear for about a year now. I was getting ready to explain that I only knew this famous rock star fairly well.' She squeezed my arm briefly as we went up the steps into the hall. 'And don't worry about staying with us; I've been trying to cultivate a reputation as a wicked woman and you're the first real chance I've had.'

I didn't get a chance to catch her expression as she said this, or say anything else, because then we were in the hall, bright with lights and full of people standing on tables and chairs, and full of tables and chairs anyway, and people were trailing coloured streamers and long unconcertinaed lengths of glittering decorations and pinning up puffballs of Santa Clauses and snowmen and twirling pointed stars, and there was a wee boy on a trike who was pedalling furiously round the place, in the open spaces of the wooden floor, tearing past people and ducking under tables and skidding round chairs, and people were laughing and shouting and throwing packets of drawing pins and reels of sticky tape about and music was playing.

I was introduced to a variety of people whose names I instantly forgot, and told where to hold up decorations. I did as I was told and then couldn't find anything else to do, as all the high decorations were put up, and so I just stood, I suppose, looking a little confused, in the midst of all this work and effort and hilarity and the wee boy whizzing round on his bike.

'Here; sit down out the way, Daniel,' Jean said, pointing me at a chair. 'You look confused.'

'It's funny; I come out here to the wilds and the wilderness, and I'm surrounded with all these people.' I laughed.

'Not put off, I hope?' She stood, arms crossed, looking down at me; indulgent, amused... and I don't know what else.

I rested one arm on a table by my side. 'No; not put off.'

'Can we tempt you to stay over Christmas... maybe even Hogmanay?' Her voice was a little lower, a little more measured than it had been.

I looked up at her. 'Oh... yes. Of course; Christmas... New Year...'I nodded.'Yes.That would be...if you don't...'

'We'd love to have you. How long can you stay?' I shook my head. 'Well... I don't know. I'll... Look, just ... I mean... as soon as... I mean I might...' I couldn't even think what it was I wanted to say, let alone start trying to say it. 'Oh,' I said, leaning back on the table, temporarily exhausted by the effort of it all. 'Kick me out when you want.'

'Daniel,' she said, smiling very seriously and shaking her head, 'I wouldn't kick you out of anything.' Then she went back to help with the decorations.

I leant my elbow on the table again, and felt it tip. I looked down at one of the legs. I patted my pockets, looking for a wedge.

I found a piece of plastic, cracked it in half and slid it underneath the leg, steadying it.

It was only after I'd sat up again and done a double-take and looked down that I realised what I'd used was my platinum Amex card... I swear .

I look up again, laughing quietly to myself. The wean on the trike races past.

They've tied great long lengths of different coloured paper streamers to the back of the wee boy's bicycle. He's still speeding round and round the hall, past people and between sets of chairs, head down and pedalling as hard as he can, but now he's got a long, swirling train of colour streaming after him.

On the tape machine somebody is playing the Northumbrian Pipes, and in the midst of that simple, tootling, jigging music, I'm sitting back, rubbing my bristly chin and feeling happy again, and wondering if it'll last, and watching the bairn on the trike, the streamers flowing behind him like a rainbow wake, whizzing round and round and round.