Laidlaw

4

The boy had slept. That amazing fact alone put him back inside his own body. It was a terrifying place to be. He woke lying awkwardly against the wall where exhaustion had left him. Consciousness had burned out suddenly like a bulb. Now just as suddenly it had renewed itself. He was still himself.

The scabby wall against which his head was leaning seemed to be pressing against him, as if about to topple. He felt pinned against it by the impossibility of ever getting up and doing something. The enormity of what he had done had hardened into fact during the night. He knew it was there and inescapable.

Yet strangely it was still not a part of him. The feeling wasn’t so much that of having done something as of having been part of an event outside himself, like an explosion. He saw her body, the odd splay of her legs, the head cocked in an absurdly human way, the position into which the blast had thrown her. He felt pity for her.

But he was left wondering what she was doing there. Something had happened of which he was only a part. What was it that had happened? He didn’t know. He knew that he was in a strange room, that he was dirty, that he was very cold. To get from where he was to what had happened seemed impossible. But it was what he had to do.

It didn’t help to close his eyes again and try to hide. The terrible fever was finished. The luxury of being overwhelmed by guilt was gone. He had thought he was drowning in it but instead it had beached him here. He was left to go on living, to find out how he could inhabit what had happened.

He tried to stand up and found that he could. The ache of his legs was things becoming possible again. He watched his hands automatically dusting his trousers. He started to walk. The stairs which were completely strange to him gave him the sensation of leaving a place without ever having been in it. He had to be careful of the broken bannister. Light showed through the corrugated iron sheeting across the outside door, where he had forced it to get in. The metal bent before his hand and he looked out.

The street was empty. He stepped outside. The sunlight dispelled his purpose for a moment. He stood baffled in the empty street, just a part of the dust and silence. It was very difficult to know whether to go right or left. He walked to the right. Within yards, he came out onto a road junction. It was then he recognised where he was.

Across from him was Glasgow Green. The Clyde was over a hundred yards away on his right. Being in a real place was being where people could find you. The knowledge frightened him and the fear gave him an arbitrary purpose. He crossed the road.

Outside the Green was a phone-box. He went into it. The door swung shut behind him, nudging him into the booth. He lifted the receiver and held it to his ear. The phone was working. He put it back down. The word ‘Cumbie’ was written with black paint on the metal fixture where you put in the money. Above it was written ‘Blackie’. Was ‘Blackie’ the name of another gang? Was it somebody’s nickname? He took change out of his pocket and laid it on the small black ledge. He lifted the receiver and put it to his ear again.

He dialled a number without having to remember it. When he heard it ringing, he was surprised that he had made something happen. He stood with patient dread, trapped inside the silence of the city while the phone drilled in the distance, trying to break his isolation.