William McIlvanney - Strange Loyalties

‘No,’ John Strachan said. ‘You’re not going to get them to man the barricades with that one. Death to the telly-owning oppressors.’

‘Do you know him yourself?

‘Dave Lyons? I’ve seen him. But I don’t know him personally.’

‘So you obviously wouldn’t know his phone number.’

John Strachan looked at me and started to laugh. He shook his head.

‘You’re a very indirect man, aren’t you? What are you going to do? Phone up and say, “Hullo, it’s about your broken telly”?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I wouldn’t be as abrupt as that. I could phone up and say, “Hullo. It’s nice to meet you. Now it’s about your broken telly.”’

‘Oh, that’s fine,’ he said. ‘Given that reassurance, I can help. I know somebody who should have the number. I’ll try him.’

He went out to the pay-phone in the hall and I crossed to get us in another drink. Things were picking up at the bar. Gestures were becoming more expansive. Three separate groups had connected up loosely. I was introduced to one of the Danish residents. His name was Søren, which endeared him to me immediately. But unlike Kierkegaard, he seemed never to have experienced angst. He had a face like a baby which has just discovered tickling. His mood was infectious. A late night in the Bushfield looked to be in the offing.

John Strachan came back with the number and the address. The sight of a fresh pint seemed to make him nervous. He would have to be getting back to Mhairi. I thanked him for his help and we talked a little longer and I told him how much the painting of the five men at the table had interested me.

When he was gone, I went to the pay-phone and dialled the number he had given me. The voice that answered was strong and self-assured.

‘Yes?’

‘Hullo. Is that Mr Lyons?’

‘It is. Who’s this?’

‘I’m sorry to bother you. My name’s Jack Laidlaw. I’m Scott Laidlaw’s brother.’

‘Ah, hullo. I was really sorry to hear about Scott. It was a terrible loss.’

‘Yes. I was wondering, Mr Lyons. I’m in Ayrshire just now. I suppose you could call it a kind of sentimental journey. I’m just trying to sort out my feelings about Scott’s death. And I wondered if I could talk to you some time this week.’

He hadn’t sounded like the sort of man who would hesitate as long as this.

‘Excuse me. Where did you get my number?’

It was my turn to hesitate, since I didn’t know where his number had come from. I could hear what I thought was Mozart faintly in the background.

‘I was going through some of Scott’s papers. And your number came up.’ I was embarrassed by the way it came out. I had made it sound rather ominous: this is death on the line. ‘I mean, I found your telephone number. And I thought, as a friend of Scott’s, you were somebody I would like to talk to. I had lost touch a bit with him at the end. I’d just like to see him more clearly.’

‘Papers?’ he said. ‘What kind of papers were these?’

It was a strange question, not to say impertinent. That interested me. It seemed to imply that there might be papers Dave Lyons would be worried about. My casually evasive movement might have bumped against something solid. I decided to move carefully.

‘Just some of Scott’s things.’

‘Well, I’m very busy this week. Normally, I’d be in Edinburgh and it wouldn’t be possible anyway. But I’m working from home this week. I’m sorry but the schedule’s pretty tight.’

‘It wouldn’t take long, Mr Lyons. There’s something in particular I’d like to talk to you about.’

‘What would that be?’

Papers, significant papers, I hoped my pause was suggesting. ‘It’s a bit complicated to go into on the phone.’

I suspected his silence was debating whether it was better to close me off now or to check out what I thought it was I had. There was something here. I sensed it.

‘Tell you what. I really am busy this week. There’s not much time I can give you. But tomorrow. I have a business lunch. At Cranston Castle House. If you’re there round about twoish. We can maybe have a few minutes. But only a few. It’s the best I can do.’

‘It’s great,’ I said. ‘I appreciate it.’

‘You know where it is?’

‘Not exactly. But I’ll find it.’

‘All right, then. I’ll see you then.’

I was looking forward to meeting him. When I came back into the lounge, my evening went into a higher gear. The talk covered a lot of ground fast. The Happy Dane and I found we both liked Kris Kristofferson. A stranger offered me his condolences and told me that an old man called Sanny Wilson had met Scott in a bar the night he was killed. Sanny had told the man something he remembered. Scott had said at one point, ‘The man in the green coat has died again.’ I was intrigued. The man said that, if I was still here tomorrow night, he would try and bring Sanny Wilson in to tell me about it himself. I said I thought I would still be here.

After closing time, the residents stayed on in the lounge. A guitar-player who had come in after doing a gig in another pub decided to become a resident as well for the night. We had a sing-song. In the pauses during it, I had a long, rambling, self-revelatory conversation with Katie. I sang ‘Cycles’ when it was first my turn. Later, when the mood had been established by the right amount of alcohol, I gave them ‘The Learig’, perhaps Scott’s favourite song. As a reward, I received a lot of advice on how to locate Cranston Castle House.

I might have been in the lounge yet, so good was it, except that I wanted to keep some brain-cells for tomorrow. I took my farewell of everybody as if I had known them all my life. Before going upstairs, I went out to the car and collected Scott’s painting and the bottle of whisky. It seemed a matter of tremendous urgency there and then. When I came back in, I had a brilliant idea. It did not occur to me at the time that it was the same kind of brilliant idea that Caesar had when he decided to go to the Capitol. I rang Jan’s number. Fortunately, no one answered.

In my room, I unveiled Scott’s painting and set it up against the wall. I stripped and sat on the bed and looked at those images of Scotland. I opened the bottle of whisky. I communed with art and had a long conversation with the Antiquary, recalling old times. I put out the light and went to bed.

I woke up suddenly in the darkness with two thoughts, distinct as nightlights, in my mind.

The man in the painting of the five at supper was wearing a green coat.

How do you die twice?

A kitchen in the morning: it can be a garden of the senses. The sunlight is shafting in through the window, as if William Blake has been given the commission today and is announcing the sacredness of the everyday. The coffee-percolator is putt-putting like the pulse of normalcy. The aroma it gives off is wandering aimlessly somewhere, inviting anyone to follow. A woman stands in the sunshine, chopping vegetables. The rich smells they release make a meadow in a room. A man sits at a table, drinking coffee. The warmed clay of the cup in his hand warms him fraternally, telling him we’re all part of the same process. I’ll be your cup today, you can be someone else’s later. The man has eaten a good breakfast. A dog drowses on the sunlit floor, occasionally opening one lazy eye on the world. The room around the woman and the man is sustaining. The feeling it engenders is of hope, old failures buried, new possibilities to be born. Perhaps God has taken the twice bitten apple from Adam and Eve, gently healed it with his hand, hung it back up on the tree, said, ‘Try again.’ That kind of feeling.

If place were only place and the present only the present, but we invade them with the past, complicate them with our futures. For I was the man at the table and Katie the woman at the worktop. To individualise the moment is not perhaps, as we think, to save it but to lose it. The room was still the room but we were an unhappy woman and an angry man within it. That melted it into flux. If the world was a new red apple, I was the worm inside.