Doug Johnstone - Hit and run

‘I know she found out about you and the widow from Dean. She’s upset, how do you think she is? But she still cares about you.’

Billy looked at Jeanie, now settled in a comfortable heap at his feet.

‘Look, I’ll go back to hospital, but I want to take Jeanie for a walk first.’

Charlie frowned. ‘Don’t be stupid, I can do that once you’re back at ERI.’

‘No, I want to do it. Come with me.’

Charlie was about to argue but Billy was up and walking towards the door. He clicked his fingers. Jeanie got up and followed him. Charlie shook his head and made after them both.

Billy panted with every upward step, sweat slicking his forehead, the bandages on his head itchy and tight.

‘This is crazy,’ Charlie said.

He’d moaned and complained all the way from the pub. Past the Commie Pool, down the road, across the roundabout away from Queen’s Drive and up the hill.

‘You have to get back to hospital, Bro, I’m not fucking joking when I say this could kill you.’

‘I know, you’re only concerned for my health.’

Charlie stopped behind him. ‘Don’t say it like that. I am.’

Billy didn’t stop or look back. ‘I know you are.’

Jeanie was up ahead sniffing around the gorse at the edge of the path, nose to the ground, following a hidden scent.

‘I know what you’re doing,’ Charlie shouted after Billy. ‘It’s ridiculous. We all went through it, not just you.’

Billy stopped with a sigh and looked back down the path.

‘Have you ever been up the Radical Road before?’ He nodded up the slope.

‘You know I haven’t.’

‘Well, come on.’ Billy turned. ‘It’s a nice view.’

Charlie stood for a moment then followed his brother up the hill.

‘Fuck’s sake,’ he said under his breath.

He caught up in a few strides, Billy still doing a slow shuffle forwards, trying to catch his breath.

‘Please come with me to hospital.’

‘Stop asking me,’ Billy said, determination in his voice. ‘I will once we’ve done this.’

‘Done what, exactly?’

Billy didn’t answer.

They trudged on in silence. It was still light enough to see where they were going, even at one o’clock in the morning. Crazy Scottish summertime. The heat of the day still simmered over the land, refusing to leave completely. It was never like this. The weather couldn’t last, it would break soon. There wasn’t a breath of wind, the closeness bringing earthy smells to Billy’s nose, clogging his mind. He was on the alert for that burning smell, the one that seemed to indicate a seizure or whatever it was on the way. That and the flashes in the corner of his eye. He felt tremors ripple through his body as he thought about it, anticipation of the big one, another wave of blood into his synapses that would end it all.

The path flattened as they reached the top and Billy stopped for more rest. The solemn cliffs to their right were dark, solid witnesses to all his stupidity. The slope down to their left was as dramatic as ever, tangles of gorse blossom seeming to hum in the thick air. The sky was a viscous violet, occasional stars punching through the blanket, faint glimmers from a time before human struggle.

‘It’s beautiful up here,’ Billy said. He eased himself on to a large rock, feeling the uneven stone against his buttocks. ‘So peaceful.’

Charlie stared at Billy as he tried to get comfortable on the rock.

‘You’re really suffering, aren’t you, Bro?’

Billy rubbed at his bandages and smiled, but kept looking out at the city.

‘You noticed?’

There was only the faint shush of traffic up and down the streets running south out of the city centre. Occasionally a car or taxi would sputter up Queen’s Drive, moving down a gear as they ploughed up the slope, past the small clump of trees where it happened, shifting back up a gear and away as they levelled off and headed for the roundabout.

Billy found his attention drawn by them. He couldn’t take his eyes off the headlights, the spreading lances of clarity that struck out from the front of each car, cutting through the half-light, paving the way for a tonne and a half of metal and plastic to power along, hoping nothing would get in the way.

He was aware of Charlie watching him as he gazed at the road, but couldn’t drag his eyes away. He was unable to control himself. He had been unable to control himself ever since it happened.

‘We fucked up,’ Charlie said.

Billy was engrossed in watching another taxi chugging up the hill far below.

‘I said we fucked up.’

Billy held his breath until the taxi had passed the copse of trees.

‘Yes, we did.’

He raised his eyes to stare across the city again. The castle looked fake, like a toy fort.

‘I’m sorry,’ Charlie said. ‘Is that what you want to hear?’

The arteries of traffic and people that criss-crossed the city glimmered yellow, carrying life and hopes and fears in every direction. Billy wondered what it would be like, to be down there with them. To be part of something again.

Charlie moved round until he was standing in front of Billy. Jeanie was snuffling somewhere over near the cliffs behind, he could hear her.

‘Look at me,’ Charlie said.

Billy slowly turned to look at Charlie’s face. It was hidden in shadow, dark crevices around the eyes.

‘I’m sorry.’

Billy stared at his brother’s face for a long time.

‘So am I.’

He looked down. Charlie was only a couple of feet away from the edge. A hundred feet of scree and gorse behind him.

‘I don’t know what I was thinking,’ Billy said. ‘With Adele.’

‘You weren’t yourself.’

‘Zoe must hate me.’

‘She doesn’t hate you.’

A hard shove to the chest now would be murder. Charlie would never survive the fall.

‘Have you talked about me?’

‘Of course. We’ve been worried sick.’

‘I guess she was upset after she found out about Adele.’

‘Bro, you have no idea. She was in a total state.’

Billy couldn’t see his brother’s eyes properly, just dark pools of shade.

‘But you calmed her down?’

‘What are brothers for?’

Billy felt a smile spread on his lips. ‘Good question. What are brothers for?’

‘Looking out for each other, that’s what.’

Billy could tell from the way Charlie’s facial muscles tightened that he was smiling too. Two brothers, having a heart to heart, smiling away.

‘Especially me and you,’ Charlie said. ‘Since Mum and everything.’

Billy narrowed his eyes, trying to look at Charlie’s face, but the thin light made it impossible to make anything out.

‘If I can’t trust you, I can’t trust anyone,’ he said.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

Billy looked down at Queen’s Drive, a small car plugging its way up the slope towards the trees. Someone heading home after a great night out, home to bed, to sleep and wake tomorrow refreshed.

Billy remembered Charlie with his arm round Zoe, both of them naked in bed. The contented looks on their faces, not a care in the world.

He turned to his brother.

‘Tell me honestly, Charlie. Did you feel a pulse on Frank Whitehouse?’

Charlie put a hand on Billy’s shoulder. Billy’s arm and chest muscles twitched.

‘I swear to God I didn’t.’

‘Swear on Mum’s grave.’

‘I swear on Mum’s grave I thought he was dead.’

‘Anything else you want to tell me?’ It was as if someone else had said the words, but they came out of Billy’s mouth.

‘Like what?’

‘Like anything.’

No talking, just the rumble of the city at Charlie’s back.