“Your background check came back spotless,” said the young man interviewing Stefan.

“Well, in UK terms, I’m only a month old,” he answered.

“Do you have a National Insurance Number?”

“I contacted them, and they said they couldn’t give me one until I had a job.”

“Ah, well you can’t start work until you have a National Insurance Number.”

Stefan looked at the man, perplexed.

‘Nevermind,” said the interviewer, “you can get a temporary one while they sort that out.” The man put his application in a folder and closed it. “I think you’d make a great addition to the team. There are just a few final tests we have to complete to see if you’re the right fit for the Sprechen-Z Holdings Limited International Family of Companies.”

“Okay,” said Stefan, following the interviewer, humming “Consider Yourself at Home”. They walked into a small room containing one small desk.

“Could you please sit here?” asked the man. Stefan sat, and the man took out a large set of callipers. He measured the distance from Stefan’s head to the desk in front of him, the distance from his head to the back of his chair, and the angle of the bend in his legs. “Could you please reach for the papers in front of you?” Stefan did, and the man took precise measurements of each movement. “Right handed?” he asked. Stefan shook his head no, and held up his left. The man gave a look of consternation, but continued on, now using a tape measure.

He finished his calculations in a large binder. “This is just about perfect,” he said. “I think you’ll be a good fit in our organisation. Just one last test.” Stefan followed him to another room, even smaller, where the man sat him in front of a monitor flashing tiny orange characters and strapped an operator’s headset to his head. “There you go.”

“What am I supposed to do?” asked Stefan.

“Oh, nothing. Just stare at the screen.”

Stefan stared. The man left the room, and Stefan kept staring. His eyes glazed over, and his mind wandered back to the recording studio in Canada. He felt a pang for his days of high-paid, specialised work. It embarrassed him to go back into the workplace with no transferable skills.

The flashing orange figures on the screen had a mesmerising effect, and Stefan found himself drifting further backward through his life. He was eight years old again, in the kitchen with his mother. “Just keep studying,” she said, as she shut the door behind her. Men banged on the front door and shouted at her through it . “I’ll teach my own goddamned son if I want to!” she yelled back. “Just try to stop me!”

“Hello?” said the interviewer. Stefan snapped back to the present.

“How long have I been sitting here?”

“Three hours,” said the man, shining a light into his eyes and looking closely at them. “Excellent. No bleeding.” The man straightened up and extended his hand. “You’re hired. Welcome to the family.”

“Thank you,” said Stefan, shaking the man’s hand. “What exactly do you do here?”

“We run a mobile phone network.”

“Oh.” He was about to mention his difficulty with telephones, but thought better of it.

~

The next day, he woke up early and filled the tub using the shower head. The result was a tub filled with strata of hot and cold water, but it did the job. Stefan did his best to iron a shirt—not really knowing how—and managed to leave the house in time to catch the bus for work. The second floor of the bus was jammed with boys and girls in blazers and ties. He looked at them as he tried to figure out how to knot his own tie, ashamed to think that his mother had always done it for him.

He sniffed, conscious of smoke. He looked to the back of the bus, where a group of boys about twelve years old slouched down in their seats, smoking. Another held a lighter under a crinkled piece of foil, cooking something.

He spotted a familiar landmark outside and rang the bell. The driver stopped, and Stefan descended the stairs and got off the bus, realising once he did that he was still several blocks away from the office. The rest of the walk was a pleasant one, beside a small river with water the colour of ale, through a section of town that was a mix of chunky old buildings and featureless industrial blocks.

He reached his office five minutes late and rushed into the huge stone building, which looked like a cross between a church and a munitions building. He joined a large group of new employees with name-tags gathered in the lobby. A young woman in a business suit with a male counterpart raised her hands and addressed them. “Welcome,” she said, “to Orientation Day!” She turned and pointed ahead with both hands, and the recruits followed her.

In a large room, they were broken into teams, then given a small pad of paper covered in small blocks—a litany of personal particulars they were asked to provide about their work histories and education. Stefan had no answers to fit many of the questions, and had to leave their boxes blank.

One by one, they were called out of the room. When Stefan’s turn came, he was taken to a room where someone took his picture, rolled his fingers in ink then onto a sheet of paper, then scraped a small piece of skin from the inside of his mouth and put it into a plastic vial. Like the others, he returned to the conference room with a plastic ID card featuring his pale and surprised-looking face.

The next hour was devoted to games designed to teach them about the organisation’s structure (he did not do well), and show them the power of developing strong brand recognition. With a war cry of “Service first and last!”, the recruits were released to their various departments. Stefan was hired, he discovered, for the Outstanding Team. His initial pleasure at this evaporated when he realised that the term was a euphemism for “Collections Department”.

A trainer deposited him into the care of Jenny, his “line manager”. The supervisor, she told him, was away in Greece on holiday. If he had any questions, he was to ask her. She was about to leave, but he stopped her and asked what he was supposed to do.

“You mean they didn’t—?” she said, then snorted angrily. She looked up at him and shook her ginger bob of hair. “I don’t know why they spend all that money on that nonsense then send you down here without a clue about how to do the job we hired you for.”

“Sorry,” said Stefan.

“Ach,” she said, “it’s not your fault. Come on, I’ll get you started.” She then led him through a labyrinthine system for following up on overdue mobile accounts, which involved correlating various information stored on a machine with a small yellow monitor like a goldfish bowl in a frame, a wall of filing cabinet drawers, and a metal chest full of what looked like rifle rounds, but turned out to be microfilm. At the end of her description of the process, Stefan thanked her, and asked where the bathroom was. “Bathroom,” she laughed, “you want a bath? The toilets are over there.” He thanked her again, walked hurriedly to the toilet, locked himself in a cubicle, and threw up.

He hadn’t absorbed any of what the woman said. I’m a dummy, he thought, a total idiot. He felt nervous about going back to his desk, and felt his throat choking up. I won’t be able to pay my rent. I won’t be able to eat. I’m stupid and I’m going to die. A final plea popped into his mind—Mommy!—a word so repellent to him it drove him back onto his feet and out to the office.

“Jenny,” said Stefan, “I have no idea about any of what you said. Could you go through that again?”

“Oh,” she said, “sorry. I’ve been doing this for twenty years. I forget it’s complicated when you’re new. Let’s go over it again. In a week, you’ll be doing it in your sleep. God knows we do.” He laughed, relieved. “Would you like a chocolate?” she asked him, pointing to her desk. The half-dozen women in his section all had boxes of chocolate on their desks.

“No thanks,” said Stefan, “but do you have any gum?”

~

Over the next few weeks, life fell into a pattern. Stefan enjoyed the simplicity of it: he got up early in the morning, ironed a shirt while the bath filled, washed, made coffee, and read the newspaper on the bus to work. Mornings went quickly, then he ate his lunch alone in the canteen. Then he finished off the day and went home, ate, and went to bed.

The women in his section were friendly to him and eager to help him, but their pack was largely impenetrable, having developed over decades. People like him came and went, but they stayed. They moved together like a flock of birds, going outside to smoke, going to lunch, then leaving to go home to their families when five o’clock came. At the moment, they were away for a retirement lunch. Most of them resented the company, but were happy to eat and drink at its expense when another of them broke free.

Stefan slid his card through the punch-clock, finished his lunch break. He sat down at his desk, wading back into the set of files he’d left. The process of following up on overdue accounts was straightforward now. They issued letters which sometimes came back with payment, and just as often didn’t. Some customers contested their charges, some moved without remembering to update their mailing address, and others did their best to evade having to pay. But something about the file in front of Stefan perplexed him. The subscriber hadn’t made his payments for two months, but that was nothing unusual.

The name, he thought. Something about the name seemed familiar. He looked at the newspaper on his desk. The headline read “Police probe city developer’s death plunge”. The copy underneath elaborated, describing the inquiry into the death of a wealthy businessman involved in redeveloping parts of the city. The developer’s name, Reginald Mackenzie, was the same as the name on the invoice in front of him.

When the women returned from their lunch, wobbling back to their desks, Stefan approached his line manager. “Jenny,” he said, “what do we do if someone dies?”

“Depends,” she answered.

Stefan held up the newspaper.

“Oh no,” she said. “If it’s a suspicious death, the police get involved. Och, it’s such a hassle.” She stopped to think. “But that was back in June. They normally would have contacted us by now.”

“Yeah,” said Stefan, “here’s the funny thing: someone’s still making calls on the phone.”

“So the police—?”

“Didn’t find the phone on him. Someone else must have found it.”

“Oh help,” sighed Jenny.

“Can I take this case?” he asked. “My numbers are way up. I’ve processed enough cases for the next month.”

“Well,” said Jenny, “I don’t know. The supervisor’s away. You’d have to ask—” She stopped and shook her head. “I can’t.”

“What?”

“I’d have to go before the directors,” she said. “And I don’t want to do that.”

“I’ll do it,” said Stefan.

Jenny looked at him, surprised. “If you want to. But I can’t go with you.”

Stefan didn’t understand what the issue was. “Okay. Just tell me where to go.”

“I’ll take you,” she said, “but I won’t go in.”

He nodded, collected the file from his desk, and followed her. She led them down several halls, up a grand old staircase, then to a door.

“They’re up there,” she said.

“What should I do?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen them myself. Few people have. I hear they brought them here when the company bought the property, and they’ve never been down from there since. Other people say they used to belong to the last company that was in this building. Nobody knows how old they are.”

“What do they do?”

“Nobody knows that, either. But it’s very important. It’s very expensive to keep them.”

“Okay,” said Stefan, straightening his tie and organising his files, “I’m going up.”

“Good luck,” said Jenny.

Stefan opened the door, revealing a small, narrow staircase. The stairs were old, worn wood, with a green carpet running up their middle. The door closed behind him, leaving him in the pale light of the oil lamps fixed to the walls. The air was cold. He climbed for what seemed like an especially long time. Eventually, he reached a thick wooden door covered in intricate carvings of stags, armour, crowns, unicorns, and twisting, snakelike creatures.

With effort, he opened the door and stepped into the semi-darkness of what he took for an attic or a chapel. He shivered, and squinted, trying to get his bearings. Something across the room moved slowly. A lone lamp lit, and a tall man with a long face and white hair turned a key to raise the flame slightly. He sat at a long, heavy wooden desk with eight other figures. Some were short, some average, others round and fat, but they all wore the same white hair and dusty grey clothes of no discernible age or fashion. Before them were opened huge books, and each had a pen beside him, rested in an inkwell.

The tall man pursed his lips and took an eternity to wheeze the word “What?”

“I was working on my files this morning—I work on the Outstanding Team, I’m new here—and I came across this case,” said Stefan. His words felt like they were coming out at a hummingbird’s pace. “It might be a suicide. See, the police didn’t find the mob—”

The tall man held up his hand, and Stefan stopped speaking. The man turned his head to one side then the other, looking at the other directors, who returned his gaze. He turned back to Stefan. “Investigate,” the man articulated carefully.

“Myself? Thanks. I’ll let you know what I—”

The man raised his hand again. “Go.”

“Right,” said Stefan. “Thanks. I’ll, um, I’ll go now. Thanks.” He turned, slipping on the dusty floor, and exited through the door, which was still closing. He ran down the stairs, back to Jenny.

“They asked me to investigate!” he said.

“Look at you,” she said. “I’m proud. You’re one of those ambitious types. You won’t be in our section for long. So what are you going to do first?”

Stefan’s face fell. “I have to call the number.”

~

The next afternoon, Stefan still hadn’t made the call. He sat at his desk, looking at the phone in front of him. He’d managed not to make any calls so far, but now it was inevitable. He reached for the phone and noticed his hand shaking. He’d made telephone calls before. It was awkward, trying to hear and speak with the constant interruption of the second voice, and he was embarrassed that he came across badly, but he managed nonetheless. He wasn’t sure why he felt so nervous now.

He pulled his arm back, then lunged, picking up the handset. He looked at the number, which by now he’d memorised, and dialled it. He pressed the handset to his head, ready to listen carefully.

The line rang several times, and he exhaled. Perhaps there wouldn’t be an answer. Then he heard a click. “Hello?” he said.

“Hello?” said a voice.

One single voice.

“Hello?” he asked again.

“Hello,” replied the other voice. He knew the sound of it intimately. “It’s you,” he said. He was about to launch into all the questions he’d bottled up for years, but the phone started to buzz, then to feed back, until the sound became an unbearable screech. He had to slam the phone into its cradle to stop the noise.

~

On the weekend, Stefan grew restless. He was determined to make the best of a rare sunny day. He caught a bus to Portobello, and spent the afternoon walking along the shore of the Firth of Forth, an offshoot of the North Sea that jutted into Scotland’s east coast.

The days were getting shorter. The sun lowered, turning the water into molten bronze. Stefan left the shore, his face still warm and his lungs full of sea air, and walked back toward his bus stop. He detoured into a chippy next to the stop and ordered a fish supper. “Salt and sauce?” asked the man behind the counter. Stefan agreed, and the man slapped a large piece of fish like a battered tie onto a square of paper, shovelled chips onto it, waved a can-like salt shaker over the meal, then squirted vinegary brown sauce back and forth over it. He deftly wrapped the corners up, twisted them, made it all into a hot packet, and gave this to Stefan in exchange for a few pound coins.

Stefan carefully unwrapped part of the package and ate chips as he walked to the bus stop. As he waited, a group of young men walked into the chip shop. One of them talked animatedly, dominating the conversation. Stefan’s bus pulled up as the men left the shop again. He stepped onto the bus and dropped his coins into the collection box, just as another of the men spoke. “No, no, no,” the man argued with the loud friend, “that’s not true. That wasn’t how it happened.” The voice from the phone. Stefan turned to look as the door closed behind him and caught a glimpse of the speaker—tall, slim, with a wild brush of black hair. Ask the driver to stop! he thought. But he hesitated, and they pulled away from the kerb. Stefan rushed to the back of the bus, balancing his supper in his hand, and watched the figures recede from sight. What if that was The One, he thought, and I just missed him?

That night, he lay awake in his small bed, waiting anxiously to get back to work.

Fourteen

Peter Hailes

Stefan wondered if showering would have any effect, he was doing it so quickly. Bubbles flew onto the tiles as he slicked the soap from his body. He jabbed his finger at the shower’s “On/Off” button and ripped his towel in half as he yanked it from the hook on the wall. Today, that didn’t bother him. He scrubbed himself with both halves as he walked through the flat, dropping them when he reached the clothes he’d thrown on his bed for today. His shirt was wrinkled terribly, so he held it over the kettle while it boiled, then dressed and poured half of the boiling water into a cup of instant coffee and the other half into a bowl of instant porridge.

He gave up on breakfast. This morning his stomach was not suited to food. It was a zoo’s butterfly room during mating season. He swung a tie over his neck (Did I wear this tie yesterday? Do I care?), cinched it tight, and headed out the door.

The bus arrived at glacial speed then stopped every four feet as it travelled. Stefan tried to be patient. He looked out the top floor windows. He looked around at the other riders. The children in blazers with posh accents didn’t intimidate him today. They weren’t smarter or more important than him, they just had accents. He spoke quietly to himself, finally having a hang of the sound of their voices. “Mummy, Mummy, my pony is dead!” The kids in the back seats with the rougher dialect measured drugs into bags for the day’s deals, and Stefan found it cute. Tomorrow’s entrepreneurs today.

At the next stop the youngsters stampeded out, and the bus continued on to the edges of the city. Stefan shot his finger like an arrow, ringing the bell as soon as the office came into sight. He raced down the stairs and leapt out the door, saying “Thank you, Driver,” as he’d heard others say (adopting the accent, too).

“Morning, Jenny,” he said as he jumped into his chair.

“You’re early today,” she said.

“Just anxious to get started on my investigation.”

“Ah, right, The Case of the Missing Mobile.” She sat one half of her round bum on his desk. “So how are you going to find out who has it?”

Stefan blinked.

“I imagine you’re going to want to talk to Tech.”

“Yes, right. That’s what I was thinking.”

Jenny laughed. “And how are you going to get them to respond to you?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I put in for a new keyboard last winter. I got an e-mail back saying they were busy this year.” She stood up. “I’m sure you’ll think of something. After all, you’re the only person I know who’s ever seen the directors.”

“Where’s their office?” he asked.

“There’s a steel door at the back of the building. They’re behind that.”

Stefan thanked her. He logged onto the company e-mail system, found the Tech department in the directory, and sent a message to them. They didn’t reply. He sent another message, asking if they’d received his first one. Again, no reply. He wrote a third time, mentioning that the directors has asked him to investigate, and asked if they would help him. No reply. He sent another: “Hello?”

Half an hour later, he received a reply: “Bugger off.”

He went outside to look for the door to the Tech department. He had to punch out to leave the building, but he didn’t care about that. He followed one wall around to the back, where he found a steel panel about the size of a door, but with no markings and no handle. He knocked, timidly at first, then harder and harder, but the door was too dense to convey any sound to the other side. There also seemed to be a distinct lack of anyone listening.

“Excuse me,” said someone behind him, startling him. The man wore matching blue work trousers, jacket, and cap. In his arms was an open cardboard box containing a big silver bag marked “Coffee”. The man stepped up to the door, putting his hands on his hips, which made an imposing shape of his broad, muscular frame.

“What?” said a voice from no discernible direction.

“Catering,” answered the man, unbothered by the abruptness of the voice.

“Can I give you a hand with this?” Stefan asked the man.

“Sure, if you want to get one of those canisters,” said the man, nodding his head toward his truck. Stefan went to it and found several fountain drink refill canisters like small torpedoes. He tried to lift one marked “Irn-Bru” , but it was too heavy. He rolled it on its end to the open door, then down a steeply sloped corridor. The only direction sign he saw was marked “Bomb shelter” in vintage lettering. He followed that, passed several times by the delivery man, who carried a canister under each arm, then made more trips with boxes of coffee, followed by boxes of candy bars, sugar packets, and cartons of irradiated milk. Stefan continued rolling his canister and reached the Tech room at the same time the delivery man made his last trip, carrying a single bunch of bananas. They stood with the supplies in a small pool of light under a lone bulb.

A tall person entered the light and signed the delivery man’s clipboard. Stefan wasn’t sure if it was a man or a woman, this person with a large beak of a nose on a tiny head. Its colourless skin and bulging eyes gave it the look of a deep-sea anomaly. The figure had long, slicked-back, bleached yellow hair, and wore a floor-length black leather coat. Looking up, it saw Stefan. “What is he doing here? Why did you let him in?”

“He was helping me,” said the man, tearing off a receipt. “Gotta go.”

“Take him with you!” shrieked the blond creature, showing long, stained rodent teeth.

“Sorry. He’s not with me. I think he works with you. See ya.”

“No!” it yelled, but the man was gone. It turned to Stefan. “Get out! You can’t be in here.”

“Actually, I think I can,” said Stefan, annoyed now. He held out a printed copy of the case details. “The directors told me to investigate.”

The blonde thing grabbed the paper and examined it. It pondered something for a moment. “You can reach the number?” it asked.

“I’ve only called once.”

“Perfect,” it said, smiling wickedly. The thing, which Stefan presumed was the Tech manager, left him, then turned back, gesturing for him to follow. He reached out for the walls and followed it into the dark. They went further down an incline, then reached a set of stairs, which the thing neglected to tell him about, possibly on purpose. At the bottom, Stefan found himself in a low room lit with long, fluorescent black light tubes. Pipes and wires hung from the ceiling.

Along one wall of the room were what looked like aquaria full of wires and green silicon boards. A picture flickered on three sides of each aquarium, footage of a horribly grisly war. These movies were watched by large, unmoving, mole-like people whose long black coats flowed to the floor. Their eyes were tiny, near-blind dots on large white heads covered with hanging, oily hair. Only their stubby pink fingers moved, poking furiously at keyboards. Stefan realised that they were controlling the war they watched. The blond thing audibly cleared its throat, the fingers paused, hit a single button in unison, and their aquaria filled with lines of code.

“We’ll help you with the investigation,” said the manager. It went to one of the coders, whispered in its ear, then turned back to Stefan. “Call the number,” the manager told him, pointing to the long desk in the middle of the room. Amongst the cables, spare parts, and coffee-makers was a solitary telephone.

Stefan lifted the receiver and poked out the familiar numbers. All his butterflies took flight as the voice answered. “Peter,” it said.

“Now!” yelled the blond thing. The coder-moles tapped furiously, and their screens filled with snow.

“Hello?” asked Stefan, watching the aquaria as a slideshow of buildings flickered in the fuzz. He turned away. “My name is Stefan.” He’d wanted to say that for so long. Even now, he doubted that he’d be heard.

“Hello, Stefan. I think you’ve got the wrong number.” The phone hummed and started to feed back.

The manager whispered in his ear, “Keep talking.” Stefan turned around and looked at the screens. A lone figure walked in the snow there, like a charcoal rubbing in motion. Stefan looked at the manager’s grinning face. “Got him,” it mouthed. “Calling the police.”

Stefan slammed down the phone. “What is this?” he asked.

“Celldar,” said the manager, “developed by mobile companies in conjunction with the government. By tracking bounced signals between our towers, we can ‘see’ anywhere we want.” It pointed to an aquarium screen. “Look, he doesn’t even know he’s being watched. As long as he keeps moving, he’s ours.”

“Great,” said Stefan, forcing a smile. “Thanks for your help. I guess I should get out of your way.”

“Don’t you want to stay and watch?”

“Uh, no,” he said, “I—I should—” He pointed to the door and ran.

~

“Could you please turn the radio on?” asked Stefan.

“Where do you want to go?” asked the taxi driver.

“I’ll tell you in a second. Could you just turn on the radio?”

“Ah,” said the man, chuckling, “you’re anxious to know how the game’s going. World Cup, I don’t blame yeh.”

“Right,” said Stefan, smiling. He leaned forward and pressed his ear to the open space between the Lucite panels, listening to the radio. Ah’m no sure wha’s happenin’, Rab.

~

“Ah’m really jus’ no sure,” said Peter Hailes. He didn’t elaborate. His mother would hit him if she heard him speaking. His father was proud of the Scots language, but his mother was determined that he learn to speak “properly”. When he was upset, though, the Received Pronunciation went out the window. Oot the windae, he thought, smiling briefly.

He passed a large shop window and stared into it. He ran his hand through his hair. He’d intended to tidy it, but it just flopped about in a different way, like a flattened crow on the road with wings akimbo. His eyes glanced to one side. He gasped and spun around, but no one was there. He knew that before looking. Beside him in the window, though, there he was: that man.

His whole life, Peter had seen glimpses of him, first as a boy, then older and older as he grew, too. He’d told his father, who was a believer in such things, but knew better than to tell anyone else.

Lately, though, it was getting unbearable. It wasn’t just a shimmer or a peripheral catch anymore. The man was there, as if he were sitting in the window display, leaning forward.

His father was out of the country on business, so Peter called Rab, his best friend. Or, more correctly, his best friend with a mobile phone. “Rab,” he said, forcing himself to be calm, “I think there’s something wrong with me. I need you to meet me.”

“Alright,” said Rab, “where?”

“Meet me in Waverley Station.”

~

The taxi rumbled over the cobbles, wobbled around a corner, and tipped down a steep decline. Cars blocked the roundabout ahead. “This is fine,” said Stefan, shoving bills through at the driver and opening the door.

“Wait. Your change.” But Stefan was away, running down the hill. The wind was strong, and he felt tiny pinpricks of dampness hitting his face.

He turned and looked down the length of the Waverley Bridge. It was full of people.

An announcement came over the loudspeakers below in the train station. Just as loud, Stefan heard the second voice, and spotted a man on the bridge, talking into a mobile, his mouth moving in conjunction with the words he heard. Stefan ran toward him.

The man looked up and panic filled his eyes. He looked around, then back to Stefan. The rain intensified, and fell in huge, pelting drops. The man shivered, staring at him. Stefan couldn’t speak as he moved closer. He pointed at the mobile phone, then grabbed it and threw it as hard as he could from the bridge. It arced through the sky and landed on the tracks below. He took the man’s hand and pulled him across the street to the wall there. “Stand still,” said Stefan, daring to keep hold of the hand as they stood still beside the wall. A moment later, a police car drove past them, down the ramp leading into the station.

“It’s you,” said Peter, turning to him.

Stefan smiled. “Keep talking.”

“My name is Peter.”

“I’m Stefan.”

“You’re real.”

“You, too. I’ve had my doubts.”

“What does this mean?” asked Peter.

“I have no idea,” said Stefan. He stared at Peter, drunk with the intensity of his company. “I can’t believe I’m finally talking to you.”

“I can’t believe I’m finally seeing you.”

Stefan let go of Peter’s hand and crossed the street to look down. Police combed the tracks below. One of them held up the shattered mobile phone. Between that and the dense sheets of rain, Stefan hoped they were safe to move. He held out his hand to Peter. Peter smiled and grabbed it willingly.

They ran.

Fifteen

Dig Nation

“This is it,” said Stefan, unlocking the door. Peter walked around him and stopped just inside. Stefan followed Peter’s eyes to the floor, where the water dripped from his clothes and hair. “Oh, I’ll get you a towel,” he said, running to the bathroom. He grabbed the first thing he found and ran back. Peter looked at his hands, which held two halves of a towel. “One for each of us,” said Stefan, smiling.

Stefan rubbed himself briskly with the towel, but he couldn’t stop his teeth from chattering. He realised it had nothing to do with the cold. He smiled at Peter and spoke, his teeth chopping up his words as they came out. “I’m ner-r-r-vous.”. Peter held up his hand: he was shaking, too.

“Where did you come from?” asked Peter.

“I came from Canada.”

“I suppose I was asking that, but, in a bigger sense, who are you?” He looked into the coat-rack mirror on the wall, which framed both of them, standing side by side. “All my life, it’s been like this. I’ve been seeing you there. Now here you are.”

Stefan stared incredulously at the young man with the dripping black hair and the pale drowned-looking skin. His jaw and thin lips were outlined with uneven black hairs, and as Stefan looked at his eyes, so brown they seemed black, he felt himself falling in. “My name’s Stefan Jackrabbit Mackechnie,” he said. “I’m thirty-two, I—I have no idea where to start. What about you? I thought I was crazy, hearing your voice all that time. But you’re real. And you’re standing right here in my hallway.”

“Jackrabbit?” smirked Peter.

“Shut up.” Stefan’s reverie was broken. He didn’t expect Peter to tease him.

“I don’t think I can manage the ‘Stefan’ part, either. It’s a bit fancy. Mind if I call you Ste?”

Stee. Stefan found every word this man said beautiful, even if he was teasing—the timbre of his alto voice, the roll of his Rs and the swallowed, glottal Scottish vowels.

“I don’t mind at all. Hardly anyone knows my name here, except—”

At work.

“How did you get that phone?”

“I found it,” said Peter, blankly.

Stefan sighed. “I hoped so. There was this police investigation, and—and you know what? I couldn’t care less about that right now.” He directed them inside to his room with a tilt of his head. Peter cocked an eyebrow. “Dry clothes,” insisted Stefan.

“Oh. Right,” said Peter, smiling.

Stefan took their coats and hung them on the rack. They slipped out of their soaked shoes and stretched off their wet socks. Even the sight of Peter’s bare feet made Stefan excited. The floor creaked as they walked to the old wooden wardrobe from which Stefan’s clothes spilled. He looked Peter up and down, as if sizing him up, then put his hands on Peter’s waist. Peter did the same to him.

“Thirty? Thirty-two?” said Stefan.

“Around that, but I like ’em baggy.”

“My mother bought me these. They’re made of—”

“Ste, I don’t care.”

“Oh, you want to kiss me, don’t you?”

“What?” asked Peter, with mock indignation. “What do you take me for?”

“You don’t? Oh, I’m sorry. I just thought that, from the way you were looking at me—” He walked away from Peter, then looked back. “But nevermind. Still, it was nice bumping into you,” he said, nudging him with his hips.

Peter leaned against him. “Nice bumping into you, too.”

They stood, their noses an inch apart, laughing. Stefan looked at Peter’s eyes, then dared to look into them. In there was the soul of this person he loved already, and felt he always had. When he was younger, he used to stare into a mirror until he didn’t recognise himself and felt frightened. He’d never risked looking that way at someone else, but now he was, and it was having the opposite effect: he felt sure of this other, safe. In those eyes was something, not something he could see, yet there it was and he could feel it. Definitely a soul.

His smile dropped, and he reached his hands under Peter’s wet T-shirt. The coldness of the skin there scared him and he shivered. It soon warmed to his touch.

“Peter Hailes,” Stefan whispered.

“Jackrabbit,” laughed Peter, then kissed him. His lips were perfect, thought Stefan, just solid enough, just smooth enough. He remembered Ming: even before things went bad between them he hated those lips, like trying to kiss a plate of strawberry gelatine. And then the tongue, that meaty welcome mat that flopped out the instant their lips touched. Stefan smelled something on Peter’s breath, not the cigarettes or booze that usually preceded sex, but the faint smell of the bodily anticipation of it. This kiss was different. It wasn’t duty paid, but a willing participation in the physical presence of this person who so excited him.

Peter grabbed Stefan’s hips and pulled him close, laughing naughtily into his mouth. Stefan laughed back and grabbed Peter’s bum. “What’s that?” he asked, looking down.

“‘That’s a roll of coins.”

“You’ve been saving up.”

“Cheers.” Peter ventured a hand to the front of Stefan’s trousers. “Not so bad yourself.”

The blood rushed from Stefan’s head, and he wondered if he might actually faint. How girly, he thought. “Right, those clothes,” he said, pulling away.

“Right,” said Peter, pausing to see what Stefan was up to. Stefan unbuttoned his wet shirt and Peter pulled off his T-shirt. They shivered in the cold for a moment, then Peter reached for Stefan, who moved into his arms. The hug turned into a joking rock back and forth, which became an erotic twisting together.

“No,” said Stefan, pulling away. Peter stood patiently, waiting. “You’re not just anyone. I could so get naked with you right now, but I want to do this right. If we started right now, well,” he grinned, “I’d get you all dirty.”

“Ay, you’re right, Ste. Me, too. Me, too. I like you—” He laughed. “I don’t like you. ‘Like’ doesn’t even begin to cover it. You’re my imaginary friend, for fuck’s sake. So what d’yeh have in mind? How do we do this right?”

Stefan got a shirt from his wardrobe for himself and threw a cosy jumper to Peter while he thought. “Do you want some pants?” he asked.

“Pants? Oh, trousers. ‘Pants’ are—” he unbuttoned his jeans and showed Stefan his underwear. Stefan’s eyes followed the thin line of black hair down his chest.

“Stop that! We’re not supposed to have sex until—what is it?—the third date. Isn’t it something like that?”

“Okay,” said Peter, “so we have to go on three dates tonight.”

“Alright!” cheered Stefan. He sat on a wooden chair, while Peter put his towel down on the couch and sat there. “What should we do for the first date? Oh, I have an idea. Well, it’s kinda silly.”

“Whatever. Just say it,” assured Peter.

“I’ve never had a proper date. Even my prom—my mother ruined it.”

“What do you mean?”

“My mother is—oh, one thing first. Do you know who Delonia Mackechnie is?”

“Should I? She some relative of yours?” asked Peter.

“Oh, I could kiss you for that. And I will. Just not yet. Anyway, my mother was very proud that I liked boys, and thought it was important for me to make a political statement by taking a boy to my prom. But the only gay boy in my school was this big effeminate guy with this wavy blonde hair. He knew I was only taking him because my mother wanted to make a point, and neither of us had ever spoken to each other before this. Then at the dance, he got sloppy drunk and kept trying to kiss me. I decided to leave, but he insisted on going with me. When we got to the parking lot, the whole hockey team was out there smoking up. Needless to say, they didn’t like us. So they chased me and this fat guy in our tuxes across the football field into this swampy old river.” Stefan sighed. “Needless to say, it was not the magical night I’d imagined for my prom.”

“So let me make it up to you. We’ll have a proper date.”

“Deal.”

“Do I have to get all dressed up?”

“Yes.”

“Damn. Okay,” said Peter, standing up. “Guess I should go and get ready then. I’ll be back for you at eight o’clock. And the other two dates are my call.”

“I trust you,” said Stefan, “though I don’t have any reason to yet.”

“That’s true. But you will.” He went to the door and slipped his bare feet into his shoes. “Here,” he said, squashing his socks into Stefan’s hand. “You can hold my socks ransom. Of course, I get your jumper. But they’re really good socks, so we’re even.”

“Wait,” said Stefan. “Be careful. Make sure no one follows you. That phone belonged to someone who might have been killed, and there’s an investigation on.”

“How do you know that?”

“Um, I started the investigation. Sorry about that. You should be okay tonight, though. I’ll try to sort it out when I get back to work tomorrow.”

“Mm, that might not work.”

“Why?”

“You’ll be skiving off work tomorrow. Me, too.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Peter leaned over and kissed him. Their lips slid together, then he rested his cheek against Stefan’s. Stefan had never known anything as intimate as the cold press of their skin as they paused there. His eyes looked over Peter’s shoulder at the window. Drops of rain hung, frozen in their path toward the ground. Peter’s heart pounded against his chest, beating strong enough for both of them. All time stopped but that rhythm. When Peter finally pulled away and went through the door, the drops resumed their fall and Stefan’s heart started again.

~

Peter flipped the squeaky lid of the mail-slot several times instead of knocking, and Stefan immediately opened the door, which he’d been hovering near.

Peter wore a brown suit two sizes too big for him, but Stefan thought he looked handsome in it. His own suit was tailor-made for the awards ceremony he attended with his mother earlier in the year, back when this city was merely a dream and his mother paid people to date him. He pecked Peter quickly on the lips to say hello, overjoyed that he could already take such liberties with this citizen of his dream.

“Where are we going?” asked Peter as they left the tenement.

“No idea. I figure we’ll just wander until we find a place that feels right. What kind of food do you like?”

“Well,” said Peter, “I’ve been trying to eat better and learn to cook healthier since my dad took a heart attack last year.”

“Oh, I’m sorry about that.”

“Which, the food or my dad? Dad’s fine. I’m not sure how I feel about the other.”

“If it makes it any easier to decide, I’m a vegetarian. Kinda.”

“What’s that mean, kinda?”

“Except for bacon.”

“Okay,” said Peter. “I know someplace that can make whatever you want. Down here.” He took Stefan’s elbow and guided him down a close so narrow that, walking side by side, their arms brushed against the rough granite bricks.

“Wait,” said Stefan, stopping under an old gas lamp that was refitted with an electric bulb. “I brought you something.”

“What?”

“This,” he said, and kissed Peter on the cheek. Peter rolled his eyes, and started walking again. Stefan felt embarrassed, and decided to play it cool the rest of the evening. No showy gestures, no acting goofy, and under no circumstances would he use the L-word, even though he was certain that he L-ed Peter already.

“Wait,” said Peter, putting a hand on Stefan’s chest. “I’m sorry, Ste, that was sweet. I brought you something, too.” Stefan waited, holding out his cheek. Peter punched him hard in the arm and ran off.

“Bastard!” yelled Stefan, running after him. His leather-soled dress shoes were unsteady on the hard, worn cobbles, and he found it difficult to keep up with Peter. They turned a corner onto a side road. Across the street in a doorway, sheltered from the last light of dusk, stood the familiar figure of the scratchman in his dark cloak and wide-brimmed hat. “Peter,” said Stefan under his breath, grabbing his arm and tugging him in the opposite direction.

“What?” He saw the scratchman, but kept walking. “That guy? Come on, he’s just standing there. He won’t bother us.”

“Peter, really, just—”

“No, Ste, the restaurant’s this way, and that’s the way I’m going.” They walked opposite the man now. Peter nodded to him and asked, “Alright?”

The scratchman looked confused and nodded back, for want of any other response.

Stefan nodded, too, and hurried past.

“I don’t know what you were worried about,” said Peter. “He didn’t seem terribly threatening. Actually, he looked pretty poorly to me.”

Stefan put his arm around Peter, and they continued up the road.

~

The restaurant was in a well-maintained Georgian hotel with antique furniture arranged beneath enormous paintings and mirrors hung in thick, ornately-carved gold frames. “Wow,” said Stefan, looking up at the patterns in the plaster ceiling.

“Hello,” said the head waiter, addressing Peter in a familiar tone.

“Hiya,” replied Peter, equally familiarly.

“I’d like a table, please. For two.” The waiter picked up two leather-bound menus and gestured for them to follow. Peter stopped him. “At the back,” he insisted.

“Oh yes, a special evening,” said the waiter quietly to Peter as they changed direction. He led them to a small room with heavy velvet curtains parted to expose large windows of antique glass like disquieted water. Through them was a large garden full of trees with yellow leaves that blazed in the lamplight.

They sat, and the waiter handed them their oversized menus. He left, and Stefan found himself wrestling with jealousy. The man was unthreateningly plain, yet Stefan felt uneasy about a stranger in public being so familiar with Peter. “So who’s he?” he finally asked.

“He’s the head waiter.”

“I figured that. But how do you know him?” Stefan worried that his suspicion was leaking out. He hated himself like this, and wished this were their six month anniversary, or even their second date, just so he could know it was going to turn out between them.

“I work here,” answered Peter.

“Oh,” said Stefan, and sighed, laughing.

“Would you like anything to drink?” asked the waiter, who’d returned silently.

“That sounds like a good idea,” said Stefan.

~

Supper was elegant, served on large plates drizzled with sauces and sprinkled with powders, followed by a similarly dressed dessert. They shared a bottle of wine as they tried to piece together an understanding of who each other was. Stefan briefly mentioned that his father had died, but avoided talking about his mother, turning the conversation back to Peter whenever they got close to the topic.

Peter’s parents were separated, he said. His mother lived in England now, but they didn’t hear much from her anymore. The children—himself and an older brother and sister—received pleasant birthday cards with not enough words in them each year. They figured she was remarried. His father, on the other hand, was still single, living in the same house Peter grew up in, on the outskirts of Edinburgh. It was part of a housing scheme, but the house was paid off. “You can’t beat that,” said Peter.

“No. No, you can’t,” said Stefan, self-consciously aware, without having seen the house, that his mother’s place would seem a mansion in comparison.

“So what brought you here?” asked Peter.

“Oh, it was my father’s idea,” he said, brushing the question aside.

“I thought you said your father was dead.”

“Right. Yes, I did. Well, you see, he wrote this play before he died, and... Let’s have another drink.” He gestured to the waiter. “I was kind of stuck in my life in Toronto, and I decided I wanted a change, to find something to do that seemed meaningful, and there was this play hidden in our attic, but the raccoons showed it to me first so I’d know it was there. And my father was with them. Oh, but first I got these notes.”

Peter looked confused. “Start again,” he said.

~

They walked hand in hand under the giant stone archway of the Cowgate. “So that bloke we saw tonight, he’s one of the—”

“Matholics, yes.”

“What do they want with you?”

“I don’t know. They seem to be worried I’m going to do something. At first it was the play, but, disruptive as that was, that wasn’t it.”

“So he’s after you for something you might do but don’t even know about?”

“Or something.”

“Well, we’ll just have to keep him away from you. Because whatever designs he or your father have on you, I’ve got some of my own. We didn’t meet after all this time for nothing.” He turned them up a steep street, then down the staircase of a basement bar. A neon sign of blue and green beside the door read “Dig Nation”. They clicked down the steps in their dress shoes and stepped into a smoky, vaulted space like a man-made cavern.

“What can I get you?” asked Peter, heading for the bar.

“A pint of eighty.”

Peter nodded, and turned to the bar. The woman working there raised her arms and jumped up to hug him. Music filled the air along with damp human heat, and Stefan couldn’t hear what Peter and the woman said to each other. Peter returned a moment later with their drinks.

“Who’s she?” asked Stefan above the noise.

“My sister.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope. She works here. I work here, too. I work at the restaurant we went to tonight as an apprentice chef on a Saturday, and the rest of the time I’m a line-cook here.”

“Cool,” said Stefan. “That must be nice, working so close to your sister.”

“You are an only child, aren’t you?” He nodded toward the depths of the bar and tugged Stefan along with him. “My friends are here somewhere. They’re always here.” They ducked under a low brick archway and entered a small room at the back. There, around an old wooden table like something from a Viking ship, sat his friends on mismatched church pews. They waved to Peter when they saw him. Peter put his arm around Stefan and pointed to his friends in turn, speaking close into Stefan’s ear.

“Iain,” he said, indicating the stout, red-haired young man. “Rab,” he said, pointing out the tall, lanky, loud friend who’d been with Peter in Portobello. “And that one’s Calum,” he said, pointing to the handsome blond man at the end of the table, “watch him.”

“I think I could enjoy that.”

“Hey.”

“Don’t worry,” said Stefan, “he’s got nothing on you.”

“Cheers. Actually, if there’s anyone you need to watch, it’s Rab. He’s a good lad, but he’s a bit of a bampot.”

Stefan looked at him, puzzled.

“Crazy. But he’s alright.”

“Okay.”

Rab was holding court about an idea he’d had, but stopped to welcome Stefan. “So you’re him. Good to meet yeh. No bad, Peter me man.”

“Shut it,” said Peter. They sat with their drinks. “I had to ring him to explain why I didn’t show up this afternoon. I should have known better than to tell him anything.” Stefan didn’t mind: Peter talking to his friends about him was a good sign.

Peter’s sister came to their table. “Hey, Fi,” said Peter.

“So?”

“Ste, this is Fiona, my sister. Fi, this is Stefan Mackechnie.”

“Good Scots surname.”

“My dad’s from here.”

“Hey,” said Peter, “you just met my family. This is our second date.”

“Cool,” said Stefan.

“My dad’ll be at home, and my brother’s in Aberdeen. So Fiona’ll have to do.”

“Thanks,” she said, whipping him with her bar-towel.

“Och, get that minky thing away from me.” He turned to his friends. “So, what are you lads up to tonight?”

“Robert here thinks he found something interesting,” said Calum.

“I did, I tell you,” insisted Rab.

“And he’s got it in his head we should check it out,” said Iain, “but I think it’s a bad idea. We should just leave it alone.”

“What is it?” asked Peter.

“New development work,” said Rab. “This is the biggest bit yet. It’s a different developer, but it seems like the same kind of job.”

“I’d like to see what they’re up to,” said Peter.

“It’s easy enough to get to, and no security.”

“We don’t want to do this,” said Iain. “You know what happened the last time we went into one of those sites.”

“Yeah, Peter found himself a free mo—” Peter cut Rab off by elbowing him in the ribs.

“That site wouldn’t happen to have been developed by a Reginald Mackenzie, would it?” asked Stefan.

“He’s the one who died, isn’t he?” asked Iain.

“Yeah,” said Stefan, “and that’s whose phone you had, Peter. That’s why they were after you.”

“Thanks for getting me out of that.”

“Yeah. So what are these companies doing?”

“Some of them are doing renovations,” said Calum, “and others are restoring listed buildings.”

“I think they’re doing a really nice job,” said Iain. “Some of those buildings are in really bad shape. It’s dangerous, too. Bits keep falling off them onto people.”

“Yeah, but half of Edinburgh is covered in scaffolding,” said Peter. “It’s a city on crutches. And I don’t trust the companies that are getting these contracts. So where’s this place, Rab?”

“Guys, we shouldn’t,” said Iain.

“Come on, Rab’s been there. It’s safe, right, Rab?”

“Sure.”

“On we go, then.”

They left the bar, waving to Fiona as they went. Stefan followed the young men through the streets. The route took them around corners and down wynds he’d never seen before. They stood in a queue for twenty minutes to get into what turned out to be a basement dance club. Calum and Iain got drinks and leaned on a small, high table, watching while Peter and Stefan went to the dance floor. Rab flailed beside them for a while, then vanished, leaving them to laugh, dance, and make a sport of trying to touch each other in ways that wouldn’t be obvious to the others around them.

Rab reappeared and gestured to the others, who followed him off the dance floor to a hallway where a few people leaned against the brick walls, talking in drunken earnest to each other. Rab stood close to them, insinuating himself into their conversation. “So what’re we talking about?” asked Rab.

“What?”

“What’re we talking about? What’s your bird there greetin’ for?” he said, pointing to their female friend, who was crying, being consoled by another of them.

“None of your business, mate.”

“Hey, I’m just trying to be friendly. No need to get huffy.”

“Fuck off,” said the man. “Come on,” he said, and the group left the hallway.

“Perfecto,” said Rab. He went to the end of the now-empty hall, where boards were piled against the wall. He shifted them to either side, exposing an arched brick entrance. “Vaults,” he said.

“Someone should move those back after you go in,” said Iain.

“That’s right,” said Calum, “you stay here, shift them back after us, then maybe your mammy can come pick you up.”

“Hey, maybe I have a life and don’t want to go to jail just for looking at some mingin’ old building site.”

“Fair enough,” said Peter. “How about you make sure nobody follows us for a while, and I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“Okay,” said Iain. Calum patted his round white cheek as he passed through the archway.

“Nice to meet you,” said Stefan, as he followed Peter and Rab in. He felt nervous, but tonight he’d follow Peter anywhere.

Rab clicked on the small torch he carried with him, evidently accustomed to doing this. Stefan was further surprised when Calum and Peter had small torches, too. This was not a first. The damp passageway was so dark that the small circles of light were a significant help.

They stopped at a junction. First Rab led them to the left, where the passageway ended in a low room. He flicked his light the other way, and they followed him. The second route led into a space whose size they could feel more than they could see. The hall’s dampness gave way to an open, cold space so large its ceiling ate their torch-beams without revealing any details.

Rab vanished into a corner of the room, then with a loud click, burst into light, holding a hanging work-light plugged into a cable that snaked from the room. They looked up to see a vaulted cathedral-like ceiling.

“Wow,” said Stefan.

All around them were construction materials—industrial power tools, boards, planks, giant pails of neutral-coloured paint, and endless sheets of glass.

“What do you think they’re doing?” asked Rab.

“Something boring, no doubt,” quipped Calum.

“Should we wreck it?” asked Peter. Stefan looked at him, surprised. “Not the room, I mean, just their shite.”

Another light bobbed on the opposite side of the room. “Rab!” hissed Peter. “Kill the light!” A second later, the work-light switched off, along with each of their torches, and a new, larger torch-light bounced into the room. It faintly lit a private security guard.

“Who’s in here?” he demanded.

“He’s got a dog,” whispered Stefan.

“It’s just a little terrier,” said Calum.

“I’m going out past him,” said Rab. “You guys go back to the club.” Before they could reply, Rab jumped to his feet and yelled at the top of his lungs. The terrier barked madly and chased after Rab as he ran through the room, rushing by the security guard. The other three turned and ran back as fast as they could.

The darkness suddenly turned white for Stefan, and he fell backward to the ground. His face felt hot. It took him a moment to realise he’d run into a low-hanging piece of masonry. “Peter,” he called. A moment later, Peter was beside him, helping him up. They heard the man’s yelling and dog’s barking getting fainter as they moved further away after Rab.

Peter put his arm around Stefan and they made their way back to the club by the light of Peter’s small torch. Calum left the boards open, and neither he nor Iain were anywhere to be seen. Peter took Stefan to the toilet and dashed to the bar, returning with a bar-towel filled with ice. He found Stefan looking at his face in the mirror. The eyebrow above his right eye had already swollen to Cro-Magnon proportions and bled onto his shirt. “Here,” said Peter, handing him the ice. Stefan put it carefully to his head.

“I’m sorry for taking you down there. That was stupid,” said Peter. He moved Stefan’s hand to look at the damage. “Ouch.” He leaned over and gave Stefan’s forehead the lightest of kisses. Stefan pouted and pointed to his mouth. Peter kissed him on the mouth.

“Actually,” said Stefan, a smile creeping across his face, “that was kind of cool.”

“One more date,” said Peter. He led Stefan from the club. A block away, Stefan realised he still had the bar-towel. “Oh, they said you could keep that.”

“Did they really?”

“No,” said Peter. He led them across town, to the entrance to Calton Hill. “Come on,” he said.

“What for?”

“Our third date.”

Stefan wasn’t sure what he had in mind, but followed him. His head throbbed, but didn’t ache, as they climbed the steps and walked up to the small gathering of mock-Greek buildings there. Stefan was relieved Peter didn’t lead him back to the paths, but to a monument like the giant concrete urn of a titan. They sat on its base and looked up over the city, where a dirty plate of a moon rested in the sky, then looked out over the roofs, spires, arches, walls, and castle of the Old Town, over the blocky Georgian buildings of the New Town, then out to the cranes and bridges in the distance by the water of the Forth.

Stefan took Peter’s hand. “I think you’re okay,” he said.

“Yeah, you too,” said Peter, “I’m gonna ask my dad if I can keep you.” He kissed him. “That’s three dates.”

“I guess we can mess around now.”

“Your place is closer,” said Peter. “How’s your head?”

“Suddenly it’s feeling a lot better.”

“Brilliant. Think you can run?”

Stefan leapt up and grabbed Peter’s hand, pulling him up to his feet. They ran toward the moon, heading home.

Sixteen

Hobosexuals

An electric buzz pulled Stefan backward out of a dream. While trying to open his gluey eyes, he leaned over to hit the “Snooze” button on his alarm-clock.

“Ugh!” said a voice. Stefan’s eyes opened fully, and he saw Peter pinned beneath his elbow.

“Sorry,” whispered Stefan. Peter groaned and went back to sleep. Stefan studied him. His face was so simple like this, almost unrecognisable without some expression animating it.

He put his head down on the thin patch of hair in the middle of Peter’s chest. He felt uncomfortably unmanly, damsel-like, doing this, but he had the courage in that moment to surrender. The last time he could remember feeling so comfortable, he was in his mother’s arms. To his surprise, he missed her.

He lifted his head again and traced a finger down Peter’s chest. Peter laughed softly with his eyes closed and smiled. Stefan pulled the sheets down to look at the rest of him. It felt odd having this license with another man’s body, and he wasn’t going to waste the opportunity. He lightly stroked Peter’s penis, which moved, more awake than its owner. Peter made a pleased noise. Stefan looked with curiosity at the extra skin Peter had there. He remembered his father telling him once in a swimming pool change room of Delonia’s horror when she learned that the doctors had circumcised her baby, according to the custom at the time in Canada.

He stroked Peter with more vigour, but, determined to keep sleeping, Peter wrapped his arms around Stefan and pulled him close to his chest to make him stop. Stefan sighed and fell asleep.

The clock buzzed again half an hour later, and Stefan turned it off. He remembered it was Friday and he was supposed to be at work. Peter told him to take the day off and he’d agreed, but he hadn’t informed the office about this.

He rolled from the bed and felt around for his shorts. He had trouble finding them: the curtains were drawn, the room was dark, and their undressing the night before was hurried. He turned on the lamp to see better, but had to look no further, as his underpants hung from the lampshade. He put them on—new ones would come after he’d had his shower, and he wanted Peter for that—and pulled on enough other clothes to go outside. After slipping his bare feet into his shoes, he tiptoed back to Peter, kissed him on the cheek, then went out.

He searched the street for a pay-phone, not having used them before, and found one three blocks away. It was a tall, clear plastic box like a soft drink fridge, covered in logos for the very company he was calling. He preferred the old-fashioned red telephone booths, but they were increasingly hard to find. After dropping in his money, he listened carefully, half-expecting to hear what Peter was dreaming, but smiled when he heard nothing but a dial-tone. He rang his line manager’s direct number and put on his best stuffed-nose voice.

He told her who it was, and said good morning. “You sound awful,” she said. He smiled: he still had it. A lorry rumbled by, and his smile dropped. Busted. “Where are you?” she asked.

He coughed and sniffed while strategising. He decided to go with the truth, but to make it sound pathetic. “I don’t have a phone. I had to go outside to find one.” He pinched himself under the nose until he sneezed.

“Get back home! Stay in bed all weekend, and come back on Monday if you’re feeling better.”

Staying in bed all weekend sounded just fine to him.

“When you come back, the Directors want to hear your report about that missing mobile. I saw someone from Tech go up to talk to them on Thursday. That’s a first! But don’t worry about that. Just get yourself better, and we’ll see you when we see you.”

“Thanks so much,” said Stefan. “Bye bye.” Horror crept over him as he wondered what the Directors had been told, and how much, if any, the Tech team saw of his intervention with Peter. His worry was soon replaced by an eagerness to get back to the flat.

The next two days were filled with conversation, naps punctuated with actual sleeping, sex, and the occasional foray into the kitchen area, where they scrambled to put meals together from the incompatible things on Stefan’s shelves. Their last meal attempt, “Mustard Rice”, was so unpalatable they decided it was time to go out. They treated themselves to a big meal that cost more than they intended to spend, then walked home in a light mist, holding hands whenever they cut through a close or a courtyard.

~

“No, no, no. I have to go,” said Stefan, tightening his tie as Peter tried again to pull him back toward the bed. When he got free of Peter’s grip, he sprang onto the bed and wrestled with him, taking advantage of his vulnerable naked opponent.

“Okay, go,” said Peter, pushing him away.

“Right. Okay. I’m going,” he said, heading for the door. “I am leaving. I’m going to leave now. When I leave, you’re not going to see me for hours and hours. Any last words you want to say to me?”

“Yes,” said Peter, “I’ve been meaning to tell you this for a while now.” He sat up in bed. “You’re out of milk.”

Stefan gave an exasperated sigh and left the flat. The whole ride to work, he wondered if people could tell he was in love. He felt himself grinning unconsciously. Did they see his “I’ve had sex” look? He didn’t care, he thought, yet he wanted everyone to know.

He looked at the other people on the bus. Their faces were long, expressionless. He supposed most of them were probably in relationships, but found it impossible to imagine them ever having sexual desires or romping naked.

This thing you have, he thought, it’s what you wanted, isn’t it? It was certainly something he’d wanted, he knew that. Every aquarium cleaner, escort, or anonymous clerk he’d pined for was nothing compared to the kinship he felt in Peter.

But it’s not salvation, is it?

That’s what he’d asked his father for. He’d heard Peter’s voice long before writing to his father. He had no doubt he was meant to meet Peter. His father’s plans facilitated their meeting but he didn’t suppose that was the whole plan. In love or no, he still had to go to work, to participate in an organisation whose workings and aims were completely foreign to him and which was indifferent to him. He recalled what he used to say in spite: “Romance is not salvation”. Now that he had a love for himself, he realised it was true, and that struck him as sad. Surely love was more than just a distraction encouraged by songs. He had no doubt it had the potential to change him. And it made him the happiest he’d been since childhood. But he still felt a responsibility to something bigger. Looking at the defeated faces of the other riders, he wondered if they’d shirked some responsibility of their own at some point. If they had love, were they even interested in it anymore?

He committed himself to being an exception to their rule. Peter was a wonder, and he would never forget it. And his work life... The thought of facing the Directors filled him with dread. He couldn’t imagine any way for his meeting with them to go well.

~

A cold draught and the musty smell of old, wet books pervaded the room. Stefan wasn’t sure if it came from the walls or from the Directors themselves.

“Your report,” demanded the tall director in the centre in a slow and careful tone.

“I believe the police have found the phone.”

“Yes. They have.”

“So that’s that, then.”

“The question, Mister Mackechnie, was as much about the keeper of the telephone as it was about its whereabouts.”

Stefan tried to deflect the scrutiny from himself. “When I left on Thursday, Tech looked like they were about to find whoever had the phone. Didn’t they?”

“No, they did not. The thief seemed to have been informed at the last moment. And yes, what is this I hear about you leaving your post without authorisation? I am afraid,” he turned to look at the other directors on either side of him, “we find that unacceptable. Combined with this fraud suspect managing to learn somehow about our investigation and then eluding you—I am afraid the whole situation has become untenable.” He leaned forward. Stefan was sure he heard an audible creaking noise. “I am afraid we’re going to have to send you to the workhouses.” The squat little director to his right leaned in and whispered something. “I am afraid,” corrected the director, “that we must terminate your employment here.”

“Oh,” said Stefan. He wasn’t surprised at the decision, though he was shocked to be fired for the first time in his life. “I guess I’ll go collect my things.”

“You have ten minutes to leave the building. Should you fail to vacate the premises, we will hunt you.”

“Right,” said Stefan. “Well, you all take care.” He started toward the door, but halted, and went to the window. “You know, it’s really stuffy in here. You really should have more light.” He tore open the heavy drapes, letting in a wide column of white sunshine. As he left, he heard the directors shrieking.

~

Stefan frantically scrolled through the orange screens of data, deleting line after line of information about the stolen mobile.

“What’s up?” asked his line manager.

“Oh,” he said, startled, “just tidying up,” he answered, turning off the screen.

“And the cardboard box?”

“Ah, well, it’s not really working out for me here. The Directors and I decided it would be best if I left.”

“Oh.” Over the manager’s shoulder, Stefan saw a squad of people in beige uniforms running toward the Directors’ offices, carrying fire blankets and buckets of sand.

“I guess I should get going. Thanks for all your help.” More beige figures headed in his direction. Stefan dropped his cardboard box. “Bye!” he said, and ran.

~

“What am I going to do?” asked Stefan.

Peter turned around on the bed, shifting the bills and bank statements. “I don’t know, Ste.”

Stefan searched his flat. “There’s got to be something here I can sell. I’ve got to make rent.”

“What about this CD player?”

“It plays okay, but it’s cracked.”

“Hm,” said Peter, and continued looking around the bed. He picked up a small box made of near-black mahogany, covered in tiny etched patterns. “What about this?”

The Voice Box. “Oh, I don’t know.”

“Why? What is it?”

“It’s something my mother gave me before I left. A Voice Box.”

“What?” Peter turned it around and examined it. “What’s it do?”

“No idea. I think it must be pretty valuable. But I don’t know if I can sell it. See, my mother is a singer. She’s kind of famous. And I used to do voices for cartoons and commercials and stuff, so we kind of had this voice thing between us. She said I should open it when I’ve had a change of heart.”

“You shouldn’t sell it then.”

“I guess it is just an object. And it might get a good price. But selling it—”

“Hey, I know! Pawn it. There’s this shop I used to go to as a kid, if it’s still there. Miserable bastard owned it. We used to take in stuff we’d got a hold of, and sometimes he’d buy it. We could bring your box there and pawn it, then you can get it back when you’ve got the dosh again.”

Stefan took the box from him. It didn’t feel right, but he decided he had no other choice.

~

“It’s from Peru, Mister Kreel,” said Peter to the pawn-shop owner. Kreel pulled up the sleeves of his patched green cardigan, took the box, and held it to the light. His eyes were far apart; he had to show the box to one eye, then the other.

Stefan looked at Peter. Peru? he mouthed. Peter winked.

“It’s something very rare called a Voice Box,” continued Peter.

“What’s it do?”

“You can,” he leaned on the counter and waved a hand at the object while he searched his mind for an explanation. One popped into his head as he looked at it. “You can carry a song in this box. When someone needs that song most, the box opens up and makes everything better.”

The shop-keep looked closer at it. Peter turned to Stefan and shrugged.

“How do ah open it?”

“Well, that’s the trick, isn’t it? You have to be the one who’s meant to hear it. Besides, you’re not exactly in trouble, are you?” He leaned back. “It’s a kind of puzzle. I don’t know if you could work it out.”

Kreel grumbled. “How much d’yeh want for it?”

“How much are you willing to offer?”

“How much d’yeh want?”

“Three hundred quid.”

Kreel laughed and handed the box back.

“Two hundred pounds,” said Stefan.

Kreel smacked his lips as if chewing cold porridge. “One-fifty.”

Stefan sighed. That wouldn’t pay his rent. It was something, though. “Okay.”

Kreel went to a small safe behind him and pulled open its two-inch door. From a heavy canvas bag, he took a roll of money and peeled off some bills. He closed the safe and handed Stefan the money. With great difficulty, he penned a number onto each half of a perforated ticket, and tore one half off for Stefan.

“Thank you,” said Peter, putting an arm around Stefan and leading him out of the shop. Stefan looked at the ticket in his hand, and the shaky numbers on it like characters of a foreign script.

“Don’t worry,” said Peter, “we’ll get it back in no time.”

But Stefan was worried. He looked back into the shop, watching Kreel shake the box then put it to his ear.

~

Autumn had arrived. Stefan walked through the town, as he had done each day for the past week to pass the time. Today, he finally put his finger on what the change was. It came on so slowly it was barely perceptible. But now he saw it: the colour was gone. Every surface had been leached of its hue, from the sky to the rough brick of the buildings to the earth. The city was an antique stereoscope picture and he was inside it.

He descended the steps of Dig Nation, where he was to meet Peter at the end of his lunchtime shift. “Hey there,” said Fiona as he entered.

“Hiya.”

“How you doing?” she asked. From the sympathy in her voice he guessed that Peter told her everything. He wondered how far that sibling communication went, what other sorts of things he told her about.

“I’m doing okay. Just taking it day by day.” He smiled, but it was an effort. The first of the month was coming, and he had little money left. It bothered him to consider how much he had in the bank just a season ago. Poverty was new to him and it was not comfortable. Worry drained the enjoyment from circumstances he knew he should be enjoying.

“Is Peter here?”

“Yeah,” said Fiona, “I’ll tell him you’ve come for him.”

A moment later, Peter appeared from the kitchen, untying his apron and lifting it over his head. He raised a section of the bar and walked through to give Stefan a hug. He lifted Stefan’s chin with his thumb. “That bad, eh?” Stefan shrugged. “Okay, come with me, miseryguts.”

He draped his apron over the bar. “Hand me my jacket, will you, Fi? I’ll be back in time for the supper crowd. If anyone comes in, we’ve still got some jacket potatoes and the cold rolls.”

“Alright,” she said, “but if you’re not back in time I’ll kill you. I am not going into that kitchen.”

“Okay,” he agreed. The chill of the afternoon hit them as they left the bar, and they walked close together as Peter led them across town. Stefan told Peter about his worries. He confessed his old rate of pay on The Green Brigade, and divulged how much he had in the bank when he’d first come to the country. He knew Peter had never known that kind of money, and felt awkward about that disparity in their lives.

Peter didn’t make it easier for him. “And you spent that all on a play? Which is now over.”

“I think it’s still running somewhere in Spain. Or maybe they’ve moved on by now.” He sighed. “I know. It made sense at the time.”

“Here we are,” said Peter. He led them down a path lined with shrivelled trees and winterised flower-beds. He pointed at a series of huge glass buildings ahead. Their steamy windows held in a blaze of vibrant green. Peter paid their admission, and they walked into a room whose air was rich and clean, with the heavy, moist feel of breath. Ferns covered the ground and palms rose to the glass roof.

Peter took them over a walkway into another room that contained a pond. They sat on its edge and Stefan reached for one of the huge, leathery green lily-pads, pulling it close.

“I know how you can get rid of this rent problem,” said Peter.

“How? Sell my blood?” He raised an eyebrow. “My sperm?”

“No,” laughed Peter, “move in with me.”

Stefan stared at him. This thought had never occurred to him; he wouldn’t have dared entertain it. “Really?”

Peter put his hand around the back of Stefan’s neck. “Really.”

“What do I tell my landlord?”

“Well, there are good excuses and bad excuses.”

“What’s the difference?”

“A bad excuse is boring.”

~

The landlord watched quietly as they moved the last of Stefan’s things from the flat. When Stefan handed him his keys, the man shook his hand and said, “I’m so sorry, son. So young. But don’t you mind the statistics. Yeh’ll find a donor yet.”

Stefan nodded a solemn thank you, and headed down the stairs. Peter closed the back doors, and they got in. The landlord waved as they pulled away. Peter’s laugh spluttered out of his lips as they turned the corner.

“You’re a bad influence on me,” said Stefan.

“Hey, you were going to break your lease anyway. Nothing’s any different than it would have been, except now this guy thinks he did you a big favour.”

“You’re still a bastard.”

Peter smiled.

Fiona met them at the door of their flat and helped them carry Stefan’s bags and boxes upstairs. “Like I don’t see enough of my brother, now I’ve got to deal with you, too,” she said.

In his best schoolboy voice, Stefan said, “Thank you, Fiona.”

“And you’re not getting off easy, boyo,” she said to Peter. “Whatever he pays is coming off my share of the mortgage, too.”

“Okay.”

Peter pointed to a closed door. “That’s where Sarah stays. Except she doesn’t. She made it big working with a firm in London and she’s never here anymore. But she likes to keep a place here because Edinburgh’s home. It works for us.” He pointed to another room whose door was also closed. He whispered as he pointed, “She Who Must Not Be Named. Do not cross her path. Should you see her outwith her room, do not, I repeat, do not make eye contact with her.”

“What’s her name?”

“Oh no no no. Don’t,” said Peter, “don’t think you’re going to have some special influence and tame her. Many have tried. Many have failed.”

They moved down the hall. “Fiona’s hardly ever here, either,” he continued. “She’s usually at her boyfriend’s with the bairn. When they’re here, they’re in the bedroom. So we’ve pretty much got the run of the place.

“No you don’t,” called Fiona from somewhere else.

“And we can have sex on every single surface in this flat.”

“No you can’t.”

“Come on, let’s figure out where to put all your stuff.”

~

“Where do these go?” asked Stefan, carrying a tray of clean pint-glasses. The bar couldn’t take him on as a paid employee, but if he volunteered there, the owners didn’t mind him eating whenever he wanted.

“Just over there,” said Peter, pointing behind the bar. On the other side of the bar a young man sat down, wearing khaki trousers and a T-shirt silk-screened with the image of a South American revolutionary. “Be right back,” said Peter, leaving Stefan.

“Hi there,” he said to the customer, crossing from behind the bar.

“Hi. I’ll have a—”

“Just a quick question first.”

“Who’s that on your shirt?”

“Uh, Che Guevara.”

“Ah. You’re a fan of his?”

“Well—”

“I was just wondering if you could remind me what country he died in.”

“Um—”

“Seems to me he wrote three books. Don’t suppose you could name any of them for me, could you?”

“Uh—”

“Yeah. And what was his real name?”

“I don’t—”

“Get out of here!” shouted Peter. He grabbed the boy’s coat and handed it to him, then booted him playfully toward the door. “Posing little wanker. Out!”

“So,” he said, returning to Stefan, “you want to try what I’ve made for lunch?”

~

Stefan woke up with an urgent need to pee. He climbed over Peter, pulled on some shorts, and padded out to the hallway. As he passed by the nameless flatmate’s door, he stopped and tried to look in. A lone eye flashed in the doorway, and the door slammed shut. Fiona’s door was open, and he saw her son sleeping there in his white wooden prison of a cot. He continued toward the toilet.

The door was locked. He heard Fiona giggle, then her boyfriend’s low voice and the splash of water. They both started to groan, and he heard a rhythmic banging against the tub. He hopped back and forth on his feet. He tried to imagine going back to bed, but he knew he wouldn’t last that long.

He padded to the kitchen and looked around. There was nothing big enough to hold all the liquid inside him. Frantic, he tiptoed at the kitchen counter and urinated into the sink.

“Heya,” said a voice behind him. Horrified, he turned his head and saw Peter. “Oh,” said Peter. “That looks like fun.” Peter stood beside him, a few inches taller, pulled down his underpants, and joined Stefan in peeing.

“That’s the evil flatmate’s favourite cup,” he said, adjusting his aim.

“I love you,” said Stefan.

Peter laughed, finished, and went back to bed.

Stefan guiltily and thoroughly washed the dishes, then joined him.

Hours later, the alarm clock buzzed. Peter groaned, rolled onto Stefan, and turned it off. “Hey you,” he said. “My brother’s getting married next weekend, and his fiancée asked me if I had anybody special I wanted to bring. I thought you would do. Wanna go?”

Stefan smiled.

Seventeen

Heathered Moon

Peter put his suit-bag into the boot on top of Stefan’s. His had what looked like a sleeping bag compartment on the bottom. “What’s that?” asked Stefan.

“That’s for my kilt,” replied Peter.

“Really? You’re wearing a kilt?”

“Sure. My dad bought it for me yonks ago. Barry’ll be wearing his, too.”

“Ooh, I’m gonna like this,” said Stefan. He was about to make a lewd comment, but Fiona stuffed her baby into his arms.

“Hold him,” she said. “Oh, and if it looks like he’s going to throw up—I dunno, just hold him away from you.”

Stefan looked at the wriggling little person in his arms. The baby’s eyes were sparkling and blue like blown glass, and stared with a soul-piercing intensity Stefan found unnerving.

“Everybody in,” said Roddy, Fiona’s boyfriend. “If I push it, we can get there in two hours.”

Peter folded himself into the back seat of Roddy’s tiny French car—much like a refrigerator box painted red and given wheels. Stefan handed him the baby, which Peter strapped into the small plastic seat between them. Fiona and Roddy got into the front seats. Roddy slid his chair back on its rails.

“Oi!” cried Peter.

“Sorry, I have to have room for my legs, or they’ll fall asleep.” Peter looked at Stefan and rolled his eyes. Between them, the baby’s head rolled as if on waves, then it burped loudly.

Fiona turned around. “Something he ate isn’t agreeing with him. You’ll probably need this.” She handed Stefan a small yellow towel that was already moist with something. The baby looked at him, smiled, then made a distressed face and brought up a trickle of thin, smelly liquid.

“Let’s go!” said Roddy.

~

“How’s everyone doing?” asked Roddy, then leaned to his right to blow smoke out the open window. The smoke promptly curled backward on the wind into the rear of the car.

“I need to pee,” said Peter

“I’m hungry,” added Stefan.

“Pull off the motorway up ahead, and we’ll find a pub,” instructed Fiona, exercising some unspoken authority as the driver’s girlfriend.

The town was tiny, and Stefan thought it charming, with its few small buildings and the view across the water to the massive green angles of island-mountains. They stopped in front of the tiny stone post office and got out of the metal box, groaning and stretching. Next door was a low building with a pebbled, whitewashed front and large windows of rippled glass. A hanging sign for one of the national breweries marked it out as a pub.

“I’ll be in in a minute,” said Roddy. The others went in, toting the baby, seat and all, because it was easier to remove the seat from the car than the baby from the seat’s buckles. They ordered drinks, then the waiter returned and asked if they knew what they wanted to eat.

“I’ll go ask Roddy,” said Stefan, eager to be as helpful and useful as possible, still overjoyed about being invited to a family function. He bounded from his seat through the heavy black front door of the pub. “Roddy—?” he started, but stopped when he stepped into a cloud of something that he didn’t recognise, but knew was not cigarette smoke.

Roddy took a long last drag of whatever was concealed in his hand and spoke, his voice a cartoon bubble of smoke: “Yeah?”

“What do you want for lunch?” asked Stefan, not sure what else to say. As the child of musician parents, he wasn’t unaccustomed to people who used drugs. He just didn’t like the idea of being chauffeured by them.

Roddy spent much of lunch laughing at the objects hung on the pub’s walls. Fiona didn’t notice, too busy tending to the baby, whom she tried, unsuccessfully, to feed morsels of her own lunch.

“Peter,” whispered Stefan, tapping Peter’s arm gently. Fiona and Roddy looked at him. The pub was quiet. In the distance, a television showed a rugby match, but the sound was off. Peter raised his eyebrows. “Uh, nothing,” said Stefan.

They paid their bill at the bar and shoved themselves back into the car. Roddy started the engine and they pulled away.

The route took them along a narrow trunk road that twisted along the side of a loch. A forest lined the other side of the road.

Stefan clung to his seat with one hand, while his other held on to the baby-seat, as if he would be able to hold it there should anything go wrong. Why is the baby somehow more important than the rest of us? he wondered. He pictured a yellow hazard sign on the back windscreen: Frightened voice-over artist on board. He’d been in a car several times with his mother when she shouldn’t have driven, yet somehow they never acted out the public service announcement version of drunk driving. He felt he should be courageous and challenge Roddy, taking charge of the car himself. That scenario played out badly in his mind: He’d never driven on this side of the road. No, it would have to be Fiona or Peter—

The car swung around a tight corner. Stefan grabbed the baby’s towel and threw up on it himself.

~

“You look awful,” said Peter, putting a hand on Stefan’s shoulder. He turned back to the clerk on the desk who was checking guests into the manor. ”Yes, it’s ‘Hailes’, I’m the groom’s brother.”

“It says two here,” said the clerk.

“Yeah, me and him.”

“Oh.” The man paused, then handed Peter a set of long brass keys.

“C’mon, Ste, let’s get you upstairs.” He picked up their bags and they climbed the stairs to a large, open landing with an antique table that held a large vase erupting with flowers. Stefan stopped and looked at himself in a gilt-framed mirror on the wall. “Yeah,” said Peter, “you look a tad peely-wally. I didn’t know you got carsick.”

“I’ll be fine now that I’m not trapped in a car with your sister’s stoned boyfriend!”

“Oh,” said Peter, unlocking their door, “was he—?”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t know. He’s always like that.” He dropped the bags on the bed and looked around the suite. From the bathroom, Stefan heard him say “Wow.” He poked his head around the corner. “I think you need to have a bath.”

“Okay,” said Stefan, smiling. He joined Peter in the bathroom, where perched on lion’s feet was the largest bathtub he’d ever seen. Peter cranked open the large brass taps, and Stefan quickly pulled off his clothes, then grabbed at Peter’s.

“Easy, tiger.”

“Well hurry up!”

“You seem to be feeling better now.”

Naked, they climbed into the tub, but the water, hot as it was, seemed like it would never be able to fill the tub. They knelt, holding each other, rubbing each other’s backs. They kissed. Both hard now, they alternated between tugging at each other and holding each other close, grabbing one another’s backs and backsides.

“Forget this!” said Stefan, and climbed out of the tub. Peter followed, yelling in the cold air, screwing the taps closed. They ran, dripping, across the room. Stefan yanked the covers back on the bed, they both jumped in, and Stefan pulled the heavy covers back on top of them. They squirmed close and wrapped themselves around each other. Peter’s squirming became rhythmic, and Stefan joined him. To his surprise, he felt that old familiar tingling already. “I’m gonna come!” he said through clenched teeth.

“Go on, I’m right with you.”

Stefan came quietly, laughing. Peter arched back and grunted loudly. Stefan wouldn’t have been surprised if he turned into a werewolf. But his animal noises gave way to a tiny squeak of pleasure as Stefan felt hot wetness shoot up his chest. He laughed.

“What?” said Peter, his body relaxing now, all traces of animal gone.

“Nothing,” giggled Stefan, “come here,” he said, and pulled his lover against him. In moments, he found his thoughts slipping through time and space, stitching together disparate things. He dreamt briefly that he was at home in his basement bedroom, hearing his mother singing upstairs. Then he was in the gym of his high school, dancing awkwardly with a girl at arm’s length while the other couples looked like they were trying to walk through each other. He looked back from the others to find he was dancing with Peter. A teacher stood on the stage and interrupted the band—who happened to be a young hippy act called Delonia and Robert Mackechnie—and made an announcement: they couldn’t leave because there was a terrible snowstorm outside. To prove his point, he opened a side door, and a raging white cloud burst in and completely surrounded him. When the door hissed shut again, he was gone. Peter looked at Stefan, shrugged, and they kept on dancing.

~

A knock at the door woke them up. “Peter!”” yelled someone. To Stefan it sounded like “Pee-uh.”

“One minute,” Peter said, dropping out of the bed. He ran to the bathroom and came back wrapped in a big white towel. He opened the door. In the hallway stood someone who was unmistakably Peter’s father. He had Peter’s black brush of hair, but had it combed back carefully with some kind of oil in a style he’d likely worn since the early Sixties. He was slightly shorter than Peter, and his distended belly made his son look reedy by comparison, particularly as Peter wore only a towel, ribs and slight muscles bound beneath shockingly white skin that contrasted with the rose of his father’s face.

“Hey, Da,” said Peter, “come on in.”

Stefan, horrified, tried to make himself invisible by burrowing under the covers.

“Is Ste with you?” asked Peter’s father. “I thought I was going to get to meet him.”

“Yeah, he’s here, he’s just being strange,” said Peter, and thumped the blankets. “Show yourself.”

Stefan eased himself up carefully, curling his head and arms over the covers, trying to look as un-naked as possible. “Hello, Mister Hailes,” said Stefan, “nice to meet you.” He extended a hand while carefully holding the covers with his other.

“Och, call me John.” He took the proffered hand and shook it. He sat down on the bed between the two young men. “Well this is quite the day. Your mother would have been well surprised.” Peter warned Stefan in advance about his father’s tendency to speak of his mother in the past tense. Listeners often made the mistake of thinking she was dead and apologised to Peter.

“How’s Barry doing?” asked Peter.

“Oh, you know him. Who can tell? He seems calm enough.”

“And Christine?”

“I like that girl. She’s really good for your brother, you know? But her parents,” he said, looking at the ceiling. “Och. You should see the kirk. Well, you will. It’s ridiculous. There are so many flowers and decorations—it’s more like a bloody parade than a wedding. But that’s what they wanted, and they were willing to pay for it. Bloody Sassenachs.”

Stefan looked at Peter. “English people,” Peter explained.

“Anyway,” said John, standing up from the bed, “it’s ten o’clock. You two best get yourselves ready. Ste, pleasure to meet you.” He slapped Stefan playfully on the shoulder and left.

“I like him,” pronounced Stefan.

“Yeah, well don’t get designs on him. You’re mine.”

“Okay,” he said, falling backward on the bed with his arms open.

~

John wasn’t exaggerating, thought Stefan, looking around the old kirk. Its stone features and carved wooden pews were strewn with enormous purple valences and floral geysers. In his hand, he held a programme made of paper that felt like the starched sheets of last night’s bed. Its pages were printed with calligraphy so ornate it was nearly illegible. “Hymns?” he said, turning to Peter. “I don’t sing.”

“Don’t worry,” said Peter, “I don’t know about any of this stuff, either.”

Stefan looked around at the other guests. Nearly all the women wore elaborate, pastel-coloured hats. They were huge, and obscured the heads of the wearers with their enormous brims and crashing surfs of fine mesh. The men all wore dark, drab suits, though he noticed that those on the other side of the kirk were better-tailored.

Organ music started, and all the heads turned in formation to look back to the door of the church. Four enormous men entered first. If not for their formal jackets and kilts, Stefan would have thought they were the security. They walked stiffly to the front of the church and arranged themselves in a row.

Next came four young women. The first three were tall and pretty, like muses in their variations on a dark purple dress. The fourth followed them. Her makeup was just as softly applied, her hair piled in equally complex layers, but her general shortness and roundness evoked a wordless sympathy from the watchers. Perhaps in her own element she might have had a charm of some kind, but putting her into a set with the other three seemed unfair.

John Hailes followed next. He wore a nice suit, likely hired for the occasion, but he looked past his prime, particularly next to the man who walked with him. The man looked like Peter, but built to a larger scale. He was taller, his jaw wider and more rugged, his shoulders twice as broad—everything about him like a heroic version of Peter.

“That’s Barry,” whispered Peter.

“Yeah, I figured that,” replied Stefan. Looking at Peter, he appreciated that he was happier with the brother he got. Looking back at Barry, he laughed to himself: not as if Barry would ever be on offer.

Finally, Christine entered with her parents. The parents were dressed elegantly and appropriately for their age. Her mother wore a butter yellow suit with a huge matching hat like a felt sombrero. Her father wore a grey morning suit with gloves. Christine was a dowry in herself, her peachy face under a penumbra of soft brown hair with a pearl tiara nestled in it. Her long silk gown was covered in shiny filaments punctuated with pearls. The intended effect had been achieved: everyone else in the room looked like a mollusc next to this daughter of pearl. The sun shone through the stained glass window behind her, dappling her dress with colours and making a halo of her hair. As she walked up the aisle, the guests gasped.

She reached the front and joined Barry, while her parents moved to one side. A priest stood there, though no one knew where he’d arrived from, having been too busy watching Christine. He welcomed them to the town, to the kirk, and explained—for anyone who might be confused—why they were there. He then indicated that they should open their hymn books to sing.

They stood, and Stefan followed with his eyes in the hymnal Peter held open for them. Peter sang, not well, but admirably. Stefan refused. He knew how to read music, taught from an early age by Delonia in case he wanted to join their act someday, but he didn’t sing. He felt panicked, completely unaccustomed to Christian proceedings. Even his father’s funeral had not been held in a church, but was a makeshift affair involving lots of music, a theatrical procession, and, at one point, the police: apparently Canada had strict laws about human bodies that their two-day wake-funeral violated.

The organ music and the voices around him stopped, and they sat down. The priest then delivered a sermon on marriage and its importance as the glue of a healthy community. He spoke of the importance of families, such as those represented here (which made Peter’s father appear as if he’d had something amputated), and warned against the dangers of following modern perversions wearing the disguises of tradition.

Stefan grabbed Peter’s hand and squeezed it. Peter squeezed back.

There were those, the man continued, who felt the church was in decline because of its adherence to tradition. But these lies—lies that had infiltrated the church itself—were part of a never-ending attempt on the part of the wicked to attack the most sacred, most fundamental—

“I can’t listen to this,” whispered Stefan into Peter’s ear. He vibrated with rage.

Peter squeezed his hand intently, added his other hand, and looked at him. “Stay,” he whispered. “Please. Stay with me. Don’t mind him.”

Perhaps it didn’t matter what the man said, he thought. Here he was with Peter, and he felt no doubt about their right to exist there together. He looked at John Hailes beside the altar. He looked back toward them both, smirked, and rolled his eyes. With one silly gesture, he undermined the authority in the ornate robes and supplanted it with his own approval, which meant the world to Stefan.

He looked around. He wouldn’t have been surprised to see his father here. But he wasn’t. He wondered about the Matholics. Did they perform weddings? What would they be like? Would they marry him and Peter? It was legal for two men to get married in Canada and in Scotland. He wondered if the Matholics even had any—What would they be called, “branches”?—in Britain.

Barry and Christine kissed. Stefan didn’t know how much he’d missed, but didn’t mind. The wedding party was soon filing out of the church, with the rest of them following, watching the grey and burgundy Rolls Royce tear off in a cloud of rusty autumn leaves.

“What now?” asked Stefan. Peter was still at his side, defiantly holding his hand, despite a few looks which were not so much disapproving but double-checking to see if they were actually seeing what they were seeing.

“We go back to the manor, they take pictures of Barry and Christine in every conceivable position, we have an overblown, overpriced catered meal, and then in the evening there’s a ceilidh.”

“Kay-lee?”

“Party. Piss-up. Dancing, drinking—you know.”

“That sounds like fun.”

“That’s the idea.” Peter sighed. “I think we’ve earned it.”

“You going to keep your kilt on?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m there,” said Stefan.

~

As anonymously as they could, the manor’s staff swept away dishes and glasses, folded up the tables, stacked the chairs, and emptied the dining room while a band set up on a small stage.

They’d made it through all the speeches. Peter’s father shyly stammered his way through a recipe card of jokes. Christine’s father delivered a smooth oration that sounded like the announcement of a corporate merger at an annual general meeting. Barry’s meaty behemoth of a best friend acted as emcee, threatening repeatedly to tell the crowd any number of unsavoury things about Barry’s past. His seeming eagerness to do so kept everyone—most notably Barry—on tenterhooks every time he stood to speak.

Now they were home-free.

The band started with some traditional Highland dances. Stefan joined in the first, “The Dashing White Sergeant”, desperately looking at Peter to see what he should do. He caught on, though, and was quite proud of himself. No sooner had they finished, though, but they were on to “Strip the Willow”. He got out of step a few times, but again caught on just as the dance ended. The next eluded him completely, and he jumped out to spectate. He was amazed at the agility of the wizened older dancers and that all Barry’s family and friends knew these intricate moves. Christine’s family, however, sat on one side of the room, apparently disapproving of these northern antics.

On a break, Stefan asked Peter where he’d learned to do these dances. “PE classes when it rained,” he answered. “The poor girls had to do a lot more of it.”

“But that’s great. They taught you this vital piece of your culture.”

“Mmm, yeah, we were all very excited about that. What about you? You learn any Indian dances or anything?”

Peter had no idea how close to home the comment struck. “No, I left all the mock-Indian stuff to my mother. I am a ridiculously small fraction Métis, though.”

“What’s that?”

“Long story.”

~

“What are they doing?” asked Stefan, looking out the glass doors at Barry’s friends. The groom himself was busy elsewhere being polite to scores of people, many of whom he’d likely never meet again. They’d all brought gifts, though, so he was under an obligation.

“They’re setting off fireworks,” answered Fiona with a scowl as she bounced her baby son in her arms. “Bunch of jerks. The wain here can’t sleep, and the manor staff are beside themselves.”

“Why?”

“You want to go out there and tell them to stop?” asked Fiona, nodding to the circle of men outside like a drunken rugby team in kilts.

“I will,” said Peter, walking past them, out into the garden. Stefan looked anxiously at Fiona, then followed him out.

“Hey lads,” said Peter. They stopped and looked at him like he was a kitten in a wolves’ den. “Awright?”

“What yeh want, yeh little poof?” asked the relatively smallest of them, whose tiny face was stretched across a balding blonde square of a head.

“Wondering if yehs could quit yer noise.” Stefan noticed that Peter’s accent was broader, rougher as he spoke to them.

“Or?”

“Or nothing, ya eedgit. Ah’m just sayin’, this is a posh place, and yehs can’t go off—”

“Shut it, Peter. Your brother’s not here to fight for yeh, so yeh better watch it. Why don’t you and your boyfriend there just sod off.” He turned to the others. “Sod off. Ha!” They laughed with him.

“I always knew there was something queer about you, ever since we were little boys,” he continued. “But you and this one, in a church. You talk about having no respect. You make me sick.”

“I was in that church for my brother, arsehole, not for your enjoyment, or because I give a toss what that bastard priest has to say about anything.”

“Peter,” said Stefan, taking his arm, “c’mon, let’s go.”

“Yeah, listen to yer bent little friend. Yer boyfriend got a name?”

“Don’t. Don’t you even talk to him, you son of a bitch.” He rushed at Square-head, but two of the others grabbed him.

Square-head leaned close and stuck a decorated cardboard tube in Peter’s mouth. “You like that, don’t you? Why don’t you suck on that, and I’m just gunny light the other end.”

“No!” yelled Stefan. He threw himself at Square-head and hit him across the face. The blow didn’t have nearly the effect he’d hoped. Square-head punched him back and the fourth of the men grabbed his arms and held them to his sides.

“You were going to get out of this easy,” hissed Square-head, “but now we’re gunny put one o’ these numbers where we know you like it.” He turned back to Peter and flicked his lighter.

Stefan dropped to his knees. The man lost his grip on Stefan’s hands. As Stefan stood up, he grabbed the man’s right hand with his left, supported his grip with the other hand, and twisted his body around, as if the man were turning him in a pirouette. The man yelled sharply, and swung his other hand in a fist at Stefan’s head. Stefan dropped backward and yanked the man’s hand in an unnatural direction. “Aaaaa!” he yelled. Stefan let go of the hand, and the man clutched it to his chest.

Peter spat out the firecracker. “Two words for you,” he said slowly and quietly to Square-head, “tool... shed.”

A look of horror flashed across Square-head’s face. “Shut up. Just shut up,” he said. “Let him go. He’s learnt his lesson.”

The men let go of Peter. “I thought yeh wouldn’t want me telling yer mates about that. So why don’t yehs all just pack it in an’ let me nephew get some kip? Go get drunk or something. I know yer good at that. Nighty-night, Jimmy,” he said, leaning forward and putting his hands around Square-head as if to kiss him. Square-head recoiled. “Ha! Buncha stupid oiks. C’mon Ste.”

Fiona rushed up to them with several other men in tow. “You alright? It looked like you were in trouble, so I got some help.”

“We’re fine,” said Peter, coolly. “Thanks anyway, Fi.”

He and Stefan continued walking to the bar next to the dance-floor. “I’m the groom’s brother,” he announced to the bartender, crossing behind the bar. “I’m just gonna take these, okay?” He lifted up a cardboard case of beer. Before the bartender could answer, Peter said, “Thanks.”

They stopped at the front desk. “This is a stunning establishment,” Peter said to the clerk, pocketing all their match-boxes, “I want to tell everyone I know about it.”

“What are we doing?” asked Stefan, following him up to their room, where Peter stowed the case of beer.

“We’re going to have our own private party. But we’ve got something to do first.” They walked out to the car-park beside the manor. “Let’s see. Which one do you think they came in?” Among the serviceable cars from Barry’s side of the party and the luxury vehicles of Christine’s side stood one small white cheap sportscar with tinted black windows, shiny wheel-rims, and an enormous white manatee tail.

Peter flipped the handkerchief from his breast-pocket like a magician. “Could you hold this, please?” he asked, handing it to Stefan. He emptied the boxes of matches one by one into his hand, then expertly hunkered down in his kilt, not showing anything inappropriate, though Stefan had seen it all already, and stuffed the matches up the car’s tail-pipe by the handful. “Observe,” he said, looking up at Stefan, as he produced from his pockets a small box of fireworks and the larger tube that had been in his mouth.

“When did you—?”

“I got the little ones when I hugged Jimmy there, and they gave me the other one before.”

“You’re devious.”

Peter smiled. He opened the box and poked the fireworks into the tailpipe after the matches. Then he popped in the large tube. “My handkerchief, please.” Stefan presented it to him. Peter wrapped it around the tail-pipe, then took apart the carnation boutonniere that had been pinned to his jacket. He unwound the green tape from the flowers and cinched it tightly around the handkerchief over the tail-pipe. “All done. Let’s go.”

“Er, okay,” said Stefan, looking at the car as they headed back to the manor.

“So where did you learn that,” asked Peter, “what you did back there?”

“It was my mother’s idea. She knew I was different, and didn’t want anyone picking on me for it, so we went through this period when she had me taking all kinds of self-defence classes.”

“That was cool.”

“I didn’t know if it would work. I’ve never got to use it before. But you know, they had you, and—”

“You’re my hero,” said Peter, and kissed him.

“Hardly. What about you? What did—Jimmy, was it?—what did he not want you to say? You guys didn’t, you know—?”

“God, Ste, give me some credit.”

“Sorry.”

“Well, we kinda did. Not really. There was him and his sister and me. We were all in this tool-shed one time with our jeans and pants down. His parents had given him this book about how babies were made, and he showed it to us. He was curious, and stuck his little willy in his sister.”

“No way!”

“Yeah. So he’s a bit uncomfortable about that.”

“I can imagine,” said Stefan with a feigned shudder.

Back in the room, Peter picked up the beer. “Get the covers,” he said, indicating with his head. Stefan, unsure, pulled the blankets and duvet from the bed. He followed Peter back outside. They walked from the manor grounds, crossed the adjoining golf course, and continued out to the landscape beyond.

“Here,” said Peter. Stefan dropped the blankets and spread them out. They took off their jackets and shoes and lay down.

Stefan walked his hand up Peter’s thigh to explore under his kilt, something he’d been wanting to do all day. But they were both too shaken from the earlier confrontation to feel aroused. Instead, Stefan pulled open the box of beer and popped one open for each of them. They sat looking at the sky, content to be silent in each other’s company. Stefan looked around at the landscape, which featured little more than lumps and oddly scattered rocks—seemingly dropped from the sky—stretching off for miles to the mountains beyond. The ground was covered with heather, still faintly purple in the moonlight, despite the late season. Something about it all seemed strangely familiar.

Neither of them had any sense of time, except for the slow arc of the moon. Peter cleared their empty cans and their current half-full ones from the blankets and pulled them over him and Stefan. They dozed until a huge bang woke them up. A flaming red shape like a fiery palm tree filled the sky, with tiny green fronds around it.

“Oh my God!” said Stefan.

Peter laughed with perverse pleasure. “Cheers,” he said, lifting a can of beer.

Stefan grabbed one and clunked it against Peter’s. As he sipped it, he watched the lights fading in the sky. Looking at the moon-like landscape around them, it dawned on him slowly. “This is a dream.”

“Yeah,” said Peter, smiling, “it is.” He kissed him.

No, thought Stefan, I dreamt this. A year ago. But he didn’t correct Peter, because he was right, too.

Eighteen

Misplaced

Peter pulled on his coat, then climbed back onto the bed where Stefan was reading a newspaper.

“Seems there was a riot in Rome last week following the performance of a play,” said Stefan.

“So?”

“It was my dad’s play,” he added.

“You’re kidding!”

“Nope. It’s right here: ‘Show Sparks Demonstration’,” said Stefan, holding up the paper.

“I don’t have time, Ste, I’ve got to get to the restaurant. The posh folk are hungry, and it’s up to me to make sure they’re properly fed.” He stopped as he saw the excitement in Stefan’s face. “It’s great, though. That must really be some show. Tell me more about it later. I just—I really have to go.” He wrapped a scarf around his neck. “Can you believe we slept outside just a week ago? And today it’s threatening to snow.”

“Any word from the newlyweds?”

“Yeah, they called last night after you went to bed. Barry says hi—expressive as always. But Christine wanted me to tell you how happy she was that you were at the wedding.”

“Aww, that’s nice.”

“Well, it was good of you to be there.” He kissed Stefan on the cheek. “So what are you going to do with yourself today?”

“Well, this article has got me thinking. I’m going to try to find my father... Somewhere.”

“Er, okay,” said Peter. “Good luck. I’ll see you when I get home.”

~

Stefan sat in the grey cavern that was Saint Giles Cathedral. The space was nearly empty, except for a few tourists who occasionally snapped pictures. Though he didn’t have a religious background, an instinct told Stefan that photographing a holy space was taboo, or at least in poor taste.

He heard singing from several directions, hymns and chanting, intermixed with some mumbling. These sounds weren’t coming from the tourists, or the tidy, wizened woman who sat at an information table. The songs and utterances came from the statues and carvings around the cathedral. No one else reacted to them, so Stefan figured he was the only one who heard them. His mother always told him how sensitive he was, and went to great lengths to expound on the richness of their aboriginal culture’s spiritual traditions. It had occurred to him on several occasions that he might just be insane and Delonia overcompensating. But events lately had fallen together in a way that reassured him that not only was he of sound mind, perhaps things were also working out as they were supposed to. His experiences had been tumultuous, but the payoffs—seeing his father, working with the theatre company, and now finding Peter—made it all worthwhile.

His father was nowhere to be found here in the church. Somehow he knew this. He stood up from the small wooden chair in the side chapel where’d he’d been sitting. He put a hand on the armoured glove of the marble man who lay there with a sword across his chest, and mentally thanked him for letting him stop for a while in his space. Stefan didn’t know why, but statues of the dead, laid out and resting, didn’t speak or stir in any way. The statuary in Edinburgh seemed to be growing more and more restless, so Stefan appreciated the relative quiet of this space.

Stefan walked across the bridges into the New Town. A small group of soldiers from the Great War stood on a plinth halfway across, mounted to one side of the pavement. They shouted battlefield instructions to each other and looked around, confused.

“The enemy is out there,” said one.

“Where?” asked another. He reloaded his rifle, knelt down, pulled his wide-brimmed bowl of a helmet down and adjusted to keep from sinking into the mud.

“I don’t know,” said the first.

“Where are we?” asked the third.

“I don’t know!” said the first.

Stefan pretended that he, like the others crossing the bridge, didn’t see them. He had an idea for figuring out what was happening with the statues. It was strange, but he was growing accustomed to strange. He walked through a small ravine formed on one side by a concrete mass containing a shopping mall and on the other side by a glass movie theatre that clung to the base of Calton Hill like a giant aquarium full of neon lights, escalators, and people.

He crossed a busy street and walked to a statue he’d noticed a while ago. He looked up at the bronze man who stood on a concrete base. The man’s face was narrow and pensive. He wore a hunting cap with two peaks, a long cloak-like overcoat, and held a pipe. “Mister Holmes?” asked Stefan.

“Hello, yes?” Statue-Holmes looked down. “You can see me?” he asked curtly and incredulously.

“Yes, I can. I was wondering if you could help me.”

“I’m not so sure that I can. I don’t feel quite myself.” He paused as if searching for something half-remembered. “My faculties are not what they once were. I—Where am I?”

“You’re in Edinburgh, Mister Holmes.”

He turned about and looked at the modern buildings around him. The dense traffic didn’t register in his carved-out eyes. The dark metal features of his face squinted. “I can’t recall—” he began, but interrupted himself, distressed by an emerging awareness. “I am not Sherlock Holmes.”

“No, sir,” said Stefan, “you’re a statue of him.”

“What do you know of this Sherlock Holmes?” the statue demanded.

“He was a character. In books. A series of books by a man named Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It says on this plaque that he was born near here. Doyle, that is.”

“Have you read these books?”

“Uh, no,” Stefan admitted quietly. “But I did see a play once based on one of them!”

“Was it good?”

“Uh, not really.” Stefan buried his hands in the pockets of the heavy jacket he’d borrowed from Peter.

“I’m not sure how helpful I can be to you,” said the statue. “I’m afraid I’ve very little with which to work.” He angled one foot on the pedestal and tapped his pipe against his lip as he thought, just as Stefan figured he might. The statue seemed to be balancing ideas against his moment-to-moment experiences of himself. Finally, he pronounced: “I am not even so much as a statue of this Sherlock Holmes. I am a statue of an artist’s idea of Sherlock Holmes—several times removed from even a fictional source of origin, I’m afraid. The fact that you know next to nothing about me is further limiting.”

Stefan struggled to keep up with the statue’s line of thinking. The statue was clearly cleverer than he was. Or, rather, Stefan corrected himself, he was based on the idea of someone cleverer. “That’s it, what you said. You just answered my question. You’re an idea. Hume—another statue across town—he said something similar to me. He asked who I was, and when I told him my name, he said that was just an idea. I get it now: he didn’t know who he was because I didn’t have any idea who he was.”

“Do people still read these books by Doyle?” asked the panic-stricken statue.

“Oh yeah, they’re still very popular.”

“Thank goodness. I’m safe.”

“Yes,” said Stefan. An alarmed look took over his face. “You mean, if enough people forget... I’ve gotta go. Thank you!” Before the statue could respond, Stefan ran away. His coat flapped open in the wind as he ran back across the bridges, back to the Royal Mile to the spot where he’d spoken to the statue of Hume.

The statue was gone.

~

Peter walked into the flat, still wearing his chequered kitchen-worker’s trousers and white smock. He hung his thin jacket on the wall over the heavy one he’d given Stefan. “What’s going on?” he asked. Fiona sat bouncing her son on her leg. She looked relieved to see him. Stefan sat on a footstool in front of her, leaning with his elbows on his knees. Roddy stared at the ceiling, bewildered.

“Ste’s been explaining a theory to me about our city,” said Fiona, flaring her eyes and shaking her head.

“Peter, the statues are disappearing,” said Ste, jumping up.

“Ste, the city is disappearing,” he answered.

“Och, not you, too,” said Fiona.

“This is what I’ve been telling you,” said Peter. “These development sites that Rab’s been taking us to, the restoration contracts that are going out—they’re destroying the city.”

“Thank you,” said Stefan, dropping back down to his seat, his hands in the air.

“There’s a demonstration tomorrow, Ste, a protest against a new development that’s taking over a whole section of the Old Town. I’m going with Rab and the boys. I didn’t want to speak for you, but—”

“No, I’m there,” said Stefan.

~

Someone at the front of the crowd shouted into a megaphone. From where he stood, Stefan couldn’t make out the speaker's words.

“What’s she saying?” asked Iain.

“No idea,” said Peter.

“This is rubbish,” said Calum. “Let’s go.”

“Can we stay till the end?” asked Rab.

“What are we protesting, Rab? It’s just two hundred hippies standing around on a Baltic day, freezing our bollocks off, yelling at—oh, no one in particular! When I agreed to come here, I thought there would at least be someone to protest at.”

“There was supposed to be,” said Rab. “They were supposed to do the ground-breaking today, the official opening of this new project.”

“What’s it going to be?” asked Iain.

“A shopping mall built into this old site,” said Rab.

“Great,” said Peter. “Just what we needed: more outlets for sweatshop clothes and slave coffee.”

“I’m going,” said Calum.

“Yeah, okay,” sighed Rab, “let’s go.”

They walked a few short blocks and descended the stairs to Dig Nation. Fiona was behind the bar, and nodded to them as they came in, unsurprised to see them. They proceeded to their usual booth deep in the back. Peter went to the bar to get them a round of drinks.

Fiona whispered: Pay for them. She nodded toward the back, where he saw the owner of the bar moving about the kitchen.

“Hello, Peter,” said the owner as he came from the back. In his tidy Argyll jumper and crisp grey slacks, he looked strangely out of place in his own bar; but then, he was not its target audience. “How are you doing today?”

“Alright, thanks. Just came from a protest. It was rubbish.”

“Oh yes. I went to a few protests in my day. What was this one about?”

“A development project that’s starting up in this area.”

“Oh,” said the man, looking troubled. He was in the process of picking up a glass, but put it back down. “Yes, about that. I’ve been meaning to talk to you both.”

“Why?” asked Fiona.

“I’ve been offered a rather tidy sum for this place, and I’ve been thinking—”

“You’re not!” said Peter.

“You two know as well as I do that this place doesn’t make a profit. The people who come here don’t spend much, and they stay for a long time. It’s dark and murky in here, and young people today want lights and atmosphere.”

“This place has loads of atmosphere!” insisted Peter.

“Yes, but not the kind that draws people in. Besides, they implied quite unmistakably that if I didn’t sell, I would be crowded out. So I can either accept their generous offer now, or make nothing later on.”

“So we’re out of work,” said Fiona.

“Well, not tomorrow.”

“You’ve already accepted the offer then?” asked Peter.

“I have. I’m sorry.” He looked at the floor and walked back into the kitchen.

Fiona looked at him and gave a heavy sigh.

“We’ll talk about it at home,” said Peter. He held out a ten-pound note.

“What’s that for?”

“The drinks.”

“Forget that,” she said. “They’re on the house.”

Stefan came to help carry the drinks back to the table. “What happened here?” he asked, seeing their faces.

“We’ll tell you later,” said Fiona.

Peter and Stefan divided the different pints among them. “What are we talking about?” asked Peter.

Iain moaned and said, “Rab’s being a nutter.”

“I’m serious,” insisted Rab. “We’ve got to do something about this. What are we going to do, sit around and wait for some historic trust group to stop this? By then it’ll be too late. And these people have enough money to buy their way through any kind of opposition.”

“So what are you thinking about?” asked Peter.

Rab crossed his arms on the table and leaned forward. “Sabotage.”

Nineteen

Paper Chase

Stefan leaned over Peter’s sleeping body, put an ear next to his open mouth, and listened. His deep, glottal breaths sounded like ocean waves. Stefan kissed Peter’s mouth. The ocean receded with a quick inhalation and Peter’s eyes fluttered open.

Stefan smiled, then shuffled himself down to kiss Peter’s neck, making him shudder. Then he moved his lips lightly down Peter’s torso, following the thin line of hair to his belly button.

“Huh?”

Peter sat up slightly, leaning on his elbows. “What?”

Stefan tugged at Peter’s navel.

“What are you doing?” asked Peter. His eyes widened as he watched Stefan uncoiling paper from him like one of the rolls of caps he used to play with as a boy. “What the hell—?”

“It’s okay,” Stefan assured him, smiling. “I guess my dad wanted to put this somewhere I’d find it.”

“That tickles!”

“Got it. Finished,” said Stefan.

“You realise that this is weird for me, don’t you?”

“Dad’s got a sense of humour,” said Stefan, uncurling the paper, which turned out to be several strips.

“What is it?” asked Peter.

“I’m not sure. Looks like someone tore across a bunch of papers, some kind of document. But I don’t know what it’s from.” He held up a strip, looking closely at it. “This one’s got my father’s name and signature on it.”

Peter prodded his belly with his fingers. “Where did it come from?”

“I don’t know,” answered Stefan. “Where does belly-button lint come from? I wear a white T-shirt, I get blue lint. This makes as much sense as anything else.” He sat cross-legged and laughed. “When I was little, my mother used to tell me that’s where they filled me with soul and tied me up so it wouldn’t leak out.”

“She sounds like an interesting woman.”

“Yeah,” conceded Stefan, “I suppose she is.”

“Does she even know where you are?”

“No.” He pictured Helen croaking a confession under duress. “I suppose somebody’s probably told her.”

“You’re a bit of a jerk, aren’t you?”

Stefan gave him a look of incredulity. “This, from you?”

“What?”

“Okay, let me illustrate my point: Peter, I love you.”

“I love you too, Ste.”

Stefan blinked. “Oh.”

“You expected me to hit you or something?”

“Yeah.”

Peter took a pillow from behind his back and clobbered him.

~

“How’s that?” asked the barber.

Stefan sat up in the chair. He hadn’t been paying attention. “Perfect,” he said.

He paid the barber and walked to the local co-operative grocery store. The older women and the teenaged boys working the tills were surly, but Stefan liked the idea of a co-op, even if it didn’t look any different than a regular store. He noticed that the music was generic, a succession of sound-alike singers covering popular songs. Discount muzak, he thought, we pass the savings onto you. He filled a basket with vegetables, taking advantage of several bags of “Reduced for quick sale” produce, paid for it all with some of his remaining money, then headed back to the flat. He’d offered to cook supper for Peter, Fiona, and himself, and was even tempted to lure out the other flatmate.

He stopped to look at a tiny old church that caught his eye. Its spires were lower than the clay chimney-pots of the surrounding tenement buildings, and its eaves were covered in elaborate gables like wooden spider webs that had caught flowers. The body of the structure was surrounded with scaffolding. Like Peter said, a city on crutches. He wondered what was left of the inside of the building, and wished he could see it. Cute, was his final verdict: not so much a house of God; more like a cottage of God.