booksnew/source/Bane/Bane01.txt

ONE
The road I travelled skirted the estuary. At every second bend
I could see that flat expanse of`blue<75>grey stretching far out.
If I<>d looked hard enough I could have seen the smudge on
the horizon where the land poked out a long finger
almost as far as the shipping lane, but if I<>d done that on this road I<>d
probably never have made it home.
Home. I suppose I could call Arden that. More than any
place else, I reckon. When I<>m far away, that's how I think
of it. But the closer I got - and if I was on the Kilcreggan
Road, then I was pretty damned close; no turning back
now <20> the less sure I was. Oh, I<>d travelled this road plenty
of times, but those times were a while back. This was now
and that is always fraught with uncertainty. The picture in
my mind always gets rosier in direct relation to the dis-
tance from the place I usually call home.
When I was a kid, we<77>d go on holiday to Devon or
Yorkshire, and even once to France where I was sick for a
week after a bottle of wine and told I had nobody to
blame but myself. Holidays were fine. It was the coming back
that sent those tickles of apprehension trailing up my
spine. Would our home be there? Would Arden still be the
same? I would always be in the back seat, with my carrier
bag filled with books and puzzles to keep me amused as
the Morris or the Austin, or whatever old car my father`s
salary as a teacher would run to, ate up the miles. My ~
father would drive with his head back, that straight pipe
jutting out, humming some classical tune just a shade
louder than the engine. My mother would be asleep,
curled on her seat, feet tucked up. All I'd see would be a
mess of light brown curls, and maybe the glint of her tiny
gold <20> real gold <20> earring.
Going home for them was easy. For a six year old in the
back seat, looking out at the unfamiliar territory out there,
it was a matter of mounting concern. And when we got on
to the Kilcreggan Road, when my father would nudge my
Mother awake, it was different. Familiar, but different. Not
in a menacing way, but as if it had to be re-affixed in my
mind. The house always looked smaller, the garden
larger, at least for those first few moments before home was
impressed again on a young mind.
Now I had that same feeling, and it wasn`t just a fort-
night or three weeks that had passed. This was a home-
coming, a prodigal returning. A lot of water had passed
under Strowan<61>s Bridge since I had last seen Arden. I<>d
come back once or twice for the compulsory wedding or
two and funerals. The latter (two in quick succession were
those of my parents) were in every case occasions of
numbing depression from which I had to flee as quickly as
decently possible.
No, it was ten years, more like twelve, since I had last
thought casually, warmly, of Arden as home.
On tape, another one had stopped biting the dust. The late, great
Freddy Mercury and his band were the champions. I cut him off in mid champ. Two more bends, first a right, then
a left, then the boundary welcome. No?
No. Four more bends. That memory again. The road
hadn<EFBFBD>t changed. The sign was still there, black on white,
though, instead of blue. It seemed smaller. On over the
bridge, with its sharp right at the bottom, and there I was,
in Arden, coming in from the east.
It had changed, although the fabric was essentially the
same. There was nothing substantial to the change, just a
different feel. It was smaller. Or I was bigger. It seemed to
me the roads were narrower, the houses set closer to it, the
trees that bit more shady. It didn<64>t have the feel of home.
OK, a small voice whispered inside my head. Let
them just smile and say hello, long time no see, how is it
going, have a drink. `
Some hot-shot, hard<72>bitten ace reporter is Nicky Ryan.
Been in some of the world's hottest flashpoints, yet nervous as a schoolboy now.
And that was only the half of it. I was coming back to
start all over again. I<>d made the break. I<>d made up my
mind that twelve years chasing stories all over the world
with a foot in somebody else<73>s door were no longer for
me. I<>d grabbed my books and all those half-filled note- I
books with the half-chewed plots and story lines, the novels
I<EFBFBD>d promised myself I<>d write one of these days, and said:
<EFBFBD>Do it. Do it now.<2E>
This was now. This was me coming home. This was me
going hell for leather to get it done and see if I could be as good as Le Carre, or James Lee Burke, or even Stephen King. 
And what was really bothering me was that I didn't <20>
know if I could write more than ten paragraphs without
putting in a shock, a horror or a drama. I didn<64>t know if the old home town had changed, or
whether I could.
Let me tell you a little bit about Arden.
It<EFBFBD>s not a big town even by local standards. A large vil-
lage would probably give you the picture, housing maybe
three thousand people. But as I<>ve said, it<69>s old. Until the
government started fooling about and amalgamated lots of small individual
towns into a great amorphous region, Arden was quite
happy to trundle on alone. Officially, and the tiny council
which loosely ran the place was fond of reminding you, it
was known as The Royal Burgh of the Parish of Arden. A
mouthful for a place its size.
Somewhere along the line, not long after William the
Conqueror took the south, one of the
Scottish kings granted the harbour town royal status,
which was a bigger deal in those days than it is now. Being
a Royal Burgh meant that Arden could have its own town
council and make by-laws. It had a court and a sheriff who
was the local judge and a provost who was a kind of coun-
try sheriff. They could jail people, and they could hang
people, and if you didn<64>t go to church on a Sunday they
had all sorts of painful ways of saving your soul.
Robert the Bruce died near here of what the history books reckon
<EFBFBD>was leprosy, but now I<>m not so sure.
Until only a few years ago, nobody knew that the
mound around the Ardhmor peninsula was a Roman wall, <20>
built at the same time they were building the big one from
Old Kilpatrick right across the country to the River Forth.
There<EFBFBD>s some standing stones poking out of the soil in a
few places which make Stonehenge look like a new build-
ing project, and in the mud flats at the east of the town
they once dug up a dugout canoe which was thousands of
years old. Inside that were some bones which were said to
be near enough human as to make no difference, and others
positively identified as mammoth.
It<EFBFBD>s an old place, and probably hasn<73>t changed all that
much in a long time. The parish council allotted some town edge bogland land at the Milligs at the turn of the century for workers, hous-
ing, and later on some of the rich traders put up those
sandstone mansions on the slope above the harbour where
they could overlook Westbay, which held the bulk of the
town<EFBFBD>s population. Then, as now, you had three classes of
people, easily identified by their location in the town.
Milligs was poor, Westbay was middle, and Upper Arden
was pools-win territory. Looking back, I remember the
feeling of awe when I considered that these people had
gardeners, and maids. In my mind<6E>s eye they were royalty.
My perspective has changed, but that feeling of being not
among the Upper Arden dwellers is something that still sits
uneasily in those shady corners below conscious thought.
Then Upper Arden was Rovers, Westbay was Morris trav-
ellers, Milligs was pedestrian only. So what has changed?
Ah, the internal combustion engine has reached the
Milligs. The town<77>s scrap yard is down there, and the sons
of pedestrians drive beat<61>up bangers with dented
bumpers and the grey camouflage patching of fibreglass
fill. Not too many road tax discs, or working sidelights,
but Milligs has been emancipated into the era of road
transport.
Westbay is where most of the people live. It merges
with Milligs from the east and crowds round the harbour
in the west where the old Royal Burgh peters out to good
farming on the shore side, and some low jagged cliffs
north of the main road. Westbay now is new compact cars. The people live in sandstone cottages and semi-
detached and terrace houses one or two storeys high, or in
those white rough-cast boxes builders are throwing up all
over the country,  in the few areas in Arden where they<65>ve
found an acre or two to cram them on. _
Upper Arden is still leafy and winding, the imposing
homes set well back from the roads in well-tended gardens
where rhododendron and azalea flank long pebbled or tar-
mac drives. There are bay windows, multi-chimneyed
roofs. Here it is Range Rover country. It is Beemer and Merc off-roaders. It is hacking jackets  and green rubber
boots. Here is the tennis club, the dinner
party, the barbecue, the pony paddock. Here is the wealth
that shouts down the hill at those below. 
We've got it. And we always will.
Past the sign there<72>s a stand of trees on either side ofthe
road, followed by a couple of smallholdings, and then the
first houses, again flanking the Kilcreggan Road which
veers sharply away from the shore. The Milligs. Even here
you have a sub-division of class or wealth. The shore side,
with its scrap yard and the town dump and the great gun-
barrel of the main sewage pipe stretching far out on to the
flats, is tougher and rougher and more raggedy than the
other side of the street. Shore side has shacks and pigeon
huts.
It has a couple of dog pounds where no doubt live the
many times great-grandsons of those huge German shep-
herds that scared the shit out of me when I went exploring
the dangerous, exciting side of town. On the far side of the
road, the council housing was plain but solid enough under
the peeling paint and the dirty grey roughcast. There is a
section of allotments where people grow potatoes and
onions, and a couple raised a chicken or two. No rhodo-
dendrons here. There was a corner store and a hardware
store that used to be run by old Mr Smollett who<68>d sell us
slingshots - the kind with the thumbprint grip that
give you a black nail every second shot <20> then threatened
us with a severe kick up the arse if he ever saw us playing
with them near his shop. I was wondering if he was still
alive when I passed by, slowing down to ten miles an hour,
and I was pleasantly surprised <20> no enormously surprised
and pleased when there he was, still wearing that old striped
butcher<EFBFBD>s apron with the big pockets on the front, still wear-
ing that close cropped grey moustache. He was coming out
of the shop, preceded by two small boys, bending low to tell
them something. I could swear that if I could lip read I<>d
make out what he was saying: "There y<>are now, and if you
fire that thing near my window you<6F>ll get a toe up your
arses. All the way up."
On the right, still on the far side, I saw my first change.
Ronnie Scott's garage had disappeared, to be replaced by
one of those glass and steel beam carport filling stations
with a tyre bay and an accessory shop. Ah, that was a loss. I
teamed about at school with Ronnie<69>s son Alan who was
set to become a fair mechanic himself. We used to hang about in
the workshop, among all those old, oily tools, camshafts,
crankshafts and a huge lifting jack that took the two of us
to pump, and then we<77>d stand on its lifter for that delicious
moment when the other would twist the grip and float us
gently to the ground. The big asbestos shack always
smelled of old rubber and rust and oil. It was a place where
we could use the grindstone to whittle down broken hack-
saw blades into arrowheads and daggers, where we could
sit in the cabs of smelly diesel trucks, or maybe in the front
seat of a jaguar from up the hill and roar around the
Monza circuit. Alan<61>s dad used to wink at us from under
whichever car he<68>d be, or from the depths of his mechanics
pit, occasionally yelling at us to mind we don<6F>t get mucky
footprints on Doctor MacGregor<6F>s seat, or not to let off
the handbrake of the big yellow caterpillar tractor. That
was a garage. What I was pulling into was a filling station
with a modern steel and concrete iron bay behind it.
My backside was sore and my accelerator foot was stiff
after all the miles the Subaru had rolled since I had left
London late on the previous afternoon. I climbed down
from the high seat and unhooked the nozzle from the
pump. Four star burbled into the tank and I let it run, try-
- ing to stretch and arch my back with only one hand free.
The big tank took twelve gallons and a small fortune before the automatic cut-
off I flipped the cap, jangled the nozzle back into its place
and crossed over to the cash desk.
Passing by the pumps I realised what was really so dif-
ferent about the yard. It wasn<73>t just new motorway modern.
It was bigger, and set further back from the road, and the
workshop and small glass-fronted showroom stood where
the Scotts' tiny little cottage and garden had been the last
time I<>d seen it. I reckoned maybe his father had given up
trying to make the small operation work, although he always
seemed to be busy whenever we hung about on the rainy
afternoons. Alan was determined to be a mechanic just like
him, a wizard of the machine, who could get any engine
chugging back to life. But I assumed with the recession
he<EFBFBD>d probably sold up to the petrol company and got out
of Arden.
In at the cash desk a young girl of about sixteen with
wavy brown short hair and a smattering of freckles flashed
me a quick glimpse perfect teeth. I
asked for a couple of packets of cigarettes which brought
the bill up to enough to give me one and a third coffee
mugs. The smile vanished when I brought out my accor-
dion of credit cards. For a second she looked at them
blankly, then smiled that pretty way again and said: "I'm
sorry, we don<6F>t take them.'
'What, none of them?<3F> I asked. 'Not even Visa?<3F>
'I<>m afraid not. The boss says it<69>s cash or cheque. We
don<EFBFBD>t have one of the machines to work these cards.'
Normally I would have grumbled about the incon-
venience, but she was only a girl doing a boring job, and
the last thing I wanted on my first day back was an argument.
'That<61>s OK,<2C> I said, reaching inside my bomber jacket,
before I halted. I<>d just remembered using my last cheque
in a similar service station outside of Watford. Worse still,
I only had about five pounds and small change in the
pocket of my jeans. -
I stood and stared at her for a moment, then the silliness
of the situation overcame me and I burst out laughing. She
started laughing too. <20>You<6F>re not going to believe this, but
I haven<65>t enough money. I thought everybody took credit
cards these days, but I<>m wrong. So what do I do now?<3F>
<EFBFBD>I<EFBFBD>d better get the boss,<2C> she said, still smiling, and
pressed the button on a bell which rang faintly somewhere
in the other building. She left it a while and I nosed around
among the oil cans and rows of replacement wiper blades.
She pressed the buzzer again, and there was a muffled
reply from the workshop: <20>All right Janey, I'm comin .<2E>
This, I assumed, was the boss, so I pretended to read the
de-icer cans left over from winter while mentally compos-
ing how I was going to tell a complete stranger that he<68>d
have to trust me until the next day for his cash.
'Well sir, what seems to be the problem?' A voice which
said, 'This explanation had better be good<6F> without actu-
ally saying the words.
I turned around to see a tall, slim-built man with a
shock of jet-black hair falling over his forehead. His eyes
widened in instant recognition just as the thought flicked
through my mind that that hank of hair was just like his
fathers
'I don<6F>t believe it,<2C> he said, starting to smile as he
crossed the couple of yards to grasp my hand and pump it
vigorously.
<EFBFBD>Nicky Ryan skint. I never thought I<>d live to see the
day.`
`Flat broke and up the creek without a paddle, Alan,' I
said, returning his handshake. 'I can give you a fiver down
payment on account if you<6F>ll trust me till tomorrow.<2E>
<EFBFBD>Ha. Trust you. You? A washed<65>up old hack? Are you
kidding?'
He didn<64>t wait for a reply. `Credit cards? We don<6F>t take
them any more. I quit about six months ago because it was
taking too long to get the cash back. And with the by<62>pass
it<EFBFBD>s hardly worth my while.<2E>
Before I could say anything, Alan gestured around his
forecourt and said:
'What do you think of this then? A big change from the
old place.'
'That<61>s what I thought when I pulled in. I thought there
was something wrong with the place. It<49>s too neat. Not
like it was when it was a going concern.
'Going concern? It's been great. I tell you, I haven't
looked back since I got the franchise.'
<EFBFBD>Oh? You got a dealership then? I thought maybe your
dad had sold up?<3F>
'No,' Alan said, still beaming proudly. 'I got the Cater-
pillar deal for the whole district. Everything from tractors
to farm machinery ... plus Leyland spares and repairs.
I looked him up and down, taking in the neat tweed
jacket and well<6C>cut slacks, clean hands and a white collar.
<EFBFBD>You<EFBFBD>ve not been spending too much time under
trucks,<2C> I said. 'Got a whole team doing the dog work for
you? I thought you always wanted to be the best mechanic
in the world... <20>
<EFBFBD>But I am, I am. I just found a way to do it without lying
on my back under a sump all day. I took over seven years
ago, but I didn<64>t want to rely on just the village trade. And
I am the best anyway!'
'Alan, that<61>s terrific,<2C> I said, and I meant it. 'But, I tell
you, just when I came round that comer I was thinking of
us playing about in the old shed, and sharing your mother<65>s
soup in the cottage. Don<6F>t you miss the old place?<3F>
`No, I needed the space. My dad works for me, doing
the books. He`s better at that than he was at fixing cars.
He's got a house only a couple of doors down from your
grandfather<EFBFBD>s old place, and guess where I<>m living now?<3F>
The look on his face that one of the Milligs commoners had made it up the leafy slope.
'Down the shore side,<2C> I volunteered.
'Don<6F>t be such an arse.,
'OK, OK, I<>ll have another guess. Bayview Wynd?`
`Close enough. Harbour Avenue. just round the comer.<2E>
I could see Alan was getting enormous pleasure telling
me of his step up in the world. It gave me a pleasant buzz too.
<EFBFBD>Upper Arden. Why fan mah brow, mastah,<2C> I said,
dredging up a catch phrase we<77>d used on each other as
boys.
'I just moved in last year. It<49>s the old Erskine place, just
on the corner.'
I couldn<64>t place it yet, but I nodded anyway.
<EFBFBD>I suppose you<6F>ve got maids and gardeners too?<3F>
<EFBFBD>Don`t be daft. just a man who cuts the grass once in a
while, and my wife looks after the house. She<68>s happier
than a pig in shit to tell you the truth.<2E>
'I<>ll bet she is. Who is she anyway?'
'She<68>s my wife.'
<EFBFBD>Yes. No. I mean who did you marry? Do I know her?<3F>
<EFBFBD>I don<6F>t know. Maybe you do. Janet McCrossan. She
was a couple of years younger than us. Came from
Shandon.<2E>
I had the vaguest recollection of a small girl with a fair
pony tail and a bright smile that could have been her, but I
wasn<EFBFBD>t sure.
<EFBFBD>You probably never met her,<2C> Alan said before I could
reply, 'but if you stay around you<6F>ll have to come up and
see the place. And meet janet too.<2E>
I could feel Alan was dying to show off his big house,
and frankly, I was keen to see it. He seemed pleased
when I told him I<>d be staying around for quite a while and
that I<>d love to come and see his mansion in the sky as soon
as I'd got my own things sorted out. He assured me there
was no rush for the cash I owed him, and I could tell he
meant it. As I left his filling station he asked: 'And how
have you been going? You don<6F>t seem to have changed
that much.,
'Only a bit older and a bit wiser, and still the best with a
slingshot.<2E>
As I adjusted my seatbelt and jiggled my backside into
the position it had kept for the last four hundred miles I
caught a glimpse of Alan<61>s face in the offside mirror. He
was shakin his head and smiling as if he didn`t believe me.
As I nosed the car out on
to the Kilcreggan Road   I waved a casual hand out of
the window, pleased that it had been Alan and not some service manager who would have made a big
song and dance about not getting the cash.
The road took me over Strowan<61>s Bridge which effec-
tively marks the boundary between the east and west of
town, an old stone hump-back, just wide enough to take
two<EFBFBD>way trafhc as long as each way isn't a twenty tonner.
Strowan<EFBFBD>s Water, which runs below, is a clear stream
which starts way up on the moorland at Cardross Hill,
neatly bisects the town and forks east and west to empty
into the firth on each side of Ardhmor, that big hunk of
tree-covered rock that juts out into the grey water to the
south.
On the down-slope of the bridge the road continued,
past another couple of smallholdings and the begimming of
Westbay, the solid middle-area of Arden with its tight
sprawl of cottages and two-storey buildings, its neat shop-
ping centre, the town hall and little cinema, the library and
the school<6F>house. At first glance, and from a speed that
had slowed to ten miles an hour as I eased the Subaru
along while searching for a parking space, the changes had
not been too drastic. The grocery store had been converted
into that type of mini<6E>market that has sprung up, like mushrooms all over this country and just about every-
where else. McKay<61>s had been a family concern then, one
of those old<6C>fashioned places where the potatoes come
dirty from burlap sacks, and huge jars of boiled sweets are
kept well out of reach of small hands. Now there would be
rows of canned food, trolleys, and spotty girls with uni-
forms, kneeling in the aisles, risking the wheels of the
laden trolleys, click, click clicking with their price guns.
I found a space in the little car park they<65>d carved out
behind the new store. I planned to pick up a few pro-
visions, maybe some beer, before going down the harbour
road to the cottage. My aunt, who<68>d looked after my
grandfather for a decade or so - not that the old salt
needed much looking after <20> had been livin there since
she'd sub-let grandad<61>s place, and had found this a con-
venient time to visit her aunt, my Great Aunt Jean. Know-
ing Aunt Martha<68>s habits, I reckoned the place would be
pretty shipshape. Strangely when I thought back, I seem to
remember thinking of grandad<61>s place more as home, a
place where I spent a lot of fascinating hours, weekends
and evenings, never tiring of the old travelling tales of the
old travelling man.
Holly<EFBFBD>s bar was still there, the first place I ever had a
drink with the real men when I was only sixteen. Big john
Hollinger, a great bear of a man with a ruddy, laughing
face behind a big highlander<65>s beard, had known exactly
how old I was, but he<68>d let me buy a Guinness anyway. I
hadn<EFBFBD>t a clue what I was drinking, and I still cringe with
embarrassment when I remember how he<68>d stared me in
the eye until I<>d drunk every last drop of the thick, creamy
beer. I hadn<64>t the taste for it then, but that was a while ago,
and I planned, in the very near future, to head up to
Holly<EFBFBD>s for a refresher course.
Mary Baker<65>s, the most aptly named shop in town, still
displayed its small loaves and tea cakes in the front win-
dow, but the shop next door had changed. I recalled it as a
small clothing store where mothers would drag their reluc- `
tant children on the last few days of the summer vacation
to have them fitted out with the school uniform. Now the
shop was some sort of arty-crafty souvenir place with
shells and tartan rugs, odd<64>looking home-made candles
and grotesque little pottery representations of the Loch
Ness monster, who, if he looks anything like he<68>s depicted
in these tawdry tourist shops in every west coast village,
should pray for extinction.
Mary Baker <20> the second that is <20> her mother having
passed on even before I<>d hightailed it for the big time,
was essentially the same. Those glass display cases were
still filled with delightful confections that she had been
baking since five o<>clock that morning. The danish pastry
was thick and light; the brown loaves were solid, and
roughcast with pure grain which always came from one of
- the local mills, mostly the little granary up at the Abbey
seminary where the trainee priests practised self-
sufficiency to help them get along with their upcoming
vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. Mary recognised
me right away and flashed me a big smile from behind
those huge bottle-end glasses. I could have been there for
an hour or so, if I<>d stayed to answer all her questions. As it
was it took me half an hour to buy a couple of spicy buns
and a thick farmhouse loaf which I intended to savour.
In the supermarket I found everything as expected. I
loaded up a trolley with tins and packets and a dozen cans
of Belgian beer. I added a bottle of whisky and another of vodka,
having first checked to find out whether the store accepted
credit cards. I made a mental note to get to the bank on the
following day anyway, but the little supermarket was keen
to take almost any kind of plastic I threw at it.
All the provisions were crammed in two garish da-glo
plastic bags in the back of the jeep, precariously balanced
on my boxes and travelling bags.
The cottage looked tiny as I drove round the right-
angled turn into the avenue. Tiny, a bit shabby, as if it had
been left to lie, forgotten, for a while. I stood back and had a good look at the front of the building,  noticed patches where the sandstone had worn;
and a couple of slates missing from the roof were angled
up in the gutter to which they'd slipped from higher up.
The paint around the sash windows was old and grey-
mired, but the glass was clean. No doubt aunt Martha had
been whizzing around with her duster, her substantial
backside bustling briskly around the overstuffed armchairs,
as she flicked here and there with the cluster. My old key
opened the Yale lock easily and the door, which used to
squeak, didn<64>t. Inside smelled of air freshener and bleach, so
I knew aunt Martha had been busy, but it was dark in the
living room, a kind of depressing shade, and quiet too, as if
the room was sleeping, not really expecting a caller. The
window let in little light, but outside it was overcast, and
the old dark green curtains were designed to keep the out-
side out. The first thing I did was pull them apart to their
greatest extent, and tie them back with the faded braids.
The room looked a little brighter, but not much. I dumped
the groceries on the sofa and sat down on the easy chair
that had once been my father<65>s. I sat on the edge, feeling
almost that I shouldn<64>t be sitting there. The place was
empty, except for me and a million memories. A sprink-
ling of tiny dust motes caught a stray patch of light that
must have slipped through the clouds, and sparkled lazily
in the air. This was the room where I<>d spent a huge chunk
of my life with my mother and father. Now there was just
me.
Just me and a whole crowd of memories that jostled and
swirled like half-recognised faces at a busy party. I nodded
briefly to them all as they came and paused before moving
back into the swirl. I popped a lager, refreshingly cold, and maybe had a few more while I sat and ruminated. Those
snatches of memory loomed in and faded out before I could
grab a hold of them. It was a disorientating feeling because
my mind couldn<64>t settle. It was late whenI decided to go to bed.
Up the narrow staircase the walls shifted just a little,
letting me know I should have given Shona a gentlemanly
break. Strangely, I instinctively put my foot on the inside
edge of the seventh stair,the one that had always creaked.
V After all those years, that just came back to me out of the
' cobwebs in the back of my head, and it wasn<73>t until I
reached the top landing that I realised I'd done it, \Vhen I
was very small I used to sneak down those stairs in the
early mornings of summer, tip<69>toeing slowly, my little
hand reaching up to hold the smooth wood of the banister,
heading into that pool of light the early morning summer sun
would shoot through the kitchen window. It was always
quiet, except for the low rumbling snore from my parents,
room, and maybe a couple of early birds out in the back
yard. I knew that if I stood on that creak on the seventh
<EFBFBD> stair then one of them would wake up and order me to get
back to bed. If I made it downstairs, I could grab a biscuit
and a drink of milk and gingerly snap back the old mortice
lock on the back door and out into the morning. Not
creaking on the seventh step had become one of those
fixed-in rules that never got broken.
I grinned when I realised I<>d kept the rule.
My bed was still the same, but the room like the house
and everything in it, seemed smaller. Otherwise it hadn`t
changed. My old pictures were still on the walls. Me and
my grandad out shooting duck down on the mud flats. Me
being prepared and looking solemn in the scouts. Old
jimmi Hendrix still looking as if the wires on his guitar
had shorted out and he<68>d got most of the shock. (He did
later, didn`t he?) Paul Simon looking a little sensitive and
thoughtful and a bit hurt, just the image I'd hoped to proj~
ect after my spell of wanting to be as mean as old jimmi. I
knew if I opened the drawer next to the bed I<>d still find
the bits of string, the old penknives with their smooth-
worn handles, and probably a lot of unsent letters to a few
half<EFBFBD>remembered girls.
I shucked off my 'eans and my Treks and threw my
shorts over the chair by the window, before pulling back
15

the oose-down duvet and crawling into bed.
Tie last thing I remember is thinking of my mother
hanging out my {athens white shirts on the washing line
where the sunlight shone right through them. I don<6F>t know
where that picture came fiom, probably somewhere down
deep, but she was looking over her shoulder at me as she
clipped the clothespegs into place and was smiling at me.
I dimly remember smiling back at her, but I must have
fallen asleep pretty quickly, for there was nothing after
that until . . .
16




<EFBFBD>was leprosy, but now I<>m not so sure.
Until only a few years ago, nobody knew that the
mound around the Ardhmor peninsula was a Roman wall, <20>
built at the same time they were building the big one from
Old Kilpatrick right across the country to the Forth.
K There<72>s some standing stones poking out of the soil in a
few places which make Stonehenge look like a new build-
ing project, and in the mud flats at the east of the town
they once dug up a dugout canoe which was thousands of
years old. Inside that were some bones which were said to
be near enough human as to make no difference, and others
positively identified as mammoth.
It<EFBFBD>s an old place, and probably hasn<73>t changed all that
much in a long time. The parish council allotted some land
at the Milligs at the turn of the century for workers, hous-
ing, and later on some of the rich traders put up some
sandstone mansions on the slope above the harbour where
they could overlook Westbay, which held the bulk of the
town<EFBFBD>s population. Then, as now, you had three classes of
people, easily identified by their location in the town.
Milligs was poor, Westbay was middle, and Upper Arden
was pools-win territory. Looking back, I remember the
feeling of awe when I considered that these people had
gardeners, and maids. In my mind<6E>s eye they were royalty.
My perspective has changed, but that feeling of being not
among the Upper Arden dwellers is something that still sits
uneasily in those shady corners below conscious thought.
Then Upper Arden was Rovers, Westbay was Morris trav-
ellers, Milligs waspedestrian only. So what has changed?
Ah, the internal combustion engine has reached the
Milligs. The town<77>s scrap yard is down there, and the sons
of pedestrians drive beat<61>up Ford Cortinas with dented
bumpers and the grey camouflage patching of fibreglass
fill. Not too many road tax discs, or working sidelights,
but Milligs has been emancipated into the era of road
transport.
Westbay is where most of the people live. It merges
with Milligs from the east and crowds round the harbour
4