Upperkirkgate Chapter Two: Could He Dig Without Arms? Part 1

“I just admire their ability to fade… to be grey and drab when they feel like it. Their colour will come back, like an upgraded TV license, but what of their human counterparts?” Jack drifted, his right hand vaguely intertwined with Alison’s left. They moved away from the QML, he casting a backward glance at it.

   “No,” she said. They squeezed down the narrower lane towards the High Street, wandering towards the King Street entrance, then turning right onto the playing fields, full of soggy leaves.

     “Cornflakes,” he said suddenly.

     “What?” said Alison sharply. He pointed at the ground.

     “An afterthought. The ground. Like leftover cereal.”

     “Ah,” she said, unconvinced. She tightened her grip on his hand so that he winced. Jack saw another pair of students approaching them. He smiled. The other girl waved to them, though Alison wheeled about to leave them behind. “Oh why can’t they leave us alone?” she muttered through clenched teeth. Jack looked surprised.

     “I thought you knew Marie,” he said.

     “Hey, you guys,” said Marie, approaching. “Nice day for it.”

     “Hmmm,” said the young man standing next to her. He was known as Crombie’s Cat, due to some things he had done in his first year. Most people had forgotten his real name. There was something brisk yet warm to them.

     Alison kicked at the leaves in a petulant manner. “The better for being with Jack,” she replied. He winced at her fingers again. “Well, we have studying to do.”

     “See ya,” said Marie, looking puzzled.

     “Hmmm,” said Crombie’s Cat again. Jack said nothing as he and Alison wandered over to the rugby posts, the skeletal trees poking over the wall. She was pacing the ground, forcing him to keep up with her. He looked out at the cobbled street of Old Aberdeen, in the direction they had come. He saw a bus, and a hopeful look lit up his face. Alison became more focussed, and jerked his hand back towards the library. He sighed, and thought of one of their favourite Emily Dickinson poems.

                                                           ***

Jack stood, impatient at the bus stop. He jingled the change in his pockets, and glanced nervously back down the High Street. At last the bus rolled up. He sighed with relief as the doors opened. He ignored the younger students piling out. No doubt they had found the honeymoon period was over, in terms of their grants. He had been there. He broke into a sweat as he thought he saw a familiar dark head pass by, then relaxed as he saw it was a mistake.

     He sat at a window seat, watching the streets pass by on the road into town. The city seemed really grey on a day like this. Not quite actively wet, but passive and sullen in its dampness. He shook his head: he had serious thinking to do.

     As before, the bus stopped near Marischal College. He got out, hands in denim jacket pockets and walked down Broad Street, onto Upperkirkgate. A cold wind buffeted him as he stopped and looked down the length of the street, shaped lie a bowl. Positive thinking: a bowl, not a trough. How to find the recipe for success. It went down into a physical depression, with the shopping centres in the middle, then rose towards Schoolhill. “Rise, with all your prospects ahead of you,” he said aloud,

echoing himself from earlier.

     The coffee shop, Pirrips, was nearer the Schoolhill side. He smiled briefly to think of the Art Gallery beyond it, the creativity of others, uplifting in the midst of pain and chaos. It seemed the first time he had smiled in ages. He walked briskly through the doors of the bookshop, trying not to recall the pressures of his last visit. Surrounded by books, he felt like a swimmer coming to surface.

     Jack sat gingerly at a table near the entrance, facing the street. He placed a conveniently large broadsheet newspaper on the table, but did not read it. He drummed his fingers nervously. Forgetting the custom of ordering at the counter, he said, “A regular latte, please,” to the girl who gravitated towards him, without looking up at her.

     “What’s this?” she said in mock severity, “Skiving on a study day?” She sat down gracefully.

     “Claire!” He smiled again, in genuine surprise and appreciation. “I never thought I’d meet you here.”

     “How are things? Hey, you never read this,” regarding the newspaper. “What’s it for, then?”

     “Oh, you know…”

     She gave a slight tilt of the chin. “Busy, eh?”

     He nodded. “How about yourself?” She fiddled with her shoulder bag and it fell off the back of the chair. She picked it up, looking a little flushed. He saw her hair had grown slightly, and liked it.

     “Someone had better order us coffees,” she said, “why don’t I do that?” She had left the table almost before he had a chance to reply. “I’ve a history essay next week,” said on her return. Jack nodded.

     “I did the same subject a year ago, same stage as you.”

     “Why did you give up?” she said mildly, not accusing. She pushed his drink across to him.

     He considered. “Emily got to me,” he said in a bright, superficial manner. “After that, there was no-one else.”

     Claire looked puzzled, then began to laugh, almost against her better judgement. “Oh,” she said, “her. ‘After great pain’, and all that.”

     “Yes.” They sat in silence for a moment before a dark-haired girl seemed to loom over them. Jack went a little pale. The girl smiled apologetically, and squeezed past him to select a book from the shelf behind him. Jack exhaled. Claire leaned back, arms folded, looking up at the paintings. She was sitting where Alison had been. Jack could almost touch her. She was calm, contemplative. He wished he could keep this picture of her. She looked slowly in his direction. He blinked.

     “So how’s Alison?” she said lightly.

     “Organised,”  he said, darkly. Their eyes met, and they burst out laughing. Jack examined his fingers, where Alison had so recently been clutching him. They still seemed a little red. “Do you still find it cold?” he said suddenly.

     “Perishing,” she said, rubbing her fingers together briskly. Jack started to reach a hand over to her, then stopped himself. He picked up the pepper pot and pretended to find it interesting, turning it over. He became aware his idealised statue was smiling in a droll, gentle way. “Try sprinkling that on your latte,” she suggested.

     “The art of the sneeze,” he said, replacing it on the table. “Imagine… a creative burst from a coffee cup, exploding in a festival of froth… maybe they’d exhibit it here. I’d get a commission… I reckon I should for all the coffee I’ve had in the past three years… I need it even more this year.”

     Claire was bright, attentive. She brushed away a strand of hair that fell across her forehead, and rested her head on her hand, looking at him. “What’s it like?” she said softly, almost shyly.

     “What’s what?” he said, suddenly flushed.

     “Getting on so far with your studies… being so organised… ready to meet the real world.” Jack relaxed, almost disappointed. “Ah, I’m not ready for the real world yet,” he said, with a nod of thanks to the female attendant who brought their coffees. He frowned for a moment, trying to establish whether she might be related to another brunette girl, but gave it up. Claire was stirring her coffee, concentrating. He noticed her long lashes, intent. He wished he could lick off their trace of makeup, like cinnamon dusting. He shook his head, tried to think of someone else in the same way. Her darkness kept coalescing, blending into the blondeness in front of him. He sighed in frustration.

     She looked up at him. “Am I boring you?” she said softly, her blue eyes calm.

     “No,”  he said sharply.

     “Alright,” she said as softly, stirring her coffee the other way, with a child-like air of trying something different, seeing where it took her.

     “I wish my grades were better,” he said, looking up at a painting of Dunottar Castle, relishing the depiction of the cold and damp on its oppressive ruin.

Claire’s eyes were wider. They were the most beautiful twin moons in spring tide. She brushed her hair back again and took a sip, in apparent confusion. “I thought you were doing so well,” she said, almost reproachfully.

     “I am. I was,” he said, reluctant in confession. “It’s so difficult… I thought I had some support in it, you know. I wish…” He frowned, clenched his fingers around the coffee cup: still hot, he let it go at once. “Some friendships are… better than others,” he said awkwardly. Claire passed him a paper napkin: he took it and smiled, rubbing his fingers.

     “And some friends,” she agreed. She looked so kind, so thoughtful, so summery; he tried not to think about her legs under the table. He picked up the coffee cup again, holding it by the handle. Her eyes were concerned, watching him.

     “It’s not that I don’t like her,” Jack muttered, almost angry with the tension. “She’s so bright, and on my level, and knows a lot, we shared so much…” Claire inclined her head, in a gesture not quite a nod. “…but she’s always there, I need time out, you know, time to study, to do other things, see other people.” He knew better than to look at her directly then. He saw the shape of her head tilt gently. He started to feel relieved. It needn’t be so bad. He swallowed most of his coffee, stirred the remaining froth and made to add the pepper. Claire smiled broadly.

     “Have you ever been there?” he asked, pointing up at Dunottar, by Stonehaven, further down the east coast from Aberdeen. She turned her head, her soft hair falling across her face again (still a little too short, he thought, but almost perfect) as she looked in the direction he was pointing.

     “No,” she said, turning back to him.

     “It was a family ritual… we used to go down to Stonehaven, explore the castle one day on the long weekend in February, look away down to the sea, look at the Whigs’ Vault, where they starved those Covenanters…”

     “Who were the Covenanters?” she asked. “Not my area, I’m afraid.”

     “People who kept their promises… persecuted… that room has a great hole in it now, facing out to sea. There was no such thing when they were sealed up in it in the 1660s.” He sighed. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to be morbid. My best friend even had his ninth birthday party there… I remember the well, I loved it, the way it was twenty-five feet deep. The ruined stairs, half a tower left, the seagulls, the cold coming off the sea, the views… perhaps I could take you sometime.”

     He tensed: had he presumed too much? “Perhaps,” she said, with a faint smile. He breathed again.

     “I wish I was an artist,” he said with a rush: he could not hold it in anymore. There was a slight cloud, no bigger than a child’s fist, on her face. Claire seemed so clear, so accessible. She opened her lips to speak, her hair just as lovely, and he leaned across and brushed her lips with his, in a seemingly drug-induced state, hoping and hoping. She did not move, did not resist, waiting. He drew back and looked at her. He took her hand, as he had been wanting to, and stroked it. She looked more surprised than anything. “Please,” he said, willing the silence to break.

     Then she moved her hand away. “Do you mind. I’m going out with Martin,” she said very calmly, dignified. She paused as if deliberating, perhaps to give advice. Jack waited dumbly. “Some friendships really are better than others,” she said softly, almost in his ear. He relished the brief contact, sad, knowing she was leaving. She picked up her bag, wound her scarf round her neck, put on her coat. Her eyes were full, regretful. Jack did not know what to say. If only she were angry. He watched her go away, as a tide of hope receding. She hesitated at the door, turned to look at him, holding the door in a way he found tantalising. She seemed about to speak, then shook her head and left.

     Jack watched her get on one of the endless buses on his side of the road, show her season ticket to the driver. He stirred his cup frantically, forgetting the cup was empty. He looked up at the painting of Dunottar. Old days, forgotten rambles. The desolate window slits seemed to be watching him. He looked at the deep sea, savoured the cold atmosphere depicted on the cliffs.

     Jack felt restless. He picked up his jacket, but did not put it on again. The attendant came to tidy up the coffees, and smiled at him. He tried to smile back, and failed. He watched the two cold cups on her tray, almost touching. He wandered towards the back of the shop, with its mock-Gothic arches. The selection of books being promoted were different to the last time. He saw a section reserved for the fee-paying schools. “That’s no guarantee of intelligence,” he thought, and started to feel better.

     He was standing midway up the short flight of steps, beneath an arch. Then he looked down the length of the shop, and saw Alison. Her arms were folded, determined, looking firmly up at him. A little uneasily, he waved to her.

     She did not smile, advancing up the aisle towards him, not taking her eyes from him. He turned partially away, looking at the paintings, but still felt her eyes on him. He pointed at the current promotion. “What do you think?” She joined him, one step below, resting a hand on the handrail as she looked.

     “There was a girl in my year at school who went to Oxford,” she said at last.

     “Commiserations,” said Jack drily. “All this… this show of status… where does it get anyone? It all comes to nothing.”

     Alison shrugged. “A chasing after the wind… this too is meaningless.”

“Are we meaningless?” he asked, and regretted it at once. She turned sharply to him. She moved up to his level, and he backed away. She pulled him towards him, none too gently, and kissed his cheek hard, almost like a blow. It was a tired reprise of the previous occasion.

     “Mine,” said Alison, her eyes flashing, “mine, mine, mine.” Her voice was a sibilant whisper. He felt sucked into a black hole. She grabbed his hand, and marched him out of the shop. It seemed indecent to try and stop her. Jack cast a last despairing look back at the painting of Dunottar, the earlier atmosphere ruined. His hand hurt a little from her tight grasp. Escape seemed impossible. The doors opened to the cold, and a harsh exposure.

                                                           ***

“If I could give you a holiday, where would you go?” said Jack to the shop window. The elegant vacuum-formed figure within stared over his head. “Windows for dummies,” he said, and shrugged, moving on. He wandered through the shopping centre, going away from Union Street, up onto Upperkirkgate. He looked into the windows of a museum there, models of sailing ships displayed in the window, and suddenly saw Alison waiting by the entrance. He felt more tired than surprised.

     “I didn’t think you were a historian,” he said.

     “I’m not,” she said, a curious look on her face, almost of pity. She reached out a 

hand to touch his shoulder. “Let’s walk.” He smiled, and walked beside her.

     “Where are we going?”

     “You’ll see.”