Upperkirkgate Chapter Two: Could He Dig Without Arms? Part 3

They were silent for a while, watching the autumn happen. Since they had come to the Gardens, more leaves had departed the trees, the sky seemed greyer. The attendant made three more piles of leaves, and went off to do something else.

    “There!” said Alison suddenly. “Marriage in Great Expectations as a sort of railway, connecting the main characters… the line of male exploitation continues… Miss Havisham’s unconscious liberation, Biddy’s attachment to Joe…”

     “I always liked that bit, it seemed to make sense to me. I mean, she was better off with Joe than Pip once Estella and Magwitch raised his expectations… she thought she loved Pip earlier, but he just didn’t see it.”

     “Men rarely do. Yourself excepted.”

     “What’s so wrong with us, apart from football? Never liked it, myself.”

     “Your brains are different, ours are permanently set… to shopping. Ha ha.”

     “So is it just patriarchal authority you dislike in marriage, the sense of history that goes with it, or both?” She smiled. She had been occasionally been chewing something. She turned his head towards her, leaned over, and kissed him for a full minute. He winced. “Ugh.” He removed a small piece from his mouth. “Your chewing gum.”

     “It was fresh this morning.” Jack looked around for the park attendant, and tried to leave it on the bench. It stuck to his fingers. Jack grew more agitated in trying to shift it. “Just like Brer Rabbit and the tar baby,” said Alison.

     “This stuff is horribly sticky,” he said. “Take it back.” She moved just out of range, laughing. He got up and walked over to a small fountain at the side of the Gardens, and pressed the pump. It removed the worst bits.

     Behind him, Alison got out a fresh stick. She dangled it in front of her mouth in an exaggerated way, and began to chew slowly, her eyes on him, mischievous. “Oh no,” he said, when he saw her. “That’s too saccharine for me, apart from anything else.”

     “Oh, surely not,” she said in a dry tone. They were standing under an arch supporting the street above. There was a shallow basin before them, the size of a large paddling pool, filled with leaves.

     “I’ve always wondered what this was for,” he said. “It’s like it stands for something lost, crumbling… alone.” He stepped down into it. Above him, Alison was taller for once. “Gray’s School of Art… how many shades of grey do you see, this granite Monday?”

     “You’re all the art I need,” she said lazily. “And you’re definitely not grey.”

     “Oh, I think I’m starting.”

     They started to wander up the steps, back towards Union Terrace. Jack moved a little way away from Alison, but she closed the distance. They headed northwards, away from the Salvation Army Citadel and Marks and Spencers. Away from the beach, which he thought of as a kind of freedom. Drifting in and out of the crowd, they seemed an opaque mass to him, a tide of grey, of granite, rising and falling, the shifting rows of faces.

     He felt her slender arm slipping through his, and moved before she could grip him fully. The traffic lights changed to red for the traffic, and green for the pedestrians, by the Music Hall. He moved on across the road, she ran a couple of steps ahead of him, mounted the shallower steps at that end, and stood between the classical stone pillars. He stopped below, and looked up. Some people clicked their tongues as they surged past him: there was little room for a pause. Jack looked at the posters, and stepped up to join her. “Echo and the Bunnymen were here last year, I wish I’d known that then. But I was ill at the time.” She nodded, initially sympathetic, then frowned.

     “We’re together,” she said firmly. “It’s called dating.”

     “More like pruning and paring,” he replied. “Besides, who talks about dating anymore?” He looked at a picture advertising a ballet. “Catch-tutu,” he said glumly.

     She came up to him, taking his hand firmly. He felt a little scratch from her nails, and winced. They continued up Union Street. He needed to desert, end this occupation, get fresh air. He was in fresh air. Abruptly, she wheeled right into a coffee shop. He glanced at the sign. “I don’t”-

     “This is good for you.”

     “But I don’t like it so much. No books, only newspapers; and you know how reliable those can be.” She took no notice.

     “Well. Aren’t you going to buy me one?” He sighed, trying to count his change in his pocket; even now, she clung to his other hand.

     “A latte, is it?”

     “Un espresso, per favore.”

     “They’re not very big, you know. And they’re quite strong.” She did not answer, but went to an empty table, and sat down. He felt her eyes on him the whole time until he returned from the counter with the espresso.

     “Only a glass of water for yourself?”

     “It doesn’t cost,” he said mildly. Jack kept looking at the exits. Alison took a sip, and shivered. “It’s usually better with sugar.” This café seemed rather cold and clinical, almost like a dentist’s waiting room. The water seemed tepid. Jack made a face and put it down. “Come on Ali, I don’t like this place. Let’s go.”

     “Claire told me she liked it.” He tried not to react.

     “Well, we can’t agree on everything.”

     She made another face, and finished the espresso. “That was good,” she said, her expression saying otherwise. “Positive thinking.” Her small red hand dug into his again. They drifted out the door, then up with the crowd, to Holburn Junction.

     “Well. This is where I go,” Jack said brightly. He tried to enjoy kissing her, but she seemed brittle and defiant. “How do you drink your coffee, with the taste of that”- he said, catching the smell of her chewing-gum.

     “I have my secrets. Good night, my Jack.”

     “Bye, Ali.” He crossed with the green pedestrian light, running the last part. He turned and waved. She was still there, watching. She went over to the steps of a building that had once been a library, sat down and resolved to wait.

                                                           ***

Jack was in the Special Collections library at King’s College, looking at a nineteenth-century commentary on Richard II. “You can’t take it out,” said the librarian at the desk. Jack nodded, and took it over to a study desk. “I didn’t think that was your specialism,” said a female voice he did not quite recognise. He frowned at the small, mousey girl. “You’re- Alison’s guy, aren’t you,” she said in a slightly irritating, know-it-all tone.

     “My name is Jack,” he said mildly, sitting down.

     “I know. Your dissertation is on Hamlet, specifically, gender relations at the court of Elsinore, a potential Oedipal subtext, and the use of humour.” Her name came back to him.

     “Ah, you’re Ali’s flatmate, Ellie, famous for photocopying and peanut sandwiches. In no particular order.”

     “Hardly. An industrious student needs a balanced diet.”

     “Well, I wouldn’t have thought The Stuart Age was your specialism either, given you’re an Enlightenment historian.”

     “How exactly does a supremely self-pitying monarch relate to the Prince of Denmark? Look- I’ve known Alison since first year. She doesn’t go for guys unless she’s very serious about them. I don’t want to see her getting hurt.”

     “I think that’s our business,” said Jack, trying to concentrate, and feeling needled.

     “She was talking about you”-

     “Your concern is noted.” He felt angry, as though everything he said or did was captured on CCTV. He nearly said “Anything you say may be used in evidence against you,” aloud. He could not read the book. Meeting Alison was better than this. Ellie leaned across to him again, but he snapped the book shut and left his seat, handing it over to the librarian.

     Jack shrugged into his blue denim jacket and went outside, feeling the wind keenly after the conditioned air of the Special Collections. He put his collar up, missing his scarf today. The wind blew off the nearby sports field, ruffling his hair. He had no wish to meet anyone really, but it was so expensive going into town, even to window-shop and throw away a bus fare doing so.

     He went over to the building outside which were posted the exam results. He remembered the day his results from the Summer School had been posted there, his first real academic success. He smiled: even now, it was difficult not to feel a justified pleasure in it. He looked forward to the great success of his dissertation. Speaking of which…

     He turned his steps further towards the campus, hoping Alison would not be in wait somewhere. She had drawn up a timetable for his times of study, but he had discreetly turned it into a paper plane, the flight now departing from Union Bridge, by the jeweller’s. He headed for the Brewery. Time for a weekly chat with his tutor, Dr Carmichael.

     Jack was about to go into the Brewery, casting a wary eye at the recumbent statue of Bishop Elphinstone. He associated him too much with Alison now. Someone tapped him on the shoulder. He turned round. It was Crombie’s Cat. He looked a bit unsettled. “Hi,” said Jack. “How are you doing?”

     He had heard strange things about the Cat in their first year, including how he had got his name, most of them probably apocryphal. “Where’s Marie?”

     “Ah.” The Cat, large, well-built and accomplished on the rugby field, scratched his head. “She’s around. We did well against Heriot-Watt last season… sure to be some improvements to the game this year…” Jack, whose interest in rugby and most sports extended only to the off switch on the TV, listened for two minutes. Then he noticed the time.

     “I’ll be late for my tutorial,” he said. “See you later.” When he came out of the Brewery an hour later, the Cat was still loitering. “Ah, you’re still here,” said Jack mildly.

     “Let’s go to the pub,” said the Cat abruptly. They walked in silence to the High Street. Jack, mindful of the recent discussion and the need to make more progress with his dissertation, ordered an orange juice on entering the pub. The Cat seemed to relax a little after consuming his first pint. “It’s about her,” he said unequivocally.

     “Who?”

     “Marie. My girl. I haven’t seen her for a week.”

     “Oh,” said Jack uncertainly. “Why is that?”

     The Cat sighed, and looked furtive. “I thought you might know,” he said. Jack was a little disconcerted.

     “I’m sorry, mate,” he said. “I don’t really know Marie, unless you count hearsay from a friend of a friend…” At this, the other raised a finger.

     “Yeah. I hoped you might know.”

     “Ah- you mean through Alison?” Jack ventured. The Cat nodded. 

     “Well, Alison is… never short of an opinion.” The Cat leaned forward.

     “How do you manage it?” Jack found being stared at by a much larger and heavier male rather disconcerting.

     “If you mean, how do I get on with Alison, well… we have a lot in common, we like literature and philosophy… maybe she’s not so into history. We have… similar backgrounds.” He felt increasingly uncomfortable, disloyal to Alison. The Cat was still waiting. Jack imagined the nearest fruit machine turning into a kind of parachute, so he could bail out of this conversation. Perhaps his life with Alison and life at the University altogether. No, he did not mean that. The campus was still an attractive place. He wanted his degree, and maybe more…

     “I wish,” said Jack intensely, “I just wish that common interests were enough.” He drained his glass. “Thanks for this.” He got up and left the pub abruptly, the Cat staring after him.

     Jack tried to think about his work, in which case he should go the library. How likely was it Alison would be there? He felt slightly ill. She was attractive up to a point, and knew a lot about him, and they had certain shared interests… but. But.

     He had drifted up the cobbled close onto Meston Walk almost without realising it. He looked over at the Fraser Noble Building, with its large dome. He had first met Alison outside there, a bright-eyed second-year chewing the end of her pen, laughing with her friends. She had seemed realistic and down-to-earth at first, knowing how to finish his sentences when he stopped speaking. Perhaps he should have considered going out with her much sooner. Then there wouldn’t have been the added pressure of this important stage of their studies. Perhaps if being at University gave the chance to form relationships, that was what it was really about, not book learning.

     His steps seemed to be moving as if on a pre-ordained pattern, along the pavement, back to the QML. The plaque by the door said it had been opened the year he was born. The thought of entering made him feel slightly sick. He vacillated for a while, then closed his eyes and walked into the atrium. No Alison. Jack swiped his card through the turnstile, and walked to the left, past Heavy Demand, and up the stairs. He wanted to avoid the large photocopiers to the right. He found the third floor was unavailable from those steps. He stopped in frustration at the taped barrier beyond the second floor, then went back down to the first floor. The plaque on the wall read, “Psychology, Philosophy and Life Sciences”.

     Jack had an idea. He proceeded through the heavy fire doors, and found some volumes on Freud. “Physician, heal thyself,” he muttered. The author of one book suggested Freud’s The Interpretation of Dreams was actually a Gothic novel, cunningly disguised as a scientific work. Briefly fascinated with the idea, he made some notes. This floor however was not his natural habitat.

     He found his way through to the other staircase from the far side of the first floor, climbed and rather cautiously entered the third floor. No Alison, He found a table and sat down, unloading his books from a holdall he had left there earlier. He looked up each time someone approached, palms a little sweaty.

     It seemed too warm, he removed his jacket. He looked out of the window at the rain, tapping his pen restlessly. A student sharing the table coughed habitually in a way he found irritating. He had to get up. Jack perused the nearby shelves, observing the surprisingly numerous digits after the decimal point in the Dewey system. 

821.03349 before 821.1, he reminded himself. Perhaps Alison’s cousin’s friend would have made more of it, before he became depressed.

     Jack followed the numbers on the spines like so many clues round a corner. He enjoyed the long dark shelves, then saw Alison on the other side. She was checking his holdall. He felt annoyed, He dropped the book, and she heard the slight noise. She approached the bookcase, and came around it to him before he had time to react. “I thought I’d never find you,” she smiled.