Upperkirkgate Chapter Three: That Frame Outlasts A Thousand Tenants, Part 1

The wind blowing up from Shiprow was bitter; leading off Union Street, it went directly to the harbour, the cold bite cutting to the bones of the hurrying Christmas shoppers. Jack stood looking into the windows of a music shop. He rattled his coins in his pockets, self-conscious of his declining grant. Somehow the bleakness of the weather cheered him up, as though it were in sympathy with him. He studied his reflection: a denim jacket, none too effective in the present climate, too proud to have a hat, did not find umbrellas effective. His black scarf poked out of one side of the blue denim jacket.

  Among the press of people behind him, he saw someone who apparently did find umbrellas effective. She had paused for a moment behind him, also reflected in the window, the light of the streetlamp in the darkening afternoon shining on her like a searchlight, twirling the handle of her umbrella as if in indecision. He did not dare to turn round, as if she might vanish if he did so.

     She was jostled by the impatient shoppers around her, her umbrella turning like a windmill sail. Then she opened her mouth, then closed it, and advanced a little towards him, the hurrying tide of shoppers moving in droves between them, subdued colours, greys and blacks. She continued to move nearer, as if drawn by an invisible thread. He dared not speak first.

     She had lovely legs, even in jeans. Sometimes especially. Tentatively she walked over to him, braving the pushes and scowls of those moving on to the next shop. The day was getting darker, the afternoon short-lived. There was a small smile on Claire’s lips as she said, “Hallo. I haven’t seen you for a while.” Jack stared into the window: he almost preferred her this way. Framed in the window panes, reflected, echoed within him, she seemed very beautiful.

     He drew a deep breath, and turned around. There she was still, under the shade of her blue umbrella, the wind tugging at it insistently. She stepped closer, just out of the pushing mass, drawing him under her shelter. Her breath fogged past him, misting the window. He poked a finger in it and wrote, “Hi”. She smiled again.

     “So how’re you?” he said, pushing his hands into the pockets of his jacket. This was never quite satisfactory, as they did not quite cover his hands.

     “Aw, you’re cold,” she said, still smiling. He tried to look indifferent, and failed. “I left my… friend a week ago,” she said, with a vagueness both entrusting and potentially irritating. He had not heard of her recent relationships. She had avoided him until now. She seemed a little lost  now, out of focus. He looked at her closely. The sail of the umbrella created a curiously private space in the outdoors. No-one else cared. It was hard to tell who initiated it, but he felt a sensation that quietly and joyfully blew his existing world apart.

     The next moment, the same mouth that had kissed him was saying they should go in and have a rest. He had not seemed to notice they had been walking, and was now outside the familiar Pirrips’ bookshop on Upperkirkgate.

     Jack was trembling slightly, and his eyes watered behind their glasses in the persistent wind. He hated showing too much emotion. As the immediate effects of the recent operation began to wear off, he started to think of possible consequences, chiefly relating to a certain black hole in his life he had once considered a star.

     The shop was busy, with consumers both of coffee and of books. Claire obtained a table to the back, just by the stairs leading up to the poetry section. The previous occupants were just leaving, clutching bags full of shopping. Claire looked at Jack, more slyly than he might have given her credit for. “I take it you’re not so cold now,” she said lightly.

     “This is wonderful,” said Jack, sinking back in what was now his chair and admiring her as she removed her scarf and jacket. “But…” She paused, midway through placing the jacket on the back of her chair, petrified for a moment. “I haven’t broken up with her just yet.” Claire sat down, her movements now slower, more self-conscious, possibly reproachful to Jack. He sighed.

     “One latte, please,” said Claire in a flat voice. Jack rolled his eyes and got up. He scowled in passing at a painting of Huntly Castle; at first glance it was a largely intact seventeenth-century façade, but behind it little more than a ruin. It took him some time to return. Claire was softly drumming her fingers on the table. He placed the coffee carefully in front of her. She did not touch it.

     “It’s not that I don’t want to break up with her,” he said defensively. Claire raised one eyebrow, a delicate sandbar. “What can I do? She got to me!” Claire was looking at anyone but him now, arms folded, chewing her lower lip. She had folded her umbrella on entering the shop: it lay sopping at his feet.

     Jack barely noticed his own coffee. He almost felt colder now than he had been outside. He shuddered at the thought of Alison. She seemed like a steel trap. In front of him lay the prospect of sunlight, of life itself. He could not bear the prospect of going back inside his trap.

     “I think we can make a go of it,” said Claire in a tight, polite voice he did not like, though she gave him hope. He looked at her seriously. “But-“ She held up a hand then drank with the other, paused, then put the mug down. “You really must let her go… in a considerate way.” He smiled ruefully.

     “I think I’d rather write 1000 words on the element of “freezing” in “After great pain a formal feeling comes”… you know, Emily Dickinson.” She looked blank. “Of course, you’re a History student. Think: the American Civil War, this lawyer’s daughter a recluse in Amherst, Massachussetts, locked herself away in her father’s house, as she was writing great poetry and locking it away. Like a mother with a child inside one of those Russian dolls.”

     He put his hand on hers. She did not remove it, raising her mug with her other hand, finishing the coffee. “I mean it,” she said quietly.

     “It’s alright for you… it’s not as if you had to go out with her,” he said gloomily. “Hey, what have you got planned for the holidays? How’s your shopping? You’ve got a froth moustache, by the way.”

     Claire smiled and made an elegant gesture across her mouth with a napkin. “One close shave later… Back to Perth for the holidays. Though I have roots further north, as you know.”

     “They show very nicely.”

     “Really. What’s it like being in your final year?”

     “I don’t know if it will be my last year as an undergrad, but I like the thought of doing more, more letters after my name… sheer vanity, I suppose.” He smiled and drained his own coffee.

     “Don’t you want to work?”

     Jack’s brow furrowed. “Work? What’s that? Don’t use that kind of language to me,  please. I’ve got enough to do between Hamlet and his uncle just now.”

     “I want to be a history teacher,” she said. “One more year after this, then a year’s teacher training.”

     “For the love of Amherst, why?”

     “I like kids. I want to improve their prospects.” Pull the other one, he thought, but smiled awkwardly.

     “Yeah. Kids. Nothing like them.”

     “Levelling the land,” she said, looking over his head as if she had not heard.

     “Remind me what you’re doing just now.”

     “Reform,” she said firmly. “Beginning with the Great Reform Act, fairer opportunities for everyone, up to the present day.”

     “I never quite forgave the Liberals for 1906… universal education. Ha. A lot of teachers still vote for them rather than Labour.” He frowned. “Shakespeare… wrong period… Dickens was concerned for the poor… Oliver Twist…”

     “Great Expectations was his greatest work,” she said quietly.

     “You think so? What would you say to the theme of marriage as a form of communication in that book? Especially as a form of enslavement for the women?”

     Claire shrugged. “Marriage wasn’t ideal, but… that doesn’t make it wrong in itself. It’s better today, but not everyone bothers with it, anyway.” She brushed back her hair, looking outside. “Think of all the people without homes… awful in this weather. I like charity shops anyway- what student doesn’t- but I always go back to the homeless one.”

     “Is that the one with the funny doors… like a saloon in a cowboy film, leading downstairs?” She laughed.

     “Yes. My aunt had a shop like that.”

     With some difficulty, Jack looked past her to the books on display behind her. “John Stuart Mill… Plato… must be philosophy. Now which would you choose, freedom or determinism?”

     Claire smiled. “How free are you to ask that? Who decided you would say that right now?”

     Jack felt rather surprised. “I did,” he said. “I was a soft determinist in my first year. Some things are pre-ordered, but we have some freedom.”

     “But which things are pre-ordained?” she asked, still smiling. She seemed almost amused by the question. “How do you know you’re free, anyway?” He had to work harder than he was expecting.

     “I… well, I choose to sit on this chair, and not that one, that’s an act of free will.”

     “Who provided that chair?”

     “The shop.”

     “Who provided the shop?”

     “I don’t know- the city? And don’t ask me who provided that- it’s probably Rubislaw Quarry!” He hadn’t meant to get annoyed.

     “Relax,” she said. “William Booth, Elizabeth Fry, Florence Nightingale… they all had a strong sense of the pre-ordained, of working for a purpose. I think they were chosen.”

Jack felt a bit uncomfortable. “Well, there’s nothing really in Shakespeare to compare with that,” he muttered.

     “Oh, I’m sure he was chosen to be a writer.”

     “You don’t think he could have developed the skill? Even as an act of rebellion to his father’s chosen trade (or did it choose him) as a Master Glover… always liked the sound of that…”

     “He could have developed it, yes, but that was in line with what had been ordained for him.”

     “So that’s closer to my position,” said Jack triumphantly.

     “No. The pre-ordained outcome will always emerge in the end.” He slumped a little further into his chair.

     “I’m going to get another coffee.” Claire smiled brightly as he went past her. He looked up towards the poetry section, then away from it: too many memories. How does a girl like Claire see poetry? he wondered. As a pre-ordained romantic exercise, relating to whomever one was supposed to marry? He began to wonder if he really wanted to go out with her, then smiled back as he saw how she was watching him, head resting on her hand. Her own poems were not obviously pre-conditioned; they were gentle reflections on nature.

     Jack brought back a cappuccino and a mocha, just for a change. She beamed again: she seemed grateful for everything. He couldn’t help feeling cheered by her presence. The time passed pleasantly as the afternoon grew darker and heavier, and the sky made good its promises of snow. Jack repressed a hiccup as he finished his fourth coffee. Looking up, he saw a blurred strip of lights, likely to be a bus, stop on the other side of the road. A dark shape crossed over towards the shop. As the door opened, they felt the chill even at the back table. Jack raised his head to look at the newcomer, and failed to suppress three hiccups in succession.

      Claire laughed. She watched him, her head resting on her hand again, slender, elegant. He coughed, and hiccupped again. “It’s her”, he said. Claire looked startled, then blushed. She grabbed her jacket and scarf and disappeared past him in a blue blur, up the steps to the waiting arms of Donne and Milton.

     Jack had no time to consider his position. The dripping person advancing down the length of the shop with the air of a determined hunter was the physical antithesis of all he had been enjoying that day. Alison was dark, intent, quietly blazing, searching. He sighed and resigned himself. “Hallo, Alison,” he said, She heard, came over and sat down on the chair so recently vacated, settling into it with a righteous, proprietorial air.

     “I was looking for you,” she said, eyes narrowed. He sighed again. His foot touched Claire’s umbrella still on the floor under the table, and he began to worry.

     “Well, how’s your shopping, then?”

     “I got a teapot for my Auntie and some wellies for my cousin,” she replied smartly. “They both live on a farm…” Once she had dried off a little she seemed almost attractive. She shook her hair. “You’ve fairly been at it,” she said, looking at the seven empty mugs.

     “Thirsty work, shopping. Especially on a student budget.”

     “Well, why don’t I get you one more, and we’ll go up and have a look at the books again. I think they’ve got a special offer.” She craned her neck up at the stairs. There was a flash of blue at the end of the bookshelf.

     “Why don’t you warm up first?” said Jack hurriedly, looking at Alison’s coat and trying to squeeze a few drops of water out of it. “Perishing weather.”

     She smiled. “Oh aye, okay. And I have to pay for it myself, I suppose?” He rooted in his pockets, looking apologetic. She rose and went to the counter. Jack looked up at the poetry section, trying to remember if there was an alternative exit. Alison returned sooner than he expected. “How’s your dissertation going?” she said suddenly.

     “Still making my mind up,” he replied. She yawned, looking up the stairs. He tried to distract her. “Filthy weather.” She turned to face him.

     “Yes, you said.” He smiled weakly. “One of the things I like best in our relationship is our common interests…” she said. Jack hiccupped, even before starting on the coffee she had brought him. He took a deep breath, finding the umbrella with his feet and pulling it towards him without touching her. “Seriously, though, when are you going to get a grip on Elsinore?”

     He pointed up to the picture of Dunottar Castle, still there. “They made a film in 1991, partly based there… shot at night to avoid it looking too ruined… I like the daylight scene of Mel Gibson on the beach, watching the travelling players approach. ‘The play’s the thing…’”

     “’To catch the conscience of the king,’” she finished. There was a shuffling from the poetry section above. Someone came down the stairs. Not Claire. Jack exhaled.

     “What about your… communication stuff?” he asked cautiously. He had not seen her in the library lately: avoiding it and her as a package.

     “Well, since my breakthrough as to the stifling nature of marriage, that’s opened up a few options… “great expectations” in more than one sense. They have On Liberty here, I see.”

     Jack looked past her, up at the philosophy books. “Yes, potentially anything goes… I like the story of the people in The Republic, coming to life through philosophy, becoming the people they were meant to be, stepping out of the cave into the sun.” He could not help looking up to the mock-Gothic section above them. He returned his focus to the books in front of him.

     “You’ve heard of that offer as well?” said Alison. “Alright, let’s go and have a look.”

     “No,” said Jack. “I never read anything without my brain soaked in less than fifty percent caffeine, like tiramisu… secret of all my academic success to date. The Italian for pick-me-up.”

     “Fifty percent? More like eighty, at the rate you’re going.”

     “I was used to eating tiramisu and other Italian dishes before they were that popular over here,” he told her.