Upperkirkgate Chapter 5: Vouch Him No More of His Purchases, Part 3
By Melkur
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Jack gripped the handrail, sat towards the back. He watched the street go by. Up Union Street, towards Holburn Junction, waiting at the lights, turning left, down Holburn Street. The familiar road blurred past him. He felt quite dislocated from reality. Then he realised the bus was turning right at the big roundabout at the bottom, and he had come too far. He stood up in his haste to press the button for the next stop, and nearly dislodged the precious black box from his pocket. He made sure he held onto it as the bus passed a few more junctions to the left before the next stop.
Jack alighted, quite disoriented. He was at the back of the Garthdee campus for the Robert Gordon University. This was where Alison’s unfortunate cousin had studied to be a librarian. “Can I help?” A small, dark-haired girl was smiling at him. She was somehow familiar. “You seem a bit lost.”
“Oh, I am.” She broke the pattern of unreality he had been experiencing since leaving Jules. “I’m looking for…” He was not sure how to explain his presence. She waited, still smiling. “A friend of mine had a cousin here. A librarian. Not very successful. I mean, on the job front afterwards. I gather not all graduate librarians are. It might have been before your time.”
“Come with me,” she said. Jack looked at her. “I have to be somewhere,” he said.
“I know. You’ve got that look of someone in a hurry. You must have been stressing for hours. Life doesn’t have to be like that.”
“Don’t give me that ‘life is what you make it’ rubbish. Too ‘80s.”
“I didn’t say that.” She started to walk away, towards the rear entrance to the car park. After some hesitation, he followed.
“So what do you study, then?”
“Nursing. Third year.”
“You’ll have your freedom soon, then?”
“I like it. The practical more than the theory.” They walked through the car park, then past the Health Building. Various students stood outside it, smoking. Jack thought he se Jules for a moment, and turned in surprise. It was an illusion. She walked calmly on ahead, towards the Business School. They proceeded past the benches and gardens near there. They walked further, past Gray’s School of Art. He peered through the glass at the hall area. Cardboard models lay abandoned on the floor. There seemed to be some redecorating in progress. The grass and trees made for an attractive campus, more so than with some of the buildings. They passed the janitor’s office. “My friend’s cousin lost some letters there,” he said, trying to break the silence. She only smiled. He caught her up. They passed the accommodation block called the Round Tower. “I heard that’s full of architects,” he said, pointing. “For the year he was on this campus, anyway.” They approached the Square Tower. “He lived here.” They passed the large bins near the entrance. The River Dee could be seen down the bank nearby.
She produced some keys from her pocket. “Where are we going?” he asked.
“To the top,” she replied. The black box seemed to be burning a hole in his pocket. Was it recording all this distraction from finding Claire? Would it transmit this data to her when she put it on? She had to wear it, or there was no point in anything.
The passageway and stairwell inside were dark, compared to the day outside. She pointed to the stairs. “Rise.” He was not quite sure why he did so, but started mounting the stairs. “Keep going.” He rose up and up, past the second, third and fourth floors, to a further flight of stairs above it. The common-room revealed at the top was deserted.
“Do you come here often?” There was a large TV without a remote control. She went before him, and pushed open the French windows onto a balcony.
“My name’s Gail. Come here.” Uncertainly, he joined her.
“Wow.” The view was attractive, taking in the tops of the trees nearby, the river
gleaming below to the left. He stood on the platform beyond the window, seeing the ground floor four storeys below, through the wire mesh at their feet.
“It may help you get some perspective.”
“Really? On what?”
“Stress. I’ve been trained long enough to see it almost kill people. Sometimes it does.”
“Are we quite safe up here?” The wind moved through the trees, their early budding leaves beginning to screen the river.
“Safe enough.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
“That wasn’t what I answered.”
“What are we doing here? Do I know you from somewhere?”
“I’m Alison’s sister.”
“I never knew she had one.”
“She must have mentioned me.”
“I don’t think so.”
“It’s not like we don’t get on.” The black box was burning a hole in his pocket again. Only for Claire. He was only for her.
“I like it here,” said Gail. “So did our cousin. He worked hard, he did well to graduate, but without any obvious reward in the workplace. Linked to that, I don’t think I’ll ever be out of a job.”
“Alright for you, then.”
“Hardly. Stress can be infectious. Just look at you."
He was sweating, clasping the box in his pocket. “I want to go inside now.” He walked over to a large comfortable chair, and sat down with a groan.
“I got locked out of my room downstairs, last year… I had to spend the night on these chairs. It was early October. Not too cold. The flat head girl was out getting wasted. I woke up before the cleaning lady came up here. She let me into my flat downstairs, where I’d left the keys. It hasn’t happened since.”
“Good for you.”
“It’s so restful up here.” The trees swayed, almost coming into the room like visitors, with their promise of summer and courses completed, graduations and weddings and happy future prospects. Jack stared at the ceiling. “You’ve got good prospects.”
“Eh?”
“You dumped my sister. She was very unhappy. Still is. Her grades have dropped. Still, that doesn’t bother you, so that must be alright.”
Jack stared at her. She was quite petite, smaller than Alison if anything. He shook his head. “That’s our business. I’m glad you want to support her. That’s what family’s for. Neither side gets the whole story.”
“Does your family support you?”
“So, was the real reason you brought me up here just to lecture me on how I treated your sister? Is that it?”
She shrugged. “I just wanted to know how someone was capable of doing something like that. The premeditated murder of a loving relationship.”
“Hold on! Your sister conceived this connection with me as the story of her life.
I’m not responsible for the breakdown. Neither is she. We both were. And if you’ve quite finished your inquisition-“
“I can see why she likes you. You have integrity, commitment.”
“You hardly know me.”
“I know enough.”
“Nothing so dangerous as a little knowledge.”
“She said you were kind, and you damaged her.”
“I never meant to. She became too much for me. I have my own life now.”
“With… Claire?”
“You leave her out of this.”
“Or what?”
“I don’t know what I’m doing here.” He got up from the chair, went down the stairs quickly. She seemed to be at the door before him.
“Ground level. That’s where the laundry is. Washing away lies, self-deceit.
Enough spin to wash a brain on full.”
“Get out of my way.” He wriggled past her, opened the door. Fresh air. She closed the door behind them. The Tower cast a long shadow.
“You won’t have peace,” she said quietly. “Not till you sort this out. I’m just saying.”
“Oh, so you want to sort me out? Make me fit for your sister again?”
“If you don’t heal, let go of the past, you won’t have much future.”
“You’re beginning to sound like my cousin Jules.”
“I’ve been to one of his concerts.”
“Then you’ll know what I’m talking about.” Jack looked up at the bulk of the Square Tower. “I’m sorry about your cousin… postgraduate qualifications, and no job. Doesn’t bode well for us undergraduates.”
“You’re nearly finished, though. Then you could be a postgraduate.”
“Likewise. But this is meant to be a vocational university. I might have thought job prospects were better for graduates here.”
“Sometimes it’s all about funding. Don’t tell them I said that…” He found he was drifting with her, away from the Tower, back through the campus, the way they had come. “Like I said, I don’t think I’ll be out of a job. Let’s have lunch.”
“What for?” They passed the janitors strimming the hedge dividing the campus from the street. “It’s too late for that, anyway.”
“Oh, it’s never too late for lunch.” He sighed. “Okay.” They went to the Business School and ordered sandwiches at the canteen there. At the next table, one business studies student was drawing a map of eastern Scotland on the back of the lid of a takeaway container, to show another student from Dundee the location of Inverness. “If the canteen were in the Health Building,” said Gail, “then we might have more influence on the menu. But I doubt it.”
“I’ve not been here before.”
“It’s a newish building. There used to be just the Gray’s School of Art down here, then they started building on the land. They plan to move most if not all the campus down here eventually.”
“Even sell the Union building? Up on Schoolhill, just where Upperkirkgate begins?”
“Yeah, so I’ve heard. Not sure why. I suppose there’s more space down here. Not that that makes the new buildings any better. Ours leaks. Put up in a bit of a hurry, really.”
“Well, that should deter the smokers.”
“They’re not allowed to smoke indoors anymore.”
“Of course. Jules would tell you that. Well, I had better be going. I never really meant to come down here… my bus came too far.”
“Is that such a bad thing?”
“If you can’t afford to go the extra mile, yes.” Jack fumbled in his pocket. He removed his glasses, breathed on them and cleaned them. Gail watched him with an animated smile, like a grey cat in her cardigan. He left his glasses on the table as he replaced the cloth in his jacket pocket. The black box fell to the ground, making a slight crunching sound. He froze. He bent to pick it up, carefully replacing it in his pocket. He reached for his glasses, to find she was wearing them.
“Ooh, strong prescription,” she said. “Myopia, corrected by concave lenses. Perspective.”
“Give them back.” She sighed and slipped them off.
“Here. Not that you deserve them.”
“I’m not a mole.”
“Does that mean you make molehills out of mountains?”
“Frequently.”
“What’s in the box?”
“A watch. A present for my brother.”
“Is it his birthday?”
“Maybe.”
“It had better be.”
“Okay. Time I was going.”
“I’ll walk you out.”
“There’s no need. You’d better get back to your studies.”
“No need. I’m on placement.”
“Then what are you doing here?”
“Just a day off. A chance to revise.”
“Now you are sounding like Alison.” They went through the doors, walking back up through the car park to the street above. The trees rustled gently. “There’s no need to go any further with me,” said Jack, aware of his delayed mission. “Really.”
“What if I want to go into town?”
“I don’t think you do, today.”
“But I do. There are lots of bargains in the shops.” They crossed the road, and waited at the bus stop. A number 2 bus arrived presently. Jack remembered to show the driver his prepaid student pass this time. He chose a window seat. He looked out the window at the stop, beginning to move past them, then realised Gail had disappeared. He shook his head. Was she real? The experience of defending himself in the common-room at the top of the Square Tower had been distinctly surreal. He shivered.
The sky darkened, and a light rain fell. The bus let him off near where he had started, at the Music Hall. Jack walked back towards the Castlegate, then turned onto Union Terrace almost without thinking, back round to Upperkirkgate. He looked briefly at the grand student Union building for RGU in passing, then he went past Schoolhill and pushed open the familiar door to Pirrips. He went in, drifting like one in a dream, and sat down at a table. He stared at the nearest shelf, displaying Greek drama at half price. Was his personal black box still recording? He reached automatically in his pocket. The books’ titles blurred before him.
“Hallo, Jack.” He felt as if he had been slapped awake. Alison leaned over from the next table, her back an elegant curve, her eyes flashing. Jack felt sick. The thing in his pocket was recording everything, this disaster, his flight of fantasy shot down in flames, or worse: about to be hijacked. The box was his reality, the woman in front of him just a fiction. The fiction however lived and moved and had her being: certainly sufficiently to bring her chair over.
“So… how’s things?” she asked, depositing her unfinished coffee on his table. He said nothing, the fingers of his left hand squeezing the box, thinking of Claire’s left hand. “I heard Dr Carmichael was looking for you.”
“Ah. How’s your work?”
“Oh, it’s fine. The marriage-suppression angle is working well, thanks for that idea…” He grimaced. “I mean, can Pip be happy? He’s better off out of it, maybe… Ada has to cope with Richard’s foolishness in Bleak House, and Sydney Carton dies for a stupid ideal in A Tale of Two Cities.”
“I always liked that last bit, his kissing the woman in the tumbrel before they’re beheaded. And Richard had Mr Voles feeding on his resources, if you remember.”
“Ah, you Gothic romantic, you."
“Well, if it’s the last thing you ever do, I’d think you’d want to enjoy it…” His fingers in the pocket slipped on the black box. Filming his indecision. He had felt
something when he’d seen Alison again. He banished it, it could not be real. He did not want her again: not with this token burning a hole in his pocket. “I met your wee sister today. She was asking after you.”
“She should mind her own business.”
“That’s what I said.”
“Why don’t you take your jacket off?” said Alison with a smile. “You look so hot. What’s that you’ve got in your pocket? You’re hanging onto it for dear life.”
“A recording,” he said before he could stop himself. “Something I made earlier.”
“A tape? They’re going the way of the dinosaur, really… you can record onto MP3 now.” He wished she would stop talking. He got to his feet, leaving the jacket draped over his chair.
“Look, if you don’t mind, I’ll go and get a coffee. It’s such a warm day.” He was on autopilot, saying anything to give himself space and a purpose.
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