Part Ten: A BRIEF, BUT TENDER, HAUNTING

As he made his way back to his lodgings, the events of the day buzzed around Buster's head like a swarm of industrious bees.

There was the altercation with uniformed authority in that forbidding and mighty Hall of Culture and then there was the unpleasantness at lunchtime when all he had wanted was a good feed, but there were many other things "singing" in his head too.

There was the young man sitting on the bench in Princes Street who had begged his love not to leave him, who had laid his heart bare for her and told her that his world would have no meaning if she was no longer in it. She listened in silence as though she had already left and Buster had tried all day to get the sound of the pain in the young man's words out of his head and only now were they fading.

There was the little girl clutching her dolly and sitting alone on the grass in the Princes Street Gardens while her peers played a few yards away, ignoring her completely.

Buster had been on the point of going over and giving them a good talking to. Why did she have to be left out of the fun? He had then thought of going over to the little girl and offering her one of the boiled sweets, he was never without, to cheer her up but his Guardian Angel had tapped him on the shoulder just in time and then he remembered that his betters did not appreciate that sort of thing and, in his case at least, were very likely to misunderstand his motives. The world was always looking for monsters and bogey men and he was not going to give anyone the satisfaction of casting him as one. The little man had, reluctantly, left the child alone with her doll and walked away biting his lip.

Then there was that other young man, the one with the face of a beautiful boy who had run towards him, arms outstretched and then stopped, just feet away, throwing his head back to gaze up at the sky in rapture.

He looked as if he had just seen something too wonderful to put into words. Buster had looked up too but, he could see nothing but blue sky and the odd small cloud and yet he knew there must be something because its presence shone across the young man's face and the little man was still wondering what it could have been when he entered the eastern end of St. Stephen Street.



Archie, beloved companion of Miss Agnes Reid, 64 St. Stephen Street, sat in the doorway of a florists staring up at the man in the moon. The celestial gentleman with his fat smiling face was too far away for stroking and cuddling purposes but his presence was still comforting.

Archie certainly needed comforting tonight. He could still feel the impression of the fishmonger's boot on his backside and that particular violence had been visited on him a good many hours ago now.

Also, he had nearly been run over by a child on its bike and, just to round off a pig of a day, he was shut out of his very satisfactory billet because old Agnes had fallen asleep in front of the T.V. and so couldn't see him as he pawed at her ground floor window and yowled his head off.

He had just accepted that he was alone in all the world when he became aware of another presence in the street.

Buster liked St Stephen Street and was glad that it was on his way home. If the truth were told he would even have taken a detour, if necessary, for the pleasure of walking along it yet again. He liked the fact that, along with the fishmonger, florist, newsagent and all the other sensible shops, there were also establishments that sold old brass candlesticks and accordians and boxes of photographs of worlds vanished long ago and dusty old books which, he suspected, contained lots of useful stuff that the big wide, whirling world had forgotten that it needed to know.

Tonight, as usual, he was not dissappointed for, halfway along the street he saw something glinting in an antique shop and went to investigate. An oval table mirror wth a heavy silver frame entwined with long, tangled flowers, picked out in relief, sat in pride of place in the middle of the window.

Buster liked mirrors - entwined with flowers or not - and he leaned forward grinning and eager to run through his usual repertoire of funny faces before experimenting with some new ones.

His great moon face grinned back lit by the reflection of the street lamp behind him. What a handsome fellow he was, he thought with proprietorial pleasure. He was proud of his rubber features and their ability to provide amusement. He just wished that there was someone else to enjoy this show and he remembered the little girl in the park.

Just then Archie made his presence felt by coiling in and out between Buster's legs and purring loudly.

Buster's wish had been answered and he bent down, beaming. The purring grew louder as the animal luxuriated in this stranger's attention and as he studied the fat moon face Archie's heart beat a little faster. Had the man in the moon taken pity on his miserable and humble admirer and come down to offer what comfort he could?

Archie's hero held him to his heart and kissed his forehead, cuddled him and crooned into his twitching ear and waltzed around the cold night street with him.

His feline fan was ecstatic. So the moon - the beautiful, distant and silvery moon had deigned to come down and dance with him and comfort him in his hour of despair. One thing was certain. Archie would never - pardon the pun - see the moon in the same light again.

The warmth of Buster's embrace and the soporific effect of his crooning had anaesthetized the animal to the day's sorrows, and he had quite forgotten his throbbing backside, but all good things end too quickly. Buster, suddenly remembering that he had a warm bed waiting for him and feeling that his own eventful day was now catching up with him, kissed Archie on the forehead, placed him gently down on the cold pavement and bade him a fond farewell.

After watching Buster turn the corner at the end of the street, Archie wandered back to the florist's doorway, resigned, once more, to his solitude.



Lesley was much more than merely upset. She was at the end of her tether. She was defeated. She sat on her stool, head drooping, as silent tears ran down her face. Out of a mixture of compassion and embarrassment Driscoll bought her a large brandy and ushered her over to a cubicle in the far corner of the bar where he listened as patiently as any priest to her story.

It was his turn to pat her hand now. She did not flinch.She did not acknowledge his touch but she did not flinch. She just stared silently into the middle distance as Driscoll continued with his clumsy attempts to comfort her.

She looked so vulnerable, he thought. She looked at once older and younger than her years. She looked like...........he took a large draught of whisky in a vain attempt to wash away the thought but the squirrel lodging in the attic of his memory kept scratching.........and she would have been about that age when he walked out on her.........and she would have been........vulnerable! There was no whisky left in the glass and, without his "anaesthetic" to hand, Driscoll let out an audible sigh of pain.

Lesley looked up suddenly. She slid along the seat and lay her head on his shoulder. Driscoll froze for a second and then looked wildly around him as if for guidance as to what to do next and found that every eye that met his seemed to be daring him to brush her away.

Instead, he put his arm around her and drew her closer into him. He had not been this close to another's vulnerability for a long time. He had not been this close to anyone, in any way, for a very long time. It occurred to him that this might be the moment to make some small atonement for that long ago act of treachery.



In the chip shop she leant on the counter as she studied the items on the wall menu. Her face looked pinched and drawn under Vito's unforgiving strip lighting and Driscoll felt that the Fate that he had insulted a few short hours ago was retaliating with a challenge.

"Well, Thomas, are you going to repeat that old wickedness. Are you going to abandon her again?"



They sat on a pavement bench outside one of the New Towns Private Gardens. Lesley looked around, obviously impressed. She smiled.

"How the other half live, eh?"

Driscoll thought that with a smile on her face she looked the very spit of Margaret a quarter of a century ago. If he had been sober he would have thought he was being haunted. Now he just felt that the squirrel had moved from the attic into the pit of his stomach.

"Do you live around here Tommy?"

"Not far but its just a wee place. Don't let your grub get cold now."

She opened up the brown paper parcel licking her lips theatrically. Driscoll enjoyed the moment.What can be more satisfying than feeding the hungry?

She wolfed down the food with a relish bordering on desperation and he wondered how long it had been since she had had a square meal and at the same time he was certain that she had nowhere to lay her head for the night.

After finishing her meal, Lesley sat back with a contented sigh.

"That fill the inner woman, then?" asked Driscoll, trying for the avuncular approach.

Lesley smirked. "Oooo you cheeky sod, whatever did you mean?"

Her new protector blushed and stammered and tried to explain. She dug him playfully in the arm with her elbow.

"I was only joking. You're awfully serious to-night Tommy".

He felt a strange satisfaction at her use of the word "tonight".It implied that they had known many nights together and that she knew what was going on in his head. It was something that used to irk him all those years ago but, right now, it was like a warm fire on a cold night. She had breached the awful solitariness of his thoughts.

"Aye, well. Too cold to sit here all night."

Obediently, silently, she got up, straightened her dress and, meekly putting her arm in his, they walked downhill through the moonlit New Town.

She chattered away about nothing in particular as they went and as she did so one small compartment after another in the embezzler's heart came back to life rejoicing at the retreat of that perpetual silence which had ruled his world for so long.