Balloon Man In Edinburgh

Part Sixteen:THE SCATTERING WINDS OF SPRING

2010-03-17T10:49:00.000-07:00

After the chip pan fire the house had more people coming and going than had been the case during the whole of the previous decade. Josef's nephew had called to say that the house would be closed while the old man was indisposed and until repairs could be effected.

Officials from the Fire Department were picking over the remains of the kitchen and a couple of police officers had shown up seeking a few words with Buster but he had been unavailable.

One sniff of a police uniform and Driscoll had dropped all thoughts of atonement like the proverbial hot potato. Atonement was all right if the backside was hanging out of your breeks and you had nowhere to go. Let's face it, atonement was mandatory in a situation like that but, if you had options, well then, you had options.

Right now Driscoll's main concern was one of logistics. In short, how was he going to hump all that money around securely? He had only one account which he was sure that the authorities didn't know about but he could not put too much cash into that one at any one time without raising somebody's suspicions.

Suddenly, an idea occurred to him. If he bought some smart new togs up in town he could he book into that "fancy Dan" hotel at the end of Princes Street and hand them one of those smart leather zipper bags, with the padlocks, stuffed with cash and they'd obligingly bung it in their safe for him, no questions asked, same as they did for all the other toffs. He felt a certain moral justification in the thought that there would be far bigger crooks than him passing through that particular hotel lobby every day of the week.

Buster sat on the bench at the top of the hill in his beloved Botanic Gardens, studying the view in front of him in minute detail. He took in every tree, every bush and bed of flowers in a grand attempt to commit it all to memory.He knew that some day when he was especially blue and life was dealing him more than his share of hardships he would want to remember what he could see before him now. It would be a good protection against hard times.

The world had turned again and there was nothing he could do about it. A few short hours ago he had had nothing to worry about. He had been enjoying the adventure of Spring in a strange city but now everything had changed. He had made a mess of things yet again. He hadn't meant to. He had never intended to hurt anyone.

It didn't matter though. Now people would be angry with him and shout at him if they caught up with him and people in uniform would have a part in it somewhere, you could be sure of that. They might even put him in jail, you just never knew.

Just as Buster trembled at this prospect he was aware of someone watching him. She was about three years old with long, fair and curly hair and she was dressed in a crimson matinee coat. She laughed suddenly and Buster smiled, forgetting his own predicament for a moment. She put her hands over her eyes and peeked out from behind them, first to her right and then to her left.

Buster fumbled in his pocket for a boiled sweet and, purely by chance, pulled out one almost the very colour of her coat. Tickled by this coincidence, he held the sweet out to her.

The child hesitated for a moment with her hand outstretched toward Buster's gift. Then she looked over her shoulder at her approaching mother who, deciding that the little man was harmless, nodded her approval.

As mother and child continued on their way Buster felt cheered again. He took a deep breath, picked up his suitcase and strode off down the hill. He felt brave now and sure that the world would soon turn his way again.

No sooner had Driscoll boarded the London train than it juddered into life. His heart jumped with excitement. A few more minutes and he would have left Auld Reekie behind, hopefully forever. There was nothing here for him now except a certain lengthy incarceration.

He was just about to pull the door shut behind him when his heart jumped again. That fat wee eejit who had nearly set No17 up was running for the train. He was red in the face and looking as if he was about to explode any moment but he did not look as if he was going to give. Not him.

Driscoll's grip on the door handle tightened as Buster drew level and looked up pleadingly. The train started to pick up speed. Buster was covered in sweat. He looked as if he was about to have a heart attack.

"Poor, stupit wee bastard" muttered Driscoll before holding out his hand and, with every last ounce of strength at his disposal, yanking Buster and his suitcase aboard.

It had been a good week for Miss Laird, the first in her new position. The new "arrangement" was working very well.

At five o'clock she shut up shop and headed off in the direction of the "new" New Town flat. She didn't hurry. She wanted the chance to savour the pleasures of her new situation.

Lachlan would probably be out anyway. He was out most nights. She marvelled at the brilliance of his social life. The people he knew!!!!!!! All those elegant and artistic young men. Actors. Antique dealers - all very glamorous.It was obviously what kept him looking so young.

She didn't mind being on her own in the flat. Her end of the flat was more or less self contained anyway and, although it was nice to chat to Lachlan over a coffee on one of the rare occasions when their paths met, she didn't feel lonely when he wasn't there. Besides it was such a lovely flat - an entertainment in itself. And when he was there he always had so much to talk about. He was always fizzing with ideas. He was affectionate and solicitous too. He was a joy really.

The situation was a joy. Her job was a joy and it would all continue to be a joy as long as she was a sensible girl and didn't ask for too much.

She remembered how it was when she was a little girl looking for shells along the beach. She would start out looking for something beautiful and ornate and exotic but, really, she would be happy enough with anything that caught her eye - even a piece of sea worn green glass from some long forgotten gin bottle thrown overboard far away.

She would pick up all these little gems and store them away safely. She knew that none of these small treasures would ever be lost. They would be there whenever she had need of them. In this way she could keep loneliness at bay for ever.

Part Fifteen:THE HIGH PRICE OF CHIPS

2010-03-13T06:55:00.000-08:00

At 6p.m. sharp Miss Laird kicked off her shoes and sat down to enjoy "Your Hundred Best Tunes" on the wireless, as she still insisted on calling it.

"The Autumn Leaves" and "Moon River" worked their magic as they soothed Miss Laird's qualms about seeing Lachlan face to face at the start of the working week but, halfway through "The Very Thought Of You", her reverie was interrupted by a wild yell from the kitchenette next door which was followed by what sounded like a baby elephant running back and forth along the landing outside her door and a shrill hysterical voice shouting "Danger", "Help" and "SOS" in strict rotation.

Miss Laird, who had been hovering on the verge of sleep, shook herself awake and tried to make sense of the din but, before she could do so, there was a mighty hammering on the door of her room.

Buster was babbling away at her before she had a chance to open the door. Reading between the lines, she learned that he had decided to treat himself to a plate of chips and forgotten to dry off the excess moisture on them before he had thrown them in to a pan of fat so hot that there was blue smoke rising from it. Still in something of a daze, she let him lead her to the door of the kitchen.

Miss Laird had endured a lifelong terror of fire. She had seen all the safety adverts that she ever wanted to about chip pan fires and knew exactly what they could do. She had been appalled to learn that nearly half of all domestic conflagrations started because some greedy beggar wanted chips with it.

At the kitchen door Miss Laird froze. What had, a few minutes before been a kitchen implement was now the base of a blazing inferno. "Oh, sweet heaven", she said to no-one in particular.

She was aware of Buster, the greedy beggar in question, squeezing her hand. She looked down at him. His shocked, remorseful eyes were big enough to drown in. They pleaded with her silently, but eloquently, to pleeeeeeeese find a way of delivering the house and its occupants from the danger he had placed them in.

Miss Laird fancied she could hear a thundering heartbeat but was not sure whether it was his or her own but, either way, a wave of pity washed over her.

She put her hand on his shoulder and said gently, but with some urgency, "Go and tell MR. Straczynski that there is a fire in the upstairs kitchen. Hurry, now!"

Buster looked doubtful.

"You don't have to tell him you started it, just at the moment" she added, reassuringly.

Buster took off down the stairs like a scalded cat. He was no longer an arsonist. He was a fireman now.

At the moment he was banging on Josef's door, Elizabeth was gingerly attempting to move the chip pan away from one curtain, at whose hem the fire was already licking, and on to another hob. It was as much as she dared do, for, even with her head held back as far as physically, possible she could still feel the heat clawing at her face and a brief, but terrifying, vision of her with her hair on fire passed before her eyes.

Remembering that damp towels were the thing required by this sort of situation, she looked around for one but, after locating it, she forgot, in her state of panic" to wet it.

The fire devoured the towel in a couple of seconds and turned its attention to the other curtain. Before long the smoke that was building up in the small room was beginning to catch at Elizabeth's throat and she feared that the thing was beyond her already and that she could no longer keep her terror of this voracious element in check and so she beat a thankful retreat, closing the kitchen door behind her.

She felt a momentary spasm of shame at her own perceived cowardice but now it was as if some trigger had been pulled inside her catapulting her into muscular and decisive action. She raced along to Driscoll's door and thumped on it with the heel of her hand shouting "Fire. Fire. Get out now." and felt very foolish when it was obvious that he wasn't in.

Then she raced down the half lit stairway at break neck speed awed by the new strange state she was in. Nothing seemed to matter any more: not the job, not Lachlan, not even her recent humiliation. Nothing mattered except making sure that every living soul got out of the house in one piece

She barged into the old man's room and found him sitting in his leather armchair, phone in hand, trying to tell the emergency services operator what she needed to know but it was obvious from Josef's facial contortions that he was having difficulty making himself understood. All the time Buster stood at his side covering his eyes and shifting from one foot to another in his agitation.

"Heaven help me", said Miss Laird out loud, "I've got a couple of infants on my hands".

She held out her hand and Josef obediently handed her the receiver. She was surprised at how cool and authoritave she managed to sound.

"Yes I'd like to report a chip pan fire at No. 17 Stockwell Street. I really did try to put it out but I'm afraid that its beyond me now. Yes, I understand. No, I won't, thank you".

Only then was there a hint of panic in her voice, "But hurry please."

The old man allowed himself a thin smile. Miss Laird, the efficient business lady who he had always admired and respected, was in charge. Everything would be fine. No need for worry. He had seen worse things than this, after all. And Buster stood still now and took his hands away from his eyes and beamed at them both.

The mad lady would lead them all out of their current predicament - he had already half forgotten that he was the cause of it - and all would be well. He took a step forward and patted her gingerly on the shoulder.

Miss Laird, however, was oblivious to this sign of new born trust. Her mind was on her next move. She had just remembered the old black Daimler parked on the other side of the road. All the time that she had been living at No 17 she had never seen it move from that spot but, now and then, when she had been either coming or going, she had seen the old fellow sitting at the wheel and staring out through the windscreen as if he was looking down some long road to a happier past.

Well, at least, he will feel safe enough there for the time being she reasoned and, grabbing his heavy black coat from the hangar on the back of the door, she bustled the old man and Buster out of the house, across the road and into the back of the car and then settled herself in the front behind the wheel.

Nothing to do now until the Fire Brigade arrived, she mused out loud, running her hand admiringly over the wall nut fascia.

"This IS a lovely car Mr. Straczynski". She could sense him beaming with pride behind her. She looked at her watch, squinting to read the face in the orange glow of the street lamp. Probably about five minutes since she had phoned, she reckoned, not much more. Time was a funny thing. In the house it had flown and now.........

Suddenly aware of the pressure of silence, she looked around to check on her two "charges" and didn't know whether to laugh or cry. In the half light, sitting side by side, they looked, for all the world, like a pair of comic puppets left on a shelf long ago by some child grown too old to appreciate their strangeness.

Josef studied Elizabeth's face for a long moment before leaning forward to whisper his concerns for his collection of photographs.

She feared that he might be in shock so, laying her hand on his, she said as gently as she could, "No, darling, safer to stay here. The fire isn't in your room. I'm sure that they'll put it out before it gets to your room."

It was no good though. She could see his eyes moisten at the thought of the second destruction of the old world, whose memory had kept the very breath in his body all these long years. His hand trembled and she knew that her logic was not going to satisfy him.

Buster who had been silent up till now chose this moment to add his "fourpence worth". He sucked in his breath and poked at Miss Laird's arm with a grubby forefinger and gabbled something about a lady in a wedding dress with black curls. Miss Laird shushed him impatiently but Josef, who had heard all, spoke the bride's name and Buster repeated it reverently.

The silence and the sadness and the thought of the old man losing his memories was too much for Elizabeth. She turned to Buster with a determined glint in her eye.

"Look after Mr. Straczynski and stay in the car or.....or......heaven help you". Buster, who had read the look in her eye as a sign of her returning madness, nodded vigorously.

The blaze still being confined to the floor above, there was time to gather up all the old photographs and put them into an old suitcase which she had found in a cupboard.

Mission accomplished, she closed the door behind her and was just about to leave the house when that very thing that killed the cat tugged at her sleeve.

She could not see much evidence of the fire from where she stood and, because of badly blocked sinuses, she could not smell anything. Terrified as she was of fire, she felt herself drawn closer and closer like a child steeling itself to see whether or not there really is a monster in the cupboard.

How far had the fire advanced? What else had it consumed by now? Would the rest of the house be saved?

As if under some malign hypnosis she kept climbing the stairs, step by step, stopping once, in a moment of sanity before daring herself to carry on, wanting to know all the answers to the questions she had just asked herself but terrified of finding out.

She could now see the kitchenette door still firmly shut and remembered reading somewhere that if you shut the door on a fire it could buy you a little time.
Then Buster's voice came crashing into her trance.

She was about to give him a telling off for disobeying her but, turning too quickly, she caught her heel in the ratty old stair carpet and, clawing uselessly at the air, she tumbled down the full length of the stairs.

If she made a bit of an effort she could just see the tree outside her window It was a fine sturdy oak. She thought idly, that it would look wonderful in Summer and more so in Autumn.

She was surprised that she no longer felt any fear for her future. Some of that was undoubtedly due to the painkillers but she was sure it was more than that. Something had happened. Something was different. A door had been opened and she had been let out of that horrible, sad little room and into broad daylight. She could breathe again. Strange how one accident could lead to so many good things.

Another wave of dopeyness passed through her. Oooh those painkillers were strong. The warm glow they gave was delicious but then she started to feel as if she was floating and she did not think this quite proper so she tried to fight the feeling by gripping the sides of the mattress as tightly as she could.

This, unfortunately, had the effect of bringing back all her doubts. Lachlan hadn't been in to see her after all, had he? She had imagined the whole blessed thing. He hadn't offered to put her up rent free and indefinetely as a belated token of his gratitude for the money she was making him. He wasn't going to look after her at all.He didn't care about her.

Her eyes moistened and prickled. She felt the warmth and security and the first vulnerable shoots of contentment draining away like Spring rain into the soil. She felt an overwhelming tiredness. She closed her eyes and relaxed her grip on the mattress. She surrendered. Floating away was not to be feared anymore. She wanted to float away.

The funny little man in the tatty raincoat and hobnailed boots too big for him handed her the balloons. They were all different colours and they were wonderful as they bobbed aabout in the bright air. She looked up at them, open mouthed and spellbound but soon the balloons began to tug at her hand. She gripped them more tightly but the balloons tugged harder and harder as if they wanted to be free of her.

She looked over to the Balloon Man for reassurance that all that colour and light would always belong to her but she could tell by his expression that she was meant to let go. She tried to hold on a little longer but it was useless. As her hand unfurled and the balloons drifted upward the little man smiled and nodded at the obedient child and she knew she had done the right thing, even if the choice was not hers alone.

And he was right too. The shabby little man was right. He must have been for clearly he was happy too and the face that shone at her in the half dream was one that could only belong to a simple, happy soul.

She drifted upwards now as free as those precious balloons and a peace, as gentle as it was great, came to claim her.

In a ward at the other end of the hospital the old man lay, a small creature adrift in a sea of white, dreaming with eyes wide open. Now the future was no longer a threat to the past and as he dreamed the afternoon away, the ghost of a smile was just visible above the covers.

The sound of laughter and music on the other side of the door confused him at first but then a slow, sure understanding flowed through him. Unafraid, his heart singing, he opened the door and entered.

Part Fourteen:LOVED AND UNLOVED

2010-03-08T05:08:00.000-08:00

Buster tried reading an old magazine that some previous inhabitant had left in the room but he could not get beyond the second paragraph of any of its articles.

He paced back and forwards across the threadbare carpet. He hummed and hawed, sighed and rolled his eyes in theatrical exaggeration.

He stared forlornly out of the window like a fat, bald Rapunzel waiting for a rescuer. He flounced down on the bed, whose springs registered their distress loudly, closed his eyes and wished that he could doze away the couple of hours until his next meal was due. It was no use. He could not even settle to dozing.

The splendours of that wonderful Garden had spoiled him for this gloomy place. The memory of its light and colour rebuked the shadows contained between these four walls, but outside the sky was still blue and the clouds scudding across it were still as big and fleecy and Buster could stand the confinement no longer.

He grabbed his coat, for it was still only Spring in Edinburgh, and his little blue transistor radio, and rejoiced at the sound of his room door slamming shut behind him.

Outside the Spring breeze was still fresh in the street. He sat down on the step, leaned against the handsome, black New Town railings and turned on his radio.

Across the street a cat dozed on top of a wall. Buster wondered,idly, if it was his acqaintance of the previous evening and thought it might feel nice to go over and stroke it but then he thought better of the idea. Cats had to get their forty winks where they could. They were up all night after all.

In the living room, just behind him, the old man was also drifting in and out of sleep and between two worlds. He could hear music coming from that beloved older world which, as his years grew more advanced, he found easier and easier to return to.

He knew the music well. It was fiddle music. Wedding music. Strangely, though, he was beginning to hear it even when he was fully awake.

"Surely not", he muttered to himself. This was wedding music and it belonged to that other time - not this moment.

It made him think of his bride, now far beyond the shadows and so, free of them, and he looked upon her again with the eye of the young man he once was.

The fiddle music only got louder. "Surely not", he said again. And yet the music persisted. Now Josef was fully awake. It was real music. There was no doubt. So where was it coming from?

He raised himself unsteadily on to his feet and hobbled over to the window, too impatient for an answer to bother looking for a walking stick.

When he saw the scene in the street outside he laughed. He could not help himself. His strange little guest just seemed to have that effect on him. Josef was sure that the Greeks had a word for this phenomenon - or was it the Romans? It didn't matter. He grinned like an idiot who could not help himself as he watched Buster with the little blue radio clapped to his ear, swaying back and forth in time to the music.

Josef tapped on the window.

There was tea and cakes as before. And shortbread. There were the old man's memories and the gallery of family and friends looking out from their silver frames, all as before.

This time, though, Buster had already been introduced to them and so, in his book, they were now his friends too. After tea and cake, when the old man had momentarily tired of talking and lay back in his chair staring at the ceiling,Buster thought that it would not be disrespectful to, once again, visit the faces to pay his respects.

He worked his way along the line of photographs until he came to one of a delicately featured young woman whose mass of black curls spilled out from under her Wedding Headdress. Buster fell instantly in love. He clasped the picture to his bosom and stared soulfully out of the window and up to the blue infinite. His emotions were too overwhelming to be constrained by this room.

The old man studied him, smiling indulgently. He did not begrudge the little man his moment. He was not at all offended by Buster's handling of the photographs. He meant no offence. He was welcome "at the table". Why should not a little of joys remembered lap over his guest. There were enough of them to share.

When at last Buster had composed himself, he crossed the room and reverently placed the picture in the old man's lap. Josef, picking it up, looked at the long lost bride for whose benefit the music had been played and then at Buster whose eyes were now a pool of unspoken questions and motioned him to sit down.

The old man knew how to tell a story all right. His words may have been halting, and sometimes barely audible, but they soon began to work their magic on Buster who sat with his hands folded on his lap, his eyes tight shut and a beatific smile plastered all over his silly face.

And Josef's words swirled around him and into his consciousness and deeper and deeper and before very long and, with a sense of helpless wonder, the old man's words became vision in Buster's mind's eye and, before much longer, concentrating hard with eyes still screwed tight shut, he could feel the room around him and smell the wedding flowers and feel the very presence of the guests at the wedding.

He knew full well that he could stay in this gathering just as long as he remembered to keep his eyes tight shut and for as long as the old man kept on talking.

Now he fancied that he was walking the length of a long banqueting table set with a table cloth of the finest white lace and filled with candle light that danced across the silver tabkleware and recorded its glow in the faces of the guests who turned to smile benevolently as he passed by the backs of their chairs.

There were no uniforms here, the little man noticed. There was no-one shouting at him either or nudging their neighbour and sniggering as he passed by. He was the only one on his feet. He stood out like a sore thumb but he did not feel in the least self conscious. He did not feel like a stranger here.

Near the head of the table, where the bride and groom sat, there was an empty chair. He took his place, bowing and smiling to as many of the members of the wedding as he could see, not wishing to leave anyone out.

Looking down at his plate, he noticed that there was some delicacy which he did not quite recognise set before him and also a glass of wine, the colour of rubies, to hand. For a brief moment he was beguiled by the effect of the candle light on the colour of the wine but, for once in his life, it was not food or drink that interested him.

He looked up from the plate and the wine and the first gaze that met his was that of the bride. Black curls peaked out from under her headdress just as they had in the photograph but now here she was in the flesh almost close enough to touch, close enough to smell her scent and she was regarding Buster with the sort of affectionate expression appropriate to a much loved old friend on such a happy occassion as this.

Buster was very sure that he had done nothing to deserve this attention and tried to look away, embarrassed, but her gaze held him in thrall and the smile melted all his awkwardness away and soon it felt as though his tired old skin had melted away too, to be replaced by a new one that would serve to protect him from all the vicissitudes that life might throw his way.

If people laughed at him in future what of it? If they shouted at him, or scowled or were cruel with their tongues........well none of that would penetrate this new skin.

He felt completely at ease in this new skin. The weariness of all his travels, all the miles and all the strange places and different rooms and all the rainy days and cold nights and loneliness that lay behind him slipped from his shoulders. Oh, if he could stay here forever, safe among those happy faces would that not be the most wonderful thing. If there were no more cold station platforms, or strange beds or unfriendly faces would that not be .......heaven.

His eyes were still tight shut and somewhere, in the background he could still hear Josef's voice. The air in this world was heavy with the scent of roses and velvet with the glow of candlelight and ringing with the sound of laughter and, when he dared to look again, the bride was still smiling at him from under her black curls. She seemed to be holding him safely in the bosom of this gathering and Buster smiled shyly back at her, glad that there would be no more cold nights or strange beds.

But, just at the summit of his happiness the bride's smile started to fade and the features of her face seemed to move around in front of his eyes and try as he might he could not will them to reorder themselves and it was then that he realised that he could not hear the old man's voice anymore.

When Buster opened his eyes again he saw that the landlord was fast asleep in the big leather armchair. The room was silent and the music and laughter from that other world, which, at this moment, still seemed much more real to Buster, had gone to silence itself.

He lifted the framed photograph from the old man's lap and replaced it in the spot he had picked it up from. Then, one by one, he bade farewell to all the other faces in all the other photographs and left the old man to his dreams.

As he climbed the stairs Buster envied his friend, for the old man could return to that world any time he wanted to, but he, himself, would have to be invited.

Driscoll lay propped up on his bed chain smoking. He was convinced now that, notwithstanding the commercial transaction that ended it, his recent encounter had been some sort of "visitation" - a judgement on the cruelty of his younger self.

He had made on honest attempt to sort out the "whys and the wherefores" but it had just made his head spin and now he was casting around for distractions that might make him just forget about the whole thing.

He was not having much success. The radio was no help.. it was tuned in to one of those programmes where husbands request songs for wives that "mean the whole world to me" and wives laud husbands for being "a loving and caring and wonderful father to our three smashing kids". Sons put mothers on pedestals and daughters doted on dads.

Driscoll sneered and sniffed at every mention of fillial devotion and every wittering from uxorious husbands. Eventually, it was too much, too high a price to pay to fill the silence, and he switched off with such force that the knob almost came off in his hands.

It was understandable, particularly in his case. No-one likes to be reminded of the things that life is currently denying them, still less the fact that they once had those things and threw them away or let them slip through their fingers.

There was always whisky of course, he thought. It never let you down. Skilled men in distilleries throughout Scotland were paid good money to make sure that it didn't. No, whisky was a reliable companion that gave comfort on demand without argument or condemnation.

Driscoll looked around the room for the half bottle he thought he still had before remembering, with a jolt of disappointment, that he had finished it off shortly after his "ghost" had left with his cash.

He sighed at the inevitability of his situation. There was no doubt about it. It all kept returning to the question of the money. If it had been just enough to keep him bowling along for another few days things would have been different. It would have been simple enough to find another no hoper and put the whole bundle on that. The plan was bound to work a second time. Not even a haunted embezzler could be unlucky enough to win twice in a row on a 100 - 1 shot.

But it was not a little money. It was a lot of money and it was only now dawning on him just how much. It was enough to get him out of the country, perhaps to somewhere warm where his bones didn't ache for most of the year. Maybe even.........he looked at his reflection in the wardrobe mirror as if for confirmation of the possibility...maybe even a chance to start over.

His grizzled reflection held Driscoll in its gaze and seemed reluctant to let him turn away just yet. It seemed to be asking the question Driscoll had been trying to bury: "Do you really think you deserve a new start when you haven't paid for the past yet?"

Somewhere, deep down in Driscoll's soul, the need for punishment and atonement was stirring.

Part Thirteen: TEA AND EMPATHY

2010-03-08T03:58:00.000-08:00

Miss Laird had regained her composure and put the affair of the missing eggs into its proper perspective.

In her prayers at Church that morning she had remembered to ask for forgivenness for her cruel outburst. Her repentance had been as strong as her character and it had greatly improved her frame of mind, as had an above average sermon from the Minister which had managed to be both stern and comforting at the same time. Yes, it was safe to say that all but perhaps one, or two, of the laughing imps were some distance away at the moment.

Nevertheless, she could not deny a small pang of melancholy as she sipped her tea for, all around her, in the Botanic Garden Tea Rooms were couples and parents with children and here she was, another Spring and still on her own and still at No.17.

She was supposed to be enjoying a different life by now. Circumstances had forced her far from the course set by herself and, instead of blaming the metaphorical reefs that lay just under the surface of life and upon which she had certainly come to grief not a few times lately,she did that typical Scots Calvinist thing and blamed herself. It was all her fault. She should have seen things coming. She should have listened to her mother. She should have smelt a rat with the Todd thing that was for sure.Her siblings had sorted themselves out, why couldn't she.

To be honest, she wasn't sure in what way her life would be different but she was quite sure that it would not involve stale smelling rooms, threadbare carpets and strange fellow lodgers.

Lodgers! How she hated that word. Surely, if any single word in the English language conjured up the idea of failure - it was "lodger".

This alternate life, only ever seen through mists of wishful thinking, would not have involved being alone either. She took a deep breath, as though it would clear these morbid thoughts out of her system, and another sip of tea and remembered the morning's sermon. Yes, indeed, despair was a sin - and it was also very tiring.

A little girl in a red matinee coat stood a few feet away studying her with the intentness of those for whom the world is still a minute by minute adventure.

"Hello poppet", said Miss Laird, glad of the distraction, "what's your name?"

The child laughed and hid her face behind her hands and, for the first time since Lachlan's call, Elizabeth Laird, 42 and still spinster of this parish smiled too.

She was still smiling when she happened to glance over in the direction of the counter and saw Buster staring back at her with the expression of a terrified goldfish. Miss Laird's smile vanished like snow on a griddle and Buster vanished, as best he could, behind a portly lady just ahead of him in the queue.

He had only come in to the tea room because he had not realised that squirrels lived in the Botanicals too and he had nothing for them in his pockets. Besides, he was feeling peckish himself and he had decided to kill two birds with one stone. It seemed, to him, a bit thick that, so often, when you tried to do a good deed for others, you landed up in the soup yourself.

Now he just wanted to get the things he had come in for and to get out again sharpish. He certainly did not want any more trouble. So far, Edinburgh seemed to have had more trouble in store for him than was normally the case and it was bad enough to get a dressing down when you were the only one in the room but it would be a thousand times worse if this mad lady lost her rag in front of all these people. Just as he was reflecting on the form his humiliation might take, the portly lady was served and his cover had gone.

"Yes, dear?", said the motherly woman at the counter.

Buster shot Miss Laird a nervous glance before giving the woman his order along with a polite request that she place them in two separate paper bags.

Whether it was to do with the Rev Mackie's sermon, or the strain of holding on to bitterness for too long, but Miss Laird found that her anger toward this unfortunate had completely leeched away and she was now wondering what the "poor soul" was doing wandering about without any supervision.

Buster grinned nervously as the woman behind the counter made a great display of putting ginger biscuits and Dundee Cake into two paper bags. She was a kind lady and she was trying to make him feel important but he just wished she'd hurry up and he hated himself for it.

Meanwhile the memory of the words spoken in the kitchen surfaced again and Miss Laird cringed with guilt as she wondered how she could make amends to prove to herself that her repentance was real and not merely a matter of polite form.

Buster paid for his purchases just as Miss Laird rose from her chair in that semi-automatic way that people do at Fundamentalist Meetings. She had to get this off her chest and she would make a start by buying the eccentric lodger a cup of tea and taking the opportunity to tell him how sorry she was. She took a few steps toward Buster, her face etched with a mixture of concern and contrition.

Unfortunately for her, Buster turned away from the counter just in time to see Miss Laird bearing down on him and he, not the most skilled at reading facial expressions, thought that his worst fears had been confirmed and that he was about to be "torn off a strip" in public by a woman not fully in control of her emotions.

Once more, he fled from Miss Laird's clutches, leaving her standing, open-mouthed, in the middle of the tea room. Suddenly, the poor woman was aware of many eyes burning into her flesh. She slipped back to her table, picked up her handbag and tiptoed out of the tea room studying the floor every step of the way.

Part Twelve: SUNDAY MORNING ECHOES OF THE NIGHT BEFORE

2010-03-06T06:29:00.000-08:00

Miss Laird had slept only fitfully through the night. By the morning it seemed as if she had not slept more than an hour at any one time and this, she thought, was worse than not sleeping at all.

During her periods of wakefulness, which accounted for most of the night, the phone conversation repeated itself over and over again like a record with a needle stuck in the groove. She flushed with embarrassment that she had ever thought that Lachlan could be interested in her in that way.

What HAD she been thinking of, for goodness sake? Of all the silly schoolgirl nonsense. She would have hoped that Bill Todd had cured her of all that and she was sick with herself that she had not seemed to have learnt her lesson - not even after all the pain that "sly Todd" had caused her.

She was supposed to be working hard to repair her fortunes after that "basket" had fleeced and jilted her - not jeopardising her current livelihood, for goodness sake. What a fool she had been. What a bloody little fool. What would her dear Mother make of all this? Then, as was the pattern of the night, after a brief, intense burst of self flagellation, she would drift off to sleep again only to repeat the whole dreary performance again in less than an hour.

Eventually, about 8a.m., tired of this demented roundabout and the effort of trying to ignore the shabbiness of her room - it always seemed more depressing in the morning - Miss Laird decided to have a bath. There was always the chance that all the little imps responsible for her shame and self loathing would shrivel up in the steam and never bother her again.

Certainly, some of them succumbed as she wallowed in the hot bath water but enough survived to keep Elizabeth at least an arms length from piece of mind. Slowly, though, as the steam subsided, the sheer power of sour resentment came to her rescue.

Here she was, living in conditions which, to her sensibilities, were little short of Dickensian, and yet she, and she alone, was the reason that Lachlan was making so much money out of that little hat shop in the West End. She was pretty sure, too, that it was one of his more profitable ventures - apart from his flats anyway and, lets face it, she thought, driping vinegar, any idiot could make money out of flats in Edinburgh these days. It didn't exactly take much imagination or flair. Certainly not as much as she needed to run that little shop which, by the way, regardless of what he might think, didn't run itself.

And you had to have an eye for colour and style - and price! Let's not forget about price. The whole thing was you had to be able to deal with people and that was never Lachlan's strong suit. Lets face it he needed her more than she needed him, if it came to that.

She bit her lip, poisoned by her own venom. She was not by nature angry or vicious and this spate of the aforementioned unattractive traits had exhausted her.

A tear rolled down her cheek. She was making Lachlan a small fortune and getting peanuts back in return. The man couldn't even make a simple dinner arrangement and stick to it. It was hard not being appreciated. It was hard not having the ownership of your own success.

The tears flowed freely now and a veritable volcano of anger was churning in her belly. She pounded the water with both fists.

"Bloody Lachlan," she shouted out loud, not caring who heard her. "Bloody dinner. Bloody Todd. Bloody threadbare carpets. Bloody tatty wallpaper."

She paused just long enough to get her breath back. "Bloody life. My bloody, bloody life!"

Somewhere, out of reach of the steam, a choir of imps were laughing themselves silly.

No17 struggled to greet another day. The sun tried its best to bring illumination to the establishment but there were some places where the sun would never shine. There were just too many shadows in that house for one sun to conquer.

Driscoll sat on the end of his bed sucking on the first Capstan Full Strength of the day and trying not to think about his recent "haunting". In fact he was hoping that he could spend the whole day on "automatic pilot" as far as the thinking went.

The sound of old Josef having a coughing fit carried up the stairwell.Miss Laird smoothed down her skirt and wondered if she should go down and check on the old chap but before she had time to make a decision the coughing stopped and she was suddenly aware of how much anger can whet your appetite. Besides, she thought, if living well really was the best revenge, then surely a good breakfast would set you off in the right direction.

She settled on bacon, eggs and fried bread and a mug of tea. She remembered that she'd got some good bacon from that nice little grocer on the corner and those lovely local eggs of his.

She was not to know that the house's latest arrival had also been thinking of his stomach.

As she walked into the kitchen the first thing she was aware of was Buster's cavernous open mouth about to bear down on a fried egg sandwich. The second thing was an open carton of eggs, with two missing, sitting on the kitchen table. The third thing?........They were her eggs, her bloody eggs!!

"Excuse me", she said, suddenly furious at the impotence of those two words.

Buster froze in the act of mid mastication. The two eyed each other like alleycats in a territorial dispute. Miss Laird was about to launch into the Riot Act when there was a flurry of activity in the region of Buster's jaw as he chewed away like a maniac then swallowed hard.

Mouth empty, he launched into a pre emptive defence. Mr. Straczynski wassogenerouswhatwithbuyinghimthatbigbitofcheesecaketheotherdayandgivinghimgaribaldisanddundeecakeonhisfirstnightthathethoughtthattheoldmanmeantthatallthefoodinthehousewasfreehewaseversosorrybutitwasanunderstandablemistakewasitnotyoucouldn'tblamehimcouldyou.....couldyou?

Buster only fell silent when he had run out of breath. He studied Miss Laird's twitching features and hoped against hope that his eloquence had won the day.

His adversary's expression bore a strong resemblance to a haddock's just after it had been landed and lay gasping for breath on the deck of a trawler and, after she composed herself, Buster knew there would be no escape.

"As if it weren't bad enough that you think you can commandeer the bathroom with a complete disregard for the convenience of others, you now feel free to purloin other people's groceries."

She was aware of her finger wagging, involuntarily, in front of her and this ludicrous little creature eyes being focussed on it like a hypnotised, cross eyed rabbit.

"I shall certainly be having words with Mr. Straczynski about this. You've gone too far this time. I know some rather strange people have crossed the threshold of no. 17 but I thought he would stop short of giving house room to an obvious mental defective.........."

The minute the words had passed from her lips she pulled herself up short. It was too much. It was just too cruel. She had been thoroughly provoked but she should not have used that word.

She was not a cruel person. It was not the way she had been brought up and something deep inside her, like a long forgotten admonition from a parent, told her that she had crossed one of those invisible, but all too real, lines that should never have been crossed. Still the word could not be "unsaid" and she was not yet ready to apologise to someone that she had just caught stealing from her.

She needn't have worried quite so much though, as Buster did not actually understand the word. He understood anger though and sat shaking while he wondered what she would do next.

Long seconds passed and still Miss Laird remained silent as she stood staring at the egg carton.

Suddenly, a light bulb switched on inside Buster's head. He was sure he had thought of a way to repair some of the damage that had been done. Gingerly, he edged the carton toward her, mentioning as he did so, that there were enough eggs left if she still wanted a sandwich for herself.

Miss Laird looked at him eyes, blazing. The match had lit the touch paper and it seemed to Buster as if the woman had expanded to twice her normal size.

"Get out. Get out of my sight you wretched little man".

Buster didn't need telling twice. He dodged past her in wild eyed terror, heading for the stairs, the main door and the open road.

Miss Laird leaned over the bannister to deliver her parting shot. "And you can be sure the landlord will find out about your thieving ways."

Part Eleven: ALL THE WARMTH OF THE PAST VISITS THE UNWORTHY DRISCOLL

2010-03-03T04:12:00.000-08:00

When Driscoll switched the light on in his room the bulb blew and somehow he was strangely relieved. He did not want the evidence of his decay to be seen by anyone and particularly not this will o' the wisp creature who might fly away, like some exotic butterfly, at the slightest upset.

He had intended to make a cup of tea for them both but the woman, who was now bathed like some wraith in the light of the full moon streaming in through the window, had started taking off her clothes, folding them neatly and laying them over the back of a chair at the foot of his bed.

Driscoll watched the scene with a depth of compassion he no longer thought that his shrunken heart was capable of. She must be exhausted, he thought, but he was not thinking about the possibility of sex, because, even now, he did not think that there WAS any possibility.

He noticed again the clues to a hard life evident in her clothing; the frayed hem of her dress, the ladder high up one stocking, the button about to fall off the little matching jacket, the whole in the sole of one shoe.

Finally, she slipped out of a pair of worn, ivory coloured drawers with a detached and silent grace and slipped bewtween the covers with a grateful sigh and lay her head down, before remembering Driscoll who was still standing with the teapot in his hand.

"Aren't you getting in then?"

She had a nice voice. It was clear and well modulated but he could not think of which part of England it belonged to.

"Come on. You can't stand there holding a teapot all night." There was a matter of fact mirth in her tone.

He nodded towards another chair. "I'll kip in that".

She studied him for a long moment, touched by his awkwardness.

"Come on. Get in." she said in mock schoolmistress tone.

He was too tired to argue and besides it had been a long time since he had experienced genuine concern and he was superstitious about such things and felt that a rebuff to any kindness, however small, might mean that that was the last of any he might ever see.

So, he settled down with her and as he placed a nervous hand on her belly and as they were now the only two people left in an empty moonlit world, he decided this WOULD be his Margaret for as long as the sun kept its distance.

"What a pair we are" said Lesley drowsily.

"A couple of Lipton's orphans" replied Driscoll.

Lesley laughed. "The Start Rite Kids before they started".

Driscoll reached out tremulously to encompass one small breast with his hand. He was not sure of her reaction, even at this late stage in the proceedings, but she was already asleep.

Sometime in the early hours of the morning he was awoken by Lesley massaging his chest, moving her hand round and round in circles and working lower and lower. He opened bleary eyes to see her smiling down at him. She looked younger and even more vulnerable.

He put his hand on hers and she stopped what she was doing to look down at him quizzically.

"What's the matter?" she asked.

He was groping for the appropriate words when, once again, he decided against rebuffing tenderness. What if something like this never happened again in his life. He took his hand away. She continued.

Once the Old Ceremony was over they lay exhausted in each other's arms. Driscoll glowed. He had stepped out of the shadows again. Now he was more than just a memory in other people's lives. He was , for however briefly, part of someone's life but, just to reassure himself, he placed the tip of a finger gently under her left breast. Yes, there was another heart beating alongside his own in this newly blessed dark. Outside the full Moon was still riding high and mighty in his kingdom and the reborn Driscoll was safe for now.

The two refugees from the day lay in bed bathed in moonglow talking of their lives in generalities as if they feared that being too specific about anything would turf them out of the warmth of this bed, and its companionship, and back to the reality of the cold streets again. When the spell cast upon you matches your desires you will do anything not to break it.

They commisserated with each others difficulties, as far as this non specificality would allow, and offered cliched advice and support for a future which Driscoll fervently hoped could be held at bay forever.

He would have been only too happy for this moment, this very one, to be his past, present and future all rolled up together. He knew that all too soon that arrogant ball of fire and gas would come raging over the rooftops looking for him. It would peer into every nook and cranny, illuminating each shabby, mishapen thing that was better left to the shadows. Burdened by that knowledge, he struggled heroically to stay awake till his moment of peace was wrenched from him by force.

In the event, he woke just after dawn, hoping for a last embrace to send him out into his solitary future, but he was already alone in his bed. A noise by the door made him look up.

Lesley was neatly putting back his wallet into his inside jacket pocket. She saw him observing her with his old familiar and unkind eyes but she showed no sign of fear or a guilty conscience as she held up three £10 notes splayed out like a fan.

"That's fair, isn't it sweetheart. I mean you did have a good time, didn't you?"

Part Ten: A BRIEF, BUT TENDER, HAUNTING

2010-02-27T07:05:00.000-08:00

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.

Part Nine: A GHOST OF A SMILE.

2010-02-22T04:24:00.000-08:00

The Gladstone could not exactly be described as the best feature of the elegant Georgian Square in which it sat.It's heyday as a smart Edinburgh Hotel, had been over for a good couple of decades now but there were still some echoes of its pre - war elegance.

Once it had been the haunt of Edinburgh's legal eagles, senior civil servants and even the "India Men" who had returned to the old country after a lifetime of service on the sub continent but, nowadays, you were more likely to find double glazing salesmen and shifty Edinburgh Councillors propping up the bar.

Driscoll, however, had a sneaking admiration for the place although he had seldom frequented the establishment, except for the odd occassion when he was in the vicinity and an excess of alcohol had helped him to overcome his deep seated inferiority complex. Funny isn't it, how bombastic, lifelong bullies will let themselves be intimidated by the little things.

To-night was different though. To-night he was every man's equal for had he not just "put one over" on fate itself?

The alcohol imbibed in various bars in Stockbridge had imbued Driscoll with a surface veneer that was shielding him from the realities of every day life. Even the mirrors in the bathroom kept the truth from him. He had arranged a temporary, charmed existence for himself.

He splashed his face in the sink and the face that he saw looking back from the mirror no longer had the familiar mottled complexion of the lifelong toper. Thirty years, at least, had been stripped away and now he felt a young man's optimism as far as the night ahead was concerned. It was Saturday night, after all, and nothing like the mean and desperate Saturday nights of his recent past either.

As he slicked his hair back he remembered his glory days when Saturday nights were simply a matter of donning your best bib and tucker and a confident smile. After a few drinks anything was possible and he had already had more than a couple of drinks.

After his ablutions were over he settled himself on a stool at the end of the bar and proceeded to do what he had always wanted to and could only now afford, which was to work his way through the malts from left to right along the whole length of the bar's gantry.

After the Balvenie, he bought himself a cigar. It was an appropriate night for a cigar, he thought. It was certainly an expensive cigar but Driscoll, who did not know much about such things, also did not know that this particular item was long past its best.

Still, he took an exaggerated pleasure in rolling the large object between his fingers and watching the progress of the beefy smoke rings as they rose high above him. Then he moved on to the Glenmorangie and after that the Lagavuillin.

Driscoll was pacing himself though. He may not have accrued much knowledge in his journey through this "Vale of Tears" but he knew and respected the malts and would never insult them by guzzling.

He also knew that, given the amount of booze he had already consumed, he stood no chance of getting to the end of the gantry, or even half way, but that was not the point. The point was that he was free to embark upon the adventure. The point was also that his new money, wrenched this very day, from fate's thorny paw would keep him from the aggravations of the world for the forseeable future and, then again, the real bloody point was that he had found a "cosy corner" here in the dear old Gladstone and he would hang on to the effect for just as long as he could.

"I like to see a man enjoy a good cigar".

Driscoll turned from his reverie to see a woman, probably in her mid thirties, and blonde, but not in a particularly provocative way. Her hair was shortish and straight and it framed the delicate features of a face which, if it hadn't carried a hint of weariness, would generally be considered pretty. She held out a slim hand.

"Lesley", she said, simply.

Driscoll stopped rolling the cigar. He was confused. Even in his inebriated state he knew that women like Lesley didn't talk to men like him. Men of his age were invisible to women under forty. It was some sort of unwritten, universal law.

Nevertheless, he looked her up and down while at the same time trying not to let her see him looking her up and down. Besides, he thought slyly, were not all the usual rules set aside for to night?

To night was a universe complete unto itself. The normal mean limitations of the day to day life of an ageing embezzler could not lay so much as a bony finger on this night. Perhaps his new found affluence brought some sheen of suavity to him that could only be picked up by the female of the species. This last thought chased another five years from off his shoulders.

If the haze of alcohol was kind to him, it was also kind to her. It hid her weariness from him. It hid the fact that her sleeveless but demure cocktail dress was frayed around the hem and that there was a small run on one of her black stockings just behind the knee.

None of that mattered though because Driscoll couldn't see it and, anyway, he had already decided that she was a bobby dazzler, a wee honey, a classy dame and so forth but he was still a little mystified, and even suspicious, of her sudden interest in him. It had been a very long time since any woman had even acknowledged his presence in the world and there was something about Lesley that was, at once, distant and tantalisingly familiar. He nodded at her glass which was still half full.

"Will you take a drink lass?"

She was easy to talk to and because of this Driscoll's puzzlement at her interest in him soon faded.From the little that she said on the subject of herself she was a business lady of some sorts up in Edinburgh to close some deal,or other. Driscoll didn't care about the details. She was pretty, she was breathing and she was talking to him in a way that made him feel that, as far as the opposite sex was concerned, he had not quite fallen off the edge of the world just yet.

She sat through his tales of Army life, his struggles to build up a good going business, loss of the same (though he was light on the details here) and his noble struggle to rise Phoenix like from the ashes.

With every twist and turn of this saga, which Driscoll nimbly edited as he went along, her face carried the appropriate expression and when it came to the point where his self serving monologue reached a particularly dramatic high, she thoughtfully laid her slim hand on his and stroked it sympathetically.

Driscoll felt his throat tighten and also a slight prickling behind the eyes. After all, here was a man who, for the best part of a decade, had barely been visible to the world. Here was a man who would have been of little interest to the world even if it could see him. Here was a man who eked out his days as a shadow in a dusty bedsit or a dingy pub lounge and now someone had shone a light into the darkness and her slim hand was, even know, coaxing him out into the world of the living.

He studied Lesley with new eyes but not with lust. He was drunk but he wasn't daft. He knew that the train had left that station a long, long time ago. Sex, as far as Driscoll was concerned, occupied the same amount of space in his head as Greek Mythology. No, he was merely assigning her a place in his own personal small gallery of saints for what she had already bestowed upon him to night.

When he "snapped to" again Lesley was rummaging in her handbag.

"What's the matter sweetheart?"

"My purse. I was going to buy you a drink."

"Don't worry, doll", said Driscoll, the veritable knight errant, "I've got it."

"No but my purse..........and my keys". There was a hint of a wail in her voice which unnerved him.

She looked like a child about to cry and Driscoll noticed her weariness for the first time and suddenly she seemed oddly familiar to him. He felt as if some squirrel was scampering through the attic of his memory, kicking up dust without finding what it was looking for and he was overcome with compassion for this shopworn angel.

"Well, don't fash sweetheart", he said sounding more genuine than he had all evening, "We'll sort something out."

Part Eight: THE EVENING'S VELVET EMBRACE

2010-02-20T08:13:00.000-08:00

The day had, so far, ticked along quite nicely for Miss Elizabeth Laird in the small, but exclusive, hat shop that she managed in the City's West End.

No alarms or excursions. No returns and no awkward customers. And.......she had managed to sell that orange monstrosity that Lachlan, her boss, had insisted that she place slap bang in the middle of the window as if it was, somehow, the Rolls Royce of all hats.

Lachlan, she thought, was certainly an intelligent man, but he did not know hats and she fervently hoped that he was better at picking restaurants and simpered at the thought of the evening that stretched out ahead of her, sweet and velvety with promise.

And the last of the business day continued to tick uneventfully away, seasoned by the odd moment of conjecture about what the hours ahead might hold.

In due course, Miss Laird bade her assistant good night, locked up the shop and was walking home along William Street toward her evening of adventure.

The invitation had come as a complete surprise to her and had been delivered in such a casual way that she had been sure that her ears had deceived her. She had certainly doubted that it was a bona fide date but then, she reasoned, surely nobody invites a girl to dinner on a Saturday night unless it was a date. Surely?
No, of course not. That speck of doubt was stamped further into the dust with every step.

She exuded confidence now. She was fully prepared to join the ranks of the loved to-night. She knew that Lachlan was fond of her and, for her part, she had long been ready to make that jump from friend to lover. She had seen it happen to others. Why shouldn't it be her turn?

What was so strange about Elizabeth Laird finding a place among the needed of this world and why should she not be rescued from the constant rattle of her own thoughts?

Her compassion had time, though, even amid the jangle of her own excitement, for those for whom this April evening would be just another evening but, at the same time, she already considered herself apart from them. She no longer numbered herself among the grey, anonymous crowd who you didn't notice even when you were in the middle of their throng for, had she not just rejoined the ranks of those who were truly alive?.

It was the old, pre epiphany Driscoll that woke again just after six that evening. His blistered heart had now found room for yet another grudge. Now it railed against fate itself. Well, who among us could blame him for that?

How many of us, in times of inner turmoil, have "knelt" before fate and offered this sacrifice, or that, in return for things going our way for a little while, only to have the gesture flung back in our faces - in this way or that? It's too much isn't it? You feel such a fool don't you?

Standing over by the window, Driscoll sucked on a Capstan Full Strength and watched the retreating sun follow its pre ordained path.

"Sun King", he snorted, "the bastard!"

Well, he thought, if that was the way it was going to be, he would go his own way and fate could %*&%%^" well suit itself. After all, if fate had thwarted him, you could argue that he had also poked fate in the eye. He had money now did, he not? How did fate know that he had not been playing a double bluff? How did fate know that he, Driscoll, had not slipped one past it? No, all in all, he reckoned that know all fate had, this time, shot itself in the foot.

Driscoll ran his discoloured tongue around parched lips. The way he saw it he was bankrolled for the rest of this year anyway and the good times would start just as soon as he had a shot of whisky and got washed and changed.

In a room along the hall, Elizabeth Laird, spinster, 42, showed a good deal more grace as she waited for the evening and her new life to begin. She had just had a bowl of soup to settle her stomach and was now sipping a dry sherry to steady her nerves.

It seemed to work. The Chinese Acrobat in her stomach had stopped turning somersaults anyway and now she relaxed as she was confident that she would hear the main doorbell from her room and that, in just a few minutes, she could be downstairs opening it before some helpful soul could let him in to see the depths of the squalor to which she had sunk.

It was only fair. This house was not part of her so why should it be allowed to cling to her like some malignant shadow. Its dilapidation and general air of melancholy and failed lives could only muddy the waters between Lachlan and herself.

Still, now that she stood firmly on the path that would lead her away from this room, she could allow herself a certain aesthetic pleasure in the beauty that the fading sun brought to its slow leaving of it.

That same sun, so detested by Driscoll, here ennobled burnished wood, faded fabric and even her own reflection in the mirror on the door of the wardrobe. All pleasingly melancholic, she thought, but only if you had a brighter world to escape to.

So there sat Miss Elizabeth Laird, spinster, 42, manageress of the most respected hat shop in the whole of Edinburgh......a child dressed in her best frock and waiting to be invited to the party.

At exactly 6.59 p.m.........

......Driscoll was secreting his ill gotten gains under a pile of soiled clothing at the bottom of the wardrobe in his room.

.......Josef Straczynski was listening to an elderly, scratched recording of the Polotsvian Dances and drifting in and out of sleep between the present and that long lost other world.

............Miss Laird sat patiently in her room, her hands clasped, as if in prayer.

At exactly 6.59 the phone in the hall rang.

At this point I feel that I must step into the fray to protect this decent lady's finer feelings for, as you have probably guessed, the phone call was not bringing the sort of news that Miss Laird wanted to hear.

The "date" was, after all, just a business meeting. Lachlan, knowing that her social life was almost non existent - though she had gone to great and devious lengths to hide this fact - thought he would treat his valued employee to a nice dinner while he slipped in a few promotional ideas that he wished her to implement over the next few months.

In Lachlan's tidy mind that would save time spent on the subject later and also give her a Saturday night away from the radio and Saturday Night Theatre. He was a decent sort but not especially perceptive. He had no idea that she was smitten, mainly because he was a modest sort of a man and that was one of the chief reasons that she WAS so smitten with him.

I will cut a long story short. An ex Army chum of Lachlan's had phoned to say that he was in town for the week - end and Lachlan being loyal to his friends, another trait that Elizabeth valued greatly, decided that, to-night, that was where his loyalties lay.

He apologised profusely, of course, and assured Elizabeth that it was only a postponement and that they would have the chance to "cook the books over some chow some time soon."

She had managed to keep any suggestion of a quaver out of her voice while she was still holding the phone but any resolve not to let "the whole bloody fiasco" get her down lasted only as long as it took her to get back to her room and close the door on the rest of the world.

Once safely there, she settled herself in front of a bottle of Copper Beech Sherry and drained it in the course of the next 90 minutes, while marvelling at her ability to cry so much without succumbing to dehydration.

Part Seven: THE RACE IS RUN

2010-02-16T04:08:00.000-08:00

In a few minutes Driscoll was standing at the entrance to the bookies, next door to the Guild, fishing in the pocket of his regimental blazer for the sacrificial wad of cash, when a wave of humanity propelled him through the door.

This was not how he had planned it. Where was the dignity here, for pity's sake? He took a moment to collect himself and throw a dirty look over his shoulder before striding manfully up to the cashier's desk, employing what he liked to think was full military bearing as he did so. Meanwhile his throng of admirers stuck like a rash to his back.

"Sun King. 3.40. Kelso," said Driscoll in a clipped military tone, laying the money in the cashier's tray. Just to underline his nonchalance he ran his hand languidly through his wavy, grey and nicotine stained hair.

Marie counted the money and asked in an incredulous squeak, "All of it?"

"Every last penny, my dear", said the hero of the hour, turning to his audience and leering at them like a politician waiting to kiss a baby.

He thought there might have been a burst of hip hoorays or a manly clap on the back but, instead, there was just a deafening silence.

Every man in the room looked as if he had just been punched hard in the solar plexus by a mailed fist as the implications of Driscoll's deed struck home for the first time. Every man in the room had just put the rent money, his wife's wedding ring and their children's future on the back of a 100-1 no hope monkey.

Driscoll was the only one within those four walls who was completely unconcerned when the race started on schedule.

At first, things went according to his masterplan. The only possible explanation for Sun King's performance was that no-one had explained to the animal the importance of the occassion. It seemed for all the world as if it was out for a canter in the Spring sunshine - possibly on doctor's orders.

The room was, therefore, full of contorted faces frozen in masks of horror. All were suffering the extreme pangs of "Gambler's Torment". All hearts were pounding in unison. Each man felt that, at this very moment, the money was being siphoned out of his own pocket and that they would soon be trudging a weary path home to tell a tearful wife why the rent/mortgage would not be paid this week/month and why the family diet might be a little monotonous for a while.

Driscoll, however, as he knew he would, had escaped to a higher plane. He was not exactly smiling but his features had fallen into a sort of sweet repose. The proverbial great weight had been lifted from his shoulders and his rheumy eyes moistened with tears of relief.

His way was clear now. No need to hide. No need to walk around looking over his shoulder any more. Tonight he would sleep in a police cell. His sins would be someone else's problem. He would have his absolution.

Sure that the race was now a foregone conclusion, he turned to leave and start out on his road to martyrdom but, before he could lay a hand on the door knob, the radio crackled with the sound of the commentator's hysterical voice.

"Incredible. Just incredible", he screamed. "I've never seen anything like this in all my year's at the races!"

Driscoll froze, stricken, in his tracks.

Sun King seemed, albeit belatedly, to have finally understood what the words "horse race" actually meant and was proving most eager to make up for lost time. In fact, right at that moment, the animal was "eating up" the opposition in a demented dash for the finishing line.

The radio man quipped that perhaps Sun King had just remembered an urgent appointment. Then, on a more serious note, he criticised the jockey for the amount of whip he was using.

The other punters laughed with nervous excitement at this.

Driscoll wasn't laughing though and, before he could stop himself, he bawled out "Aye, leave the poor beasty alone. You'll lay its ribs bare," but no sooner had he said it than the race was over. The deed was done and he was stuck with it.

Yes, the race was won and Sun King was heading for a glorious reception in the Paddock as the bookies office erupted in a roar that must have been heard in Kelso itself.

Driscoll slumped against the wall, staring ahead, hollow eyed like an infantryman with the "2,000 yard stare".

When the cacophony subsided all eyes turned to the man of the moment who by this time had managed to pull himself together and was now standing fully erect, though rooted to the spot.

After an awkward few minutes silence, little Eck Munro who lived above the Pie Shop around the corner and who had not had a win since "last Pancake Tuesday" stepped forward, took gentle hold of his new hero's arm and led him through the crowd which silently, and respectfully, parted so that they could make their way triumphantly to the cashier's window.

Thomas McBean Driscoll had just been canonised the patron saint of hopeful losers by this gathering and, as such, was led in a reverent procession back to the Guild Bar next door where he set the seal on the proceedings by buying each of his "congregation" a drink.

He was their man now. He was the man that had proved that, sometimes, two and two can make five. He was their man all right and that wouldn't change even if they had caught him kicking a day old kitten the length and breadth of the bar.

In every corner of the Guild his legend was being embellished by his grateful followers who had been given a brief holiday from the universal truth that "YOU CAN'T GET SOMETHING FOR NOTHING!!!!!!!"

Everyone in the bar was relaxed now and unconcerned with the twists and turns of fate - everyone except Driscoll. In a few short moments one of those twists had placed the burden squarely back on his shoulders and he sat staring at his own morose reflection in a brass beer font His anguished features were, in turn, a perfect reflection for the torment that now raged within him.

He wept silent tears for his lost absolution. The thing that twisted in his gut was the fact that he really HAD intended to hand himself in but who would believe that now. Part of him was beginning to doubt it himself. Fate had prevented him from making one of the few worthwhile gestures he had made in his whole miserable life.

He had wanted, with an earnestness that he longer thought himself capable of, to lay down his burden and find himself a new skin that would fit him better than the one that he was currently being forced to inhabit.

He wanted to sleep now. That was all. He wanted to go home and sink into that tainted bed and sleep. If he could not have absolution, he would settle for a small measure of oblivion.

Part Six: THE HOUR OF GLORY APPROACHES

2010-02-16T03:28:00.000-08:00

In the Guild Bar, midway through Saturday afternoon, Driscoll looked at his watch, drained his glass and rose from his stool - but then had second thoughts. He could just about fit one more in and there was no point in hanging about in the bookies any longer than absolutely necessary. It was a depressing place even when you were riding high, metaphorically speaking, on some nag or another.

Aye, definitely time for another. Not that he needed Dutch courage, though. Oh no, he was a man who had just decided to take life by the scruff of its neck and dared it to do its worst.

"Same again chief?"

Billy set a double down on the counter and said, in as disinterested a manner as he could manage to fake,........"What's the story wi' you and the good stuff to-day?".

Driscoll, never slow to sniff out an insult, resented the implication that the "good stuff" was, somehow, a bit too good for him, and was about to tell the impudent little sod to go and ^%***^ himself but, instead, he saw an opportunity to set his own personal legend rolling and so he told Billy about the bet, but not the reason for it, still less the part that the part that the law would be playing later in the proceedings.

The impudent bar steward studied the expression on Driscoll's face more closely than he would the lines on his payslip and after a long moment came to his considered conclusion.

"Yer aff yer heid".

Driscoll radiated serenity.

"On the contrary son, its the one sane thing I've done these past few years."

Billy, the loquacious, was lost for words but not for long.

"You got religion or something?"

Driscoll, by now positively immersed in a warm bath of serenity, merely smiled an enigmatic smile. He was saying nothing. He was enjoying this cocksure wee bastard's discomfiture too much.

Billy persisted, though. "Your whole wedge on a 100 - 1 no hoper?"

Driscoll would not be drawn. He had said enough for his purpose. His Mona Lisa smile expanded almost beyond the confines of his face.

"Well, dinnae expect any credit in here then, that's all I'm saying" said Billy, as a parting shot, before walking up the length of the bar to serve another customer.

Driscoll sat nursing his Lagavuillin burning to tell the little swine why he would shortly be freed from all financial fetters and would therefore have no need to throw himself on any body's mercy but, if the legend was going to have a chance to grow, he was going to have to keep his piehole firmly zipped. The wee yak had served his purpose though. Even now his flapping tongue was spreading "the legend" to every nook and cranny of the Guild Bar.

On every tongue there sat a variation of the same question:

"Who was this in their midst - hero or madman?"

3.40 approached. They would not have long to wait for the answer.

Part Five: FEEDING THE INNER MAN

2010-02-16T03:16:00.000-08:00

Buster was in a sour mood for a long time after his disappointment in the Gallery and he strode along, shoulders hunched, muttering to himself, which only served to make people point and stare which, in turn, only served to make his mood even more sour.

After a while, he sat down on a bench in Princes Street and forced himself to calm down. He raised his eyes from the pavement for the first time in nearly an hour, looked around at the passing scene but, just as he was returning to his usual optimistic view of the world, the "one o'clock gun" was fired from the Castle Esplanade.

Buster jumped out of his seat, his heart thumped in his chest and he wondered if the City was under attack from some invading army. It was all very disconcerting.

When the old lady sharing the bench saw his reaction, she took the trouble to explain about the gun and so help him recover his composure. Reassured, Buster's face lit up like the Blackpool Illuminations. If it was one o'clock, it was also lunchtime.

He sprang to his feet, bowed low and thanked the lady for bringing him such good news. Now all he needed to do was find an establishment worthy of his appetite.

Finlay's was a bustling, cheerful place with a large ground floor and a flight of stairs that led up to a balcony from where happy diners beamed down at the rest of the world.

A thought occurred to Buster. Perhaps the portions were bigger up there but, then again, you might have to pay more for the view but, then again, bigger portions were bigger portions.

You just never knew how these things were decided and it was better not to risk losing out. Whatever the case, he thought that it would be a delightful novelty to have such a spectacular view as he tucked in to his chicken and chips. Accordingly, he directed his feet to the foot of the stairs.

He had only taken a few steps when the fountain on the other side of the room caught his eye. He was transfixed. He had never seen a fountain in a restaurant before and he was curious.

He approached the glinting, sparkling water with reverence and saw two coins lying on the tiles beneath the water and, with pleasure, realised that it was a "Wishing Fountain".

Suddenly he was friends with the City again. Earlier insults and slights were forgotten as he put his hands into his pocket and fished out three coins. He decided on three wishes and tossed the first coin in and made a wish for the lady on the train who had given him a sandwich because he hadn't had time to get one before boarding. Then he made a wish for old Joseph who had been so kind to him.

He had intended to give all three of his wishes away but gluttony got the better of him and so his last wish was that his eagerly awaited lunch would be every bit as appetising and generously proportioned as it looked on the picture in the window.

Unbeknown to him, however, while his attention was taken up by fountain and wishes, a nervous lady customer, certain that Buster was a representative of one of the more dangerous forms of lunacy, had alerted the management.

The first he knew of this development was an urgent prodding of his shoulder. Buster, who had not long completed his last wish, was most impressed. Seldom had ANY of his wishes been granted quite so expeditiously.

He asked the deputy manageress, owner of the aforesaid finger, if the chicken dish was exactly as depicted in the advert - not, of course, that he was accusing Finlay's of any skulduggery - and just to be sure he gave the bewildered woman a detailed description of how he thought such a dish should be set before a discerning diner such as himself.

Th woman stood open mouthed. She wagged a finger - yes, that one - at Buster and was about to speak but then thought better of it and made a B line for the kitchen. A moment later she returned flanked by a pair of burly chaps in spotless kitchen whites.

Buster, obliging as ever, was more than willing to repeat his instructions if it helped the restaurant folk to do their job properly but, as things turned out, there was no time for conversation. His feet barely touched Finlay's plush carpet and he was soon out on the street again sans chicken.........sans chips.

Later he found solace by way of the "Special Fish Tea" at Esposito's whose portions were as large as their premises were small.

It wasn't the same though. He would rather have had that juicy chicken and those fat chips in Finlay's picture and he knew that he would feel that way until the big colour picture had faded from his mind.

Part Four...................DRISCOLL RISES

2010-02-13T06:36:00.000-08:00

Driscoll now turned in his half sleep to face the rays of the confident April sun, that was now probing every corner of his room through the the gap in the curtains, und uttered one of the stronger Anglo Saxon oaths. As far as he was concerned the sun was not welcome in here. The sun was for the living, after all, and as hungover as he was, he was not sure that he possessed the minimal qualifications for that state.

He hankered after a painless oblivion but still the sun persisted. It had a duty to animate everything that lay in its path and the ageing embezzler, languishing in his "scratcher", was to be no exception.

Eventually, Driscoll forced open one red and watery eye, blinked and repeated the oath but more vehemently this time. He wondered, wearily, why day had to follow day quite so relentlessly. If only the world would stop careering around for a wee while a body might have a chance to catch his breath long enough to stop and work things out instead of having Time dragging him along by the collar.

Finally giving up on oblivion, he swung his skinny, varicose veined legs over the edge of the bed and sat, for a while, with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. He was not for opening the curtains just yet. There was a feeling of comfort and safety in this half world and he wished to hold onto it for a little longer. If he could not hold back time at least he could choose how long he kept the full power of that great bully out of his own little world.

He lit a cigarette and waited for the customary coughing fit to subside before, once again, surrendering to the facts. He could not turn back time and undo what he had done and the money - "that money" was running out fast. He reckoned that at best he had enough for another month and then what? He took a long, deep drag on his Captain Full Strength and watched the dovetailing spirals of blue make their unconcerned way up to the ceiling.

He allowed himself a mirthless smile. After all,these twisted spirals of smoke were a perfect metaphor for his own convoluted affairs.

Once this situation would not have bothered him so much. He would have done the necessary ducking and diving. He might even have been sharp enough and quick enough to turn the situation around and avoid retribution. Even if the worst had come to the worst and he had ended up doing time he would have been all right. When he was young he had energy. When he was young he had resilience. When he was young he did not allow himself to care about very much.

Now, though, sitting on the edge of this mouldy bed, sullied by who knew how many unknown bodies, he felt the last pretence of youth and vigour draining out of him. He fancied that he could actually feel the blood congeal in his veins. He was tired, bone-tired. What he really wanted to do was hand himself in and so side step the torment of the next few weeks. He wanted to stop the marching army of sullen, gloomy hours in their tracks - but he was afraid. Like a reluctant parachutist, he needed some - one, or something, to give him a mighty push out into the unknown.

He stubbed out the Capstan and struggled over to the curtains and pulled them open. The full light of the sun half blinded him and he staggered back to the bed where he noticed the copy of the Racing Post lying on the floor by the bed post.

He picked it up and turned to to-day's races. He had not been intending to bet to-day but, then again, these days he clung gratefully to anything that could divert his thoughts from his imminent future.

Suddenly, a burst of light exploded in his head. There it was. 3.40. Kelso Races. Sun King 100-1.

Driscoll had been surprised to find that working on the detailed and elaborate plans for his own martyrdom had left him with such a ferocious appetite. Somewhere, at the back of his mind, there had been a vague notion that, by this point, he should be pale, still and resigned to his fate.

His notion had not stretched to Sausage, Bacon, Black Pudding, two fried eggs, beans and toast and tea at the "Chat and Choo" but here he was with his stomach about to cut his throat.

The waitress brought his "Belly Buster Breakfast Special" over and he seasoned his meal with large dollops of tomato ketchup and self congratulation. The whole plan had been worked out with military precision. He was set to go out in a blaze of glory at 3.40 that afternoon, precisely.

He dipped a morsel of sausage into his egg yolk and worked it round vigorously. He grinned in triumph as a rivulet of yellow ran over a rasher of bacon. He was now back in control. A doer not some-one who is done to.

Sun King. 100-1. A gift. One brief race and, provided he held his nerve, he could lay down his burden forever. Sun King, eh. He laughed so hard he almost joked on his black pudding. No chance that monkey was going to come up with the goods.

He would have to put every penny on it though. That meant every single penny that he owned. That way he would have nowhere to go. He would HAVE to give himself up and get it all over with. All decisions after that glorious moment would be made for him -just as it was when he was in the Army.

He sniggered into his tea cup. What a release. Ironically, he thought, I will actually be released for am I not in a prison now - one of my own making.

No more jangling nerves as he saw his cash reserves dwindle day by day. No more haunted nights, twisting and turning and wondering how long he could keep body and soul together after the cash ran out. No more fear of getting caught if he broke cover and tried to get a real job and definitely no need to go cap in hand to the Tindall brothers for a loan that he would never be able to afford to repay anyway. There was a thought to keep you awake at night - the law and the Tindall's on
your erse at the same time.

No, Driscoll boy, he thought, no more of that. You'll be the captain of your own ship again - the master of your soul.

Part Three: SATURDAY........AND THE SUN IS SHINING

2010-02-11T02:53:00.000-08:00

Buster stood at the bus stop waiting for the No 27 which would take him up the hill and into the centre of Edinburgh. His nose twitched as if he were a cat sniffing out the day's possibilities.

Faintly, on the breeze, he could pick up the sound of the bustle of traffic coming from the City Centre and he struggled manfully to contain his excitement. To-day, he had decided, would be a day of adventure and exploration.

In all his travels there was one thing that he had learned above all others and that was that there was nothing, nothing in all the world, as exciting as the first morning in a new city. This was especially true on a morning like this when the sun had brushed down the tired old roofs of the town and softened the brick and the stone and made them new again.

He had already decided on his first port of call - the big Castle that towered above the Gardens where he had fed the squirrels only yesterday. He was just dreaming of the excitements that Edinburgh Castle might hold and whether or not there would be a tea room on the premises , and whether or not they sold "Maccarroons", when one of the city's maroon and white double decker buses pulled up at the stop across the road.

As soon as he saw the vehicle all thoughts of the Castle, and whether or not he'd be able to fortify himself with a cup of tea and a bun, slipped from his mind for, splashed right across the side of the vehicle was a huge colour reproduction of a painting advertising an exhibition of the French Impressionists in the big Gallery just off Princes Street. He did not know much about Art but like many another he "KNEW WHAT HE LIKED" and he liked what he saw.

The painting was a picnic scene, the one set on the Bois de Boulogne that most of you will be familiar with. Buster, the simple soul, was not familiar with it at all but he was completely beguiled by the spirit of uncomplicated happiness that poured out of the picture and suddenly he had a new mission.

As the bus sailed off down the hill he resolved to find this painting and stand before it and soak up the happiness captured within its frame. He needed to see the lady in the cornflower blue dress again and the jolly fat man with the beard who stood at her side. He wanted to see the sunlight dappling the picnic table and the warmth and the joy of a moment that would never end.

The Gallery, itself, was not hard to find as there was another large reproduction of the picnic scene on a hoarding a few yards away but it was spattered with mud, and some other unsavoury materials of uncertain origins, and it was torn at one corner and the sight did not satisfy Buster in the slightest. He did not feel that it did this glimpse of Paradise justice at all. Daunting though the prospect was, he felt compelled, as a magnet to metal, to pass through the "intimidating" doors of the Gallery and "claim his prize".

At the entrance to the first of the Gallery's rooms he asked the attendant where he could find his painting, but the man, who had difficulties understanding what Buster was saying, and no interest in finding out, waved him away in the direction of a collection of Dutch Still Lifes.

In that room Buster searched diligently along a line of paintings but, much to his mounting frustration, all he could see were studies of flowers in glass bowls or tables strewn with dead rabbits and game birds whose lifeless eyes stared up at ancient ceilings. He was incensed. This was no fun at all. It was profoundly depressing. He'd wanted to have his spirits raised not have them sink into his boots.

When he had calmed down a bit he began to suspect that there was some trickery afoot and that the unhelpful attendant might, just might, have sent him on a wild goose chase for the purposes of his own amusement. This was not entirely paranoia on his part, for he had plenty of experience of involuntarily providing amusement for people whose hearts were, shall we just say, less than pure.

Normally, Buster would take the line of least resistance when he suspected that he had been slighted in some way. He knew that the world was the way it was and that the finer feelings of a humble creature such as he did not really signify, but on this occassion he was not going to be trifled with. He was going to bask in the reflection of "his painting". He was not going to be denied an innocent and necessary pleasure.

A second attendant regarded Buster with barely concealed contempt for a long moment before something clicked into place in his municipally trained mind. The man had read in his daily paper, only that very morning, about an unexplained spate of vandalism to the nation's great paintings and the more he saw of the specimen in front of him the more he grew certain that he had a potential Art slasher on his hands, a threat to the country's artistic heritage.........possibly even an anarchist! Surely those bulging eyes indicated an imbalance of some sort or another.

It was all the evidence that a conscientious guardian of the nation's culture needed. Or, to be more exact, it was all the evidence that HE needed. Without any further warning, the man placed the palm of a large hand on Buster's back and propelled him towards the stairs leading down to the Gift Shop and the main door just beyond it.

His tea break was overdue so he did not bother escorting his anarchist to the bottom of the stairs, but contented himself with watching the miscreants scowling retreat.

Buster did not even bother turning round to throw his tormentor a dirty look. What would have been the point? It would not have brought him any closer to the picture and if he made too much of a fuss they might put him in charge. He might be told to get out of town, like in the cowboy pictures, or worse, he could go to prison. He had a morbid fear of being locked up and told to do things. Much better he thought,in full poetic mode,to be like the Spring breeze, held down by no man.

However, just before he was about to leave the Gallery he had an idea. The Gift Shop sold postcards of the great paintings did they not? Surely, they would have the one he wanted and then he would be able to gaze at the happy scene whenever he wanted to.

As he turned the postcard carousel this way and that it squeaked and groaned. It sounded to Buster like the sound that old Josef made when he was excited and the amusement that this gave him made him momentarily forget his task.

Not content with toying with one carousel, he waddled over to the other and repeated the exercise. After all, maybe IT made a different sound.

The Gift Shop's customers and staff were aware of his mischief by now. The noise grated on every ear. People tutted. People gave him dirty looks. People whispered unkind comments to one another. He didn't care. He was having fun and at least, by his standards,harming no-one.

The stern, official looking lady in charge of the sales counter did not agree. She told him to "stop that" immediately or she would send for reinforcements.

That put the proverbial tin lid on it! Buster had had just about all he could take from the forces of officialdom for one day. Pointedly, he brought this second carousel to a grinding, teeth jarring halt. Suddenly, the silence in the Gift Shop was absolute and every eye was fixed on the shabby little hooligan as everyone wondered what he would do next.

Now that he was the centre of attention he decided to make the most of the situation. He stepped forward a pace or two, raised two fingers to the lady behind the counter, bowed low to the visitors, who after all had not been the ones who had thwarted him, and scuttled out of this humourless establishment before retribution had a chance to catch up with him.

Part Two:.......A MEETING

2010-02-03T03:42:00.000-08:00

His first sight of the old man made him him start in surprise, but Josef, seeing the look of alarm on Buster's face, raised his arm in greeting and reassurance and nodded towards the trees, and their small inhabitants, quoting an apposite Polish proverb. Then, remembering himself, he provided a halting translation.

When the penny finally dropped, Buster grinned broadly. Eager to make a new friend in a strange city he lunged forward and gripped the old man's hand, pumping it vigorously. Josef winced and tried as diplomatically as he could to free himself from the little man's grip.

The old landlord's new acqaintance jabbered excitedly as he picked up his suitcase, giving a blow by blow account of the course that his life and travels had taken over the last few days. In a deluge of words he described his first impressions of the city he had seen for the first time a mere hour ago and only when the flood of words subsided did he stop for a breath before mentioning how hungry he was and how tired and his worries about where he would lay his head tonight.

Buster, feeling that it was a formal requirement of making a new acqauintance, now took it upon himself to recite his entire life story from the moment of his birth to this very minute. Josef's mind, however, was preoccupied with certain pressing questions -chief among them being "what on earth was he supposed to do now?"

Josef did not mean this unkindly but you had to be careful these days didn't you? The government was always telling you to be careful. They were always telling you not to let strangers into your home and to keep an eye on your belongings and be safe and don't take chances. Yet here he was, out of kindness and common humanity getting ready to open his door to this strange creature who, by the looks of things, might not even be of this world.

He was just pondering the possibility of absolving himself decently from the obligations of hospitality when he happened to glance over at his new companion to find that he was not there any more. He thought, for a split second, that he might have imagined the encounter and that perhaps he was not feeling as well as he had supposed but, turning round, he saw his little clown, some distance back, hunkered down and trying to coax yet another furry tree dweller toward the gift sitting in the palm of his outstretched hand. After a tense moment the creature collected its prize and darted off. Josef clapped. Buster beamed.

Josef was now as sure of Buster as Buster was of Josef. A new friend. A wonderful thing even at this late hour. Surely, thought Josef, a gift from God.

As they walked toward Princes Street together, the old man thought with pleasure of the opportunity to bestow hospitality on this new companion and blessed stranger and he hoped the sound of laughter woulld chase away the silence of his room.

An hour later, in that front room, on the very northern edge of the New Town, Buster waited as patiently as his grumbling stomach would allow while the old man prepared a tray of cakes, biscuits and tea for them both.

The room had served as Josef's living quarters for decades and now the old man did not venture out of it any more than he could help and so it was no surprise that the place bulged with the accumulated clutter of a long life.

Buster approved, though. He felt that he was in the presence of a very wise and learned man for surely only learned men were allowed to leave books and papers scattered around as they pleased. Learned men had more important things to do than tidy up after themselves.

He tried to take his mind off his rumbling stomach by making a deeper study of the room while he waited for his tea and biscuits. The curtains were of a heavy maroon material with a motif picked out in gold brocade which had faded badly through the years. Like the threadbare carpet, these curtains had been expensive but now, like their owner, they were seeing out their last days.

The furniture was all, with the exception of the coffee table, which was newish and cheap looking, old, dark and heavy and Buster felt a sudden stab of pity for the old man. It was a cosy room certainly but he suspected his new friend spent too much time in it and he doubted that many visitors came knocking at the door. People only seemed copmfortable with new bright things these days and they did not have time for old men who talked too slowly of old, forgotten things.

Not a moment too soon a tray was set down, tea was poured and Buster was happily working his way through a generous slab of Dundee Cake.

While he did so, the old man seemed to have read his guest's mind for with a sweep of his arm, he said, "See I have friends with me all the time. Never alone."

Buster looked around the room, uncomprehendingly.

"See. See.", Josef persisted. He jabbed a bony finger here and there around the room.

Still his guest did not catch on.

"Look. Look", Josef implored, more in amusement than irritation.

Only then was Buster fully aware of them. On practically every surface in the room there was a framed photograph of some individual or group of people. He could not think how he had missed them for so long.

The old man switched on a lamp whose glow made the room feel like a happier place altogether and the two new friends sipped their tea and talked about friendships and places they had seen and likes and dislikes and the blessed inconsequentialities of every day life until Buster seeing that Josef was having trouble keeping his eyes open, diplomatically bade his new friend and landlord goodnight.

Buster liked the lemon coloured walls in the bathroom. They were bright and, apart from the Tiffany lamp in the old man's room, they were, by far, the most cheerful thing in this strange house.

The steam was so thick now you could cut it with a knife. The cares of the world and the weariness of travel were far away and Buster sighed with unadulterated contentment and stroked the great white mound of his belly in slow, circular movements and in his state of bliss he was starting to nod off when he heard the door handle being tried.

"Sorry", said a nervous female voice. There was the sound of slippered feet retreating along the corridor. Buster had tried to say something but when he opened his mouth all that came out was a yawn.

The sercond knock came a full fifteen minutes later and Buster woke to find that the water had gone cold. Without realising what had woken him he reached for the hot water tap.

"For heaven's sake!", the voice was several notches more tightly strung this time.

"How much longer are you going to be?"

In a vain attempt to keep the world at bay a little longer and to avoid conflict, which he disliked even more than small portions, Buster turned the hot water tap on full in the hope that the sound of gushing water would drown out this rude intrusion upon his reverie.

He almost scalded himself in the process but the ruse worked. Whoever it was beat another retreat, leaving Buster to complete his ablutions to his own satisfaction and in his own good time he left the bathroom and started up the stairs to his attic room.

"Excuse me!!!!"

If the voice was highly strung before, it was bordering on the hysterical now.
The new house guest stopped dead in his tracks before peering timidly over the bannister to the landing below where he could see a statuesque woman in her forties glowering up at him. Her mouth, now taut ands angry, seemed to have been superimposed on to what were, otherwise rather, pleasant features. Such details, however, were lost on Buster.

"I don't know who you are" said the angry mouth, "but in this house we try to show each other a little consideration."

On reflection, Miss Laird would have had to admit that there was no real basis for this claim but, then again, you had to say that sort of thing in this sort of situation, didn't you? You had to shore up your position with all the moral authority
that you could muster

"You've been in that blessed bathroom for an absolute age. There ARE other people in this house, you know or didn't you think of them".

All that Miss Laird could see were a pair of bulging eyes and a mouth that seemed to open and close with the regularity of a pet Goldfish. Where, she wondered, did the old man find these characters.

She suddenly felt the anger slip away from her. She was tired and it was too much like hard work to hang on to it. She waved Buster away with a "be more considerate next time, won't you" and then she shut the bathroom door behind her.

Buster was duly contrite as he climbed into his bed. The lady had been right. He had been just thinking of himself. He tried not to and much of the time he could be as considerate as the next person but sometimes....well he just forgot! He would have to do better - he knew that - and resolved to start being more thoughtful to others starting tommorrow.

All the same, he had a feeling that it was not just him hogging the bathroom that bothered the lady. Behind the loud voice and that angry mouth Buster had sensed sadness and he sensed it everywhere in this house.It hung in the air like a black cloud that refused to move to another part of the sky.

Buster looked at the little rosebuds on the wallpaper all around him and fancied that they sensed the sadness too and that that was why they would never come into bloom.

He knew that, if he let it, this cloud, or whatever it was would seep into his bones and then he might become part of the sadness so he said his usual bedtime prayer and felt better and knew he could sleep now without fear.

As his eyes grew heavy, as a way of chasing the black cloud to where it could do no harm, he turned his thoughts once more to his long ago and happy past. Familiar faces smiled down at him now. Familiar arms stretched out to him and the old, beloved voices sang him to sleep as they did every night.

Part One: FRIDAY.......AND A NEW ARRIVAL

2010-02-01T03:12:00.000-08:00

April
Comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers

Spring
by Edna St. Vincent Millais

Until then, April had not been kind to Edinburgh. The weather had been squally, wet and cold and a perpetual air of greyness had hung over the City like some sadness that refused to be forgotten.

Then, on the second Friday of the month everything changed. In the morning a series of light showers blew across the city and out over the North Sea and shortly after lunchtime the sun started to grow in strength and billowy, cotton wool clouds sailed at a brisk pace across what was now an otherwise blue sky.

Light and colour animated Auld Reekie. Church spires glinted, the polished domes of the public buildings gleamed and the shop windows along Princes Street shone as if they were intent on drawing attention to the wonders of the goods displayed inside and the grass in the Gardens on the other side of the road positively glowed in the belated Spring sunshine.

The people making their way home from work looked as shocked and dazed as small animals pulled abruptly from their winter hibernation. They sat with friends in coffee shops or stood impatiently at bus stops, fervently hoping that this fine day marked the end of a very hard Edinburgh winter. A few adventurous souls even dared to think further ahead to warm, carefree days and mild summer evenings when they would have no need to brace themselves against those cutting winds that swept in from the North Sea and often made Edinburgh feel like some annexe to the North Pole.

There was, however, one soul, just now arriving in the City, who had no notion of how cold it could be. He had seen the blue sky and the fleecy clouds and the sunshine from a distance and, as we all know, distance lends enchantment.

Buster, being a simple soul who always wanted to believe the best of people and places, thought that the place that lay beneath that sky must, somehow, be enchanted. You and I may laugh, cynical beings that we are, but Buster was always ready to embrace new wonders.

He was the first one off the train when it arrived in the station. Breathless with excitement, he scrambled down on to the platform, picked up his battered suitcase and headed off in the direction of the main concourse.

Once there, he stopped dead in his tracks, sweating and confused. At a loss as to what to do now, he stood watching the destinations change on the notice board while passers by gave the little man with the bulging eyes the widest of berths. He was oblivious to their stares though as the notice board seemed to be having a hypnotic effect on him. Then, just above his head, a tannoy bellowed out, loud and metallic.

"16.44 for Aberdeen calling at Haymarket, Inverkeithing, Aberdour.........." He read all the names leading up to that great northern city from the board, rolling them round his mouth with almost the same pleasure that he derived from sucking a boiled sweet. "........Kinghorn, Kirkcaldy, Markinch. After a while he grew tired of the novelty of strange sounding names and turned to ask directions from someone.

A passing businesswoman, alarmed by his anxious, bulging eyes brushed him aside with her briefcase and carried on her way without breaking her stride.

He then approached a South American tourist who did seem willing to help but did not have so much as six words of English to his name.

Then it was the turn of two youths wearing football shirts but they only laughed at him and swore loudly as they passed by.

The minutes on the big station clock ticked relentlessly by and the little man began to feel the sting of panic in the pit of his stomach. Every rejection only served to fuel his anxiousness and sense of confusion and he began to fear that he might never get past the station exit.

As he turned this way and that, bug eyed at the sound of every approaching footstep, a collective buzz seemed to pass through the station concourse like some invisible electric current and travellers, according to their nature, felt varying degrees of pity, embarrassment or irritation but none of them stopped to help.

Eventually, a policeman approached. At the sound of the officer's voice behind him, Buster wheeled round and immediately launched into a rambling attempt to explain his predicament but when he realised who he was talking to he fell immediately silent, lowered his head and stared for a long moment at his own cracked, leather boots. Buster did not like uniforms. Uniforms, in his experience, usually meant a ticking off, a "moving on" or worse.

P.C. Ernie Blyth examined this "specimen" for a moment while he pondered the best course of action. He had always thought that there was definitely "something in the air" where railway stations were concerned. If you stood in one place long enough every derelict, crank or plain nutcase would end up in your lap. There was nothing surer.

The constable wondered just what category this wee bauchle fell into and, for his part, Buster affected the usual ingratiating smile that he employed in these circumstances and when that failed to have any effect on the officer's stony countenance he fell to contemplating his boots again.

Blyth had made his diagnosis by now. "Nutcase, pure and simple!" In fact, he was sure that this wee craitur had escaped from some institution or another.In any event he was bound to be on someone's list.

On the other hand, Blyth rationalised, he was not the world's keeper..........and the paperwork......... and, besides, you could not take a citizen into custody just because they were fat, ugly and stupid. And he seemed a harmless enough wee bugger anyway but, finally, by way of paying lip service to procedure, the constable asked Buster to show some proof of means of support.

Buster thought for a moment before fishing out a Building Society Passbook from an inside pocket. The P.C. examined the current balance with barely concealed envy before brushing the "wee bauchle" and his Passbook away.

Less than five minutes later Buster was standing at the eastern end of Princes St Gardens. His long journey and the panic at the train station were only memories now and so he raised his face to the Spring sky and said a silent thank you to his Maker for a safe arrival. Then, remembering his purpose, he opened the cardboard suitcase an searched for for the "gifts".

It was the start of a fine April evening and the old man felt better than he could remember feeling in a very long time. Mind you he had had to struggle to feel better but, when the Great Mother Nature was making such an effort what with all the greenery and the little creatures running about hither and thither, it would have been churlish not to at least try and feel well.

He sat down on his favourite bench, opened the thermos flask and surveyed the Gardens as he sipped, birdlike, at the hot coffee. and remembered what Spring had meant to him when he was young. He remembered the wonder of possibilities renewed after the long, dead days of winter and the way that Spring breezes always seemed to tease you with glimpses of fine days ahead and holidays and girls in summer dresses. At his age he would have thought that things like that should not matter any more but oh........how they did. Why did the Spring sun tantalise him by bringing life back into his tired old body, he wondered. What was the use of it Would it not be better employed expending its energy elsewhere?

There were two of the creatures, one of which was now on the ground a few feet away. It thrust out its head and neck as it studied the little man in half mast trousers and shabby raincoat. It sniffed the air. It turned its head to one side as if waiting for an assurance of safety from some guardian spirit in the Spring breeze. It edged closer, sniffing and twitching. As Buster wheezily crooned encouragement it came closer and closer still. When the squirrel was no more than a foot away from him it froze, like a gun dog in a sporting print.

Buster was about to offer more encouragement but then thought better of it, being content to stifle his wheezing lest the little creature lose its nerve at the last moment.

Then, with a lightning dart, the squirrel claimed its trophy from Buster's outstretched hand and ran off to a safe distance from where it sat on its hind legs attacking the nut with manic concentration.

Buster was hoping that it would come for another treat but, for no good reason that he could see, the creature turned tail, scampered across the grass and up the furthest away of two sycamore trees.

After a moments pause Buster waddled over to the nearest of the two trees. From a branch eight feet from the ground a second squirrel glared down at him. Like its mate before, it inched forward but, this time, with an air of menace and it chattered hysterically as Buster fished in his pocket for more nuts.

Buster held out two of them in the palm of his hand and stood as still as he could but this time the waves of hostility from the small inhabitant of the tree meant that even a patient soul like Buster was had to admit defeat. He shrugged his shoulders in resignation and with no ill will whatsoever walked back to collect his case.