Flower of Scotland (4 page)

The red glow began to fade - imperceptibly at first, but soon we could see Robert’s tortured frame writhing in its midst.

‘No!’ Jamie shouted.

Before I could stop him, he stepped forward into the circle. And Hell came to Dunnotar.

The red cloud writhed and flowed, enveloping Jamie in its folds like a huge velvet cloak. The great door blew open, metal screaming as the massive hinges were torn from their places, the wind howling as the door fell to the floor with a thunderclap crash. Within the circle the cloud was shrinking, smaller, then smaller still, the figures within shrinking along with it. The last thing I heard before silence fell was Jamie’s voice falling away into the distance, pleading over and over for mercy.

I was left alone in a suddenly silent room. All that was left in the circle was the ancient chain, still carrying its contents, which were gleaming like a fiery ember.

I stepped into the circle, muscles tensed in expectation of attack. But none came, and there was only the sound of the wind as I lifted the chain and walked into the night.

I thought of the past, of the great victory over Edward’s army, of the Earl of Douglas taking this same chain to the Crusades, of the centuries it had lain in its tomb. In the distance I imagined I heard the marching drums of the English Army as I raised my arm and sent the heart of the Bruce to its final resting place.

Coma.

That was the only word I heard while doctors and nurses tried to stem the life bleeding from my wife. I couldn’t stay there, not then, not while they attached the tubes and machines. I left in search of a place where I could have a cigarette.

An orderly pointed me along past the waiting areas.

"Down there and through the fire escape."

I went down the corridor, eventually coming to a set of fire doors. I pushed through into a small interior courtyard.

At one time someone had tried to make a garden area for patients, but now it looked to be turned over totally to the pursuit of the nicotine hit. Four benches sat around a small pond. There might be fish in there, but if there were, they were living on the cigarette ends that were getting pushed around the surface by a sluggish fountain that burped and belched like an asthmatic cow. Butts, spent matches and empty cartons lay strewn in random patterns on the ground.

On the far side of the pond sat just about the sickest man I’ve ever seen. He was in his pyjamas and dressing gown, his stick thin body swamped by the clothing, his ribs standing proud from his chest in the two inches of flesh showing at his neck. His cheeks and eyes sunk far back into his skull, and his hair hung lankly over a liver-spotted scalp. In his right hand he held a lit cigarette, and in his left he clung tightly to a pole and the attached intravenous drip. He waved at me feebly, then went back to trying to work up enough energy to suck on the cigarette.

I kept a close eye on him… he looked like he might keel over into the pond at any moment.

I got my cigarettes out of my pocket, but my hands shook, so much so that when I took out my lighter it jiggled free and fell with a plop into the pond.

The old man waved me over.

"I’ve got a light if you need one."

I went and sat beside him.

Sick as he was, his hands were steadier than mine. He lit my cigarette for me and handed it over.

"Let me guess," he said, wheezing. "Accident?"

"How did you know?"

"I’ve been in this place long enough," he said. He tried to laugh, but got a coughing fit instead. "Besides, you’ve got a cut on your forehead, your clothes are dishevelled, and you walk like you’ve got minor whiplash injuries."

I sucked at the cigarette, filling up, trying not to think about the crash of metal on metal, the sparkle of windshield glass in headlights or the blood on the road.

"What are you… a doctor?"

This time he did manage a laugh.

"No. But I know hospitals. Have you got time for a story?"

I nodded. I had more time than I knew how to deal with.

We blew smoke at each other as the old man started to talk.

The night my life changed… the 30th of January all those years ago… started like many others. I left another dull chemistry lecture and had a few pints of beer. I　was several sheets into the wind and that was always a recipe for disaster, especially when I hadn’t told my girlfriend Liz that I was going to be late.

I got involved in a darts match, and I was having fun, even although I　was so bad at the game that I　was the one who ended up buying most of the drinks. At some point in the evening the barman called me over and offered me the phone handset.

"It’s your girlfriend," he said. "She says she needs you right now."

The drink spoke for me.

"Tell her she needs her head examined. I’ll be back when I’m good and ready."

And so help me, I enjoyed myself. While she sat in an empty flat and decided on the future course of our lives, I　enjoyed myself. I　drank a lot of beer, I　sang bawdy songs about the Mayor of Bayswater’s daughter, and the hairs on her dickie-die-doh, and only have a vague memory of getting back to the flat.

I’ll never forget the next hour, though.

I　wandered into the kitchen, bumping into tables and knocking over chairs. That took a minute.

I　put on the kettle, and stood beside it while it boiled. That took three minutes.

I took the coffee into the front room and watched the end of the late night news while smoking a cigarette. Ten minutes.

The beer told my bladder it needed to get out. I　put down my coffee and got out of the chair… slowly. I　wasn’t very steady. One minute.

She lay in the bath, and she had used my razor on her wrists her ankles and her throat. She hadn’t wanted to make any mistakes. This wasn’t a cry for help… she’d tried that earlier, and I　hadn’t answered. For the past fifteen minutes she’d been dying.

The old man started to wheeze, and when I looked over, I saw tears glisten in his eyes. He wiped them away, and lit a new cigarette from the butt of the old.

They took her to a hospital. Not this one, but not too far different. She was so close to death I could smell it on her, and I ran… ran out of that antiseptic hell and out into the night where I too could seek some strength in a cigarette.

He stopped again and looked at me.

"Is it bad?" he asked.

I knew immediately what he asked. I nodded.

"Coma. She might never wake up."

Once more there were tears in his eyes.

I felt lost, alone. I lit up and stared at the stars, cursing a God who would let an innocent suffer while a worm like me could live.

And that’s when I saw him. An old man, so ill as to be nearly dead. He sat on a bench wrapped in a robe, a cigarette dangling from his lips.

"Do you want her to live?" he said.

"You can help?"

He smiled.

"Yes… but only if you promise never to stop smoking."

"How will that help?"

Again he smiled, thin whisps of smoke rising from his nostrils.

"It might tip the balance of suffering… in the long run. Besides… what have you got to lose?"

I was desperate enough to do anything.

"Shake on it?" the old man said.

I put out a hand… and he stubbed his cigarette out on it.

He wheezed again, before putting out his hand, palm up. A small circular scar sat proud on the skin.

"What kind of story is that?" I asked. "There’s no point to it."

"Oh, there is," he said, coughing. "Believe me, there is. My beautiful girl lived… still does in fact."

"How was that possible?"

He coughed up a lump of brown phlegm and hawked it into the pool where it sank.

"The balance of suffering… forty years of smoking."

"That’s all it took?"

"All?" he said, and laughed bitterly. "Oh yes, that’s all."

"I’ll take it," I said.

"Take what?"

"The deal. I’ll take it."

He showed me his thin bony chest, and coughed loudly for effect.

"Sure?"

I nodded.

"Shake on it?" the old man said.

I put out a hand… and he stubbed his cigarette out on it.

The cracked black leather of the bible felt rough and cold in his hands as he took it from his satchel and placed it on the stone floor in front of them.

He looked around at the three pale faces, the wide dark eyes staring blankly back at him. The silence lay heavy around them and he toyed with the idea of letting out a scream - at least one of them was to sure to faint in fright. But that would spoil his big scene, and he couldn’t have that. He’d promised them a ghost and a ghost was what they were going to get.

He needed this to work. The three boys around him represented the figures of power in the school and, as a new boy, they knew that Jim would have to gain their approval if he was to fit in. Which was why they’d let him bring them here, to the ruins of Cameron Castle on a cold winter’s day. One mistake now and he would be ostracised for months to come.

‘Are you ready?’ he whispered, and was dismayed to find that his voice trembled, a childish quaver which echoed around the confines of the cramped dank chamber.

‘Yeah. Just get on with it. I’m freezing my balls off here.’ Bob Kerr shuffled his bottom, trying to find a more comfortable spot. He was the one that would need most watching, being the oldest of the three and also the biggest. Jim had seen him in action against some of the smaller boys and had no desire to fall prey to the bullying and the kicking and gouging.

The other two would be easier. ‘Camp followers,’ his dad had told him when they discussed their plan, ‘Cut them off from the leader and you’ll be able to manipulate them.’ Dad was big on manipulation and Jim didn’t intend letting him down.

Bob Kerr took a single cigarette from his jacket pocket and made a big show of lighting it up. His eyes screwed up tight in pain as the smoke got to him but Jim managed to control the giggle which had grown in his throat - it wouldn’t do to antagonise Bob. Not yet anyway.

‘I’ve told you already what happens,’ he said, and was pleased to notice that his voice had now steadied. ‘I’ll put a pencil on the bible and then you can ask your questions. The pencil will move left if the answer is no, right if the answer is yes. Do you understand?’

He wasn’t really sure that any of them knew their left from their right but they nodded anyway, seemingly afraid to speak, afraid to break the spell. The atmosphere was definitely building up and Jim smiled, but only inwardly. The plan was right on schedule.

He opened the Bible, laying it side on. As he did so he noticed that it had opened at the Book of Job. He smiled to himself, thinking of the plagues and pestilences he would like to visit on the three boys opposite. He took the pencil from the top pocket of his shirt and laid it cross-ways across the Bible pointing directly at Bob Kerr.

The air in the room seemed to have chilled and from the corner of his eye he could see the dancing shadows cavorting on the rough stone walls. He pushed them from his thoughts - Dad had told him that there would be no problems, no need to fear, and he always trusted Dad’s judgement.

‘I’ll ask first,’ he said. ‘Just to show you how it works.’ He didn’t wait for a response. He held out his arms, palms down over the Bible, and he could feel the tingle, the power, as it built up and his breath condensed in the air.

‘Is Edinburgh the capital of Scotland?’

He heard gasps from across the chamber as the pencil rolled across the pages, coming to rest at the edge of the Bible.

Bob Kerr was unimpressed.

‘Is that it? Not much of a question, was it?’

Jim was unperturbed. This too was part of the plan. ‘Give them enough rope and they will hang themselves.’ Dad had said. He put his hands back to his side and stared across at Bob.

‘Okay big shot, you do it,’ he said, grinning widely. Bob looked at the other two, shrugged his shoulders and ground out the cigarette. That was when Jim knew that he had them - right where he wanted them. He waited for the boy to shuffle over towards the Bible then he held Bob’s arms over the book and turned the palms down.

He spoke as he replaced the pencil at its starting point.

‘You must concentrate,’ he said, secretly delighted at the fear he could see twinkling in Bob Kerr’s eyes. He sat back on his haunches. From now on he could leave them to it and the end would be just as Dad had foreseen.

‘I feel like a right divvy,’ Bob Kerr said and his two companions giggled until silenced by a quick angry glance. ‘Okay,’ he asked, ‘what should I say?’

‘Anything you want,’ Jim replied. ‘Just remember to ask a question that can be answered with a yes or a no.’

He could almost hear the cogs and wheels as he watched the boy try to come up with an idea. The other two boys were shuffling around noisily, already getting bored with the proceedings, but Jim didn’t think they would be bored for very much longer.

‘Is my name Robert Justin Kerr?’ he finally asked.

The other two giggled again but soon stopped as the pencil rolled to the right.

‘All right,’ Bob whispered, ‘now for the hard ones.’

Jim noticed that all three boys were completely engrossed in the movement of the pencil - so much so that they had failed to notice the gathering of the shadows in the far corner of the room, the deeper blackness which was even now creeping slowly towards them.

Bob Kerr looked as if he was pondering one of life’s big questions and Jim was not in the least surprised at his next question.

‘Are you a ghost?’ the boy asked.

The pencil didn’t roll - it raised up an inch off the pages and floated in the air. The candle flickered wildly as a breeze wafted through the small room but the pencil didn’t waver - not moving until Bob lowered one of his hands to place it back in the middle of the Bible.

All was now deathly quiet, the only noise the soft breathing from the four young bodies and, a noise which Jim could barely hear, a dry wheezing from the far corner, a corner which was now completely consumed in shadow.