Stonemouth (28 page)

A big cheer went up from the crowd as Josh MacAvett arrived in a taxi, fresh off a plane from London; I stopped to say hi, then went on trying to find Ellie. I accepted a couple of sips of wine and beer from happy revellers, and a toke on a joint from Ferg, skulking with some other smokers by some interesting topiary near the top of the steps that led down to lower garden terraces.

Which was where I caught another glimpse of electric blue, and walked down and along a terrace and found Ellie in a clinch, basically, with the guy she’d been dancing with earlier. I recognised him now; he was the guy she’d gone out with before Josh MacAvett, the guy I’d always suspected had been her first lover, the guy who’d taken her virginity. Dean somebody. Dean Watts. That was him.

They were on a terrace one level further down, standing, his hands cupping her backside.

I think my mouth fell open. I stopped, stared. So far, they hadn’t seen me. The way they were standing, Ellie with her back to me, he was the one most likely to spot me. I just stood there, crossed my arms.

What the
fuck
, was all I could think. What the
fuck
?

It was weird; I felt sort of hollow, emptied out, all dredged of feeling. I felt I ought to feel shocked, horrified, angry and betrayed – I wanted to feel those things – but I didn’t. My main reaction just seemed to be: Oh.

And the aforementioned, What the
fuck
?

I could hear sirens in the distance.

A breeze brought their voices and a hint of Ellie’s perfume up to me. ‘No, listen, Dean, stop. No, no, just stop,’ I heard Ellie say as he tried to kiss her again. Dean was maybe my height: dark hair, pretty fit-looking. Kilty outfit, sporran currently to the side, where you put it to dance. Or if you’re hoping for a shag, I suppose. Ellie pushed him away. ‘That’s
enough
.’

‘Aw,
come on. Old times’ sake, El,’ Dean said, pulling her back towards him. They’d turned a little by now so I wouldn’t be in his line of sight if he just raised his eyes.

‘
No!
I shouldn’t have let you kiss me, let alone – no! Come on, before somebody sees us.’

This should have been Dean’s cue to look about, maybe see me, but he only had eyes for Ellie. She did look good in that dress: hair still up, just a few wisps shaken loose by dancing.

‘That all you’re worried ab—’ he started to say.

‘
No!
No, it’s not! Just stop. Come on; let’s head back. It’s just a false alarm.’

‘Aw, El, come on, you know you—’

‘Will you just—’

‘Hon, you’re not even married yet; come
on
.’

‘This isn’t—’

Dean tried hard to bring her close enough to kiss again, pulling at her, making El bend back and push hard against him, protesting.

Finally she stamped on his right brogue with her heel, leaving him hopping and going ‘Ow!’ Then she slapped him on the cheek for good measure. I didn’t think people slapped like that any more, only in movies. Looked like a sting-y one. Good for you, lass, I thought. Ellie marched off for the nearest steps, leaving Dean to half sit, half fall onto a bench.

I pressed part-way into a handy bush but Ellie didn’t look right or left as she walked purposefully up the steps. I gave it a minute or so, feeling oddly complicit, even guilty. I smelled tobacco smoke and peeked out again; Dean was sitting smoking a fag and gazing – I was guessing ruefully – out to sea.

There. Nothing had really happened; just a blip. A trying, a testing, and Ellie had pretty much passed. At least as well as I’d have, in similar circumstances, I supposed. But it was over, and I’d been right not to react immediately. Hanging back, not being impetuous, had been the right thing to do. Maybe I really was starting to get mature after all. I could forget about this.

I
went up the steps and found Ellie after a minute, talking to some mutual pals. ‘Here you are,’ I said, just as the fire brigade arrived.

There was some quite vocal female appreciation of the firemen, and some grumbling male resentment that the womenfolk were so easily distracted, but the boys in the yellow helmets were gone within ten minutes and we all filed back into the hotel, emergency over.

I thought I’d better check that Jel knew it was safe to come back in.

She was still in the plastic chair, talking to one of the hotel waitresses. Jel’s feet were still sore so I carried her back in.

‘This a fireman’s lift?’ she asked as I walked up the service corridor with her in my arms, one of her hands round my neck and her other carrying the stilettos.

‘No, more just your standard Hollywood guy-carrying-girl grip.’

‘Girl could get used to this,’ she told me, smiling conspiratorially. ‘Hope El realises what a lucky girl she is.’

‘Yup; so do I.’

I was about to kick open the door to the ballroom when I saw her looking at me. I hesitated. ‘What?’

She looked at me levelly for a moment or two. Her perfume filled the air.

Jel sighed. ‘Nothing,’ she told me. ‘You better put me down here. I can hobble the rest.’

‘Aye, next time we’re all here, probably be fur ma funeral. Ye’ll come fur that, eh?’

‘Joe, do you mind? Next time we’re all here is next week, for my wedding, mine and Ellie’s. You can’t kick the bucket until we’ve had two or three grandchildren for you. There’ll be dandling to be done. Sorry, but you’re just not allowed to keel over. Not for another ten or twenty years. Minimum. Nope; sorry, done deal. No negotiating.’

Joe, bless him, found this quite hilarious. He’d always been an
easy audience. He sat chuckling silently and wiped at his rheumy old eyes with a white hanky. I’d sat down at the Murston family table, between dances. Mr Murston Senior had put on a bit of weight since we first bumped into each other in the hills, years earlier; he was positively rotund now, his face was puffy, he wobbled when he did the silent laughter thing, and tears seemed to leak from him at the slightest excuse, as though forced out by the sheer pressure of his bulk.

‘Aye, well, we’ll see,’ he told me, stuffing the hanky away. ‘But a buddy gets tired, ken?’

‘We all get tired, Joe.’

‘Aye, but there’s tired an there’s tired.’

‘Oh is there, now?’ I narrowed my eyes theatrically. ‘This had better be good wisdom here, Joe.’ I reached over and tapped him on the forearm. ‘You old geezers have a responsibility to provide us whippersnappers with choice stuff.’

‘Ach, get on wi ye!’ he wheezed, as his eyes started to fill and the hanky came out again.

The evening went on. Much drink was taken, much drunken dancing committed. The amount of camera flashing declined as power ran down both in camera batteries and small children, though not as much in either as one might have hoped. I spent a couple of intervals outside smoking with Ferg and his chums. Ellie and I danced in a Circassian Circle, then in a Flying Scotsman. Another Eightsome rounded off the ceilidh part of the evening but we sat that one out. More food was laid out, more drink taken. We danced to some pop, I danced with Lauren, the bride, with Grier – as instructed – and with a revived Jel. Grier insisted on consecutive dances, the second being a slow one during which she pressed herself hard against me.

‘I can feel your erection,’ she informed me, just before the song stopped.

I briefly considered denying what was, after all, the truth, and
also not something I was particularly in control of. ‘I was thinking about Ellie,’ I told her.

‘Not Anjelica MacAvett?’ Grier said quietly, from beneath the black fringe.

‘No, not Anjelica MacAvett,’ I said, looking at the girl, disquieted.

‘I see a lot,’ Grier whispered into my ear.

‘I bet you do. But not Jel; El.’

‘El Jel, Jel El,’ Grier sing-songed.

‘Ellie,’ I said, firmly.

Grier nodded and pressed in against me again, as the last notes of the song faded. ‘And she’s thinking of Dean Watts.’ She stepped back, nodded. ‘Thanks, Stewart,’ she said, and skipped off.

My expression, I’m sure, must have been choice.

I was at the bar. Ellie was at a distant table going over old times with girlfriends from the Academy.

‘Real thing?’ Ferg asked quietly, suddenly at my side.

‘
Que?
’

‘Humpty Driscoll’s got a room and some very pure powder. More than the daft fuck knows what to do with, so a few of us are volunteering to help him out. Care to join?’

‘Fuck, yeah,’ I said, so we tramped off to the room Humpty had.

Humpty had always been the sort who needed to provide incentives for people to be his pals; once it had been sweeties and stolen fags. He was training to be a lawyer in London and his folks had moved to Australia so he’d got himself a room in the hotel. Jel was already there, hoovering a line as Ferg and I arrived. Her brother Josh was looking on with a knowing grin. Gina Hillis, Sandy McDade and Len Grady were there too, and Phelpie.

The coke was pretty good and I had a couple of very intense discussions about fuck knows what, one with Ferg and one with Jel.

We all went off to dance some energy away and, a few songs later, when Jel and I were still dancing, we saw Ferg and Josh heading for the main corridor from the ballroom to the foyer.

‘Think
there’s more coke going?’ Jel asked, grabbing my arm.

‘Hmm,’ I said. ‘I don’t know …’ I could think of at least one other good reason Ferg and Josh were heading off somewhere together.

‘Let’s
follow them
!’ Jel said in a stage whisper, eyes big and bright.

This seemed like an extremely good idea, so we headed after them – I looked round for Ellie, but she’d disappeared again – however, we lost Ferg and Josh in the crowds of people in the corridor (a few lightweights were leaving. And it barely midnight).

We stood in front of the lifts, Jel pressing buttons seemingly at random. ‘Let’s go there anyway,’ she said. ‘It was 404, wasn’t it?’

I’d thought it was 505. Or possibly 555. ‘Umm,’ I said.

Jel nodded. ‘Let’s try it.’

‘You take the lift, I’ll take the stairs,’ I told her. This seemed like a splendid stratagem to ensure we didn’t miss anybody. And also to avoid it looking like Jel and I were proceeding in a bedroom-wards direction together.

‘Okay!’

I walked upstairs two at a time, dispensing a couple of jolly hellos to known faces en route and trying not to trip over small children.

I met Jel outside room 404, but it wasn’t right; no answer, and it and the corridor around it just didn’t look familiar either.

‘Fifth floor?’ I suggested. I was still feeling room 505.

Jel nodded. ‘Let’s try it.’

The fifth floor looked even less right. Parts weren’t even lit. ‘We’ve lost them,’ Jel said, dispirited. Then she perked up. ‘Emergency supplies!’ she said, and dug down her cleavage, feeling around inside her bra. I thought it would do no harm to observe this process closely. She produced a little paper wrap.

‘Brilliant, but I bet these are all locked,’ I said, testing the nearest door, then going to the next.

‘Keep trying,’ she said, followed almost immediately by, ‘Aha!’

It was a little ladies’ toilet: three cubicles and a shelf with three
sinks opposite, modesty-panelled with a faded green floral curtain, all of it overlit from above with fluorescents and filled with a faint hissing noise like static.

The mottled green formica surface around the sinks wasn’t perfect for coke-cutting – too pale, for a start – but we made do. We chopped it with my credit card, rolled a twenty. Jel’s charlie wasn’t quite as good as Humpty’s had been – a bit more cut, though I wasn’t sufficiently expert to tell with what exactly, and the irony that her dad would have access to much better stuff wasn’t lost on us – still, it did the job.

I started telling Jel, in some detail, about my final-year project, which involved imagining famous buildings relit quite differently from conventional floodlighting (all done on computer, no physical models). By this time I’d been thinking seriously about what the job I’d been offered might involve, and had talked at length to some of the guys I might be working with, so I thought I had a pretty good handle on what was required, hence I talked about angles or ‘splayings’, the kind of technique you needed for lighting something A-shaped, like the Forth Bridge, for example. Wide-eyed, leaning in towards me with a look of enormous concentration on her face, Jel seemed rapt, absorbing all this as though she was thinking of taking up a career in creative lighting design herself.

I was making the point that you need to take account of prevailing weather and atmospheric conditions and, ideally, have a dynamic system in place capable of changing according to whether it was dusk, full night, or dawn, what stage the moon was at, whether the weather was clear or misty and how much light spill or contamination there might be from nearby floodlit buildings or other sources, when I sort of took another look at her expression.

‘Like, some – actually most – buildings in China need to be lit taking into account the fact they have this near-continual brown haze …’ I said, then kind of heard my own voice fade away.

Jel was sitting on top of the sink surround, taking the weight off her feet, which brought her face up level with mine. She reached
out with a gloved hand, put it to the nape of my neck, and said, ‘I really think you ought to kiss me.’