Idea in Stone (36 page)

The longer he stayed, though, the more he realised that the paintings were not to his taste. Portraits of nobles, and countless chubby and very Caucasian baby Jesuses made him feel weary. He decided to investigate the floor above, where the modern art was.

In the hallway leading upstairs was a semicircular staircase split into two. The wall opposite the stairs was filled with white plaster heads on Ionic platforms—the heads of emperors, some bearded, some young. As Stefan climbed the stairs, the heads chattered nonsensically. Before he was halfway up, he had to cover his hears to shut out the din. The heads’ mouths were wide now, shouting at him, at each other, at the empty space above. He changed direction and ran back down.

He was hungry. In his pocket, he had two pound coins and sixty pence worth of silver coins. A restaurant was out of the question.

He looked at a small bronze statue of a naked boy with a javelin. The tiny athlete struck poses for him. Its maker had a clear, uncomplicated intention for the figure, which was unclouded by the years. The boy was an embodiment of young, athletic beauty. While it fell safely into the empirical realm of pure art, Stefan still felt guilty looking at it, and moved away. Something pricked his hand, and he looked down to see that the boy had thrown his javelin. He looked petulantly at Stefan, upset that he wasn’t being admired. Stefan looked around, picked up the tiny spear, dropped it next to the figure, and moved quickly away.

For all his appreciation of the culture here, he was bored. He also needed to eat. He would have liked nothing more than to go home and have his tea with Fiona and Peter, except Peter wasn’t there. He was being held somewhere. Stefan had no idea where.

Were the police looking for him? He didn’t know, so he didn’t dare go back to the house. His heart raced.

One thing at a time,
he thought.
Food.

He left the gallery, stepping back into the rain, and climbed a now-familiar staircase, which delivered him reliably to the place on the Royal Mile he expected it to. The city, or at least the centre of it, was now his. It had shown itself to him, and they seemed to have struck a deal.

He walked to a nearby chippy and bought chips with salt and brown sauce. Putting the hot paper packet inside his coat, he ran to Saint Giles’ Cathedral and slunk inside, moving past the leering statue of John Knox to his favourite chapel. He apologised to the statue laid there with sword in hand, opened up his chips, and put one of the steaming yellow chunks into his mouth. The salt added a sharp crunch to its softness, and the sauce was so tangy it made his mouth hurt as his salivary glands fired at the back of his jaw. Regular meals were easy to take for granted; he appreciated this meal more than any in a long time.

The statues of the dead made for easy company, Stefan felt, because their makers created them to be peaceful, unmoving, and noble. The choral singing in here was pleasant, too. He licked his fingers and thought of the emperors back at the gallery, pitying them for being sentenced to an eternity as bodiless heads propped up on platforms. Who they were was a muddle of names and dates. He figured they must be insane, existing as they did without definition. The artists’ intent was their soul, but that diffused without the awareness of new generations to perpetuate it. With that forgotten by all but a few, they were just a bunch of fancy regal heads. No wonder they didn’t get along, forced to stare at each other all day, vaguely aware that their namesakes replaced each other at some point in history.

A service of some kind gathered in the church. Stefan crumpled the empty chip-wrapper, stuffed it in his remaining jacket pocket, and headed for the exit.

~

Stefan avoided making eye contact with anyone in the room, concentrating instead on the black and white photographs on the walls, then on the glass of red wine in his hand.

He’d discovered the launch of a photography exhibit in a stark white modern cube of a gallery nestled in an old stone building, and slipped into the crowd. Happily, he didn’t have to worry about his appearance, as many of the guests were dressed in street-person chic. The others’ clothing ranged from expensive, trendy suits to bizarre evening gowns with dramatic slashes and bunches of fabric.

He rested his nose on the edge of his wine glass and looked at a picture of a young girl smiling to show off her missing front teeth. Her father, standing beside her in a tough-looking neighbourhood, held her hand and wore the same smile. Stefan loved the photos, though he wasn’t sure how much of that was the wine: his glass had been generously refilled twice, and his stomach was empty again.

Finished his drink and feeling like an impostor in the crowd, he plunked his glass down on a table and walked out into the night. The streets were still slick, with black puddles like oil reflecting the yellow lamps. The rain had stopped.

His lover was missing. Or his boyfriend. His partner. They’d never decided on a word, he realised. All those years he’d pined for someone—someone specific, who’d arrived in Peter Hailes. Now he’d gone and lost him.

Slumping down in a back-alley doorway, Stefan drifted off to sleep. He awoke some time later, shivering, cold, and damp down to his bones. Something like gritty footsteps woke him. He peered into the darkness, not noticing the two luminous white circles in front of him until they blinked.

He scrambled to his feet, clinging to the door behind him. The figure, however, stood still, regarding him intently.

“I didn’t do it,” said Stefan. “Peter and I didn’t blow up the building. It was his friend, but I know he didn’t mean t—”

The creature pushed a hand into Stefan’s chest and pinned him back against the door. Stefan struggled, but the scratchman was too strong here in the darkness. He couldn’t pull himself free.
This is it
, he thought. He wondered what the thing would do, and how it would be to die.
How strange
, he thought,
dying at the hand of something that’s probably been through the experience.

The scratchman held up a fist. Stefan flinched, but held the thing’s gaze. It looked at him quizzically, and in the faint light Stefan saw the figures on its face shifting, working themselves out. He felt that the thing was trying to figure him out, too, to see where he fit into what had been happening.

It took a step backward and held out his fist, opening it to reveal Stefan’s house-keys. Stefan carefully took the keys.

“Thank you,” said Stefan.

The creature nodded.

“You can feel it, can’t you?” he dared to ask it. “You know I’m not the cause of all this.”

The scratchman squinted.
Not entirely sure,
the expression said.

Before it changed its mind, Stefan said another quick thank-you for the keys, and bolted away down the alley. He took the stairs at its end three at a time and ran to the next well-lit junction. An idea sprang into his mind, and he continued running to Dig Nation. When he arrived at the club, though, it was dark. He descended the steps and discovered the door was locked. Posted in the door’s window was a city planning permit, announcing the intended redevelopment of the premises.

“Dammit,” said Stefan, hitting the door.

For several hours, he walked about. The pubs closed, spilling their patrons onto the pavement. One less place he could go, he thought, but then, if he’d gone in and bought a pint he’d have no money left for food. The nightclubs all had long lines in front of them, and he figured they’d charge a cover, too.

Soon the nightclubs emptied, too. Women in tiny skirts and impossibly high and pointy shoes staggered in groups together or yelled at their men. The men, with nothing but shirtsleeves against the cold, shout-sang at the walls, ate food from polystyrene containers, then threw up the things they’d just eaten.

He headed in the opposite direction and walked until he found himself at the base of the stairs that led up to Calton Hill. He climbed, not sure why.

There were men up here. Men with homes. He could go home with someone and have a shower, maybe even a meal. He wouldn’t necessarily have to do anything. He shook the idea from his head. He couldn’t do that. He belonged to Peter.

Was Peter “The One”? he wondered. Was there such a thing? He’d had such bad luck in the past; maybe Peter was just the first decent person to show up. Did that make him the one to stay with?

Stefan sat on the base of the enormous concrete urn and looked out over the city. In the distance, out over the Firth, the sky grew pink along the horizon. The few remaining clouds looked as though they were sunburnt by the coming dawn.
Is that good or bad?
he wondered.

Red sky at morning, sailors take warning,
he remembered his father saying. He looked around, but it wasn’t actually his father, just a memory.

Where was his father? he wondered. He’d asked him all those months ago for salvation. This was anything but. He thought of Peter. Romance hadn’t proved to be his salvation. He hadn’t expected it to be, though perhaps he’d hoped.

He was luckier than most, he figured, hearing Peter’s voice for all those years. If that didn’t let him know they should be together, he didn’t know what would. His heart, he wondered, that vague sensation inside him, unexplainable yet unmistakably real and usually right about things—what did it tell him?

Off to his right, along the gravel path, men moved in the remaining darkness under the trees. Stefan didn’t want them, no matter who they were. The trick to love, he supposed, was choosing Peter as “The One” over and over again.

Easy
, he thought.

He took the house-keys from his pocket. He wondered what the scratchman meant by giving them back to him. Had it wanted him out of the picture, it would have done away with him in the alley, not left him to be caught by the police. Perhaps it was telling him it was safe to go back home.

He would risk it, he decided. He stood, stretching his limbs against the cold that seeped into them from the monument, and walked toward home. As he entered their street, he walked slowly, checking the cars to see if anyone was sitting in them, watching. They were empty. He unlocked the front door and walked up the staircase to the flat. He let himself in, closed the door, and let his body drink in the heat.

The kitchen was full of boxes, and he stumbled noisily a few times as he fixed himself a cup of tea.

“Hello,” said a voice. Stefan jumped. He turned to see Fiona, bleary-eyed and rubbing her face, her hair a tangle of fuzz.

“It’s so good to see you,” he said, and crossed the kitchen to hug her.

“Oi, you’re a bit minky, aren’t you?” she said.

“Oh, sorry about that. I’ve kinda been outside for a few days. I haven’t been able to wash myself properly, just in bathrooms and stuff.”

“What did you disappear for?”

“I thought the police would be looking for me. I didn’t think I should come back here in case they showed up.”

She tightened her dressing-gown and sat down on an old wooden chair. Stefan sat on another of the mismatched chairs. “Oh, the police showed up alright. They came back so many times the lodger got nervous and moved out.”

“The mystery girl, she left?”

“Yep.”

“That’s great!”

“It’s not great. She paid a big piece of the mortgage. And now Sarah’s decided she’s not coming back from London, so that’s the other room empty. And of course we can’t forget my bampot brother, who’s got himself thrown in jail. What the hell were you boys doing?”

“It was some scheme of Rab’s. We were supposed to just be defacing a sign, but then this building blew up, and the police chased us, and everything went to hell.” Stefan zipped up his jacket. “So the police have been by looking for me, eh?”

“No,” said Fiona, “they don’t know anything about you. They were asking questions about Peter. Knowing him, he hasn’t said anything to them about you, or Rab, either, though for everyone’s betterment he should just hand him over to them.”

“I can’t argue with that,” he agreed, taking off his jacket. “So what are we going to do, I mean, about the flat?”

“
We?
That’s nice of you. Honestly, Ste, I have no idea what we’re going to do.” She pinched her forehead. “The bar’s closed down, so I’m not working. Roddy’s hardly in a position to help out—he can’t tell his arse from his elbow half the time. The lodgers are gone. Now Peter’s not working, either. I’ve called an estate agent who’s going to help me sell the flat. And we need a lawyer for Peter. Barry knows someone who’s willing to represent him, but he’ll still have to be paid.”

“Oh, man. Have there been any charges against him yet?” asked Stefan.

“No. That’s the only good news. They’re not going to be able to hold him much longer if they don’t produce some charges. If they do, though, we’re buggered, because this is pretty serious.” Fiona stood up and patted down a tuft of Stefan’s hair. “You look like crap on toast, Ste. Go get some sleep, then later on you can get cleaned up and we’ll figure out what to do.”

“Thanks, Fi,” he said, getting up and kissing her on the forehead. He went to the bedroom, half-expecting to see Peter there. Peter’s clothes, books, and the random objects he’d collected were strewn about the room. Fiona had evidently started packing a box in here but given up.
He never throws anything out
, thought Stefan, picking up a snail shell from the dresser. He felt the urge to cry.
I miss him
, he thought. He laughed as he looked at the floor, where two months’ worth of newspapers lay in a corner. Peter had set aside the one that mentioned the riot his father’s play started in Rome.