We Float Upon a Painted Sea (5 page)

They exited the park through a hole in the fence and walked through the city. After an hour they arrived at the High Street, stopping outside the cathedral, to gaze up at the gothic structure, bathed in artificial light. They crossed the road to the Cathedral House bar and ordered malt whisky and slices of pizza until closing time. Later, walking into the Merchant City, Saffron said,

“I’m not calling you Bull, that’s a ridiculous name.”

“Everyone calls me Bull, except for my family back in Salford.”

“What did your father call you, the day you were born?” Bull thought for a moment and then said,

“I don’t know, I was too young to remember, but apparently I was breast feeding and my dad called me a greedy little fucker.”

“Stop teasing me!” said Saffron pushing Bull’s shoulder. “What were you called when you were young and don’t say Bullock or I
will
slap you.” Bull smiled and then said,

“Faerrleah O’Connell is my name, but Faerrleah is a bit of a mouthful so I go by my moniker which is Bull.” He played with Saffron’s long dreadlocked hair and then looked into her large brown eyes, feeling like a schoolboy jumping off a carousel and enjoying the dizziness in his head. He considered if he had ever came across someone with such perfectly formed features. Never. Bull said,

“What’s your moniker?

“I don’t have a moniker – I don't like them, it’s just plain Saffron.”

“That’s unusual. What’s your surname?” slurred Bull, feeling the effects of the alcohol. Saffron looked into his eyes and said,

“Wilton.”

“I was kind of hoping you had a Scottish name like McGregor or McDonald. Something with a bit of clan heritage and blood curdling history to make your toes curl.” Saffron faked a sad face.

“I’m sorry I’m unable to make your toes curl, my father’s from Edinburgh and ever so Anglo-Saxon.” Bull giggled,

“I’m sure you could make my toes curl, Saffron.” Bull was melting in her presence.

Saffron peered up at the dark skies, lit up by the flashing lights of passing drones, and through a gap in the clouds she saw a lone star, but it didn’t twinkle like other stars. Eventually, she realised it was one of the Prophylaxis spy satellites, under construction in space, reflecting light from the sun on the other side of the planet.  She thought about the talk of curfews to deal with the recent
terrorist
attacks and wondered how long the freedoms, like the one she was currently enjoying, would last. The Government issued statements, designed to dampen fears, that if curfews were introduced, it would be a temporary measure, but Saffron understood the nature of government – if they created a circus of fear they could justify every action as a reaction, she thought. They watched the last
SkyTran
circle the city and then speed off back to the airport. It began to rain.

“Think I missed my last ride home. I blame you!” said Bull.

“Looks like you’re staying with me then?” said Saffron. She turned to Bull and inspected his shoulder length hair. She said,

“What brings you to Glasgow, Faerrleah?”

“The Clyde flood barrier.”

“It’s a beautiful piece of architecture but…” Bull burst out laughing.

“No, I didn’t come here to look at it. I’m not a tourist, I work there.” Saffron drew her eyes up and down his enormous body and said,

“Do they get you to turn the big wheel that opens and shuts the gates, like a big troll? Oh, you poor thing, that’s so cruel!”

“That’s why they call me Bull.”

“Well, I’ll call you Faerrleah.”

Saffron took Bull by the hand and they ran like two excited school children down towards the Merchant City and stumbled towards Saffron’s flat. They spent the night smoking weed
,
drinking tea and making love. In the morning, Bull lay naked with his head resting on Saffron’s breasts. He savoured the moment, breathing in her natural scent and sampling her pheromones. He relished the feel of her long hair, strewn along his back, like a warming blanket. His eyes probed her naked body. Her skin was like white marble, reminding him of a statue of Aphrodite: Venus de Milo, but with arms, he thought. He reached down with outstretched fingers, under the sheets towards her pubic mound. Saffron broke the spell. She turned away and said,

“Let’s go and get some breakfast. Then we can go for a walk on the Necropolis. I just need to visit the cludgie first.” Her voice sounded raspy under the weight of Bull’s head, which she peeled from her chest. She disappeared into the toilet like a rabbit flashing its tail before bolting down a burrow and the vision of Saffron’s naked posterior was engrained into his memory forever.

“What’s the Necropolis?” shouted Bull.

“We passed it last night. It’s the city of the dead!” shouted Saffron from the bathroom. Bull’s eyebrows narrowed in confusion. He wondered if he’d met a necromancer who now wanted to introduce him to her parents.

They took breakfast at a local café on the High Street. It was still early in the morning when they entered the Necropolis. The previous night’s rain had made the ragwort and sedges glisten in the warm morning sunshine, and the air was filled by the sweet smell of hawthorn bloom as they trailed the pathway that snakes upward towards the summit of the grey rock. Bull noticed that although most of the large tombs were still preserved, many of the smaller gravestones were toppled over and overgrown with mulberry bushes and knotweed. Obelisks, stone angels without wings and statues with badly eroded faces lined their ascent. Bull studied some graffiti scrawled across a tomb –
you’re a long time dead
. He felt an uncomfortable wave of energy wash over his body. He took Saffron’s hand and squeezed it. Saffron said,

“Do you know there are over fifty thousand bodies buried here?”

Bull smiled awkwardly and replied,

“That’ll be why they call it the city of the dead then.”

The chattering song of a magpie pierced the background drone of traffic. Saffron saluted the bird and greeting it with a
good morning.
She pinched Bull’s ribs.

“What is that for?” he asked. Saffron giggled like a school girl,

“Its bad luck to see a magpie on its own. So if you don’t salute it, talk to it and pinch the person you are with, misfortune comes your way.”

“Do you believe that? Or is it an old wives tale?” Bull rubbed his side where he had been nipped. He watched as another magpie hopped from behind a gravestone to join its compatriot.

“It’s a superstition but some people think it brings good fortune.”

“Do you believe in good fortune or do you think you make your own?”

“I think you can set the ground work by creating balance and harmony. Its amazing what you can achieve when you channel all your positive energy.” Bull eyebrows narrowed. He said,

“We used to have a rhyme at school: One for sorrow, two for joy. That’s all I remember I’m afraid.” Saffron told him of the Chinese fable about a cowherd boy and a fairy weaver girl who become separated by the stars, but on the seventh day of the seventh month the magpies flock to form a bridge so they could meet and be together.

“That’s a very romantic notion and I will remember that the next time I see one scavenging around a bin looking for scraps,” said Bull.

“It’s not their fault,” laughed Saffron. “Magpies are like urban foxes, pigeons and seagulls - they are all creatures who have learned to evolve. They are nature’s true adapters and live off our waste – we could learn a thing or two from them.”

“Who, me? Take lessons from a pigeon? It’s a mad concept but I’ll give it a go, but not seagulls, I hate seagulls – a seagull stole my burger once, then to add insult to injury, swooped back to crap on my head.”

Playfully, Saffron pushed Bull, but she was unable to move him. She persisted in trying to make him budge but he stood like one of the towering statues, absorbing her efforts as the magpies looked on.

Later, they went on, stumbling through the long grass and wild flowers. Saffron told Bull that she felt the Necropolis was her oasis, stationed within the heart of Glasgow. Over hundreds of years, the city appeared to have grown around it, leaving it preserved. She told him she would go there early in the morning or before dark, when it was empty, to clear her head and meditate. Bull told her that when he felt down, he would go to the wild animal sanctuary at the Botanic Gardens and talk to the timber wolves.

“The last time the park keeper asked me to move on. Apparently I was making the wolves feel uneasy.”

They came to the top of the Necropolis and stared across the city. Bull pulled Saffron tighter towards him. Words piled up inside him like vehicles in a road crash. He wanted to express his feelings about last night in gushing terms, but he found it impossible to utter anything coherent or meaningful. He chose to remain silent and wait for the right moment, if it arrived to express his emotions. He said,

“Who’s that fella up there pointing over the city?”

“John Knox, he’s a kind of controversial figure up here. He was a religious reformer – he wrote a book called,
The first blast of the trumpet against the monstrous regiment of women
, so I wouldn’t say he’s one of my historical heroes, but I suppose he is to some folk.”

“Not a feminist then?” Saffron took Bull by the hand, leading him to a bench. Bull sat down while Saffron remained standing.

“There’s loads of people buried in this graveyard,” she said, “some great, some not so great. He’s just one of them but he gets the best view. One night, a few of us from school came up here and put a traffic cone on his head. Pathetic I know but we were young and we wanted to make a statement.”

Bull fumbled tried to light a cigarette in the wind. He watched Saffron, her hair blowing in the breeze and holding onto the bench with both hands for fear she would be propelled to the ground. She reminded him of a figurehead on a Spanish galleon. When she turned her head to face him, she noticed his packet of cigarettes.

“You smoke branded products?” she asked, scalding him with an unyielding look. Bull’s face was warped with deep consternation. He could feel her eyes inspecting him with cold disapproval. Bull reined in the emergence of a childhood stutter. He said,

“They’re not mine. I’m holding them for a friend who is trying to give up.” Remorsefully, Bull lowered his condemned head to the ground. Saffron reached inside her bag and offered him a small pouch.

“Have you ever tried rolling your own? The tobacco is from a working cooperative in Venezuela.”

Saffron gestured to the panoramic urban landscape tumbling into the distance in front of them. She said,

“It’s funny to think that the city was full of tenements and factories burning coal and factories. The sky would have been black with smoke. They closed all the factories and bulldozed the tenements and called it progress. Now the skies are filled with brown traffic smog. You’re from Manchester so you’ll know what I mean.” Bull was about to correct her mistake and remind her he was from Salford, but he was enjoying listening to her talking so allowed her faux pas.

“Do you ever wonder how we became enslaved by technology?” continued Saffron. “We have been convinced by a compliant media that greed can be justified and industrialists, who care nothing for the planet or the exploitation of its people, are best placed to lead us.”

“Of course, but what can one person do on their own?”

“There are organisations you can join – what about the GM.” Saffron looked at Bull’s
Green Covenanters
wrist band. Bull smiled and said,

“I don’t look good in sandals, but listening to you is bringing out the radical side of me. Don’t you feel like sticking it to the state and the corporations?” Saffron’s eyes were wide, gazing off into the distance and then she said with a sigh,

“I’m not always banging on about stuff like this. The Necropolis always gets me thinking. Do you know that before this hill was a graveyard, it was a rallying point for what they called
The Scottish Insurrection?
Thousands came here to demonstrate for labour reform and equality. They came to meet up with workers from England and they were going to march on a steel works, but Government agents infiltrated the group and the leaders were tricked and later hanged. They were what society would call
radical
and they paid for their beliefs with their lives.” Bull contemplated the panoramic view and with a laugh he said,

“You sound a bit like my dad, Saffron. Thank Christ you don’t look like him.” 

Saffron returned Bull’s smile and sat down beside him on the bench. She took the papers and tobacco from his hands, expertly rolled a cigarette, lit it and then passed it back to him.  Bull coughed hard, his chest rasping with the smoke.

“Are you sure these are good for you? My chest feels like I’ve spent the night kissing a vacuum cleaner.” Saffron grimaced and said,

“That’s a nice image to put in my mind.” Bull coughed,