pleased with myself, a bit smug, you know? Archie was still on the pavement. I leaned down to give him a hand up and that’s when it happened. He landed me a good one square in the face.’ George laughed and shook his head as if he still couldn’t believe it. ‘Before I knew it, the two of us were scrapping in the street. Then came the blue light. I guess someone in the tenements must have called the police when the first fight was kicking off. They charged the pair of us with drunk and disorderly and shoved us in separate cells for the night. My one and only arrest.’
Meikle laughed and shook his head again.
‘It doesn’t sound like a very promising basis for a friendship.’
‘No, it doesn’t, does it? But someone in the station must have slipped up because we were booked out at the same time the next morning. I wanted nothing to do with him, of course. I mean one minute there I am thinking about moonlit climbs and the next I’m in a cell in St Leonard’s police station.’
‘So how did you and Archie end up pals?’
‘Oh, Archie was a charmer. He made a gracious apology and before I knew it we were in a café swapping our life stories over bacon rolls and coffee. Then it was pub opening time. We went on from there.’
‘So thumping people one minute and charming them the next, but not a Jekyll and Hyde character?’
‘You’re keen on that one, aren’t you?’ Meikle’s belligerence had vanished in the story. ‘He was full of life and sometimes his energy spilled over into something else.’
Murray glanced at the recorder still spooling their words onto tape and wondered how far he should push the older man.
‘He sounds like a violent alcoholic.’
Meikle winced, but his voice remained low and calm.
‘The alcoholic bit I don’t know about. He liked a drink, true enough, but he was young, it could have gone either way. Personally I think a lot of that’s to do with whether you’ve got an addictive personality or not. I do, my father did too, but I don’t make assumptions about other folk, especially the dead. The violence part? Aye, well, he got into fights, like a lot of young lads, but I don’t think Archie was violent per se. I used to, but I’ve had a bit of time to consider. I reckon that when he drank all his insecurities were given a free rein. Archie would hit you, right enough, but then he’d drop his guard and let you give him a proper doing. I got a fair few blows in that night before the police pulled me off him. That was part of the reason I went for a drink with him the next day. I couldn’t believe the mess I’d made of his face.’
Meikle ran a hand over his thinning hair. Murray reached forward and turned off the tape recorder. Their cups were empty, the elephant reduced to crumbs. He asked, ‘Would you like another coffee?’
‘Make it a Diet Coke.’ The older man gave him a tired smile. ‘There’s only so much coffee you can drink.’
Meikle was on his mobile phone when Murray returned. He looked away, as if to guard his privacy, but his telephone voice was as loud as his cursing voice.
‘Aye, about half an hour or so. No, don’t worry. I can fix myself something when I get in. Yes, okay, love. You too.’ He cut the connection and looked at Murray. ‘I’ll need to be heading off soon.’
‘You’ve already been generous with your time. You said you and Archie talked a lot of poetry.’
‘I was bumming myself up a bit there. He talked and I listened. I was more into the politics. I tried to turn Archie onto it.’ Meikle snorted. ‘That was the way we talked then, you didn’t get someone interested in something, you “turned them onto it”.’
‘Quite a sexual turn of phrase.’
‘Aye, it was all sex then, except it wasn’t. Maybe down in London, but not up here sadly. Archie maintained that poetry had nothing to do with politics. We used to argue about that. They were happy times – you could even say the best of times – but when you ask me what we did, it’s all of a same. Keith Richards isn’t the only one that can’t remember the seventies. I mean, how well do you remember your student days?’
‘Pretty well.’
Meikle laughed.
‘That figures. No offence, but look at you. You were probably bent over your books half the time and in lectures the other half.’
‘More or less.’
‘Aye, well, we weren’t. What I remember is the odd rumpus, the occasional one-night stand, a lot of parties, a lot of laughs, a good time. For me, Archie was just a part of all that. What they call a wasted youth.’
‘Except it wasn’t.’
Meikle gave him a sad smile.
‘No, I don’t think it was. It was what came later that was the waste.’
Chapter Four
HE’D MISSED THE main thrust of the rush hour, but most of the seats on the Edinburgh to Glasgow Express were taken. Murray squeezed himself into a spare place at a table for four, smiling his apology at the businessman opposite as he felt the softness of one of the man’s smart shoes beneath his own scuffed trainer. The man winced but nodded his acceptance without raising his eyes from the spreadsheets in front of him. Murray glanced down the carriage at the tired eyes and limp collars, the half-read novels and glowing laptops. This was what people called the real world, he supposed, a mortgage, kids and a commute that added a day to every working week. It wouldn’t be so bad. He would make it reading time and fuck the spreadsheets.
A recorded message trailed through the scheduled stops as the train slid out of the station. Murray leaned back in his seat, keeping his knees bent to avoid contact with his opposite neighbour.
Meikle had looked tired by the time they’d finished. Murray had offered to get the bookfinder a taxi, but he’d produced his bus pass from his wallet with an ironic flourish.
‘No need. I’ve got this, a licence to ride.’
‘Brilliant.’
The older man’s surliness had returned.
‘Aye, great compensation for fuck-all of a pension. Take my advice, if you’ve got any money spend it now while you’re still young enough to enjoy it. Don’t get conned into saving it for bankers to piss up the wall, the way we were. Old age is no fun when you’re skint.’
Murray almost told him that old age had let him in on its dubious charms early and it was no fun full-stop, but there was no point. Instead he smiled to show he agreed and cut the sympathy from his voice because the older man would dislike it.
‘Better than the alternative.’
Meikle gave Murray a tough look, and then granted him a grin.
‘Mibbe so, mibbe no. I guess we’ll all find out eventually.’
He’d headed towards his bus stop, wherever it was, raising his hand in a wordless goodbye as he turned away.
Murray felt infected with Meikle’s weariness. He could see the glowing squares of house windows as they passed Broomhouse.
