He’d been waiting so long he’d forgotten what he was waiting for. The sun was setting behind the old multi-storey car park. He remembered coming through to town when he was young. Saturdays were for shopping for his mum and the garden for his dad. Somehow, he always ended up at the shops. He could see himself walking down through the passageway between the multi-storey and the shops and out into brilliant sunshine. There was a woman walking in front of him and she looked incredible, but there was no one like that around now. Just a few old folks coming and going. The line of taxis hadn’t really moved for hours.
Big Jim had been over to see him. Andy felt his face scrunch up when he saw that big scraggly beard and Jim smelt like he needed a wash. But he had slipped Andy a bottle of juice and a tenner and told him to get himself some lunch. The juice was sweet. Too sweet, and he still had the ten pound note. You couldn’t give up the ten pound note just like that. That had to be invested carefully.
Two wee guys from the school had seen him on the bench and come and sat next to him. He hadn’t told them about the ten pounds. He hadn’t told them much of anything. He had been happy of the company for a while but they never stopped talking about the football and some science experiment they were doing. He had loved science years back, his cousin had been right into it and they had made little rockets on the spare grass round the back. No garden, it was communal. Mrs Gillespie hadnae liked it though. He remembered his mum calling her a sour-faced misery.
He missed his mum. And his cousin had got into uni up in the city. His dad said he had fallen in with a bad crowd and was drinking away his money and meeting women. That didn’t sound so bad. He remembered Jean from the hospital, she was nice and he had loved her voice. She croaked like a frog and smoked like a chimney but she had been decent to him when most of the world wasn’t.
After the boys had gone for their bus he had sat there on his own for a while. People coming and going and a swarm of pigeons nearly took him out. The postie came and sat next to him for a while. Offered him half a sandwich. It was tongue and mustard. His mouth had felt like fire and the postie had given an apologetic shrug. “Takes some getting used to I guess big man,” he had said with a chuckle.
After lunch he was watching the pigeons, and down the way he could see that old statue of Burns keeping an eye on the town. There was a wee busker down there playing that song his cousin used to sing. Something about a seven nation army. He never really cared for it.
He kept the bag between his ankles.
“Don’t let that bag out of your sight son, bring it with you.”
He sighed. What would he do with this ten pounds. He looked around. There was a newsagent with seats and juice and magazines. A couple of takeaway shops and the fishmonger. He didn’t like the smell of the fishmonger. And the fishes’ faces in the window gave him the creeps.
And there was that wee bookshop on the corner. Raising money for the heart charity. Heart Disease. Broken hearts. Like his mum’s.
He ran his teeth over the bottom of his lip and scrunched his hands into fists. Till he breathed in deep, bringing himself up to his full five foot eight and the gammy leg, his lungs filling, and then he breathed out slow.
Something buzzed past his ear and he jumped. A wasp darted around his head.
“Fuck off,” he shouted, and a few folk turned around but no one really paid him much mind. Couple of old grannies chuckled and one said,
“That wee fella isn’t right in the head, never has been.”
The wasp buzzed his ear again. He scooped down and picked up his bag and moved, half stumbling and half rumbling across the pedestrianised square, past the fish shop.
He burst through the door of the charity shop and sent some papers flying. A crabbit woman at the counter said,
“Careful there, you’re making an awful mess.”
“S…s…sorry,” he muttered, and moved slowly into the shop. Past a couple of folk trying on jackets and hats that looked like they were out of the pantomime. He made his way through to the back and there it was, two bookcases absolutely stuffed with books. All kinds as far as he could see. A complete history of World War 2 and a thriller by some American he had never heard of.
The crabbit woman came over, her face softer now, and said, “sorry about that son, you gave me a fright that’s for sure, you in for anything in particular?”
He smiled and said quietly, “just browsing, thanks.”
He kept going along the bookshelf, and then there it was. Billy Connolly’s Route 66. He picked it up from the shelf and held it in his hands. There was a sticker on it, £2, that took up most of the cover, but it was the book, that’s for sure. His mum had loved it. The Big Yin on his bike the whole way across America, breaking out the banjo in every wee town. She’d read him the funny bits with the old records on, laughing till she nearly burst.
He felt the book between his fingers, opened it and flicked through the rough pages. He turned back to the woman at the counter and told her firmly.
“I’ll have this one please.”
“Oh no son, a nice boy like you, you don’t want that, why not try this one, everyone’s reading it, it’s a thriller, all murders and that.”
“No, I want this one alright. This one.”
She held up the other book.
“No, that one.”
The woman looked annoyed, “Alright alright son, settle down eh.”
She rang it up and he paid the money down. £8 back, and he put a couple of pounds in the box. For the hearts.
He stepped back outside into the square. The light was different, the sun getting low in the sky.
“Andy, that you?”
He looked across. It was his dad. The same face set against the sun. The hair greying but he still moved with purpose, like nothing was ever going to stop him.
“Mon son.”
They met in the middle of the square.
“Have you got the bag?”
“Aye Dad.”
He opened the bag and his dad reached in and felt the urn for just a moment.
“I’ll carry it from here son. We’ll go and spread the ashes down by the river. You remember playing there when you were wee with your cousin.”
“I remember.”
They walked off together through the streets of this town.
Your town. My town. Our town.
Paul Andrew Sneddon 