The auld reekie in the air tonight’s louder than a Phil Collins song. It’s a smothering blanket of nostril-blasting effluvia. I hop over trenches filled with raw sewage, floaters bobbing round. Looks like the workmen started on fixing the pipes and took a permanent lunch break. Usually happens when they down tools after not being paid.
Tonight I’m breaking all my rules. I’m going into the city. Pain in the backside having to walk all this way on top of that – all ’cause some punk stole my bike.
The streets are strewn with litter as I pass boarded-up tourist shops, the kind of places where you used to buy a Jimmy hat and kilt towel back when, alongside overpriced shortbread and whisky. Don’t get too many foreign visitors out in the city centre no more. Seen old pics on the net where it’s looking prim and proper nice – them days are long past.
Pull up my hoodie and hide my face. I avoid coming to town these days because I have some ex-associates, whom I don’t fraternize with no more. Just some bad old news, water under the bridge. Keep my eyes peeled just in case, though. Not easy ’cause we’ve got a proper haar tonight, laid on so thick I can only see my nose in front of me.
A figure in all white appears in front of me, just as I’m walking past an old bus stop with grey walls. Dude looks like Casper the Friendly Ghost.
‘Hey Ropa,’ Jomo says, with a little wave as I come nearer.
‘What on earth are you wearing?’
‘It’s my uniform. No time to explain. Listen, what I’m doing with you is very, very illegal, okay? Promise me you’ll never tell anyone, not a soul, not even your grandma.’ I give him a thumbs up, like, whatever. ‘I could get into so much trouble for this. You know that, right?’
Talk about being a melodrama queen. I get that it’s a private library, but so what? And this ridiculous outfit Jomo’s wearing makes it hard for me to keep a straight face. He proper looks like something out of the Old Testament, except he’s got no beard. White cassock and black sheepskin slippers. He has a rope-like belt around his waist, sort of a cincture or something like that. It looks so ridiculous, I’ve actually forgotten to point and laugh at him.
‘This is serious, man,’ he says anxiously.
‘Okay, I get it. I’m not about to mess up your hustle. I promise I’ll behave. I’ll try to be invisible, and I won’t touch anything. Kosher?’
‘It’s quiet tonight, but there’s still a few patrons in there. Don’t talk to anyone. Try to look like you belong. If you see anyone dressed like me, go the other way.’
‘You mean if I see a guy in a dress I should go the other way? What if they’re wearing a kilt instead? This was Scotland the last time I checked.’
‘Haha, very funny. Not. I’m gonna get you into a carrel so no one can see you, and bring your books there.’ He stops. ‘This is so not a good idea.’
‘Don’t be silly. Let’s just get on with it. Where’s this library of yours anyway?’
I want to get off the streets quickly, before someone spots me. I’d thought the library would be the one up the Mound, along George IV Bridge. Didn’t know there was a library this end of town. Jomo heads up the road, away from Princes Street. He looks around to check no one is watching before turning right into an archway, up the set of steps that leads into the Old Calton Burial Ground.
‘Seriously?’ I say, and I’m not amused. Jomo knows my hustle and he knows I don’t dig cemeteries. Especially not old ones.
I see the ghosts all around us. Their pale shapes are distinct as they loiter over their graves. I keep my eyes on the ground, make sure not to look at them directly, make sure that they don’t see that I see them. These are old ghouls, the ones I have no business with as they have no one left to bother in the world. Yet they still linger and refuse to move on, as if they’re waiting for something. These guys are mental. They form themselves into the most atrocious shapes: skin dangling, clothes torn. Less ghost, more spectral zombie. They’re angry and malevolent, filled with hate for the very life they so desperately long for. It’s close, right there, but forever out of their reach. Their thirst is greater than Tantalus’s ever was.
The sounds they make to one another are a guttural mess, and I try to ignore them. Me and Jomo follow the footpath deeper into the graveyard.
‘Hey Abe,’ says Jomo with a wave to the statue in front of us.
Abraham Lincoln stands tall on a plinth, his frock coat open, revealing a waistcoat. His right hand is by his side, holding a parchment, and the left is hidden behind his back. Thin face, that dodgy beard. He stands unbending and proud in the fog which seems now like cannon smoke heavy on the field of battle. Behind Lincoln are the spindly branches of a broad tree reaching for the sky.
‘Come on,’ says Jomo, beckoning. ‘This is where it’s at.’
‘I don’t know what your game is, but this ain’t no bibliotheca, man.’
This is the stupidest thing ever. I can’t believe he’s brought me all the way out into town for this rubbish. The joke’s wearing thin already. I could be home in bed chilling out. Already had a long day on the grind, doing my deliveries. Made it all the way to freaking Currie, right on Edinburgh’s outskirts, only to discover my client wasn’t there. So the last thing I need is this. Pal or no, Jomo’s really got me wound up now.
I’m ready to give it to him, when he looks back at me over his shoulder, superior air and all, and takes out a massive antique key. He goes to the wrought-iron gate by a round mausoleum and I’m liking this even less. The soot-darkened walls are perfectly curved and it looks almost like a granary, a repository of sorts. Circles and lines decorate the top. Jomo fiddles with a padlock, which opens with a clank.
The ghouls have stopped to watch.
Jomo swings the gate open. It squeaks, hinges need oiling badly. But this quietens the ghouls, as though they’re in awe. I follow Jomo into the dark space within. Then he shuts the gate and locks it.
‘Full marks for the creep factor, man,’ I say.
‘Welcome to David Hume’s final resting place. Tread lightly . . . Erm, you do know who that is, right? Enlightenment philosopher?’
‘Don’t be daft – obviously.’ I might not go to school, but it doesn’t mean he knows more than me.
He kneels and reaches for a stone somewhere amongst the pebbles on the ground. There’s a rumble, as grinding machinery underground is roused to life. Cranks and gears. Slowly, a section of the floor opens up, revealing a shaft a little larger than a conventional manhole.
We descend down a steep staircase, and when we reach the floor six feet under, the tomb shuts above, plunging us into impenetrable darkness. I reach for my phone for light.
‘No, wait for it,’ says Jomo.
‘What, where?’
‘Look.’
In the distance, a light flickers to life on the right, then on the left. Bright torches continue to wink into being in their wall sconces, and it’s like a dance, right up until they reach us. Then everything is illuminated by firelight and I can see that we’re at the mouth of a long corridor.
‘Come on then.’
‘Hang on, did these torches just light themselves?’ I ask.
‘They did,’ Jomo replies.
‘How did you get them to do that?’
‘I don’t know. They just do it themselves. Let’s go, the really cool stuff’s inside.’
The air down here is filled with the scent of incense and potpourri, as if to banish the foul smells of the city. I think it’s coming from the bowls placed along the colourful mosaictiled floor. Jomo walks briskly ahead, giving me no time to study the pattern properly. The walls are decorated with Celtic symbols and the triquetra runs along the middle of the wall. Other less common symbols trace their own trajectory. But nothing seems to fit together in this corridor. It’s as though different artists had a go at different periods, creating something more like sophisticated graffiti than classically inspired art. It’s an assault on the senses. The eyes don’t know where to rest. There are no central points of reference, and maybe that is the point, to confound.
Each flame dies immediately as we pass it, plunging the route behind us into darkness. As they expire, the torches leave a trace of smoke, and the walls above them are charred with their shadows.
‘We’re somewhere under the streets now,’ he says.
‘No shit, Sherlock.’
The floor rises, so we are walking uphill. Life’s happening right above us. People going about their business and we are underneath it all, in the bowels of the city. The corridor gives way to an antechamber. It’s perfectly hexagonal with an arched entrance on every side. The narrow opening that leads back to the corridor occupies one wall. The one on the immediately opposite side is wider, with steps going up. Inscriptions in Gaelic mark the walls of the chamber. The calligraphy is stunning. It’s as if the walls are pages from an ancient manuscript. The letters flow like a winding, cursive river seeking the sea.
I follow Jomo through the wide gap and up the stone steps. The walls here are bare, hewn out of bedrock. The only adornments are sconces bolted into the rock. The middle of the stairs are worn and concave, and with each one it begins to dawn on me where we really are. This is very much the kind of place the likes of me are not supposed to be.
‘This is the Librarian’s Walk. We ascend into the Library. The readers have a separate entrance – they descend – but I couldn’t take you that way because we’d get spotted,’ he whispers. ‘Ropa Moyo, welcome to the Library of the Dead.’