Thomas Clark
Art: Dave Alexander
Andy had just got off to sleep when it started again. It was getting to be every night now. He staggered out of bed, pulled his wax jacket on over his pyjamas. It could only have been three o’clock. Blearily, he stared at the Daedalian knots of his laces, tucked them down into the sides of his shoes. The close lights were broken, but the stairwell was already bright with open doors.
“Mornin, Mrs. McGraw,” he shouted at the first door. Mrs. McGraw glowered at him, her weathered fist clasping shut her nightie like a brooch.
“Ah’ll gie ye morning! It’s a bloody disgrace, so it is,” she said, “There’s ma man daein mornins and he cannae get a wink o sleep.”
“Ah ken, ah ken,” Andy said, “Ah’m just away doon tae see aboot it.”
“Aye, well, when ye see him ye can tell him fae me …”
The noise, a continual low hum which shook the windows in their settings, suddenly redoubled, driving out all competing sounds. As he passed down through the stairwell, Andy tried not to notice the faces that stared lividly at him from the cracks of doors, the horrific writhings of their silent mouths. By now the noise was so loud that his eyes quivered in their sockets, and the close had the freakish appearance of double exposed film, an art-house installation for the criminally insane. “Sorry, sorry, sorry,” he found himself whispering as he shuffled past the doors, each framing a scene of suspended domesticity warped into something grotesque.
Outside, on the street, it was just as bad. Fractals of window-light pocked the low clear night, and the noise boomed through the narrow roads as they sunk towards the fields. As he walked along, Andy took a glance at the town hall spire. The clock was usually wrong, but it was certainly well past four. On the farms beyond Hawick, hired hands were already rising: Bulgarians and Poles who washed their faces in freezing water and listened with wonder to the sound, which could be heard as far as Branxholme Castle. It wasn’t until the valleys towards Galashiels that the noise finally passed beyond the range of human hearing, although the Jedburgh dogs still whined, and the sheep in Selkirk bleated sympathy. No-one knew.
“It’s not on, Andy, ah’m tellin ye,” Johnny McEwan roared out of his window, “Ah’m on the phone tae the cooncil first thing. As if it’s no bad enough UHRRRR”
Johnny threw his hands to his ears, but Andy knew from experience that nothing short of industrial grade ear muffs could block out this new noise: a long metallic shriek like a thousand rusty brakes. As the old man fell to his knees groaning, Andy pointed at an imaginary watch.
“Ah ken, Mr. McEwan, ah ken,” he shouted, “Ah’m just away tae tell him. It’s past a joke, this.”
By the time Andy had turned the corner onto the high street, the noise had stopped, lingering only in the high arches of the town walls, like a trapped bird trying to get out. D-CON, who had never shown the slightest bit of interest in it before, was crouched down next to the 1514 Memorial, scanning its inscription raptly. Darkness once again had settled.
“Like butter widnae melt, eh,” Andy said, “Whit’s the game here then, pal? Whit’s wae aw the noise?”
D-CON looked down at Andy with an immoderate start, as if only just noticing him.
“WHY ANDREW, I WAS …”
“Shh! Shh!” Andy whispered, the concrete shifting tectonically beneath his feet. The robot started again.
“APOLOGIES, ANDREW. WHAT NOISE?”
Andy screwed up his face.
“What noise? You got selective super-hearing all of a sudden? You’re at it, big man. Ah’ve telt ye wance, ah’ve telt a hunner times—when it gets dark, folk are tryin to sleep.”
“ANDREW, I CANNOT SLEEP.”
“Name o God … Whit, you want me to sing you a lullaby?”
“I …”
“Ah’m jokin,” Andy said hastily, “Ah ken whit you mean. But look, if you’re no able tae sleep at night, can you no just dae whit everybody else does an watch the telly or somethin? Get any channel ye like wae aw that gear stickin oot yer heid. Ah mean … och, here we go.”
A Volvo driving the wrong direction up the one-way street came to a sudden halt across the road. After a moment’s struggle, a fat man with unkempt hair and a provost’s chain over his nightgown wrangled his way out from under the steering-wheel and waddled over towards them. The backs of his slippers made a soft padding noise on the tarmac.
“Right, Andy! Whit’s going on here? Giein ye any problems, is he?”
“Naw, Davie, it’s just ...”
“This is no good enough, Andy. It’s needing nipped in the bud, like. Bloody robot getting the run of the place. Honest tae God.”
Davie squinted in D-CON’s direction. There were marks on either side of his nose where his glasses normally sat. He shook his head.
“Nae wunner his name’s C-CON. C-CON, is it! It’s enough tae seeken onybody. Ah’m telling ye, Andy ...”
“His name’s D-CON,” Andy said, “Like Deacon Blue.”
“Ah’m tellin ye, Andy,” Davie continued, “Folk’ve just aboot had enough o this. D’ye have any idea how much it’s costing us tae keep him?”
“Well, he’s solar-powered, Davie, so ...”
“Solar power!” Davie spat, “In Hawick? That’s a joke! He’s suckin this toon dry. An as for ...”
“IF I FLEW INTO THE SUN,” the robot interrupted, “I COULD RECHARGE TO FULL CAPACITY WITHOUT ...”
“Aye, that’ll be shining bright!” Davie veered slowly round, lifting up his eyes rather than his head. “Efter aw the money we’ve spent, we’re just gonnae let ye fly away! D’ye think ma heid buttons up the back or sowt? Fly away, he says!”
Davie shook his head again, as if it was the only point of articulation his body had. His arms were folded so high across his chest that his chin was almost resting on them, and he was breathing heavily. Andy cleared his throat.
“Look, Davie,” he said, “We cannae have it both ways. If we want tae keep him to ourselves, that’s fair enough, but somebody’s got to foot the bill. That’s just economics.”
“Oh aye?” Davie said without looking at him, “Get that aff your da, did ye? Dead smart, your da. Dunno how he’s only working in a chippy.”
With one last glower at D-CON, Davie turned on his heel and walked back across the road. Andy, whose cheeks had become a lipstick pink, looked up at the robot and smiled awkwardly. He always forgot that D-CON did not have emotive facial expressions or, for that matter, emotions.
The provost’s car coughed and spluttered back into life. Like the provost himself, it had been serving in its official capacity for as long as Andy could remember. With much uncomfortable to-ing and fro-ing, Davie squeezed an arm between his bulk and the door and jerkily rolled down the window.
“Oh, aye, and while ah remember,” he said, “Where are we at wae they comet things?”
The robot stared up into the sky.
“REPORT. NEAR-EARTH OBJECTS OBSERVED. QUANTITY: THREE. VELOCITY: 110 KILOMETRES PER SECOND. TIME OF IMPACT: 4.2 DAYS. CURRENT VISIBILITY FROM EARTH: ZERO. EXPECTED SURVIVAL RATE WITHIN IMPACT ZONE: ZERO. EXPECTED IMPACT ZONE: GALASHIELS.”
Davie nodded in satisfaction.
“Right, that’s a Wednesday then, eh? Ah’ll let the bus drivers ken.”
“Davie, d’ye no think ...”
“Not a chance! Forget it!” Davie said, “Where were they when we were the wans aboot tae get smashed intae bits? Couldnae look the other way quick enough then! For aw they kent oor goose was cooked, an they never even lifted a finger. They didnae ken it wisnae a comet.” He stared at D-CON bitterly, and shook his head. “Ah’ll tell ye whit, though, ah wish it had’ve been.”
After a few growls, the provost’s car lurched off into the beginnings of the morning. Wisps of red had started to gather round the edges of the rooftops, and the unfathomable dark of the sky was about to break. As D-CON stood there, still gazing into the remnants of the night, Andy stared up at him.
“A hunner an ten kilometres a second? That’s gey fast even for a comet, is it no?”
“IT IS.”
Andy puffed his cheeks out thoughtfully.
“Jeez oh. Ah could see the point if it wis heading the ither wey. Ah’ve broke the sound barrier masel gittin oot o Galashiels.” He smiled for a moment at the robot’s unreflecting face, then let it drop. “Ach, no that Hawick’s much better. But it’s hame, eh? Ye ken everybody.”
He paused as if conscious of having said the wrong thing, but D-CON showed no sign of having noticed. Andy let his hand rest on the monument’s pedestal, tracing its inscription. It was too dark to read, and written in Latin, but he knew it off by heart. From out of the depths it emerges, beautiful.
“Do ... do ye never get hamesick yersel, sometimes?”
“NO. ALL THINGS MUST FIND A PURPOSE, AND I HAVE FOUND MINE ON EARTH. I SHALL BE AT HOME HERE, BEFORE LONG.”
Andy instinctively patted the robot on its leg, somewhere about its knee. The metal was light and soft to the touch, like aluminium, and strangely warm.
“Ah went tae New York, wance,” he said, “Thought aboot Hawick the hale time. Couple o hours on a plane an it felt like the ends o the earth. Ach, but the sights, man! Ken the Statue of Liberty?”
D-CON lifted up its arm, and its hand was blue with light.
“FROM HER BEACON-HAND GLOWS WORLD-WIDE WELCOME ...”
Andy smiled up into the lantern. Its beam was bright enough to shine the stars, but no-one else had chosen to see it. He shook his head.
“Never you mind, pal. You’re daein alright. It’s them buggers just need tae get used tae ye. But they’ll get there, D-CON.”
“B-CON.”
“Eh?”
“MY NAME IS B-CON.”
As Andy followed the robot’s stare into the now starlit sky, a bat, suddenly visible against the gleam, fluttered past, and the air took on the pungent taste of lead. Never before had he witnessed skies so full of life, a horizon that brimmed with anything but streetlights and the cracks between curtains. Now, above the spire, three dots of light were developing slowly against the black, a perfect triangle that shimmered in the sky and hung there. He watched them coming, as if a fresh constellation was jostling into the order of things, a spearhead advancing through the aging cosmos.
He understood.
Beneath his palm, Andy felt the robot humming gently—happily, even. The stars were dying, and the news of some unfamiliar galaxy was finally reaching Earth.
Thomas Clark is a Glaswegian writer now based in the Scottish Borders. He is poet-in-residence at Selkirk FC. His work has been published in The Scotsman, The Sunday Mail and Bella Caledonia, and broadcast on ITV, BBC and Sky Sports. He writes about writing at www.thomasjclark.co.uk
and tweets intermittently @ClashCityClarky