I was set to hand over the old Peugeot estate to Anna and her pals. They were adventurers and it wasn’t as if a bit of brine dripping from dinghies or boards or kayaks was going to do a lot more damage. She ran fine. So it was my last road movie with the workhorse. I had some stuff to pick up on the mainland so it was a chance to see Andra. Sometimes you just need to get off the rock.
I don’t care much about distance when I’m got some wheels under me. Dead easy. I tried to phone, before I left home, but got no answer. It was the evening. Maybe the home-help got him to his bed soon after his tea. I could have got the number from the cousins but I was going anyway.
The car wasn’t booked on the ferry. The guy kept me in the standby area till the last minute even though the boat wasn’t that busy. The bite of April.
And I wasn’t booked in anywhere. I couldn’t see a big push for weekend breaks by the North Sea this month. But the Alexandria was boarded up like its neighbours. Then I saw the posters. A gospel music convention. There might not be a bed in town. I could phone Willum and Sheila but it was a bit awkward – he might be at sea. She might be involved in the festival – she was quite strong on the church. They’d be bound to ask how Gabriele was doing. I wouldn’t be able to say, ‘Nae baud,’ and move on.
No big deal, I could run out of town and get a bed in Pennan or out Inverallochy or even Peterhead. Pennan could be booked out too. This was a holiday weekend, for some, and Local Hero left its mark on that village. People still wanted a photo of themselves standing by the phone box. They’d get lashed with spray there tonight.
But I knew I’d better get my arse up West Road pretty soon. I went the long way, past the signs for the lighthouse museum, leaving Glenbuchty Place between the sea and the main road. Took a left before the seaward road that used to lead to the gut-factory. You never got that smell now, in either The Broch or SY. My grampa used to call the street with the big new houses, further up the road, Fishmeal Avenue.
I was just round the corner from West Road but the prefabs were gone and my bearings with them. There were new blocks of flats between the boarded up old houses and the more prosperous outskirts.
I looked at the dashboard and saw it was near seven. I shouldn’t have stopped to walk along the beach, earlier on. I remembered the frapping red flag that warned the waves were too high for safe bathing. The surfers had a blazing gellie going in the dunes but they wouldn’t call it that, these latitudes.
One house looked like it might be the one. I knocked. There was a chain on the door. It opened enough for a wifie to tell me, aye, Andra was on the go all right but he bided off that next wee close. Looked just like this one. I might be ower late though. No, no, he was keeping a richt for a man who’d had his quota o strokes but these home-helps just did the rounds richt early.
The house looked dead. The buzzer worked well enough but nobody came. Then someone went by.
‘Aye,’ the man said. ‘Andra Sim’s house. For sure. No, no, he’ll no be in his bed but you’ll no find him in, this time o nicht. Try the Elizabethan.’
‘Not the Legion?’ I asked.
‘No, he disna drink there ony mair. Elizabethan.’
He pointed the way. I left the car on West Road and walked round the corner. There was a concrete building which looked like it could be of pre-fab construction but it had black painted mock timbers. This could be it. They had a board with special drinks offers on for the football. He’d be here.
It had all sorts of sightlines and corners and more than one screen. I had a fixed idea he was here but I couldn’t see him. I was being careful because even big characters can shrink after a stroke. I still couldn’t see him.
‘You in fae the match?’ someone asked.
‘No, I’m looking for my uncle Andra. Andra Sim.’
‘Andra disna drink here ony mair,’ the barman said.
‘Is he back at the Legion?’
‘Ye’ll find him in the Sultan. Just off the main street, ken at the front.’
‘Before that drop down to the harbour?’
‘Aye, that’s it. He’ll be in there.’
I thought I knew the way. Drove towards the sea-front. Parked the Peugeot.
I walked up and down the street and I couldn’t see a pub called the Sultan.
Time was marching on. I asked someone else. There wasn’t a lot of people out on the street.
‘You’ve just walked by it. Can you no see it there?’
I looked back to the Saltoun Arms Hotel. That’d be it then.
I found the opening to the public bar and took a deep breath. There was a screen on with the warm-up to the match. Commentators were speculating. Alan Hansen was looking chill as ever. That’s the guy the Latin teacher wagged his finger at. Alan was always a bit more cool than cool. He came sauntering in off the pitch at Lornshill. Another Academy though folk down there still called it The Grange. That was real Rangers and Celtic country. Of course, we had to shout for Rangers.
‘Do you think, Mr Hansen, that football will ever put bread in your mouth?’ the Latin teacher asked.
I wondered what he was earning for this appearance.
And then my eye went to a figure on a bar stool. He was wearing an Aberdeen strip and his arms were in the air. He was leading the pub in the warm-up singsong.
‘Andra?’
He took a few seconds but he was clocking me all right.
‘I might have had a bit more hair last time you saw me.’
‘I ken ye jist the same. It’s Mary’s loon. You still have the bloody look o her too but you’re no jist as bonny.’
‘You’re not looking too shabby yourself for a man I thought might be lying down.’
I bought him a whisky and I took one too.
‘And your mates?’
‘Dinna bother, loon, we’re in a big school here. We’re the breakfast club. But we werna in this morn and we might not be in the morra morn. But then again we micht. I dinna drink at hame ken but I like tae get the news here.’
I asked around and bought a rum here, a half pint there.
The barmaid came over. ‘Your uncle’s eyes fair lit up when he saw you,’ she said. ‘He’ll be speakin aboot it for days. How did you find him?’ ‘Well, I had a couple of stops along the way,’ I said.
‘He’s great for the singing,’ she said, ‘Leads them all at it. Then Willum’s wife comes for him or he gets a taxi. He’s nae bother.’
I floated between getting a yarn with Andra and getting the barmaid’s news. There was a fair chance my last surviving uncle was going to live for ever.
‘Start the bloody clock again,’ he said. ‘Am ready to go roond again. Ah please masel and a dinna harm naibody.’
Then he leaned over to tell me again, he didna drink at hame. A thing he jist didna dae. But they had a wee club goin in the morning. That was his usual. The taxi took him hame in time for his dinner. The hame-help had it ready for him. He wisna dain bad.
‘Nae baud,’ I said.
‘You’ve a smatterin o the lingo,’ the barmaid said.
Did she know my cousin Willum? Fishing skipper.
‘Willum that lost his boy? He just lost hert. Finally gave up and took the boatie across to Denmark. Ten year aul, the boatie. Jist eligible for the decommissioning. Young Andra, he wis a fine enough loon fan he wis young. Jist went the same way as an affie number o oor loons. Quinies too. Some o them were worse if onything, when it got a haud o them. Quinies my ain age. Ah ken them. It’s levelling oot at last. The toon is turning the corner.’
Too late for some. Like young Andra.
‘Did ye see that programme on the telly? They were following the skippers, takin the boaties across for brakin up. There was a line of wheelhouses, all bristling wi aerials, a hale lang street o them, stretching oot. Men were in tears.’
‘You’re fair in the know when it comes to the boats.’
She told me she’d always followed them. Who was building fit. Who sold fit. This one awa to the West Coast. This skipper having a new boatie built. Then it was this ane oot, that ane decommissioned.
‘Any lassies on the boats? There’s a few lassie deckhands on the creel boats, down Mull way.’
‘Ken this, ah wid hae done it. Nae jist for the money. I wis interested. Still am. I asked a few skippers would they tak me on. Ane o them says aye quinie, ye can start next week. Deckhand? I says. No, sex-slave, he says. They jist widna tak a quine seriously.’
Aberdeen scored. Andra’s arms were in the air again. When the roar died down, I asked her if she knew any B&Bs.
‘Are you needing sorted the nicht?’ she asked.
‘Aye.’
‘Jist a single?’
‘Aye.’
She made the call and I was fixed. No, I wouldn’t have another dram. And Andra wouldn’t need the taxi tonight. I could drive my uncle along the road when he was ready. Help him in his door.
Andra had one for the ditch after the game. I asked him how Willum was coping.
‘Weel, he’s a gem o a wife. That Sheila. But ye ken that yersel. The boatie wis jist steel an paint an wiring. Plain enough when you see them gettin rippid apairt. He’s at the book-learnin agin. Back at the Buchan college. He’s gey handy wi the electronics. He’ll nae be stuck.’
His father wouldn’t be stuck either.
‘You’re talkin wi a man fae wis at El Alamein. An so was Mary’s man, yer ain faither. Nae a thing tae dwell on. Victory or no. Ships o the desert were nae bloody camels, loon. When a tank wis takin oot, it wis something mair than steel an wiring. There were men in there. Loons, mair like. We were a jist loons.
‘Shermans an Spitfires an Stalingrad, that’s fit made the difference. Rommel wis cryin oot for petrol an tanks an men afore an eftir he was awa hame sick. He wisna gettin them because they couldna brak through at Stalingrad. An oor aircraft were droppin torpedos tae tak oot their tankers. An oor Spitfires were no daen they gentlemen’s dogfights, they were straffin the Stukas on their ain fields. That gave us hert.
‘So I’d to bite my tongue monys a time loon wi a your talk on disarmament this an that. We were caught oot in ’45. We turnt a coarnir at El Alamein and the Fifty First wis there and your faither an me wis there alang wi them.
‘So I’ll jist alang tae oor breakfast club in the mornin and sing the day in an nae bother naebody. An it’s very fine tae see ye loon, Mary’s Peter in The Broch agin.’