The belief that we somehow moved on to something else — whether still recognisably ourselves, or quite thoroughly changed — might be a tribute to our evolutionary tenacity and our animal thirst for life, but not to our wisdom. That saw a value beyond itself; in intelligence, knowledge and wit as concepts — wherever and by whoever expressed — not just in its own personal manifestation of those qualities, and so could contemplate its own annihilation with equanimity, and suffer it with grace; it was only a sort of sad selfishness that demanded the continuation of the individual spirit in the vanity and frivolity of a heaven.
The waves surged against the cliffs, thudding into the rock and being reflecting. The shapes of their energy charged back into that wild, disturbed water, obliterated and conserved at once.
It seemed to me then that it was this simple; individual life has no momentum, and — just as dad had said — the world is neither fair nor unfair. Those words are our inventions, and apply only to the results of thought. To die as Darren had, and as my father had, and perhaps as Rory had, with what might have been great things still to do, and much to give and to receive, was to make our human grief the greater, but could not form part of any argument. They were here, and then they weren't, and that was all there was. My father had had the right of it, when I'd been so upset at Darren Watt's death; it had been a sort of petulance I had felt towards the world, an anger as well as a sadness that Darren had died so soon (and so uglily, so sordidly; a litter bin, for fuck's sake). How dare the world not behave as I expected it to? How dare it just rub out one of my friends? It wasn't fair! And, of course, indeed it was not fair. But that was beside the point.
Well, the old man had been right and I had been wrong, and I just hoped that he'd known somehow that I would come to my senses eventually.
But if he had gone to his grave — via the McDobbie's — thinking that his middle son was a credulous fool, and likely to stay that way, well, that hurt me; hurt me more than I could say, but there was no fixing that now. It was over.
I turned and left and caught the ferry back to Ullapool from Stornoway that afternoon, drinking cups of styrofoam coffee and eating greasy pies while I stood out on deck watching the beating waves.
We'd seen dolphins following the ship once, coming back this way past the Summer Isles after a holiday, one day many years ago; mum and dad and Lewis and James and me.
But that was then.
I was back in Glasgow six hours later. I slept well.
And so we went back to the Anarkali restaurant on that Sunday night, Ashley Watt and I, and we had a meal that was almost identical to the one we'd had before, on the summer night when dad had died, except we got along just fine this time, and Ashley didn't throw any brandy over me, and I didn't act like a complete asshole, and as I sat there, talking about all the old times and about the future, again I didn't know whether to laugh or cry, because it was so good to see her, but she was going away tomorrow, flying off across that wide grey ocean I'd stood looking at just the day before, flying away to Canada and maybe going to stay there, and I didn't know whether to ask about any men in her life or not — even though I knew from Dean that the guy she'd gone off with at Hogmanay had only been a one-night thing — and I still didn't feel I could tell her how I felt about her because she was going to go away now, and how could I suddenly say I love you when I'd never said it to anybody in my life before? How could I say it now especially, the night before she was due to leave? It would look like I was trying to make her stay, or just get her into bed. It would probably wreck this one precious evening that we did have, and upset her, confuse her, even hurt her, and I didn't want to do any of that. And through it all I knew there must have been a moment when I could have told her, some time in the past, some time over the last few months, when it would have been the right time and the right place, and it would have felt like the most natural thing in the world to say and do, but somehow, in the heat of things, just during the complexity of events — and thanks to my own stupidity, my hesitation, my indecision; my negligence — I'd missed it, and that, too, was gone from me; over.
So I just sat there, across from her, looking into her soft-skinned face all glowing in the candle-light, that long, thin nose rising straight above her small, smiling red mouth as if together they made an exclamation mark, and I felt lost in the grey sparkle of those eyes.
We walked out into the cool March night. It was fair but it had been wet and the pavements shone. Ashley stood on the steps as I put on the old tweed coat that had been my dad's. She wore a black dress and the old naval jacket with the turned-over cuffs I remembered from Grandma Margot's funeral. She leant against some railings, watching me button my coat up, and with her left foot she clicked her toe and heel as if in accompaniment to some song I couldn't hear.
I looked down at her tapping black shoe as I adjusted my collar.
"Morse code?"
She shook her head, long fawn hair spilling over her dark shoulders.
We went arm in arm down the steps. "What was that film that had a dancer tapping out insults at somebody?" I said.
"Dunno," Ash said, click-clicking her feet as we walked.
"Was it Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid?" I scratched my head. I wasn't wearing gloves and I could feel Ashley's warmth through her jacket. She smelled of Samsara, which was a departure for her, I thought.
"Maybe," she said, and then she laughed.
"What?"
"I was just remembering," she said, squeezing my waist. "Mrs Phimister's class. Remember? The French teacher? We were in the same class."
"Oh yeah," I said. We turned onto Woodlands Road.
"You hated her because she'd confiscated a radio or something, and you used to tap out insults in morse code." Ash laughed loud.
"God, yeah," I said. "That's right."
"'Fuck off you old cow', was the witticism I recall best," Ash said, still snorting with laughter.
"Jeez," I said, pulling away from her a little to look into her eyes. "You mean you could decipher it?"
"Yeah," Ash said, with a sort of friendly scorn. "You rotter!" I laughed. "You absolute cad-ess. You cad-ette; I thought that was my secret. I only told people later, after I'd left school, and then nobody believed me."
"Yeah," Ash said, grinning at me. "I knew. A couple of times I almost got detention because I was giggling so much. Nearly wet my knickers trying not to laugh. Got some very stern looks from Mrs Phimister." She laughed again, throwing her head back.
"I didn't even know you knew morse code," I said. "I learned it in the scouts. Where did you learn it?"
"My grandad taught me," Ash said, nodding. "We used to sit and pass messages at meal times by clinking our cutlery off the plates. Mum and dad and the others always wondered what we found so hilarious about yet another helping of shepherd's pie and chips."
"And you never said!" I shook my head. "You rascal!"
She shrugged, looked down at her black, medium-high heels as she did a little tap-dance. "You didn't like me; what was the point?"
"I didn't like any girls," I told her. "In fact I wasn't that keen on any of the boys either. Come to think of it, I felt mostly contempt even for my friends."
"Yeah," Ash said, leaning over towards me so that her grinning face was almost on my chest. "But you didn't break their noses with a boulder disguised as a snowball, did you?"
I stopped in my tracks.
Ash gave a little squeal as she staggered, suddenly losing support on one side. She steadied and turned. She faced me, looking puzzled, from a metre or so away. I just stood there open-mouthed.