‘Heh!’ I raised my pint of Arrol’s. ‘Here’s to the end of empires.’
‘Cheers,’ Reid nodded. ‘Still, it’s impressive in a way. All the land from here to the far side of the Med under one government.’
‘Hmm…somebody warn the Euro-sceptics: it’s been done and it lasted for a thousand years!’ – this in a comic-German screech that distracted one push-button space warrior enough to glance at me and lose a few ships to the invading evil empire on the screen. I think I was a little drunk by this point.
Our progress continued through The Two Bridges, The Anchor, and The Ferry Tap. Outside the Queensferry Arms Reid hesitated, then said, ‘Skip this one. Got a better idea.’ He led me a few steps along the narrow High Street to a Chinese take-away where he promised me the best delicacy on the menu.
‘Two portions of curried chips, please.’
‘Curried chips?’ I asked incredulously.
‘Just what you need after a few pints.’
The girl behind the counter served us these with what I dimly thought a patronising smile. Eating the steaming, sticky, greasy messes with little plastic forks, we made our way past a police-station and what Reid described as a Jacobite church, and on up to the last pub, pausing only to dispose of our litter thoughtfully behind a front gate.
We lurched in to The Moorings with breath like dragons’. The girl behind the bar actually averted her face as she pulled our pints. I followed Reid away from the bar into a rear area where wide windows presented a fine view of the Bridge.
The pub was new, fake-old; nautical gear and framed drawings of battleships on the walls. In the course of our travels Reid’s opening shot about the Roman Empire had turned into a long and involved argument about empires generally, with Reid firmly in their favour. He loathed the usual default option for disillusioned socialists, nationalism.
‘See these,’ he said, opening his third pack of cigarettes and pointing at the naval engravings. ‘See them. They, they saved us, right? From the German fascist barbarians. And from good old Uncle Joe, if truth be told.’
‘That,’ I said, trying to steady him in my ‘scope, ‘is a bit of an over-simplified few. View. I’m surprised at you.’
‘So’m I,’ he said. ‘A few years back, there was a display out there, Harriers flying backwards and Sea Kings looping the loop and all that, and I realised I was proud of those guys. Just like I used to be about the heroic Red Army and the Vietcong.’
‘Jesus.’ I was shocked into a passing fit of sobriety. ‘You’re telling me the armed forces of the British state are freedom fighters? I’m sure the Irish have a different story, for starters.’
‘Ah, fuck the Irish,’ Reid said, fortunately not too loudly. ‘I must admit I did have a hang-up about the bold IRA for years. And then they went and turned up their toes, just jacked it in like the fucking Stalinists.’
‘But you always wanted something better than that –’
He glared into his Caledonian Eighty. ‘Even so, I stuck up for the workers’ states. And then they all went down like – like dominoes! I’m not the one who deserted. I mean, my side surrendered, right? So I can do whatever the fuck I like.’
The bell rang for last orders. Reid laughed and drained his glass. ‘Same again?’
‘Yes please.’
He returned with two pints and two shots of whisky. The whisky may have had some responsibility for what happened later.
‘So what do you have to say to that?’ he asked.
‘Schlanzhe…OK, OK. You’re saying you used to admire the other side’s armies, right? So what about all the peace-fighting, eh? What about CND?’
Peace-fighting, CND…something was bugging me.
‘Tactics. The Communists were probably sincere, funnily enough, but as far as we were concerned we saw CND work as running interference for the Russkies.’
‘No shit?’
‘No shit.’
‘Well,’ I said, taken aback at this brazen admission, ‘I must say your new-found patriotism has a suspiciously damascene curve about it, as in going from one misguided view to what seems to be the complete opposite but is actually the same place –’
‘Bullshit. I’m not patriotic. All I’m saying is, we live in a dangerous world and I’m not going to pretend I don’t know whose guns keep me safe.’
‘What about the people on the other side of the guns?’
‘Tough. I’m just lucky I’m on this side. Compared to anything else out there, it’s the side of progress. We’re the camp of the revolution.’
‘Explain yourself.’
‘Because your Yank dingbat libertarian pals are right – the Western democracies are socialist! Big public sectors, big companies that plan production while officially everything’s on the market…sort of black planning, like the East had a black market. Marx said universal suffrage was the rule of the working class, and he was right. The West is Red!’
I had to laugh, not just at the audacity of Reid’s rationalisation but at the grain of awkward truth in it. We explored this theory as we were cleared from the pub and made our way up on to the Road Bridge.
‘Shit,’ Reid said, scrutinising the bus timetable, ‘we’ve missed it. Fucking private companies keep changing the services.’
‘Goddamn capitalist roaders. Let’s get a taxi.’
‘From here? Nah. There’s a hotel on the other side. Let’s phone from there.’
I looked along the bridge’s bright kilometre.
‘Bit of a walk.’
‘Might even be a bar open,’ Reid said cunningly.
‘I’m game.’
We set off, past signs announcing that security cameras watched the bridge at all times. To the north and west there was still light in the sky. Cars and lorries thrummed past, every other minute. The section of the bridge before it reached the river made a slow ascent above streets and backyards and waste ground and the long arms of a marina. There was a high barrier on our left between the footway and the drop to the river, a lower but wider barrier between footway and road. Reid kept to a rapid pace, saying little. About halfway across I paused to light up a black cheroot which had (unaccountably, at that moment) turned up in my pocket.
Something on my mind. Peace-fighting, something to do with…ah!
Not a good time – but then, there never would be a good time.
I hurried to catch up with him.
‘Reid, old boy,’ I said, from behind his shoulder, ‘I have a bone to pick with you.’
His shoulder twitched up. He didn’t turn. ‘OK, man. Whatever.’
‘Well, the fact is, Annette told me about, you know, you. And her.’
‘Oh!’ He stopped and faced me.
I stopped, leaning against the railing. Hundreds of feet below, the water gleamed like hammered lead. Reid fumbled out a cigarette, dropped it, picked it up and lit it.
‘What can I say?’ he said. He spread his hands, swayed, and laid his right hand on the parapet. ‘It happened, what’s the use denying it, and it was my fault, and I’m sorry.’
‘All right,’ I said. ‘That’s all you have to say.’
‘You’re…’ He drew hard on the cigarette, cupped glowing in his left hand. ‘You’re a good bloke, Jon. She deserves you. And you deserved better of me. I abused your…hospitality, man. No excuse, except it was just fucking…’
His voice trailed off and he looked away from me, out at the distance.
‘Just fucking?’
‘…obsession, man, that’s the word.’ He laughed harshly. ‘I wish I could say it was just fucking.’
He looked back at me. The smoke was suddenly foul in my mouth. I sent the red ember spinning over the side, and watched its long slow fall.
‘But I can’t,’ he went on. ‘I’m not saying that wasn’t wrong, but there was more than that. I once even tried to get her to leave you, if you can believe that. But she wouldn’t, and she was right, and that was the end of it. Over. And I got over her, and she got over me.’