A Stranger Leaves Chapter 9 and 10

 

Chapter 9

 

Wednesdays for Ash always seemed to be the best days, he received his benefits, cast adoring glances at the vibrant redhead at the apothecary’s when he picked up his pills and wandered down to the River Dee to sit in his chosen suntrap, read, wrote whiled away the time until he had to go to pay off his tick. Now Fridays had taken the place of a busy Wednesday, these days the benefits he got were paid into his Lloyds account, and instead of going down to the banks of the river Dee feeling the sun on his face he would invariably dash back to his bit as if he had something worth returning for. The redhead in the pharmacy who had got up the stick was off on her maternity leave. Nothing felt the same; nothing seemed filled with the same sense of contained excitement.

William’s Wednesdays seemed to have lost their allure also.  He never went to his art classes, really since he had broken his hip too, he hardly drove at all –except maybe to get his Navy pension from the Post Office or to take Mad Max for a walk along the river Don. As he fondly reiterated ASDA café had become his second home. He knew most of the staff by name. Though frail and slow William kept to his routines.

Even though Ash had the mini-shrink on the cards for the day and he’d been awake for a day and a couple of nights, there was something in the air that sun bright yearn of morning as there had been in May. Synchronicity seemed to be powering the day. Before he switched off the morning news marathon, he heard that the Council had decided to change their fickle minds about the modernisation of Union Terrace. Perhaps somewhere Ash was unaware of wheels grinding into motion for a fortuitous meeting with Helen on the 21 to Dyce. He was barely a moment or two at the bus stop when his bus arrived. High up on the front seat of the top of the bus Ash watched the summer roll by reaching all the way to Dyce.

Mad Max greeted Ash with the usual deafening fear and swiftly sought a place of sanctuary, under some coats or perhaps the downstairs toilet.  William had his back to him standing at the stove obviously cooking some liver and onions by the succulent aroma issuing over his shoulder.

‘It’s only Ash, Max,’ he said as if Ash was in and about every other day and the quivering mutt should’ve got used to him by now. Only three months since my last visit, but the irony escaped him when he thought that it felt suddenly like only yesterday and Dad had been waiting for him to get there so they could have their lunch. Ash never phoned in advance to say he would put in appearance as William would invariably tell him not to bother coming out. So Ash used this stealth tactic, yet it didn’t surprise him at all when William told him I knew you’d be out today. Did he feel it in his waters or in some past life memory of a war wound, did he have a side-line as a Psychic on the web?

His dad’s moustache seemed displayed upon his lip like a well-earned but tarnished medal as he turned to Ash, with his palpable relief that Ash wasn’t on a bender and he would have to endure an hour or two of mental torture. At once as he saw that William wasn’t as gnarled and near death as his sounded on the telephone, Ash realized that voice of pleading in his head was not William’s voice but his own, and he was relieved.

Ash took the dog for a walk over the wide featureless field outside the front of the house, he skirted quickly past the ring of ‘standing stones’ past a sparsely occupied set of swings and a solitary slide up toward the nursery, he narrowly avoided the more upmarket side of Dyce and reached the far side of the field. He and Max, like old lovers making up after a vicious fight ran back to William’s house and got back in the backdoor in time for the first storm cloud to release its surprise that day.

For a while a companionable peace fell over the two men as they sat with their mugs of tea and ashtrays. Both sat for a while reading. Then as they both reached the end of a chapter together; they laid their books aside.

Ash asked. ‘Do you still have a nap at lunchtime?’

‘Yeah, I do, that’s a good idea.’

‘I’ll go over to Associated Dairies and get some stuff and a coffee.’

‘Come back at 12.30 and wake me. I have to take a pill.’

By this time the rain had stopped. He did a bemused waltz about the aisles of the supermarket trying to find something he could bear to eat. Dyce School nearby was on a lunch break and he was amazed at the lines of kids at the café or like a horde of locusts at the fag counter buying up sandwiches and packets of crisps. Yet by the time he had circumnavigated the supermarket, bought the cats’ food and a fancy microwave dinner all the children had vanished as if the lino covered floor hid a subterranean level where they scoffed, smoked and spoke to each other on mobile phones.

With the rain at his back Ash reached the shelter of his dad’s bit and Max duly woke William from his pinched, pixie-faced slumber.

‘Make yourself some soup.’ He showed Ash how to light the gas ring directing his hapless hands. The afternoon went well enough, they talked, seemed to laugh a lot more than usual. They walked Max down by the River Don and at four ate liver and onions, mash and chopped carrots in front of a Countdown free television screen until they were stuffed to the gunnels.

Ash felt a moment of triumph as he stood at the bus stop.  I haven’t stolen or necked his sleeping tablets, started weeping and told him I love him, put milk in his tea, or cut his throat. He threw down a half-smoked cigarette as the bus turned the corner.  When he got home a couple of hours later, he felt jetlagged as if he had been away so long that suddenly his life felt new again.

Chapter Ten

The day before Ash’s birthday Helen sent him an obscure Facebook message. He darted one back to her asking if she was up for a home visit, he half hopelessly batted a couple more messages back at her. Then nothing.  Before he began checking Facebook every five minutes, he switched off his computer and listened to Poetry Please until medication time and fell into the futility of his broken bed.

Even so the lack of Helen did not spoil the advent of his 47^th year. Lara and her mum came for the usual Saturday visit. That day they went to Afford. Ash vaguely recalled going to Afford at least once before. Thirty years ago, perhaps to the day. That day there were a lot of stinking steam engines in a field of mud. He remembered he had thought at the time:

‘Why are we here? I think I’m going to throw up! Oh, another photograph!’

He clunk-clicked beside Rachael the customary steering wheel before her.

They drove along a new road through the ‘shire past a loch and a bird sanctuary through the ever-steepening vista of hills, sun clad and tanned tattooed with sheep and highland bulls. The car hefted down through a valley, before they knew it, they were in the small village of Alford’s ambitious main drag.

What a day it was like no other uninvited into the summer of rain. Before their adventure in Haughton Park, they went to a subdued bar with the bare window beside their table they shared a meal.

Rachael and Lara had sandwiches but didn’t eat their greens or the potato chips on the plate. He had steak pie and steamed vegetables.

Lara’s Mum said she loved Afford, said she would live there if she could. He didn’t say that, though he thought she probably could, but she loved her job or so she said and now Lara was in Big School it diluted her option of leaving Aberdeen and living here.

Then they went to Haughton Park and played on the swings and slides and climbing frame, and watched the miniature train flitting in and out of the foliage blurring so slowly by. Ash took a lot of photos as he and Lara ran and jumped over tree stumps taking a whirlwind tour of the park and back to Rachael for a spot of tennis.

Afterwards they went to the steam engine museum. The stinking jumped up tractors had their own museum now instead of a muddy field. There was an old British army tank out in the courtyard.  He stood in front of one of those old police boxes as Rachael took a few pictures of Ash posing in blue like a bemused Timelord who remembers to smile just in time.

Back in the centre of Afford coffee and cakes were on the cards. Firstly, they went into the nearest. It was a bit of an upmarket minimalist charity shop with overpriced tat, cookbooks from the thirties and clothes on a rack that Rachael flicked through absently. But, as soon as they went in Lara had saw the paltry offerings on the cake tray, she dragged her parents out and chased them across the road as if she were herding a couple of lost sheep to a cafe. At once inside the door Ash espied meringues. He loved Meringues. He thought that perhaps he could change his name by deed poll to Mr Meringue. These meringues seemed the King of Kings of meringues, sizeable as Sylvester Malone’s right fist. He grudgingly permitted Lara a dab or two of cream. Rachael looked away from the temptation of the meringue and to his relief said she didn’t want any.

He asked Arlene to drive slowly back to Culter as he knew the two of them wouldn’t stay long once he got home. He put on the CD they’d given him for his birthday and discussed their favourite tracks on the compilation while about the car the ‘Shire ran at its own pace, the woods and the waters as horses stock-still galloped by them.

The cat stench and stink from his wheelie bin of the many mice that Emily and Eva had eviscerated greeted them at the back door.

‘I’ve had such a good day,’ he told them and thanked them for his presents. ‘I’ll buy a carpet for the bedroom with the money I got.’ Ash said as he walked them back to the car.

‘We’ll be back on Monday, mind.’ Rachael assured him. He kissed the top of Lara’s ginger head of hair. As he usually did, he raced back to house and waited at the front window to wave at them and throws a couple of kisses. Then they were gone driving away for another hundred years or so until the following Monday.