It was dark when Corian and I found Andrew Duncan. He was sat on a pile of bin bags at the back of the library, his neck at a squinty angle, eyes blank. A black trail snaked from a sticky lump in his hair. Above him, I made out the dim line of the bridge and the guttering halfway down all bent out of shape. He’d fallen. Or been pushed. Corian gave me a look.
We couldn’t leave him sitting there on the bins so we dragged him up the side of the building, squeezing through the gap and then past the wall that wasn’t a wall – a clever filch of Corian’s from the back of the Festival Theatre – and into our square of space. Six feet by six feet and seven stories high. A little lost patch between two buildings that everyone had forgotten about. Our “bit”.
I cleaned myself up once and checked the land records. Some idiot had accidentally closed the gap, drawing the two buildings as meeting with only an inch or two to spare. We were off the map, off the record, and free to come and go as we pleased.
I went through the new arrival’s pockets. It’s just our way. We need to know who’s who and what’s what down here. I’d learned a long time ago that people, even dead ones, can cause all sorts of trouble so it’s best to be careful. That’s how we knew his name – Andrew Duncan.
It was too late to do anything with the body so we wrapped Andrew Duncan in an old offcut of carpet that Corian had brought home the day before. Scratchy brown nylon. Institutional. It reminded me of the carpet in the place that we didn’t talk about and I wanted shot of it anyway. We shoved the body out into the gap and threw a few bits of cardboard on top of him. We’d have to move him tomorrow but that’d do for now. I pulled the tarp over us and we went to sleep.
In the morning we stepped over Andrew Duncan and went up the road to the Grassmarket. It’s important to stick to routines. Corian wandered off down the street looking for useful things so I sat on a low wall opposite Maggie’s and scowled at the tourists posing on the gallows spot. Ghouls. Their chattering was doing my head in. I was trying to work out what to do with Andrew Duncan’s body but I couldn’t think with all that racket. I was about to cross the street when a bin lorry grumbled past and gave me the idea. Now that they’d finally been emptied, we could tip him in the big wheelie bins at the backdoor to the library when it got dark tonight and he’d be off our hands. Sorted.
Later on I headed up Victoria Street. I’d planned to juke up the wee stairs to the Lawnmarket, stay covered just how I like it, but the clock down by Waverley was loud again. It’s three minutes fast and it gets right inside my head. Somehow I ended up on the bridge. It was too bright and busy for me but it’s against my rules to retrace my steps if I can help it, so I decided I’d go along and slip down by Bobby at the other end.
Past the library I took a wee squint down to the Cowgate below. No sign of our bit. Good. But I felt a strange twist in my stomach as something caught my eye on the stone ledge just the other side of the railings. I reached through and grabbed it then I was up and off along the street before anyone would have noticed, nodding to wee Bobby on his plinth as I passed – attention-seeking, buffed-nose mascot that he is. A few quick steps across Candlemaker Row and I was into the kirkyard and tucked up in my usual spot against the wall to have a look at what I’d found. Just a folded-up piece of old paper. What had I taken that for? Corian trotted into the graveyard then, dragging some frayed lengths of twine. Great minds, well done Corian! We’d use that to tie Andrew Duncan in the carpet before we hoiked him into the bin tonight.
I opened up the yellowed paper and studied it. A cold finger of fear stroked at my neck. Same feeling I get when a door clicks shut or a bell rings. It was some kind of map or plan and straight away I knew the lines of the Cowgate, Victoria Street and the bridge. The library sat at the centre of the plan. What frightened me though was the marking in red pen. A small square drawn over the back edge of the building. An arrow from the Cowgate needled its way in from a question mark in the margin. Our bit.
“Oh, shit, Corian’, I said, “they’ve found us!”
The bit meant freedom and safety to me.When I was in it I couldkeep them out. Five years we’d been there, Corian and me. Happy years mostly after the years I’d lost. In someone else’s bit. Doing as I was told. For my own safety.
I stumbled back into the street, panic rising and that demonic tick in my ears. Too much daylight and openness. I needed dark and walls and only a tiny square patch of sky high above to think about.
Reaching the gap that led to the bit, I went to squeeze inside but something wasn’t right. The body. Andrew Duncan’s body was gone. My heart was banging in my chest and sweat trickling under my arms as I looked at the dummy wall. I moved closer and saw that it was still propped in the groove that held it upright. No-one had touched it. I breathed again and, pulling it back only the tiniest bit, I slid inside and slumped down. Corian wasn’t there. He must have run off; he doesn’t like it when I get all riled up.
White light pulsed behind my eyelids, a line tracing the loop I’d walked that morning – along and up and over and under. A noose. A weave. Infinity.
#
Woven. That’s how I’ve always thought of this town and its roads and passageways that cross over and under one another like the warp and weft of a plaid. Some lift high on bridges that half the time you don’t even notice you’re on. Others dive deep for a while, running ten stories down behind a building that’s only five stories on the other side, or push through a closed-over passage, emerging later on to re-join the level above. Those are the ways that I prefer. The low-down, covered routes, the backways and the alleyways, the never-on-display-ways. Beneath the postcards, the tartan tat and the selfies, lives the next layer of the city, grubbier, plainer and crammed with the stuff that accumulates, trapped in the weave. Thread and thrum. All the grime and the unwanted bits winkle their way down here eventually and nestle in the filthy wee crannies of our streets. Like Andrew Duncan. Or me.
When I’m on the move I feel like I’m trailing a thread behind me, adding to the fabric of the city. Making a contribution. That’s why I have my rule about never going back on myself. You can go past – or under, or over – where you’ve been but you can’t go back and undo it. On bad days, clock days, I walk a lot, pacing the streets around the bit, and sometimes the threads get tangled, and snagged. I notice the ugly, twisted knots later and their existence gnaws away at me but there’s nothing to be done. Unravelling is a nightmare and I just make it worse if I try. It’s better just to leave the mistakes and try to forget about them.
#
As soon as I woke up I knew I’d been out cold again. One of those dead sleeps that take me from time to time. I couldn’t remember dreaming, just blank, timeless emptiness. Corian was there which made me happy.
I heard a noise outside the bit and I got that shaky feeling in my head. I flapped my hand to Corian and pointed towards the opening. Outside the light had dimmed to the kind of murky twilight that shifts shapes and plays tricks on your eyes. I sensed the change in the sound as someone moved into the half metre wide gap. I held my breath and I could feel Corian’s body tensing beside me.
A low voice, “Eh? I was sure this was where it was. Mebbe need to check from the bridge”. Then the noise of someone stepping back from the gap. Footsteps along the Cowgate.
Corian and I looked at each other. Someone was searching for the bit and they’d been close enough to breathe our air. I was raging. We waited a beat and then slid out past the fake wall and peered round the edge of the building along the Cowgate. A figure was disappearing into the West Bow. We moved out onto the pavement and followed the man as he headed up Victoria Street. I went on up after him, blood rushing in my ears.
The man paused at the top of the street then moved off quickly, turning right along the bridge. Corian and I followed but as soon as we reached the corner I saw he’d stopped at the railing above the Cowgate. He’d taken a yellowish piece of paper out of his pocket and was peering down onto the street below.
“Bastard! He is looking for the bit.” Fury hammered inside my head. I couldn’t let this happen. Without the bit I’d be out in the open, uncovered. I felt sick. He was up on the stone ledge now to get a better view over the railings, his body leaning right over. Peering. Prying.
The bridge tilted, trying to tip me off, like shaking crumbs into a bin. The red door of the Bedlam yawned its big gob at the end of the road and I felt myself sliding towards it. Bobby must have seen me out the corner of his eye but he kept his gaze steady, fixed down Chambers Street. Wee rat! So, he was in on it too.
My head was thumping with the tick of that bloody ahead-of-itself clock. Its dark bulk and white face were coming right at me now, trying to shove me back. I wasn’t having that. Not anymore.
There was a soft whump and the ticking faded. Corian had scarpered so I scuttered on along the bridge trailing my thread. From the way it pulled I knew I’d left a bad knot behind me but there was nothing to be done about that now. I looped back down towards the bit – no greeting for Bobby, treacherous beast. It was properly dark now and Corian was waiting for me, looking at something under the bridge.
The man was sat on a pile of bin bags at the back of the library, his neck at a squinty angle, eyes blank.
Hilary Coyne 