The Way We Heard. Love Was All Around Us and so was PTSD.

You know I love you...

Andy was back up at the fruit machine. Bright lights of a big win on his face. He was half-listening, half-tuned in like The Brain of Scotland. 

You told Laughing Boy about your granda. ‘I was clearing out the house, it was a complete riot.’

The puggy machine starting bleeping and Laughing Boy stood up to give Andy a hand, tell him what to hold and what to let go.

You corrected yourself, only The Brain of Scotland was listening now, but you were used to that. ‘I mean grandma’s house. No mine. Although mine's a fucking mess as well.’

You’d told him about making bundles of stuff. Some of which you were keeping and some which were flung into plastic bags.

The good thing about your gran’s house was she still had an old coal fire. You’d the great idea of burning some of the wooden stuff from furniture, rather than drag it outside.

You found the photos in a locked drawer which was no match for an axe and hammer. Men in robes, like the KKK, but all in black, with only their eyes showing. He’d the same eyes as you. Peering out at you.  The grand do-dah, or whatever you call them was at the front, a gold chain around his neck holding a headless cockerel. And there was all the usual paraphernalia of a gold chalice on an altar with strange hieroglyphics.

There were other photos, one of a naked woman being used as an altar, that gave you a hard-on, but there were others that were just plain sick. I tipped the whole fucking lot into the fire. Glad to be rid of them. Glad to be rid of him. I hoped the old bastard would burn in hell.

The puggy machine rattled and dumped out coin after coin. They’d won the jackpot.

‘That’s fucking great,’ you said.

Andy turned and grinned. ‘I’ll get the round in.’

‘No, it’s my turn,’ said Laughing Boy.

‘Aye, but free money. You cannae beat that. I’ll get them in.’

‘What were you saying, again?’ he squinted at you as if trying to remember.

‘Nothing much,’ you replied.

You didn’t think Laughing Boy had been listening either, but he said, ‘Aye, you were saying about yer granda being an auld cunt.’    

‘Kinda,’ you admitted.

‘He was some kind of Warlock,’ The Brain of Scotland chose to share with us his lifetime wisdom. ‘I’ve heard of them.’

Andy stood waiting to hear what you’d say. ‘Aye, they’re on Scooby Doo, reguarly.’

You took a quick nip of vodka and cleared your throat. ‘Well, anyway, I thought nae mair of it. I jist kept at it. In and out of rooms and the piles of rubbish was getting higher and so was the fire. Which was a good thing. Cause it was getting dark outside and the wind and rain lashed the building.’

‘I’d already dumped the rug from in front of the fireplace outside. The linoleum under it was a lot brighter but it had a tear in it. I peeled it back. Linoleum burns just great and the heat tightened the skin on my face. I was sweating. Then I was sure I heard something.’

‘Shite,’ said Andy and went to the bar. His hand cupped with silver.

‘Heard whit?’ Laughing Boy asked looking up at you with owlish eyes.

‘Something faint. A voice. Thin as a finger of smoke.’

‘And then I noticed one of those pentagram things marked out. My granny’s chair was at the dead centre of it. The chair she always sat on and knitted and did aw those things auld women dae. And I wondered if she knew.’

Andy stepped into the story with clinking glasses. ‘Don’t mine me.’ He was in good humour after his win. But then he did something stupid and pulled out a quid and went and put it in the puggy machine again.

Laughing Boy explained to him that my granny, who we both knew as a wee women that regularly went to Mass on Sunday and took communion, and wouldnae say boo tae a goose, was actually a devil worshipper on weekdays.

But Andy was unimpressed. He’d seen worse in the Oasis every Friday. He was already spinning the reels and had two cherries. ‘Really?’

 ‘Aye,’ you said. ‘I was knackered by that point. And I made the mistake of following asleep in granny’s chair in front of the fire.’

‘Fuck,’ said Laughing Boy.

‘Then I heard it again. A voice that started slowly, faint at first and underneath it, chanting. Something that would drag you straight tae hell. I hud tae get out of their pronto. But I couldnae move until it was finished.’

You took a drink of your lager. ‘Then I was out the door. Never would go back. Never.’

‘That’s shocking.’ Laughing Boy shook his head. ‘Thank fuck I wisnae wae you.’

‘Aye,’ you replied. ‘Cause yer a lazy bastard and I’d have got nothing done for you talking.’

‘True.’

You both watched Andy playing the machine and loosing. And you waited for Laughing Boy to ask.

‘Whit was it you heard?’  He shrugged. ‘I mean, I don’t mind if you don’t tell us. That’s understandable.’

‘Aye it was pretty bad. It’s like that PTSD. I don’t need tae hear the whole lot now. Jist bits of it and that’s me traumatised.’ I cleared my throat. It went something like this and you croaked out. ‘It’s written on the windaes. Everywhere I go…’

‘Yer a fucking bawbag,’ Laughing Boy said.

‘Hum along if you want,’ you replied. ‘PTSD is very popular. Love is aw around.. And so the feeling blows…’  

  The pub door pushed inwards and opened to a vision that shut you both up. Long blonde hair, blue eyed, lithe and thin as if Miss Scotland had walked off the catwalk into a fug of stale fag smoke, damp coats hung over chairs and radiators and sticky corners of spilled beers. 

The hum of conversation dimmed, with a collective intake of breath from people who’d listened to the tranny and watched the telly.  Now the telly was coming to them.

‘Fucksake, Marti Pellow,’ someone muttered from a stool near the bar.  

A thud. A sharper clack as Podge’s dart kissed the wire. And you could hear him clearly complaining. ‘That’s fucking shite. That was definitely a bullseye.’

Andy leaned forward and was waving to the older guy, who was looking about for somewhere to sit. ‘O’er here, John.’

He waved a hand at the corner seat and table beside us.

The Brain of Scotland held his pint up in salute and sung off-key ‘I feel it in my fingers. I feel it in my toes,’ and finished with his mad laugh like a man possessed of PTSD.

John McLachlan was almost as tall as his sons, but a chunkier version with the same thick hair, gone to grey and a face marked by years of outside work. He rubbed at his eyes and slid in beside Andy and shook his hand. Apologetic. ‘Sorry Andy, it’s my birthday. They wanted tae take me out for dinner or something. Somewhere fancy. Bought me a real-wool cardigan that cost an arm and leg. But I jist wanted a few quiet pints.’

‘Plenty of room.’ Andy pointed at Laughing Boy. ‘It’s his birthday tae and his fucking girlfriend’s dumped him. He shrugged, ‘Small world, eh.’  

Andy stood up, all business. ‘I’ll get yous a drink, since it’s yer birthday.  You want yer usual pint of heavy, John?’ He nodded at Laughing Boy. ‘Maybe cheer that cunt up.’ He glanced at John’s son and girlfriend. ‘What ur they drinking?’  

Miss Scotland smelled of vanilla, good enough to eat and almost better than she looked. She was hovering behind The Brain of Scotland’s chair adding a glow and she smiled in his direction, or it might have been in your direction, you’d hoped.

The Brain of Scotland rocked his stool around so he was almost facing her. ‘Sit here, hen, beside me,’ he said, eyeing an empty chair near the radiator with a donkey-jacket drying on it.  

‘No, it’s alright,’ she said over brightly and added a smile. ‘We’re fine.’

Marti Pellow didn’t look fine. His thick, dark hair, ridiculously expensive soft leather jacket and poster-boy looks were as you’d expect. But he was wasted in the kind of way that would have given The Brain of Scotland a head start and still have lost by two heads.

She shuffled around the table to squeeze in beside Marti’s da. Marti fell into the back seat beside her.

John was aware that Andy was waiting.

‘Eileen, what you drinking, hen?’

She licked her pink lips. ‘Half pint of lager, please.’

His large hands rest on the table and he drummed his fingers. And in a gruff voice, asked. ‘Whit you drinking, Mark?’

Marti’s head rolled and his eyes finally found his da’s face staring back at him with a frown on his face.

Her warm hand rested on his arm and she gave it a gentle push. He turned to look at her, slow as a clock. ‘Whit?’ he said. ‘Whit?’

She laced her hand through his. ‘Mark, tell them what you want to drink! Remember, it’s your da’s birthday?’

‘Aye, that’s right.’ His smile almost reached his eyes and he leant across and whispered in her ear.

She shook her head and you heard her saying ‘No,’ sharply.

You’d noticed the dark half-moons under her eyes as she slumped against him.

He shoved her away and wrangled a stack of English fifty-quid notes outside of his denim pocket. One fell to the floor, under the table and he didn’t seem to notice or care. She dipped down and picked it up, held it out in front of his face.

‘Fuck off,’ he said. Pushing her again. ‘I’ll get the rounds in. I’ll get everybody that wants a fucking drink, a drink.’

There was pleading in her eyes.  ‘No babes. The man’s getting us a drink.’

John apologises to Andy. Glanced at his youngest son and shook his head. ‘Jist get him a pint of lager,’ he tells him. ‘That’ll maybe shut him up.’  

‘Nae bother,’ Andy told him. ‘His money is nae good here.’

The Brain of Scotland finished his gin and licked his lips. ‘Aye it is. I’ll take some of it.’

Marti Pellow looked at him and gave a kinda half laugh and film-star grin. He held out a handful of fifties and The Brain of Scotland tucked them into his Parker pocket and smiled back.

‘Cheers, he said, babbling with laughter. ‘Yer song’s pure shite, you know, by the way.’

John was first to laugh and we joined in. Andy went to the bar shaking his head.

‘No it’s not,’ she said, with a soft laugh and wagging a finger at him. ‘It’s really good. It’s number 1.’

The Brain of Scotland seemed delighted she was talking to him. ‘It is really good,’ he said, conceding the point to her pretty face. ‘But only if yer in Gartnavel or maybe England.’   

Dum-dum, dum-dum, dum-dum. The opening bars and honeyed tones were as familiar to us overly warm lager. The familiar baseline.

Marti froze as the song washed around the pub. He sunk against the backrest and closed his eyes. And then there were two Marti Pellows both pitch perfect as he joined in. One up at the speakers and one sitting next to us.

The Brain of Scotland leaned across and prodded him. He’d lost the written-on-the- wind note and seemed slightly confused. ‘Nae singing in the bar, mate. A pub rule.’ He turned towards Bernie who was standing watching them and waiting for confirmation.