The Way We Heard. Love was All Around Us again.

It was obvious Laughing Boy was dying to ask Andy. He lit a fag first and took a few drags. Did you see her there?’

Andy pressed his lips together. Kept him waiting. ‘No,’ he muttered. Took a swill of lager and then admitted. ‘Aye, I might huv. The DJ always has lots of birds flinging themselves at him. But  I don’t notice every fat porker.’

He downed his gin in a oner. ‘Think yersel lucky.’

Laughing Boy stared hard at him, which was the wrong thing to do. ‘Lucky? I mean, we’d been together since Secondary school.’

‘She wanked you aff in Primary Seven,’ you reminded him. ‘Well, she wanked me aff tae. But I wasnae her boyfriend. I was jist passing and my zip fell down. It was a bit like skiing without taking the piste. But maybe,  I remembered it wrong. Maybe you remember differently. I  mean, I didnae get tae kiss her or feel her tits.’

Andy chuckled. ‘Aye, yer well shot of ‘er.  Yer lucky. You could have been like that wee lassie that was found pan bread in the toilets.’

‘Deid?’ you said, inadvertently.   

‘Aye, fucking terrible. Only sixteen.’

‘Fuck,’ Laughing Boy said into his drink and rubbed his head. Took his specs off and rubbed the lenses with his special cloth in slow circles.

‘Sorry,’ you mouthed. ‘I mean, did you see ‘er?’

 Andy squinted at you. Eventually, he said, ‘What dae you think I’d be daeing in the women’s lavvy?’

‘Sorry.’

‘The lassies behind the bar, widnae go into the toilets themselves. They had to go in twos. The cleaner jist fucked off and quit. I think they said they’d seen something or felt something.’

‘Ghosts?’

His mouth opened and shut. ‘No sure.’

You turn to the Brain of Scotland. ‘You ever seen or heard anything?’

‘Nah,’ he said. ‘I ne’er seen anything.’

Laughing Boy wasn't laughing. ‘What dae they keep taking you into Garnavel for, then?’

You rub the Brain of Scotland’s shoulder. ‘Cause, jist like the rest of them. He likes it in there. For some people that’s aw they’ve got.’

‘Right,’ Andy laughed, nervously. ‘I might have seen something. But maybe no. Well, anyway, it wasnae anything much. Thursday night, usual shite. I was on the door, getting a bit of air. Nothing much happening. A group of young lads swaggered past the café and crossed o’er the other side of the road. Heading towards the library. Nane of them looked like readers. They doubled-back across the road and came out at the burger van. I knew they were up tae something.’

He took a deep breath and held it as if he could smell their blend of Old Spice and hair gel.

They came up tae the door in dribs and drabs. I waited until most of them were beneath the canopy. I counted five baw bags. The ringleader steps forward. He’s no carrying anything and I don’t give him a chance to speak. “No,” I tell him.

I looked o’er his shoulders. “No,” I tell them.

‘That’s when I saw her out of the corner of my eyes. A bright light. She’s walking past the café.’

He shook his head to shake the wrong word out. Closed his eyes and opened them again. ‘She floated past he café. She was fucking beautiful. And she’d wings, jist like an angel. And I turned my head to see if any of the o’er bouncers were at the doors and seeing what I was seeing. And that’s when the stupid bastard flung a punch.’

Laughing Boy butts in before you could. ‘What happens next?’

‘Happned?’ Andy sneered. ‘I knocked his cunt in. The o’er bouncers had to pull me aff him.’

You sighed. ‘I’ll get another round in. I think he meant what happened tae the wee lassie wae wings?’

Andy runs his fingers through his hair. ‘Dunno,’ he admitted, not meeting our gaze.

The Brain of Scotland chimed in. ‘Maybe she flew away.’  

He laughed his mad laugh. And we laughed with him.

‘Maybe she did,’ Andy admitted.

‘Love was all around us’ came on the jukebox again.

Andy said, ‘Somebody’s taking the cunt’ in a low tone that showed he wasn't taking the piss-taking well.

Laughing Boy shuffled his seat around and we turned, almost in unison, like a group of men that had been waiting for the stripper to cut the crap and peel off her knickers. But there were no culprits. Nobody near the jukebox. Not even the old farts.

But Love was all around us.

 An older guy came in bringing with his the faint tang of wool coats and scarves. He shook the rain from his jacket.

‘Wet, wet, wet, out there?’ you asked.

He looked about him, the half empty glasses on the counter and the empty glasses on your table. ‘Aye, suppose so,’ he said and skulked away from the chorus of laughter that had erupted.

Andy got up to stick another quid in the fruit machine. The darts players finished their game and left the darts in the cork rim of the board.

‘Nae singing,’ said Bernie from behind the bar as The Brain of Scotland joined in with the Wet’s chorus. ‘I’ll always love you. And I always will.’

‘Same again?’ Bernie asked you, but he was already pouring it and you’d a glass of gin in one hand and pint of lager in the other. 

  You checked everybody had a drink. ‘I meant tae say tae you, funnily enough, Kojak got my granny’s house on Lilac Avenue.’

Andy lost his quid and slid into the seat facing us, grumpy. ‘Who the fuck is Kojak?’

‘A baldy guy that sucks on a lolly,’ The Brain of Scotland informed us.

We stared into our pints, belly laughing, trying not to show our faces.

You corrected him. ‘Nah, the other wan fae the top of the hill. He’s no baldy. He’s got a great head of hair. Mark McLachlan. Marti Pellow’s older brother. And he’d a mate, he used to hang about wae him. We used to call him Stavros. But he didnae look like a Stavros either. Jist wannae these things.’

‘I mind them at the Guild disco,’ Laughing Boy was quick to say. ‘Trying tae get aff with my Amy. Total cunt.’

You drank your lager too quickly and it bubbled up your nose. ‘Aye, I mind him coming tae watch us playing fitba up the Nouse. He must have had mates in the other team. Big jacket and a bottle of Eldorado beside the touchline. He drank it a oner. That was his party trick. We had to step o’er him tae take a shy.

‘That’s right,’ said Laughing Boy. ‘I mind that. You battered him, didn’t you?’

‘No really,’ you said, but Andy leaned across and looked at you with renewed interest. ‘It was up Dalmuir Park, mind?  There was a few of us. Two cases of lager and two bottles of Eldorado.’

‘Aye, that’s right.’ Laughing Boy interrupted you with a laugh. ‘Daft Dave was there.’

‘Anyway, Kojak and Stavros were sitting on another bench nearer the bandstand. We were a bit younger than them. So they wandered up and Kojak lifted a can.’

‘Aye, and you battered him, didn’t you? Laughing boy, said again.

You shook your head. ‘Nah, no really. He was bigger than me, but I wrestled him tae the ground. Didnae really hurt him. And he said tae me. “If you don’t let me up, I’ll stab you tae fuck.’

‘So I let him up.’

Andy held his gin up to his puckered lips and shook his head at your naivety.

‘But after that he never bothered us again, they gave us a wide berth.’

Love was all around us.     

 ‘How come he got your gran’s house?’ Andy was put out by that. ‘I mean. They’re good council houses in Lilac. How come his brother jist doesnae buy him wan?’

You shrugged. ‘Dunno, but he’s got about ten wains wae that lassie that used tae work in The Villa bakery. And he’s in a bad way.’

Laughing Boy wanted to know. ‘Bad way, how?’

You didn’t have answer. ‘Something tae dae with his legs.’

‘His legs fuck all,’ said Andy. ‘He’s fucking blind drunk aw the time.’

‘Doesnae matter,’ you said. ‘The house is haunted.’

Laughing Boy was going to stand up, but fell back into his seat and lit up a fag. He passed one to The Brain of Scotland, without him ponsing for it. ‘Haunted?’ he said, lighting up. ‘How dae you know that?’

Love was all around us.

‘Well I never knew that when I was younger. I never knew I’d a grandda.  I mean, he died when I was wee. Nobody ever mentioned him. My granny was the sweetest old woman you could ever meet. And she’d millions of photos and enough knick-knacks to populate the Australian outback. In fact, that’s how baby roos learned how to jump. They’d come out of their mum’s pouch and have to jump o’er my gran’s knickknacks and Amy’s oversized lost knickers. That’s why adult kangaroos have that baffled expression on their faces.’

‘For fuck sake, shut up,’ said Andy spluttering into his pint. ‘Yer beginning tae sound like the Brain of Scotland.

You took a quick drink of lager. ‘Well, here’s the thing. She’d millions of photos of stuff. But nane of granda. I ne’er thought anything of that at the time.’

Love was all around us.