Ooops! Sorry.

(I know I said the next PB piece would be the first of the Thursday pieces and the previous post was the last of Wednesday... but then Mad Martin had something to reveal... so this one is now the last of Wednesday... honest!)

THE SWEET NOTHINGS OF MAD MARTIN

Athol Stuart helped Mad Martin down from the pedestal of the Three Stone Fishermen. He had been standing there with one hand shading his eyes and his gaze fixed on the horizon even though the sun was gone. Mad Martin still as stone almost. Looking for Col.

‘Have you seen him?’ he said taking Athol Stuart’s offered hand and climbing back down.

‘I haven’t seen him, Martin. I haven’t seen him today.’

Mad Martin looked into the eyes of Athol Stuart. Stared through him as if he could see the truth or the lie in what had been said.

‘No not today,’ Mad Martin said. ‘Maybe tomorrow.’

‘Maybe,’ said Athol Stuart and he took Martin by the arm and lead him back along the length of the front. Lead him as you would lead a child, and like a child Martin chattered, sending words into the air as though setting things free.

‘No Kerry on The Silver Herring today either. And no story from Finn. I didn’t hear one, anyway. Maybe I missed the story. That’s what I think. About whales as big as buses or trucks. Big enough to swallow men whole and Finn riding the back of one that is called Mordan. And no more biscuits in my pockets; the dogs ate them all. Took them without chewing. One bite and gone. Afterwards licking my hand like they had forgotten to taste what they’d eaten and were looking for the taste on my fingers.’

Athol Stuart was only half listening tonight. As they walked towards the green he could hear music playing and some of the lights were flashing in fairground colours of red and yellow and blue.

‘And Dodie Bredwell did not cycle his bike this afternoon. He pushed it. Slower than slow. And Alley-cat walked by his side. No laughing from Dodie Bredwell and no flapping of his red scarf for she was wearing it and wearing his laughing too. And a picture gone from the window of Mhairi’s shop. I liked that picture. It was of the beach and I was on the beach with my arms in the air and seagulls falling from the sky. Now I am gone and there is a space in the window. Mhairi says she will paint me again one day.’

Athol Stuart saw Grace in a yellow dress and white shoes. He watched her lock the station door, all the lights out inside. Then she ran – half running at least – into the dark at the edge of the green.

‘No lights on in The Bobbing Boat café but I saw Guthrie holding hands with a woman who has no name. And Lachlan Davie needs no key to open the door of Christine’s flat; she’s shown him where she keeps it – under the geranium pot. No sound he makes when he closes the door behind him.’

Athol Stuart lets Martin into his house and follows him in.

Nothing then but the muffled sound of Mad Martin’s voice on the other side of the door, and the small music playing at the fair, and somewhere a boy whispering Grace’s name over and over in the dark.