Idea in Stone (37 page)

 
The play
, thought Stefan. The company was still performing it, and it seemed to be doing well.
Royalties!
he thought. Charlene did everything by the union rulebooks, so a percentage of the money taken at the door would be paid to the play’s author. But since his father wasn’t alive, it would go to…

Delonia.

Twenty-One

Myosotis

Stefan walked into the living room and dumped an armload of old newspapers on the floor. He tore out some pages and wrapped dishes, placing them one by one into a box. “I still want to go,” he said to Fiona.

“Ste,” said Fiona, stuffing a small lamp into another cardboard box, “if you visit Peter, they’re going to question you. As long as you stay away, you’re not implicated in any of this.”

“But I am,” he said, “and if I just went in and told them about Rab, they’d probably let him go.”

“You know Peter doesn’t want us to do that.”

“I know,” sighed Stefan.

Fiona stacked the box on top of several others in a corner of the room. “Help me roll up this rug,” she said.

“I have to see him, Fi. I have to make an appointment. Where’s the number?”

“You’ll see him well enough if you end up in there with him. Is that what you want?”

She saw that he was serious. Nothing would make him happy except seeing Peter. She’d sensed the same thing in Peter when she visited him: both of them were somehow
more
when they were together. But she knew Peter would never ask for Stefan to visit if it would get him in trouble.

“Alright,” she said, leaving the room. She called from the kitchen as she rummaged through her purse. “You can bring him some of his clothes while you’re at it.” She came back, handing him a torn slip with numbers on it.

He kissed her on the cheek. “Thanks, sis.”

She rolled her eyes to the ceiling.

Stefan looked around. “Where’s the phone?”

“It’s disconnected. You’ll have to use one on the street.”

“Right. Be back in a few,” he said. He ran out the door and down the tenement stairs. He was cold without a jacket, though many of the others on the street were dressed lightly and didn’t seem to mind. He wondered at that difference as he searched for a pay-phone: back in Canada he spent half the year bundled up against the cold. Somehow the Scottish were immune or didn’t care.

He was sure there was a phone booth around the corner from the flat, a big red metal one with little panes of glass. It was gone. He walked for another ten minutes until he found another one, a large plastic box stencilled with the logo of the telephone company he used to work for.

He spoke to a surprisingly friendly woman at the prison who offered to book him an appointment for the next day. Stefan agreed. He hesitated when she asked his name; he considered giving a false one, but realised that they’d want to see identification when he showed up. Since this was an official arrangement, he gave his full name. “Stefan Jackrabbit Mackechnie,” he said.

“Oh,” said the woman, “alright. Half-two tomorrow.”

The electronic pips sounded, signalling that he was about to run out of time. He thanked the woman and hung up.
Phones are handy,
he thought. He wondered how he’d managed before.
Before, though, I could hear Peter.
If only I could do that now.

He imagined Peter in jail as he walked back to the tenement. Above the outside door was an estate agent’s sign with a “Sold” sticker across it, and their flat number underneath. Stefan went through the door and climbed up the concrete steps, running his hand along the Forties-era tiles on the walls.

“Got an appointment?” Fiona asked as he closed the door.

He nodded. “Tomorrow afternoon.”

“Did you talk to him?”

His face dropped. “I didn’t know I could.”

She stroked his arm. “It’s okay, you’ll see him tomorrow. That’ll be better. Why don’t you go pick out some clothes to bring him?”

He nodded and went to his and Peter’s room. He dug through the drawers, feeling funny about handling Peter’s underwear. He took two pairs of trousers, two jumpers, and a pile of T-shirts. He folded it all into a pile and carried it out to the living room. Holding them out, not sure what to do, he looked at Fiona. “I miss him,” he said.

“I miss him, too,” she said. She hugged him, pinning the clothes between them as if they were Peter.

He cried hard, his stomach spasming as he tried to catch his breath. He leaned his cheek on the top of her head. “Things are bad,” he whispered into her hair.

“What’s happenin’ here?” asked Roddy, standing in the doorway with the baby in his arms. Fiona walked over to him, took the baby, and went to her bedroom. Stefan took the clothes to his room and shut the door. Roddy stood in the living room, confused.

~

Stefan waited in the drizzle for a bus to arrive. A woman stood between him and the timetable; he peered over her shoulder at the tiny black numbers on the yellow sheet in the frame. The times were listed in 24-hour format, which always confused him.

He desperately needed to pee, but wasn’t sure if he had time to use the public toilet. After waiting another minute, he decided to chance it. He ran up the steps and into the tiny square concrete building. These ‘cottages’ were strange to him—a considerate convenience, but something he’d never seen in Canada. Even here they seemed to be regarded as old-fashioned, and were shrouded in lurid stories about the goings-on that happened inside. As he unzipped his fly and walked up to a room-wide metal trough, Stefan looked around, partly shy, partly curious. Satisfied there was no one else in the building, he closed his eyes.

He opened them to find himself outdoors. The cottage was gone. He stood with his thumbs holding open his zipper and peed into empty space as the last of the passengers got on the bus, looking back at him, along with all the others who watched from the two tiers of windows. Today, he didn’t care. He smiled at them and finished his business, shook, then tucked himself away and zipped up. He was going to see Peter, and nothing else mattered. Unfolding the timetable from his pocket, he figured out another route to Her Majesty’s Prison, Saughton. He headed down the street in the direction of the bus stop for his new route. He’d had the whole morning to prepare, he chided himself, yet here he was, running late. He hitched the small backpack full of clothes higher on his back and jogged.

A shop caught his eye and he stopped. Its whitewashed front was trimmed with shiny black paint, and its large windows, hand-painted with gold lettering, were filled with thousands of candies and chocolates. He realised they were all hand-made, something he’d never seen before.
That would be nice,
he thought,
to bring Peter some candy.

He opened the door, startled when it rang a bell. He stepped inside and looked around. The tiny shop was filled with glass counters, each of them displaying endless variations on a sugar theme. There were drops of orange, green, yellow, and red, fudges in white, pink, beige, and brown, and endless rows of chocolate rosettes, circles, squares, and ovals. He leaned across a counter to look at a price list, then heard a smacking noise and gasped, realising he wasn’t alone.

Two women sat in the corner of the room with boxes on their laps, their bodies thin and shrivelled as if they once held much larger people who’d deflated as they aged. Their hair looked like ashtray-flavoured candy floss. They took turns putting chocolates into their mouths, one after the other. As their lips parted, Stefan saw that one of them had three remaining teeth, black and spaced far apart, and the other had two.

Stefan smiled at them. “Hello,” he said.

“What d’yeh want?” asked the three-toothed crone.

“Uh, I’m visiting a friend. I wanted to buy them a gift.”

Their eyes opened wider. “D’yeh want t’bring a spaycial gift?” asked Two-Teeth, standing up slowly, interested.

“Eff she’s en the hohspital, we kin give yeh sumthen t’make ’er baytter—eff yuu tell us wot she’s got,” said Three-Teeth, joining her.

“Mibbe yeh want sumthen t’make yersel irresistible. Ivryone aroond will notice yeh, want t’get to know yeh, ask yeh quaystions aboot yersel—mibbe luvv yeh even.”

Stefan laughed. “I don’t want that—not where I’m going!” He thought for a moment. “Wait a second. How about the opposite? Do you have anything that would make people ignore me, forget about me?”

The women smiled and their eyes crinkled shut. They scuttled out to the back room through a small wooden door. They returned a minute later with an aluminium pan held between them full of small chocolate knots.

“How much are they?” asked Stefan.

“Two quid each!” snapped Three-Teeth.

Stefan searched through his pocket. He needed bus-fare to get to the prison on time, but he could walk back, and not eat until he got home. “I can only afford one,” he said to the women.

Their faces crinkled as if they’d sucked a bad candy. Finally, Two-Teeth said, “Fine.” She deftly tore a piece of red tissue from behind the counter, plucked a chocolate from the tray, and, producing a piece of blue ribbon from somewhere, whirled everything into a small paper packet. She held it out to him and he took it carefully from her pointy-tipped fingers.

Stefan put his money on the counter, thanked them, and exited the shop, startled again by the bell on the way out.

~

The meeting room wasn’t what Stefan had imagined. He’d pictured a concrete room divided by a long glass wall with telephone receivers on either side. Instead, he found himself in a room with skylights and wooden accents. He might have considered it a cheery cafeteria if he hadn’t been body-searched on the way in. He left the backpack full of clothes with someone official, and had to unwrap the candy for inspection, as well as show his passport as identification.

The official noticed something written beside Stefan’s name on his list. “Someone will be here to ask you a few questions when you’ve finished meeting with Mister Hailes.”

“Okay,” said Stefan. They led him to a table where he waited.

Peter emerged from a door, wearing a plain, loose outfit Stefan figured was a uniform, and carried a crinkled supermarket carry-bag filled with something. He smiled when he saw Stefan and rushed over. Stefan was happy to see there were no leg-irons and that there were no signs of any kind of beating.

They hugged, then sat down at the table. For the next minute, they could do little more than grin and laugh at each other.

“I brought you some clothes,” said Stefan. “I left them with the inspection people. They said they’d get them to you.”

“Thanks, Ste.”

“Don’t you have to wear this uniform thing, though?”

“No, it’s just ‘cause they sent my clothes and shoes off for inspection. They had paint on them. So did my hands. At first I was only supposed to be committed for a few days, but when they matched that up to the paint on the sign, and—well, add that to my running away then surrendering, and there’s a pretty solid case against me.”

“It’s still not over, Peter. Fiona’s got a lawyer lined up. How long is it until you get a trial?”

“Could be a few months. Maybe up to a year.”

“Peter, if you just tell them about—”

Peter grabbed Stefan’s hand and looked over his shoulder. “But I’m not going to. I’m not what’s important here. You’ve seen what’s happening. You’ve got to stop it somehow. Maybe you should talk to
our friend
and see if he can help.”

Stefan mouthed Rab’s name.

Peter nodded. He laughed and leaned back in his seat, still holding Stefan’s hand. “I can’t believe you came here, you daft bastard.” Stefan looked at their clasped hands. “Och, stop worrying. Nobody cares. It’s a prison, for Chrissakes.”

“So nobody—?” Stefan nodded his head from side to side. “You know, showers and stuff?”

“Ste, I’m not technically in prison yet, I’m on remand. It’s pretty crowded in here, so they’ve got me stuck in a dank old wee cell.”

“So it’s not all like this?” he tilted his head at the skylights above.

Peter laughed. “No. This is just nice PR. Or maybe it’s for the sake of people’s families. Ach, it’s not so bad.”

“Peter, come on. We’re going to get you out of here somehow.”

“So who’s going to pay for this fancy lawyer?”

“It’s a friend of your brother’s, and I’m going to pay him.”

“With what?”

“With money from my show.”

“I thought that was gone.”

“The Edinburgh money is gone, but it’s been selling out all over the place. Last night I heard about a riot in Chicago, so that means there’s more than one theatre company doing it now. There’ll be residuals coming in from that, so I just have to call my mother.”

“You’re going to call your mum? That’s quite a change of heart.”

Stefan smiled. “That’s exactly what it is, Peter. I think I have you to thank for that.”

“Ach, you didn’t need me. You could have got over your thing with her anytime.”

“I don’t think so. I mean, I actually
want
to call her now. With everything that’s been going on, you being in here and all, I kinda feel like I need her. She’s the strongest person I know.”