The Fanatic Read online

  On Middle Meadow Walk he observed to his left the backs of some of the few original buildings of George Square, including one once lived in by a young Walter Scott. The university had destroyed most of three sides of the square in the sixties and seventies and replaced the Georgian houses with concrete-slabbed office-blocks. Later, when he was a student, it was widely circulated that these buildings were themselves threatened with demolition owing to a fault in the concrete. ‘A result of material weakness in a false construction placed on the original premises,’ Carlin had once said to himself. And now that laboured witticism looped round in his head again: he couldn’t erase it. He would never get free of those wee lumps and craters of time.

  Crossing the Meadows now was like watching a film of himself crossing the Meadows. He was nearly forty years old. It was twenty years since he’d first walked there. The light wind blew pink cherry blossom from the trees lining the path, as though a corridor of wedding guests were throwing confetti at him. He laughed out loud at the thought. He was aware of himself, saw the steps he took between the trees, shoes scuffing at the bits of browned blossom that had been crushed on the tarmac. He saw himself pass through the whale bones that arched at the end of the path and gave it its name. Jawbone Walk. He minded the time somebody had spray-painted the L on the sign into an N.

  Sometimes he crossed the road anywhere, angling a gap in the traffic. Sometimes, like now, he deferred to the walking-man at the lights. He was alone. He pressed the button and waited for the lights to turn through amber to red and to hear the bleeping of the signal and to watch himself cross.

  Edinburgh, September 1656

  James Mitchel, recently graduated from the Toun’s College, stood on the High Street of Edinburgh and contemplated the skull mounted high up on the north face of the Tolbooth. Years of wind, rain and the attentions of gulls had removed the flesh and hair from it, and the stripped bone looked now more like a part of the stonework, a defective gargoyle, than something human.

  The street was narrow at the point where he stood, between the jutting Tolbooth and the tall lands behind him. It was evening, and chilly, and the light was almost gone. Not many folk were about, but those that did hurry past had to step around him, giving him dark looks. Whit’s the daft laddie daein goavin up at the jail there? Dis he ken some puir body locked up inside? Or is he – aye, he’s lookin at the skull.—Weill, that isna worth a spit. Nae need tae look up there eftir sax year.—Awbody kens whae that was, though he isna sae bonnie noo as yince he was.—Daft loon. Get oot o folk’s road, would ye.

  A shadow fell across Mitchel’s gaze. A hand lighted like a trained bird on his shoulder. His nose twitched at the familiar smell of cheap, stale tobacco.

  The tall man beside him said, ‘That is the empty head of a vain and prideful villain.’

  Mitchel turned. ‘I ken,’ he said. Then he added, ‘But he yince held Scotland in his hand.’

  ‘For a few months only,’ the tall man said. ‘A moment – less than a moment – in God’s scale of time.’

  Major Weir was no stranger to Mitchel: they were neighbours in their Cowgate lodgings, and Weir had often spoken to him, coolly but not unkindly, in his deliberate, Englished tones. Still, Mitchel found it hard not to be in awe of the older man, who was recognised and deferred to everywhere he went, either as a preacher or as an officer of the City Guard.

  Although he ought not to have been surprised at Weir’s appearance, since the Major’s duties took him all over the town, day and night, sometimes he wondered at the frequency with which they met away from Mistress Whitford’s house. It was ridiculous to imagine that Weir followed him; and yet Weir’s eye always seemed to be taking note of his appearance or behaviour. There was something both flattering and unnerving in this assessment.

  ‘Why do you look upon that head?’ Weir asked. ‘Not with regret, nor in adulation, I can see that. What does the dead mouth of James Graham tell you?’

  ‘Naethin,’ Mitchel said. ‘It is silent. I never saw him in life, but when I was a bairn he had Scotland chitterin on its knees, and folk fleggin ye wi tales o his army. But when I look noo I’m no feart. And he disna say ocht.’

  Weir tapped the ground with his staff. ‘Or ye dinna hear ocht,’ he said. He shifted his hand from Mitchel’s shoulder to his elbow, turned him with the slightest pressure.

  ‘Walk with me, James,’ he said, once more in his clipped, careful voice. ‘I was at the Netherbow Port, inspecting the guard, and now I am on my way to a prayer-meeting. I would be obliged if ye’d convoy me to the Grassmarket.’

  They began to walk up the street, past the hulk of St Giles, Weir’s left hand cleiking Mitchel’s arm, while his right leaned heavily on the staff. His grip was tight, but he seemed to be labouring on the hill, like a man well beyond his mid-fifties. When he stumbled, Mitchel asked hesitantly if he felt unwell.

  ‘I am fine, I am fine,’ he said. ‘Just weary. It’s a hard path that we have trod since Graham was dealt with. Scotland was delivered out of his hands, it seems, only to be given over to Cromwell and his vile English army. And now they say when Cromwell and the English go, we’ll hae a Stewart back again. All this suffering, all this long dark nicht, and for what? You say you heard nothing, but when I look up at Graham’s head, I sometimes fancy I hear him laughing at us.’

  He stopped as they reached the top of the West Bow, and they stood looking down the long street, across which a few well-wrapped figures were flitting. Weir coughed and spat on the ground.

  ‘I had him in my charge the night before he was executed, did ye know that? In that very prison which his head now adorns. He laughed at us then, the savage. Combing his locks and preening himself, and brushing out his finery as if God would care a docken what he looked like when He cast him into the furnace. And he spurned the services of the ministers sent to attend him by the General Assembly – good men, strong in the Covenant that he himself had signed and then betrayed, Davie Dickson and James Durham and James Guthrie and Robert Traill. He said he, the Marquis of Montrose, would make his own peace with God. Doubtless he’d have corrected God if God didna address him by that false title. He was a proud and foolish man, James. There was a huge scaffold biggit for him, thirty feet high, and the street was tight with folk come to see him die. But when I took him out there in the forenoon, he still would not show remorse for his crimes. He climbed that thirty feet as if he were going to his bed.’

  He broke off and drew himself up to his full height, and rapped the staff hard on the stones. ‘But we are stronger,’ he said sharply. ‘We are stronger because we have God with us. The godly will prevail.’

  ‘I believe that,’ said Mitchel, as they started to walk again. ‘It is oor destiny. Principal Leighton at the college, afore oor laureation, tendered tae us the Covenant, and I subscribed tae it. Ye canna tak some and no the haill o that document. It is signing away your life tae Christ.’

  ‘The life of the haill nation, James, but you see how many who have signed it have fallen away from its principles. Beware of Robert Leighton even. His tongue speaks the right words, but he is ower tolerant. The land is full of holy wobblers like him, and they are a great danger. At least a man like Montrose, you could mark him for an enemy.’

  At the foot of the Bow, where their ways parted, Weir stopped again, but did not release his grip.

  ‘Will you not come to the meeting, Maister Mitchel? You a graduate and a man of the right party. Why do we not see you at our meetings? Do you not like my company, or the sound of my voice?’

  ‘Na, na, I hae often heard ye preach,’ said Mitchel. ‘And admired ye, tae.’

  ‘You should hear me pray,’ said Weir. ‘A sermon is a text with a wind at its back. But prayer, prayer is wind and fire together. Why do you not come?’

  Mitchel shook his head, and looked away to the bottom of the Grassmarket, behind which the last of the light was now a deepening red in the sky. ‘I am uncertain,’ he said, then added in an embarrassed mumble, ‘if I
hae grace.’

  He felt Weir shift his position, heard him sigh heavily.

  ‘You are very young, James. Ye needna be ashamed. You have grace. Look at me when I tell ye this. You have grace. You are of the elect. I can feel it.’

  ‘I must be sure, though,’ Mitchel said. He looked at the blaze in the older man’s eyes, and longed for such conviction.

  ‘There’s no harm in prayer, even if you are in a state of doubt,’ Weir told him. ‘Prayer can lead to assurance. You should come.’

  But Mitchel stepped back. ‘I am indebted tae ye, sir. And I will come. But no this nicht. This nicht I must pray alane.’

  Weir nodded. ‘Very well. But this will not last. The Lord will find you work, James, and you will receive assurance. Believe me, it will happen.’

  Edinburgh, April 1997

  Jackie Halkit left a message on Hugh Hardie’s answer-machine: ‘Thought I might go on your tour tonight. Maybe see you there?’ He didn’t return the call, but she decided to go anyway. It didn’t matter about paying three or four pounds or whatever the fee was. She was more interested in seeing Carlin playing the ghost. Since the meeting at Dawson’s it was as if he had set up camp in her mind.

  It was still early spring, and cold at night. Only seven other people turned up: three Japanese visitors – two men and a woman – and a slightly drunk office party – three women and a man. The man kept going ‘Whooooh!’ and running his fingers over his companions’ necks. It was amazing to Jackie that they seemed to get almost as much of a kick out of this as he did. When the guide started to talk the man settled down, and tried instead to impress the women with the seriousness with which he paid attention. ‘That’s very interesting. God, I never knew that, did you know that?’ he would say periodically, and chuckle knowingly at the guide’s jokes. The Japanese said nothing, but smiled politely when the others laughed.

  Jackie had to admit, the tour was quite well done. The script was informative and not too patronising, though it spared little in the way of gore and the macabre. The guide was dressed in black, and introduced himself, removing a hood with rough-cut eyeholes, as a former public executioner who had made it his life’s work to gather all the sins of the city together. He started with a dramatic gob on the heart-shaped setts in Parliament Square which marked the site of the entrance to the old Tolbooth: it was an act, he explained, originally performed by prisoners when they were released from the jail, but since these unfortunates were all long dead he felt an obligation, as the man who had despatched so many of their fellows on the scaffold, to uphold the tradition on their behalf. ‘Oh,’ said the office party man, ‘I thought you were a Hibs fan.’ The guide shook his head. ‘I make it a rule never to discuss football, there’s been too much blood in these streets already,’ he said. The office man was delighted to get such a lad-conscious response. The guide led his party up the High Street to the Lawnmarket, telling stories all the way, then, via the surviving upper section of the West Bow, down some steps onto Victoria Street, towards the site of his former work in the Grassmarket, thus retracing the old route of those condemned to die.

  At the top of Anderson’s Close he paused, raising his arm ominously.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I must warn you before we enter the next stage of our journey, that you are about to learn of one of the wickedest and foulest personages who ever stalked the streets of Auld Reikie. And I must warn you too, that some say he still roams the wynds and closes hereabouts. I refer to the so-called Wizard of the West Bow, the notorious Major Thomas Weir.’

  He brought the party down into the narrow close, and invited them to gather in around him. There wasn’t much room. The man from the office party took the opportunity to put his arms around the shoulders of two of his colleagues. Jackie moved away from them down the slope, just behind the guide.

  ‘In the late 1600s,’ the guide said, ‘this part of Edinburgh was packed with dwellings. Some of the buildings here were the skyscrapers of their day, rising ten, eleven or even more storeys. Sanitation was at a minimum and disease was rife. Beware! If you hear the cry Gardy-loo!, it means somebody is about to throw the contents of a chamberpot or bucket out of a window. Mind where you step – this close was once called the Stinking Close and it still has a certain je ne sais quoi about it. None of you are afraid of rats, I hope? You won’t be too upset if we disturb any as we continue on our way?’

  There was a scuffling sound at the foot of the wall next to Jackie, and something shot across the close and hit her shoe. She let out a short scream and jumped. The thing skeltered on and collided with the unattached office-girl, who also screamed and threw herself into her friends. The Japanese visitors yelped and grabbed at one another. The rat careered off the wall, flipped over and then disappeared on its back round the corner.

  The guide gave them only a few seconds to recover. Everybody was suddenly laughing and gasping with relief as he ushered them on round the dog-leg. ‘Was it us?’ he was saying breathlessly. ‘Was it us or something else that disturbed it?’ Jackie found herself being pushed forward. Ahead of her she saw him, Major Weir, filling the close like a wind, moving silently and smoothly away. At the Cowgatehead end he turned, and for a moment was illuminated from behind, white-faced, with a long staff swaying beside him. Then he was gone.

  The office man was speechless. Everybody else was gibbering away in their own language. The guide let them get the excitement out of their systems before filling them in on whose ghost it was they had just seen.

  It was very effective, Jackie conceded that. She only half-took in what the guide was saying, but realised that, in terms of the tour experience, his words were not too important anyway. They were history babble. The effect was everything. And Carlin had played his part well. He had looked threatening, ghostly, ancient, yes, all these things. But something else … she couldn’t figure it.

  ‘If you go down Leith Walk,’ the guide concluded, ‘very nice down at the waterfront these days – nice wine-bars, bistros et cetera – well, if you go down Leith Walk you pass the spot where Major Weir was burnt to death. It’s no longer there, of course, but it was just beside where the Lothian Transport bus depot now is. So we can conclude that the place of public execution has become the place of public transportation.’

  The office man laughed. ‘Well, there you go,’ he said. ‘I never knew that.’

  The group made its way along the Cowgate. Jackie kept looking for the cloaked figure. She knew from Hugh Hardie that Carlin was supposed to appear again. A few people, in twos and threes, were strolling in each direction. None of them was like a ghost.

  ‘Would ye say I was depressed?’

  ‘Dae ye want ma opinion?’

  ‘Aye. Ye were that guid on weirdness. Would ye say I’m showin any o the symptoms o depression?’

  ‘Don’t get fuckin smart wi me, son. How would I ken? You’re the one that was gaun tae be a doctor.’

  ‘No that kinna doctor. Look, I’m no lookin for a cure. I jist would like yer views on the subject.’

  ‘Tell us yer symptoms then.’

  ‘It’s like there’s a fire in the small o ma back. I start sweatin aw ower ma body. I canna work up enthusiasm for onythin. I’ve got a shitey wee job and I canna even finish the shift. I feel physically run doon aw the time. Seik. Knackert.’

  ‘There’s a lot of flu aboot.’

  ‘And I keep gaun intae dwams. Real stuff disna feel real and the dwammy stuff does. Does that sound like the behaviour of an emotionally balanced person?’

  ‘Na, but we ken ye’re no that. We ken ye’re a fucked up, awol, fairychummin moonlowper. In yer ain terms yer behaviour is entirely normal. Dodgy terms of coorse, but we’ll jouk an let that jaw gang by. Mebbe there’s nuthin much wrang wi ye. Ye jist canna face the tedium o everyday life. Ye’re bored by it because everythin seems pointless and cruel. So yer mind switches aff and yer body follows. How am I daein?’

  ‘No bad. But it’s no so much like ma mind switches aff, mair like
it switches on. It’s like the past isna past, it’s right there happenin in front o me. Tae me.’

  ‘The past? Yer ain past?’

  ‘Ither folk’s past. Frae way back, fuckin yonks. I’m supposed tae be playin Weir’s ghost but it feels mair solid than that. Real.’

  ‘Let’s talk aboot yer ain past.’

  ‘Na, let’s no. This is mair important.’

  ‘That’s a matter o opinion.’

  ‘It’s important that I’m seein aw these auld images. But they’re no mine.’

  ‘Ye’re tellin me ye’re dreamin stuff frae somebody else’s life?’

  ‘No dreamin exactly. I could unnerstaun that. I’ve been daein aw this readin so it wouldna surprise me if that was comin intae ma heid, when I was asleep ken. But this is different. It’s like I’ve got a front row seat at the pictures.’

  ‘So, if it’s botherin ye that much, ye ken whit tae dae. Naebody’s forcin ye tae stey. Staun up an walk oot the bluidy picture-hoose.’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Weill?’

  ‘I canna.’

  Mr MacDonald beamed at him. ‘I have something for you,’ he said.

  ‘Guid,’ said Carlin. ‘Cause I feel like I need somethin. A way in. It’s like I’m no close enough.’

  ‘Do you really want to get close to Major Weir?’ said MacDonald.

  ‘It’s no a question o wantin. You ken whit I mean. Aw these ministers were gaun intae him in prison, tryin tae get him tae repent, but they werena gettin close at all. Was there naebody else? Was he totally friendless? Somebody must have gone tae see him.’

  MacDonald was holding a manilla folder. They moved out of the way of the other readers and librarians.