Chapter Sixteen

Chapters 1-15, should you be interested. Or deeply bored.

Al was in a quandary.

He didn’t know whether he should call Adric’s on/off boyfriend and get him to come to the hospital or not.

They were very much off at the moment, due to an altercation in the lighting section of Ikea that Adric had mentioned in passing but refused to go into. But they were bound to get back together eventually, either from habit or a sense of duty or a fear that this relationship was the best either of them was ever going to do. And surely being in hospital bleeding all over the place after a drive by shooting counted as extenuating circumstances, break or no break.

Adric’s other half was a highly strung organic sous chef named Timothy. He played the violin badly, and classical guitar reasonably well, and he had aspirations of becoming a gentleman farmer one day. Al had never met him, but they had talked over the phone a few times.

He looked up the number on Adric’s phone and went for it, hoping he wouldn’t get in trouble later.

Timothy was at the hospital almost literally in the blink of an eye.

He was dishevelled, which was unlike him – not that Al knew that, having never met him in real life before.

“Hello,” he said, sticking out a hand to shake, “you must be Aloysius. I’m Tim.”

“Sorry to meet you under these circumstances,” Al said, shaking obediently.

“Oh well, not to worry.” He awarded a penetrating look, and Al noticed that his eyes were a sharp, tinkling azure green. He’d never seen such a colour in nature before.

“Thanks for getting in touch,” he was saying, “I really appreciate it. Adric would be too stubborn to ask the hospital to call.”

“That’s OK,” Al said, flushing slightly as he realised how intently he had been examining the other man’s eyes.

“So where is he?”

Aloysius led him down a corridor, up a few floors, left, right and so on. They didn’t pass many people along the way, as Timothy observed.

“Quiet tonight, isn’t it,” was how he put it.

Al nodded shyly.

When they reached his room, Adric was sitting up in bed, wincing dramatically.

On seeing Timothy he paled slightly, then gave him the beginnings of a quavering smile. He raised an eyebrow at Al, who looked away.

“How are you feeling?”

“Oh fine,” he said robustly, “just a few stitches and a bit of blood loss.”

“Eight hundred and seventeen stitches,” said a passing nurse, sticking her head round the door to get a better look at Tim’s piercing optical equipment, “and about twelve pints of blood.”

“She’s exaggerating,” Adric whispered conspiratorially. “Nurses, eh.”

“She isn’t exaggerating,” Al corrected him, “there was a lot of glass.”

Tim sat down on the bed beside Adric. He didn’t seem to be listening.

“Were you… working?” Adric asked him, suddenly serious.

“Always,” Tim replied, smiling sadly. His eyes weren’t smiling though. And that made him look more sad than he would have done if he hadn’t smiled in the first place.

“I think I was onto a lead, but it’s only a hunch really.”

“Um, I guess I should be going now,” Al said, loath to intrude but concerned it would be rude of him not to say goodbye.

“No,” Tim said, “please stay. I don’t want to leave Adric alone.”

“Why,” Al said, puzzled, “are you going somewhere?”

Tim looked pained.

“He has to,” Adric said understandingly, “he’s been working on this quest for absolute ages.”

“Quest?” Al asked incredulously. “Like, quest in the sense of searching for holy grails and slaying dragons?”

“That’s the general idea,” Tim said, “although dragons are all but extinct now so the remaining ones have gone into hiding.”

“That’s lies,” Al said without thinking.

“Heh, you’ve gone native,” chuckled Adric, descending into a horrendous coughing fit that sounded as though he wouldn’t stop until he produced at least one lung.

“I can’t leave your side when you’re like this,” Tim said, “I’ll have to find the amulet another day.”

“But the trail will go cold,” Adric said, “What if you miss your chance? The prophecy said-”

“The prophecy can go hang,” Tim spat angrily, “I’m sick of all these damned prophets going on about how I’m the only one to do this that and the next thing. Twenty years this has been going on and what have I got to show for it?”

“You’ve got me,” Adric said bravely, taking Tim’s hand.

“Yes, but I met you at book group, not as part of some ridiculous jaunt halfway across the world in search of some ancient cursed object that some masked crazy person wants to use for evil.”

“I was at one of the climactic showdowns,” Adric said, wanting to be involved.

“Yes dear, you were,” Tim relented. “And you were only passed out for about two thirds of it.”

“I fought a centaur,” Adric told Aloysius proudly, “I hit him ever so hard with a baseball bat.” His face fell. “But then he shot me with a bow and arrow. How is it that I’m still alive, Tim?”

“The wiccan priestess brought you back using a spell,” Tim sighed as though he’d been through this several times. “But in return she took parts of your brain that are used to retain information, which is why you now forget things all the time and had to give up your job as an investigatory journalist. You always forgot what you’d learned before you could write any of it down.”

“Oh yes,” Adric lied, “I remember you telling me.”

“Anyway,” Tim said, “it’s probably a false lead anyway. The amulet thing.”

“What does this prophecy actually say?” Al enquired curiously. “Like the actual verbatim words.”

“Ice and wind and fire and rain… yadda yadda… man of average good looks and fair of hair… must destroy the amulet to defeat the maiden fair.”

The three of them ruminated.

“Average looks and fair of hair,” Al pondered.

Tim and Adric looked at Al, with his average to good looks and his fair hair.

They looked at one another.

They got sidetracked from the point at hand whilst gazing into one another’s eyes. The altercation in Ikea was long forgotten now.

They looked back at Aloysius Hunkington-Smythe, the secretly aristocratic library assistant.

“Hold on a second,” Adric said slowly, as though a thought was dawning on his brain, “that description isn’t necessarily just of you, Tim. If anything, you have amazing good looks.”

“You do have the most enchanting eyes,” Al agreed. “Although I prefer Bracken’s.”

“Oh well, each to their own,” Tim shrugged charmingly.

“What was I saying?” Adric asked. He had decided to milk this newly introduced ‘forgetful’ character trait for all it was worth whilst he was still in the scene.

“You were saying that I could probably be the guy in the prophecy,” Al said, “as could hundreds of other young men across the globe.”

“Oh yeah,” Tim agreed, “you totally could. I was never specifically named in this one. I guess I just assumed it would be me because usually they come to the door with my full name and address and everything.”

“So,” Al said patiently, “do you want me to find this amulet thing for you so that you can stay here and look after Adric?”

“I WOULD LIKE YOU TO STAY,” Adric whispered in caps lock, temporarily remembering he had another weird character defining thing that wasn’t really working out so well, namely the volume control issue mentioned in previous chapters.

“Tell me what I have to do,” Al said, “I’m not busy tonight anyway.” He looked out of the window, which he had just noticed. The moon was almost full and the sky was made of purple.

“It’s all in the scroll,” Tim said, “if you’re sure you’re up for it. I feel kind of bacd just letting you go off and do this… have you ever been on a quest before?”

Al thought back.

“Yeah,” he said, “I have. Once rode across Surrey on horseback to locate a special brand of plant food for our gardener, who I loved like he was my own father.”

“Were you successful?”

“I was.”

“Was there peril involved?”

“There was some mild peril. I wasn’t very good with horses, there was a chance that the shop on the other side of Surrey wouldn’t even have the stuff… there were risks, certainly. Maybe not the sort of thing you’re used to, but I can think on my feet at any rate.”

“Not all of my quests involve monsters and certain death,” Tim said comfortingly. “I’ve had a few mundane ones. Everybody has to start somewhere.”

“But this one will have danger?”

“Probably.”

Al steeled himself with a deep breath, and took the scroll from Tim. It was made from ancient yellow parchment and the remains of a heavy green wax seal still clung to it like little bits of green wax stuck on paper.

“Right then,” he said bravely, “I guess I’ll be off.”

“Thanks for doing this,” Tim said genuinely, “we really appreciate it.”

“Yes, thank you,” Adric added. “I’ll cover for you at work tomorrow.”

“You aren’t going back to work tomorrow?” Tim said, shocked.

“I’m the only one who has all the keys.”

“Well I’ll take them along and pass them to whoever is covering for you.”

“I dunno, with two people off it’ll just be the part timer and she might not even come in once the gossip about today has done the rounds. It will have escalated to the point where she probably thinks we’re both dead. Actually, where’s my mobile? You still got it Al?”

Al handed it over.

“There see, she’s texted her condolences about my death to whoever inherited my phone. She wants to know when the funeral is.”

Al rolled his eyes.

“Text her back and tell her,” Tim suggested with a conspiratorial wink. “Then tomorrow you can ring her up pretending to be your own ghost. It’ll be hilarious.”

“That’s a bit mean,” Adric said thoughtfully. “And she’s got a bad back.”

“I don’t see what that’s got to do with anything,” Tim replied.

“She doesn’t anyway,” Al interjected, “she’s faking it. Can’t you tell? When it’s quiet and people aren’t looking at her she stands up straight and even does a little bit of ballroom dancing.”

“No way!” Adric appeared to be genuinely shocked.

“His memory problem,” Tim surmised wisely, “it’s a blessing and a curse.”

“OK,” Al said, “well I guess I’d better get on with it. I’ll ring you in the morning to let you know how its all going.”

“That would be lovely. We are completely rooting for you,” Tim said enthusiastically, “and here’s a little leather pouch of magical fairy dust for luck.”

“Are you taking the mickey?”

“Are you the part timer?”

“No.”

“Well then.”

Al did not find this argument especially comforting, but by this point in time he was very tired and hungry and just wanted to get out of the hospital. He’d check out the contents of the pouch later on, in conjunction with the scroll and preferably after some chips.

For want of a better exit, he saluted them, and marched stiffly out of the room.

They didn’t say anything for a while.

“Why did you never question the prophecy before?” Adric asked. “Haven’t you been searching for that amulet for two years now?”

“Oh at least,” Tim admitted. “I don’t know, I just assumed it was me. It has been me, so many times. Although certainly none of the other signs of destiny have been in place for this one – I was starting to wonder. But if the prophecy is really talking about Al, he’ll have it sorted by the end of the night probably.”

“I’ll still let him have the day off work though.”

“Oh yeah, quite right.”

They smiled at each other and held hands and gazed out of the window into the moonlight. It looked like it was going to be a nice night.

Chapter Thirteen

Chapters 1 - 12 in order can be located by clicking here.


Back in the library, you might remember that Aloysius had finished a flashback detailing certain points of his history heretofore unknown to us, with no regard for continuity or tenses.

The teenage girl had removed herself and her Gucci knock off shoulder bag from the counter, but this was less on his say-so and more because of events outside his control. In point of fact, if we were to be brutally honest, it was pretty much down to the drive by shooting that was going down.

You might think that libraries are quiet places, populated mainly by the very young (whose mothers need to escape the house, just for a bit), the very old (who need to escape the house, just for a bit) and students (who have missed the essay deadline and now have to do some frenzied last minute reading – just for a bit).

It is possible, too, that you may have a vague childhood memory of being asked to keep the noise down in your local library as you coloured in your Asterix picture with a particularly squeaky crayon, or turned the pages of your Sweet Valley Twins book too loudly.

This is not that sort of library.

The library of which we speak is at the centre of a community the bulk of whom are quite close to the poverty line. It is well used, but largely as a meeting place almost exclusively by the children and young people who have got themselves banned from the nearby community centre. Except of course when they are at school, at which point the aforementioned mums with under fives and older people rush in with shining eyes to pick up the latest Lee Child bestseller.

Anyway, there are a lot of kids and young persons milling about the place, and most of them are in gangs. Although I hasten to add that this is not in the way that the Secret Seven were a gang - these kids don't set out to solve mysteries. Some might be the perpetrators of mysteries, but they aren't really too excited by the prospect of finding and solving hidden clues, or unmasking criminals. After all, who wants to shop their own dad?

What makes them gang material is something of a pack instinct. They're pretty into defining themselves against who they are not, within the context of loosely defined geographical boundaries. Gangs are generally named for the couple of streets their members live on, and Thor help you if you try to say that ‘Mayfield’ isn’t big enough to constitute an area on its own and that if anything its part of the larger constituency of Newington. That’s actually a made up example, the gang around that bit is known as the EH8 Crew. I’ve seen it written on lamp posts in permanent marker.

If you aren't interested in being in the gang you are a tramp, reviled by most and treated with suspicion. As such the library, standing as it does between the stomping grounds of several gangs (and one or two groups of mates who like each other but have no official gang affiliations) can be the scene of some pretty fraught meetings.

This was one of those occasions.

The rain had come back on, so the building was busy - full of hyperactive, damp young people aged 7-17. They were mostly engaged in various non-traditional library activities that are the norm in this modern technological age - checking their social networking sites, playing on games consoles, making figures out of paper mâché, and beating the crap out of each other when they thought nobody was looking.

Aloysius has recovered from that odd, stream of consciousness style flash back – the one he had in front of a bemused girl who wanted to borrow change for the vending machine, or vendor as it is known.

Outside, the street was deserted.

"You didn't actually give her your own money," Adric asked in dismay in a way that was more a statement than a question.

He didn't get any further, because the glass in the front door made a cracking sound and the place erupted with the overexcited, e-numbered shrieks of a metric gaggle and a half of young persons.

Everyone in the building gathered round, in spite of Adric's protestations that there might be broken glass and danger underfoot. There was a small, round hole in the glass window of the door, and cracks spread out from its centre, like a beautiful spider web. Had it been frost, Adric would have taken a photograph on his phone to use as the library Christmas card.

"As soon as someone touches that, it's going tae go," the teenager who had borrowed money from Al proclaimed, tempting fate to some extent.

Al shook his head at her, wondering if she had done it on purpose or was yet to understand the contrary nature of younglings.

"Everyone away from the door NOW," Adric boomed, choosing the correct vocal volume for the occasion for a change.

Slightly cowed, the metric gaggle and a half of kids did as they were told. Adric knew he had only seconds to act before they were all back though, pressing their fingers against the fissures in the glass like they were the cast of Jackass.

"Al," he said, "call the window fixer guy. The number's in the diary.”

He cleared his throat, in a taking charge of the situation sort of a way. “Small child," he continued, directing his attention towards a small child with a gleam on his cufflinks, "pass me that cardboard box and some sellotape."

The child did, and Adric set about flattening the box so he could cover the damage with it until such time as the window fixer – or glazier – came to sort it out properly.

This was the point at which a small purple nova drove past, and someone in the passenger side wound down the window and produced a gun.

Almost in slow motion – which would be quite helpful if this was a film that needed to be fifty thousand seconds long, but unfortunately slowing things down doesn’t pad out one’s word count in the same way – Adric threw himself to the floor, pushing the small child out of the way as he went.

The pane of glass exploded behind him as the drive by took a turn for the more. Sparkling shards flew everywhere, cutting Adric’s favourite bow tie to shrebbons and lodging painfully in various parts of his arms, legs, torso and so on.

Blood happened.

“Ow,” he said, decisively.

“You touched that wee laddie,” said one of the teenagers, presumably referring to Adric’s daring rescue of the small child from being the one to get covered in broken glass. “That means you’re gay and a paedo. GAYDO. He should sue you. Hear that wee man? You should sue.”

The small child smiled obligingly, and stuffed an entire mars bar in his mouth sideways.

Adric took that as a sign he was undecided.

With a groan, he got to his feet. There was glass in his shoes.

“Right,” he said, “I think we’re going to need to close early today.”

“What do you mean,” Smokey Jones said smugly, “it’s already quarter past five!”

Adric groaned again, in frustration and pain and vowels.

“That means I’ve missed my bus. And it’s poker night tonight! Rubbish. They won’t let me play if I’m late.”

Al raised an eyebrow.

“I play with accountants, what can I say,” he shrugged apologetically.

“OK, everyone out the fire exit way,” he announced to the room, switching the lights off to emphasise his point. “Anyone who does the ‘we’re no leaving, hide and seek’ crap tonight will be locked in until we open up tomorrow. I will not be returning from my flat at the other end of town to let you out, and my telephone will be switched off specifically so my boss can’t make me.”

It was unnecessary to go into this detail, however, as most of the kids were itching to get out and see if the drive by guys were still around.

Unconfirmed rumours circulating amongst the young people implied that it was Jimmy Bob’s youngest brother, Bobby Jim, who had been driving the purple nova, and one of his mates from The Gang Who Must Not Be Named that had done the shooting.

The Gang Who Must Not Be Named were the arch nemesis gang of Smokey Jones’s gang, who were called the Snider Boys. The reason these two were nemeses was because they were the only gangs in the whole of Edinburgh not named according to the geographical criteria laid out by the author previously. They were vying for the headlines in the Evening News, but as yet had been pipped to the post on several occasions by other, worst gangs from other parts of the city. If only they tried to work together to out-gang all those other gangs, imagine what they could achieve.

But instead they fought with one another, and whenever The Gang Who Must Not Be Named heard that any of the Snider Boys was at the library, they headed down to enact some form of justice. Often there were fisticuffs in the car park, and wars of words happened almost daily, but it was comparatively rare that the building or its inhabitants were brought into the furore.

Adric speculated that the kid with the gun was probably new to The Gang Who Must Not Be Named, and that once the full effect of his initial militant stance had been smacked out of him by an indignant parent, things would go back to normal. The teenage girl with the knock off bag, meanwhile, proclaimed the mysterious gunman totally mint by the way, even though she hadn’t seen his actual face, which might be covered in pustules or anything like that. Love takes people in that way, sometimes.

Al swept up the broken glass as if in a dream, and taped the cardboard onto the door frame without saying a word. He was looking broody, Adric felt, and not in the way that meant he wanted to have a baby.

Ironically enough, one of the things Al had been brooding about was the possibility of finding and helping with the looking after someone else’s lost baby.

IT WAS BRACKEN.

It’s OK, Reader, I don’t expect you to follow the complexity of this plot all by your onesie.

“Shall we go for a pint?” He asked Adric, suddenly and uncharacteristically.

“I’d love to,” Adric replied, “but I think I had better go to the hospital first. I seem to have lost quite a lot of blood.”

And then he fainted.

Chapter Eleven

It has been brought to my attention that anyone wanting to actually read this nonsense has an unreasonable amount of scrolling to do. With that in mind, this is a link to a list of each chapter in order. Hope that helps, although I should reiterate at this point that the point of NaNoWriMo is not to produce a good book. The aim is more to produce something resembling a first draft of what is probably a pretty bad one...

Aloysius stared wistfully after Bracken, little knowing she had just been bundled into the back of a car by a burly bunch of mystery miscreants.

Adric picked up an elastic band and pinged it at his head.

"Come on lover boy," he said, "you need to set up the Wii Golf Tournament in such a way that everyone gets a shot and no one kills anyone."

Aloysius nodded, not trusting himself to speak without the wobble in his throat betraying his lady like emotional state.

'She clearly thinks I'm with nigella, or esmeralda, or both,' he thought to himself in a tortured kind of a way. 'When all I want to do is buy her a day ticket for Lothian buses and help her scour the city looking for that little baby.'

He pressed a fiat to his temple in deference to iPhone's autocorrect feature, then followed it with an anguished fist. After all, he was a complex man, with convoluted emotions.

"What're you angsting about, Al-mate," asked one of the teenagers. He couldn't remember her name but she came in after school nearly every day, because teenagers hate to go home. It's just too uncool there.

"Oh, nothing," he replied, more melodramatically than he had intended.

She wasn't fooled.

"Aye right," she squeaked, "dinnae tell me then. Got any change for the vendor?"

"Why don't you go across to the shop? It's cheaper than that thing."

The library vending machine was notoriously overpriced, but for some reason very well used.

"it's raining," she offered, by way of explanation.

He searched the pockets of his well cut beige chinos for change. Having not done any laundry since his mother passed on, he was getting to the point where you have to wear your posh clothes to work.

The search brought forth a handful of change, half a packet of chewing gum and a slightly wonky paper clip.

"Here," he said, giving her a few coins, "that enough?"

"I only need 5p," she said, putting the rest into the charity box on the counter.

"oi," Al complained halfheartedly, "now I'm short for the bus!"

He poked at the box, although even if he'd known how it opened he would have refrained from doing so.

"That's despicable that you would want to take money off a charity," the teenager said with a laugh in her ears. "or do you think you're a charity case yourself?"

A cloud passed over the moon of Al's face at this, and he allowed himself to engage in a flashback to times of yore. And because this is a novel, we can follow him there using the power of words. Fantastic.

In the world of memory, a version of Aloysius around seven years younger than the incarnation we already know comes bounding down over the crenellations of his family home. He is skinnier than the Al who works in the library, and has an air of wealth and privilege.

“Mother,” he shouts, “I’m just going to take the jag into town.”

His mother appears through an ornate archway, dripping with jewels and walking upright like a full human.

“Darling,” she says, “have you forgotten? We’re having the Edgerton-Molasses round for tea.”

“I know,” he says, I’ll be quick. That car goes pretty fast you know.”

He gives her a peck on the cheek and struts away, throwing the keys up in the air and deftly catching them using his hands. His expensive Italian shoes click musically against the shining mahogany floorboards and he whistles a credit card jingle to match.

Young Al barely notices the priceless oil paintings lining the walls of the home he grew up in, or the chandeliers made from fresh cut diamonds, or the smell of frankincense wafting on the breeze. The Al of the present day gazes at the finery with regret. If only he had enjoyed it whilst he had the chance.

The memory shifts, like smoke on the water, to his return from town.

He is concerned that his parents will be angry, because he is late, and Mr Edgerton-Molasses will take this as a personal attack. They have some old fashioned notion that Al is going to marry Leilani Edgerton-Molasses one day, but this is unlikely to happen. For one thing, Leilani is madly in love with the beautiful but unattainable Portia Di Rossi. And for another, Al has fallen for a mysterious science student who is at university with him.

As he slowly brings the car up the curved driveway and the house comes into view, Al’s heart seems to stop beating. Don’t panic though, this is just a feeling – his heart doesn’t actually physically stop, or there’d be no future Al to remember it all occurring.

His extreme reaction is because the house he left just a few hours before is gone. In its place lies a pile of rubble, which looks as though some of its constituent parts – window frames, bricks and so on - might feasibly have belonged to a house once.

He steps out of the jag in slow motion and walks towards the pile. Without thinking he pulls his mobile from his pocket and dials the emergency services, although at this point it doesn’t seem there’s a huge amount they can do.

“Mother,” he whispers, “Father? Mr Edgerton-Molasses?”

He hears a groan from underneath an old oak door inlaid with gold. It used to guard the entrance to the dining room.

To get to it he has to wade through dust and bits of rock that reach up to his shins. His fancy shoes are ruined, but he doesn’t care. Future Al remembers how he breathed in the thick white dust and it stuck to the back of his nose and throat. He can taste it on his tongue, and coughs. So does Al from the past, but he battles through it to pull the heavy door off the originator of the pained moan.

It is his mother, lying all twisted up with her limbs pointing in different directions. Her jewels are gone, and her wig has fallen off. There’s blood on her too. She looks a bit of a state.

Al from the past can hear sirens in the distance, but doesn’t really register them. He falls to his knees, pulling the bits of debris away from her with his hands. Al from the present watches it all in slow motion, with tears in his eyes.

“What happened,” he asks, then, “no, don’t try to talk. The ambulance is coming. It’s going to be OK.”

She tries to move her head into nod formation.

“Don’t try to move,” he says, a little bit redundantly as she has worked this much out from the searing pain racing down her neck and back after trying to move.

“Your dad,” she whispers huskily.

“I don’t know where he is,” Al says, “was he with you?”

He looks fearfully at the rubble.

“Is he under there somewhere? Are the Edgerton-Molasses there too?”

An ambulance arrives, and the paramedics leap into action. His mother passes out.

Al wants to ride with her to the hospital, but is torn because he also wants to stay and help the fire service look for his dad. He takes the latter option, and future Al curses him for the decision. But it’s too late to change his mind now. She is carried off, frightened and passing in and out of consciousness, with nobody to hold her hand.

They search for hours, but Aloysius Hunkington-Smythe senior is nowhere to be found. The Edgerton-Molasses had cancelled at the last minute, so they were all at home without a scratch on them, although Mrs Edgerton-Molasses sustains a small paper cut on her left thumb whilst opening a bank statement the following morning. They send flowers of condolence to the hospital, and Leilani takes the distraction of this drama to come out.

A few days later, when Al’s mother has been told she will never walk again and his father has been declared missing presumed dead, it turns out that the house is not insured. To add insult to injury, all the family money has been frittered away on gambling and ridiculous investments like jam made from lunar rock. Rumours abound that Hunkington-Smythe senior wanted to cut his losses, so he blew up the house and did a runner. A warrant goes out for his arrest.

Al and his mother are shunned by the antique ideals of polite society because of the actions of a man they will never see again. The Edgerton-Molasses could have been killed in the explosion as well, and this is seen as an unforgivable slight. They demand the return of the condolence flowers. Al burns them in a fit of pique and shoves them through the letterbox in the middle of the night. Mrs Edgerton-Molasses’ shitzhu, Mimi, eats some. She dies the following day.

We fast-forward a year. Al and his mother have moved to Kent and are pretending that they are still rich. They can do this because news of Al senior hasn’t made it this far south, but are living on borrowed time. They are using credit cards and optical illusions to make people believe they are better off than ever.

Al is still haunted by the memory of the fantastically sexy science student from university, and one day he runs into her in a small village in Kent. They go on a date, and become lovers. It is a whirlwind romance, and they are very much in love, but for some reason Al never feels able to tell her about his rapscallion father.

Forward another year, and Esmeralda – for the sexy student is she – has left the country for several months to conduct research in foreign climes. When she returns she is different, somehow. Colder, and more detached. She and Al fight a couple of times, and he tells her he is destitute. His disgrace and penury are a combination of things that her family will never accept in a husband for their daughter, and Esmeralda turns out to hold similar prejudices. She leaves him forever.

The mists descend again and now Al and his mother are living in a rickety shack on a dark purple moor. The credit card companies found out the truth about them, and now they have nothing once more. They live on rabbits, caught by Al in a snare fashioned from an old snare, and various roots and berries found about the place.

“Please,” Al’s mother says, as she says every day when his brooding session is complete, “can’t we move back to a city and get jobs? The hospital said I would be eligible for disability benefits. It wouldn’t be like the old days but we could fashion some semblance of a life for ourselves.”

This time, Al takes on board what she says.

With a heavy heart, he goes to the only relative they know of who will still speak to them.

“You can start on Monday,” her whispery voice tells him.

He regards her office, a dark underground cave of a room littered with musty old books, cobwebs, and the past.

“Thanks,” he says, “I really appreciate this.”

“You’d better,” she responds in a menacing way. “Library jobs are like gold dust in this town. You put a foot wrong, and I will end you.”

He bows awkwardly and shuffles backwards out of the room, as though she were royalty of some kind.

This was the Aloysius of three weeks ago, about to embark upon the first proper job he has ever had.

Present Aloysius rubs his eyes.

“Hellooooo,” the teenager is saying to him, sitting on the counter and waving her hands in front of his eyes.

“Sorry,” he replies in a half whisper. “I was just… remembering.”

She snorts derisively.

“Pretentious, much?”

He scowls.

“And get down off the counter before I shove you off.”

“You cannae say that,” she giggles, delighted. “I’ll sue!”

“Sue away,” he says grimly. “There’s nothing left for you to take.”

Chapter One

Remember NaNoWriMo? I'm having another bash this year. And with no Beatblogger interviews pending, I might even have time to get it done. Here is chapter the first. 1828 words so far, hooray!

"Nah, that's lies," Bracken McCracken told the man behind the counter with certainty.

His sandy sideburns glistened uncertainly. He was quite attractive, she noticed then. He had all his own hair and limbs, two eyes, comparatively clean clothes… the whole package.

"Sorry Ms McCracken," he began stiffly, "I have to ask you - it’s my job.”

“Right,” she begrudged, grudgingly. She didn’t want him to know she had been swayed by his physical charms. After all this was 2010, when women had the vote, and rights to education and the like.

“The computer thinks you owe us £39,” he continued. “So I let’s see… If I read them out can you tell me if any of the titles ring a bell?”

She glared at him, in what she hoped was a vampish way. He cleared his throat nervously.

“'The Hispanic Trillionaire's Cruise Ship Baby', perhaps?”

Bracken folded her arms, showing off her signet rings to their full advantage.

“OK, I can see that’s a no go. How about 'Her Inexperienced Sugar Daddy'?”

Slowly and deliberately, she shook her head. Her hair, scraped back by a daring array of polyester scrunchies, cracked about her face like a cat o’ nine tails. Somehow though, he remained impervious.

“Uh, the next one is 'The Lady Pirate's Navy Tryst'?"

She flushed with embarrassment and anger.

"Do I look like the type of person that would read any of that stuff?"

He raised an eyebrow, taking in her velour tracksuit, silver puffa jacket and gold plated accessories. The buggy beside her contained a baby of indeterminate age, which was holding a pasty from Gregg’s.

'Dextrous,' he thought to himself, before replying as politely as he knew how,

"I'm sure I don't know madam. All sorts of people read those books and I wouldn't dare to presume anything about anyone’s reading habits. I can’t, ever since we assumed one old chap who takes twelve of these romances at a time got them for his wife, then he told us he’s never been married.”

Bracken was interested in spite of herself.

"You can get 12 books at a time?"

"Oh yes, for three weeks at first, and then you can renew them by phone or online if you need them longer."

"Michty me."

"Quite."

They paused awkwardly for a moment. She tried to remain defiant, but forgot herself when she looked into his eyes, which were like deep bubbling pools of blackberry jam. Bracken was rather partial to jam, particularly blackberry flavour.

"Delicious," she said out loud.

"What?"

"Sorry," she replied, visibly reddening even under a thick layer of itchy but affordable foundation, "I was thinking about scones."

He smiled warmly for the first time, and the jam eyes crinkled a little bit at the edges.

"My mother makes lovely scones. Or at least she did, before-"

He stopped dead, a frown passing over his manly jaw.

"Before what?"

"Before... The accident."

A dramatic chord sounded.

"Sorry, forgot to put my phone off," said an old man who was sitting on the sofa reading the Daily Record whilst he waited for the rain to go off.

Bracken gave him one of her patented scowls, before venturing, "Is she...?"

"…Paralysed from the waist down," he responded, heavily. "She can't reach the kitchen work top to use the mixer anymore." He closed his eyes, overwhelmed for a moment by some terrible kind of mental anguish. "Damn tiny wheelchair."

"I'm so sorry for your loss," Bracken said sincerely.

"Thank you," he replied, and lo, it was as if some sort of spark exchanged between them. It was invisible though, not like an actual spark. Sort of just like a feeling you get sometimes when you click with someone. You know the one.

"Oh," he said, in a sudden moment of clarity, "Speaking of mothers - does yours have the same name as you? Perhaps she took those books out!"

Bracken frowned deeply, the hood of her puffa crinkling with the effort, before stropping,

"My maw ran off wi some bawjaws nae guid drug dealer when I was a bairn. I dinnae ken anyhin about her and I dinnae want tae."

She tended to enunciate less when upset.

"Sorry," he said, "I didn't know. Were you raised by your dad then?"

"Who d'ye hink the nae guid bawjaws was?!"

"Oh."

She shrugged. He might be beautiful, but seemingly he wasn’t the brightest.

"Ah was brought up by my gran, which is pretty normal round here. But she kicked me out over the bairn-" she gestured in the direction of the buggy - "so I live wi Uncle Nicky the now. He’s a bit o’ a soft touch, but his hearts in the right place."

Aloysius Hunkington-Smythe – for this was the strapping library assistant’s name - looked back over some of his own life’s tragedies, of which there were many. They were, he reflected somewhat pretentiously, the sorts of things that might come to light if he were a character in a novel. In real life, though, they would never be known to another living soul. He had often wished there was someone he might share his pain with, but he had always thought it hopeless. Who could ever understand the effect of such trauma? Who would want to look far enough beyond his averagely dashing good looks to even try? But now, as he compared his darkest times with the experiences of this orange faced girl, he wondered whether Bracken's pain and suffering might rival even his own…

There again no, he thought, how could her pain be anything in comparison to his? Here she was, getting on with her life, feistily arguing the toss over what were quite clearly her library fines, as a queue of irate locals gathered behind her. Would she be able to do that if her past was full of secrets, hanging over her like fat, juicy ghosts?

Maybe she would, a voice in his subconscious pointed out, making him feel a little schizophrenic. He had heard tell in the past that women were different from men in some ways. Was this one of them? Aloysius sighed demonstratively, and his strong shoulders wobbled with the cyan coloured jelly of mixed emotions. How he wished he was able to pack all his sorrows in his old kit bag like that. Perhaps if he had a baby, like Bracken did, he would be able to be strong for it…

“So,” she said, interrupting his reverie, “are ye gonnae take they fines aff ma caird?”

“Well I don’t actually know how,” he admitted, “This is only my first day on the job.”

Bracken knew this already, because she was in the library every day. It was nice here, she thought. The flat was cold because they couldn’t really afford to heat it, and Uncle Nicky was a little bit wrong in the head and kept making hats out of tin foil to protect them from UFOs. But in here they had internet access, and daily papers, and lots of activities with kids, like storytelling and rhyme sessions and craft activities.

“Could you not ask someone else to show you?” she asked him.

“Well, they’re having a meeting,” he began apologetically, “and I don’t really know if I should interrupt.”

‘Who knew customer service would be so complex,’ he added to himself. Before working in this place, he had never had to deal with members of the public in his life.

Behind her in the queue, a middle-aged man with no front teeth tutted melodramatically.

“Ach, nevermind,” she snapped suddenly in exasperation, “I need tae get tae work anyway.”

“Work?” he replied, in that way you do when you can’t really think of anything to say.

She narrowed her eyes, about to completely misinterpret his meaning with potentially disastrous results.

“What, you don’t think a schemie single mum like me would bother holding down a job?”

“No-"

“Hink ah had the wean just so I could get a free hoose, is that it?”

“That’s not what I-"

“You dinnae ken ANYHIN about me and don’t even pretend you do, ya pompous, self satisfied, ‘oooh, when they made us read Shakespeare in school I actually enjoyed it’ piece e good for nothing, up your own arse, TRAMP.”

“Bracken – Ms McCracken – I –"

But she was gone, in a bittersweet cloud of hormones and Impulse body spray.

“Women, eh,” the toothless man from the queue intoned sagely.

Aloysius sighed once more, and the knees of a nearby schoolgirl who was skiving off to check her bebo went weak.

“Can I help you?” he asked the man, without really meaning it.

“Aye. Ah’ll have twenty lammy bammies please lad.”

“You’ll have what?”

“Lammy bammies. Fags! Chop chop, we huvnae got aw day. Specially after waiting on you and your bird sortin’ oot yer wee lovers tiff.”

“We’re not… she’s not… fags?”

The toothless man nodded, expectant.

“But… This is the library, though.”

The toothless man blinked and looked about him.

“Whaddya know,” he laughed phlegmily. “So it is as well. Ah’ve no been in here for aboot twenty years. It’s aw changed since then!”

“Ha, yeah.”

Not into a shop, though, he thought.

“Still dinnae sell fags though eh?”

Apparently this toothless wonder was something of a mind reader, even if his standards of dental hygiene left something to be desired.

“I’m afraid not,” Aloysius replied graciously. “I could do you a book with Audrey Hepburn smoking on the cover though?”

“Naw laddie, dinnae hink so. Audrey Hepburn? She was a man. Heard it on the Discovery Channel. Or was it a dream? I have dreams like that sometimes.”

“Oh right.”

“The libray though eh. What a pranny I am! Looks different than when I was a bairn. That a telly ower there?”

Aloysius smiled politely.

“Yes,” he replied, “we do a lot of youth work in here these days.”

“Oh aye?”

“Yes. I mean aye.”

“Rather youse than mese, heh heh heh. A telly eh. No like when I was a bairn. Librarian’d gie us a clip round the ear and send us on our way.”

“Well sir, the times they are a changing.”

“They are that. And ah’m only 32! Heh heh.”

“Ha ha.”

“OK well, I’ll see you when I need ma bus pass renewed,” the man coughed.

With that, he slouched off out into the rain and Aloysius, aside from stamping the due date on to a few Joan Jonker classics and exchanging weather-related pleasantries with the remaining people in the queue, was left alone with his thoughts.

He was surprised and slightly disconcerted to find that for the first time in several years, all of said thoughts were not of his dark past, but of a shapely young mum clad in a bright pink velour tracksuit set off by camel coloured ugg boots.

“I promised myself I’d never love again,” he muttered.

But if he was to keep that vow, he would have to stop thinking about Bracken McCracken’s heavily kohled eyes, which he had noticed were just the colour of gooseberry jam.

“Delicious,” he said.

The Truth Is A Lemon Meringue

"Hey kids! Ever hear of Turkey the flag popper? I have! Want to know more? Then read on. Don't want to know more? Then don't read on. Want to throw bacon into the sea? Then for goodness sake throw bacon into the sea, no-one's stopping you." - Andy Stanton

That's right, the seventh Mr Gum book, Mr Gum and the Cherry Tree came into the library t'other day, and I read it right up. Highly recommended for all people who like fun, much like volumes 1-6. Shabba me whiskers.

Activities

Couple of free things to do in Edinburgh, courtesy of the libraries blog (for which I occasionally write things).

If you like graphic novels, or Burke and Hare, or both, then you might want to go to the launch of a new graphic novel about Burke and Hare. The writer and the artist will be there and everything. This is occurring at Central Library next Thursday (28th January) and although it is free you do need to book a place. Full details here.

Then almost a month on from that, one of the events for Carry a Poem month (which is February, by the way) includes a thing at Central Library with some songs being sung by Aidan Moffat of Arab Strap, poetry being read by Jackie Kay of being a poet, and general chat from author/musician Doug Johnstone of Fence band Northern Alliance. Again you need to email to book, but it sounds like that might be worth doing. It's happening on Thursday 25th February, and further details can be found here.