East Fortune Read Free Page B

ultimum.
We hear their voices. We can recall them at any time. They live within us.
    But he could hardly say all this to a couple he had never met.
    Jack decided to write what he could, correcting as he went. Then he would write the whole letter out again, a fair copy.
    It took him over an hour and he decided to post it straight away. Then there would be no time to change his mind or refine it further. The job would be done.
    Writing the letter taught Jack to keep busy. When he lost concentration, and had forgotten what he was doing, he snapped back to realise that all he was thinking about was the figure in the road.
    So he looked for distraction: organising the timetable for next term, marking essays and dissertations, setting up extra seminars for the students who had fallen behind, anything to avoid thinking about Sandy Crawford.
    Jack tried to picture the long fetch of the boy’s life: what kind of family he must have come from and how he had come to be separated from its security.
    How bad did life have to become for a man to be so determined to throw it all away?
    Without his car, Jack travelled by bus to the university. It was slower but simpler. He did not have to concentrate and it gave him more time to think about all that had happened. He did not know whether he would have to tell his colleagues or what they might say behind his back. Perhaps they would think he had not been concentrating or that he was drunk; not that he ever drank that much.
    On the bus Jack sat behind a woman who was complaining that she shouldn’t have to pay for a TV licence because she only had a small television, and besides, she only watched opera. The girl opposite looked like an art student. She was lettering a phrase into a new notebook:
I HARDLY EVEN KNOW YOU.
And then at the bottom of the page:
CAN’T YOU SEE?
    Out in the streets the wind hit him for the first time; the early-summer air of a city that never stayed warm for long. He stopped at a florist in Nicholson Street. The floor was crowded with wedding sprays and funeral wreaths. White chrysanthemums spelled out the word ‘Elaine’.
    He chose four bunches of white freesias and asked for them to be sent to the boy’s home.
    A film crew was shooting a period drama near by. Two men with cans of lager started a football chant every time the first assistant called ‘Action!’ demanding £20 to go away.
    Twenty quid, twenty quid, twenty quid!

Twenty quid, twenty quid, twenty qui-id,

Twenty quid, twenty quid, twenty quid,
Twenty QUI-ID, twenty quid.
    He took the lift to his office in George Square and tried to keep to his routine: Roman authors in translation on Tuesdays, Latin every Wednesday, philosophy and set texts on Thursdays. He had organised his timetable so that even in term time he had a four-day weekend.
    Jack knew that he had to try to stay calm, not letting the death affect him, but it returned with every passing police car, each ambulance siren, and with the sight of every solitary male figure waiting to cross the road in the distance. These were his daily reminders,
ne obliviscaris
: do not forget.
    A few days later, amidst the bills and the junk mail on the doormat, he found a handwritten letter.
    Dear Mr Henderson,
    Thank you for your letter and the flowers. The funeral will be held next Thursday 19 May at Greyfriars Kirk at midday. If you would like to come you would be welcome. We appreciate your letter at this difficult time.
    Yours sincerely,
    Peter and Iona Crawford
    He wondered if people would know who he was at the funeral and how many people he might have to tell. He could already imagine them pointing him out.
    That’s him.
    Perhaps he could stand at the back without anyone noticing. But he would have to meet the parents; he would have to say something.
    He wished Maggie was still with him or that he could persuade her to come. He could hardly ask one of the girls; Annie was travelling, Kirsty had her exams, and besides,