The Novel's and Stories of Raymond Walker

There is a name for the car park that we drew into near the loch but I cannot now recall its name. It may be called "Firkin point" We walked along the old road, cracked and broken, beset with fissures that hand in hand we stepped across, It has not been maintained for a while now the old road. There is no need to maintain it for it is the haunt of tourists only rather than those on their way to somewhere.

For those that have not been there the shores of loch Lomond are indeed as pretty and as picturesque as those that are told of in the song. The waters are not always calm but mostly and at times even colder than the seas that surround Scotland. The seas are warmed by the gulf stream, inland fresh water lochs of course are not. In the winters that play across this still wild land at the edge of civilisation the fresh water can freeze in the winter though in my life time that has been long now I cannot remember loch Lomond ever freezing over except in the bays and even then only very occasionally. Parts of it have but I think by its sheer size it never fully has. It is the largest loch in Britain, though I think if you include Ireland then the Shannon is bigger. I cannot say that this is true but my memory tells me that someone smarter or better educated than I told me so and with no reason to disbelieve them I have always accepted it then as truth.

I remember walking along the old road round loch Lomond the tarmac raised and warped with the heat and rain telling her to avoid the potholes that had inevitably appeared over the years. This road, not available to the traffic these days had become rather the worse for wear but of course that was not important then for it was fun avoiding the pot holes and fissures. We were not together but got on rather well and so we could save one another by grabbing onto each other holding the other to stop them stumbling. I remember her being quite able for a girl which I know sounds rather sexist but is not meant to be as most of the girls I had known unto this time had been more concerned with their looks than their abilities. She was a welcome change. a welcome change and a beautiful woman as well.

We went onto the shingle beach at one point and went towards the loch itself. It was far too cold but she asked me if I wished to go for a swim. Oh it really was far to cold for I had swam there before and even in the high summer sun even so rare as we have it here I had done so and come out a shivering wreck. Loch Lomond is not so deep as loch ness or loch dubh but it is deep enough to stay cold all year round.

It has its own species of fish as well, I remember telling her of a species of mackerel that had swam in during the ice age when it was still a sea loch but that had adapted and become freshwater fish when the world changed and the receding ice changed the nature of the loch and they still survive apparently but only in this loch. I cannot remember their name but I remember checking this out and finding out that it was true though in all the times that I had fished there I do not think i ever caught any any.

An epiphany; they may be called pollen (the fish involved) though I cannot say for sure and though I caught a silver fish one dreech day sitting on a shingle beach on loch Lomond side I really cannot say that it was one of them. I really doubt that it was.

She chided me for not being willing to go swimming with her and I made a joke of it but I really did not wish to there for the water is very cold indeed even in summer and this was April. As yet we were still nothing more than friends and I am pretty sure we would have remained so was the thought in my mind but had we gone swimming in the freezing cold waters of loch Lomond. In fact I am pretty sure that my manhood would have disappeared completely within seconds. I remember going for a swim in loch Lomond in mid summer on a lovely sunny day and though I did not swim far I came out of the water shivering.

I told her a story. A true story as far as I had heard it, and that is that there was every possibility of there being the equivalent of a fresh water shark in there (Loch Lomond). The rumour is that the there may be a pike of eighty five pounds in there. There have even been documentaries made on the subject. I have no personal knowledge towards the truth of such a beast existing but I can easily see it as possible, it is such a huge loch but anyway I used this as an excuse not to go swimming but really it was the chill that worried me for though we were nothing more than friends she had hinted a couple of times that she could have been interested in something more.

Much happened on that day not the least of which was the change in my feelings toward her. I considered her a friend as I have said but I had already started thinking of her as more than a friend. She was beautiful, of that there was no doubt. She was also a challenge for she was awkward and defiant and she had a thought style like a man even though she was so obviously a woman. Still I liked her very much. I think that she may have intimidated some men though not because she was tough but rather that despite her beauty she was not lady like but rather a different beast altogether. That was just my opinion and there is every chance that I could be wrong. Still no matter what the truth of the matter, I found myself falling in love with this beautiful wonderful and exciting girl.

10. Ken. Todd is falling in love.

I realise now that from all that he had told me and I am sure that he did not tell me everything that Todd was falling in love with this girl, Jasmine.

Falling in love in a way that he never had with Mary, falling in love with passion, jealousy, hope and an enrichment that he knew he had wanted and hoped for. He realised that everything up until this time had been nothing other than a prelude to his love of Jasmine, perhaps even his life with jasmine.

He knew that she liked him and had fallen for him to a certain extent, I could tell, by the kiss on the grassy knoll in Ardgowan forest and yet despite all that he suspected and all that he hoped; he could not be sure that she really cared for him at all.

Did she lie awake at night thinking of him as he did of her. He doubted it, he really was not the kind of fellow to inspire girls in that way. He had never been good looking though he was not hideous, he would always have been the second choice for a woman and though he hated that fact he also quite understood it.

At the same time he knew that in a strange way things would change over time. Todd read a lot, in all genres, and had come to understand, he thought, the female species through his reading though he had little experience with them in actual fact until his late teens.

Until then it had been nothing other than groping in the cinema and extended kissing somewhere no one else would see. He, as he had told me and others, had never been good looking or attractive to the opposite sex.

Nor am I now, he would also say though he would tell us occasionally of a time long past in his teens where he was and that women were available for him. Even as he told me or us these things there was something slightly unbelievable about it though he did not tend to lie that much as far as I could tell. Yet there were things that gnawed at me for this to be true. For one he was not tactile in the slightest, he would draw away from hugs and kisses and would rather shake hands rather than any other more personal greeting. That is something I thought to myself that would not attract girls except perhaps in the old cliche, the strong silent type but then he was neither strong nor silent. Sullen perhaps and even moody sometimes but even then not silent and as far as strong goes well he was not particularly unfit and though he had a little belly I had always assumed that that was the prodigious amounts of beer that he drank. Certainly he was never sedentary in fact he was involved in something all the time. Wither it be an experiment, or reading or doing something in his garden or someone else's he never stopped even out of work. Additionally he worked long hours and often worked hard hardly stopping after he came home before getting involved with something else.

I have no real taste in men myself and so I cannot verify if he was good looking to women but I certainly know that to some he was or at least his charm made up for his looks. I do not really know what it was but I know that some women really liked him. A few even that I saw as we were at the pub during quiz nights or just for a night out were very attracted to him. I could not tell you why but it was obvious that they were. He always encouraged their attentions but it never came to more than that as far as I knew. I really suspect though that it did not come to anything more as though he would love the attention and revel in it in a way he was always wanting to get onto another topic of conversation. He would never be intentionally rude but sometimes during a girls play for him he would just start talking about something that excluded her from the conversation. The merits of Islamic architecture, the humour of mark twain, the phases of the moon or something equally as interesting to a young woman. The reason, I brought up the phases of the moon is that I remember one night a young girl, blond and pretty though not much older than half his age coming up to the bar to buy a drink. We were in a huddle at the bar as usual trying to work out the answer to a quiz question that we had three possibilities for. Todd moved aside to give her room to reach the bar with a smile and a welcoming wave of his hand directing her to the bar.

The girl stood there for a while as we talked over her head about whatever it was the question had been and Todd not knowing the answer for a change had called out to the barmaid and let the girl get served. She said thanks with a smile just as the quiz started again and the first question was what are the four phases of the moon. As Todd rhymed them off the girl stopped still holding three drinks in a triangle with her fingers. She turned very slightly and looked at him for a second or two. He had not noticed being too focused on the questions and writing in the answers on a small slip of paper that always seemed very full to me when Todd had finished. I think that he always had to offer additional information to prove that he was correct rather than just the simple answer. The girl looked up at him adoringly and said, I knew that too. He smiled down on her, perhaps it was one of the things that women found attractive; the fact that when he was enjoying something his enthusiasm would shine through. He was focused upon it, the very item and I suspect that as he spoke to her that he was imagining those phases in his mind as he talked. Cool, he said, there are so few people these days interested in astronomy. I suppose the great resurgence will come when we first set foot on Mars. Are you an Astronomy student? Physics? or even Philosophy?

The girl laughed jiggling the drinks in her hands and spilling a little over her fingers. None of the above she said with a smile in fact I am doing sociology, last year in fact.

Are you going to pass he asked with a school masters stare. I am she replied and with honours I hope. Honours no less, and what do you wish to do then. Politics (the obvious answer for a sociology student) or are you going to tag on mathematics? She started to answer and he held up his hand palm out. Tell me of Rousseau and what he means to you?

Well which she asked calmly, Jean-Jacques or Henri?

The obvious one, I don't wish for the attributes of a painter. The girl I remember beamed at him her smile luminous in the pub. I think that she fell in love with him then and there. Perhaps he would have noticed but the next question came and without even consulting us Todd scribbled down the answer.

When he looked up lifting his pint at the same time he seemed surprised to see the girl still standing there. He smiled at her, his mind now free of the question that was asked. He knew the answer and did not need to consult and so had moved on until the next question arrived.

The way I have put this, it sounds as though he was winning the quiz all by himself. Nothing could have been farther from the truth. Todd knew things that Todd knew about and he knew them well. On his own subjects he was king but move even a little away from what he knows and he became useless. He knew nothing of sport. I do not mean that he knew very little here but he knew nothing, he knew nothing of soap operas which are a big thing here, in fact Coronation street and Eastenders I think (though I maybe wrong) are the most watched programs on television here. Anyway Todd was only one of the team that won us those quizzes though who the fuck wants to know about astrology, astronomy and the classics?

So how does a sociology student know the phases of the moon? he asked her. It really is not that, he seemed to search for a word and then said, Hip? almost as a question. He had a small frown on his face as though he should know the right word but did not. Oh my dad told me all about astronomy. Cool, he said, all credit to your father. He would love to hear you say that she said still beaming up at him and she was a pretty girl.

He just seemed embarrassed and went back to answering the next question. I think you met him once she said. I did? he replied with a quizzical expression on his face still trying to answer the pub quiz question; who was the goddess of retribution.

Nemesis, he said and wrote it down and returned his attention to the girl.

I think that he was trying to remember what they were taking about as he is just focused on the thought that is in his head and he misses all hints and nuances, your father? Yes he is the one in charge of Airdrie observatory. You were there and gave a talk. I could see that he looked lost for a second then it came back to him. Are you Paulo's daughter? Paulo Clark?

She beamed ever more brightly and said I am. So your father taught you about astronomy?

We had no choice she said. Astronomy or bed and you know how little kids hate to go to bed at night.

I was little at the time, she continued and so we wanted to stay up as late as possible even at three or four it made us feel like grown ups.

Todd was not the kind to take advantage of such a thing, nor do I even know if he noticed it but I saw in the girls eyes, she was there for his taking had he wished to. It was a thing that he never noticed at all he just continued on with his questions about Paulo.

Perhaps Jasmine was the same

11. Todd. My late teens

As a young man, or an older boy, I suppose really, I had learned to play the guitar. I was never that great at it I knew, having met a number of people in the course of my years with bands that were far better musicians than I. I started playing the guitar probably at about the age of eleven or twelve though I cannot say now for sure. With a lot of practice I improved slowly from basic chord structures and simple melodies that were mainly from the country and western genre to some more complex stuff but never was good enough to play really difficult stuff. The only reason for this is I was able to pick up a rather bad steel stringed guitar from woolworths in Campbeltown and when I went to martins, the book shop in Campbeltown looking for a book to tutor me the only one they had was a country and western songbook.

This was a small west highland town in Scotland of course and so the bookshop was small but stacked with books. Many of the authors that I first read and many that influence me still , their books came from this small and rather dank almost Dickensian bookshop in Campbeltown.

As you can imagine in a small west highland town they had many music books, the west highlands of Scotland is famed for its music and so the shop had sheave upon sheave of sheet music but all for bag pipes or accordion. I at that time could not read music except in its most basic forms, I had been taught to play the recorder, badly, at school and do not know to this day why I failed so miserably at it as I now find it easy to play as I do most instruments. Anyway, I could barely read the music never mind convert the notes used in a bagpipe or accordion into guitar notes and so I took the only guitar tutor I found there.

As luck would have it, it was a really good tutor to start on and I practiced and practiced these songs that I had never even heard night after night progressing from the easiest of them to the more difficult over time. In the end it made no difference that I never actually had listened to them as I became proficient with them in my own mind. I was aware that there was every chance that if I ever heard the actual recordings that they could well be very different from the way I was playing them. In a way this was probably the best thing that could have happened though it certainly did not seem so at the time. As i did not know the songs i learned early to improvise adding an extra beat where it may be needed or adjusting the key to suit the way i thought that the song should go.

When my friends and I got together my ten pound guitar from woolworths was rather tinny compared to their better instruments but at the time I could afford no more and my mother and father were struggling just to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table never mind buying me a new guitar. Anyway my dad thought that I was really bad, He asked me to stop playing chords and play a piece of classical music.

I remember being quite ashamed that I could not but then all I had was my country and western chords (and country and western guitar) and that is all I had learned. I disappointed him again but I think that as men of his time would do he still had a thought in his head that a guitar would not save your life. He had been to war and his father had died of wounds gained in the first world war. I cannot say this for sure but I think I was told that his grandfather had died in yet another, earlier, war.

I, however was not dismayed in the way that I might have been for I practiced more and more and I had that basic country and western chords down pat. I can still play some of those songs nearly forty years later and still play them well. Anyway as I was growing better and better at the guitar but still not that good if you see what I mean I miserably failed all of my prelims. Prelims are mock exams that are held in Scotland to prepare you for the actual exams that are your O'levels and allow you entry to college, university, et al. I was to busy learning my guitar, i was to busy earning money doing my milk run in the morning and working in a freezer shop in the afternoon after school to work that hard at school and it showed. of the seven prelims that I sat I had passed only two; English and modern studies (politics and sociology).

Oh yes I wanted to be a rock star at this time, what young boy of my didn't wish for that, I was fifteen, fit, healthy and knew my wee bit of country and western but I also knew that to fail my O'levels would consign me to a job in the shipyard or the clothing factory, both of which have long since closed down. When I think back on this now it was such a good thing that I had made an arse of everything as it shook me from my malaise. At the time it seemed such a disaster but knowing that I could not just cruise my way through life was a good lesson learned and i learned it earlier than most.

I started paying attention in class and started studying. I was struggling with mathematics in particular. Anyway I had made changes and started studying for real by the time that I found that almost everyone in the math's class was failing. The teacher was moved else where or to do something else I know not which and another teacher brought in.

Normally you could never imagine such a thing as possible but i am here to attest that it is, however, true. That a complete class that was pretty much failing as a group suddenly did great in their exams, myself included. Just the removal of a bad teacher and the addition of a good one along with a little studying turned the tide. It makes you wonder if it was the teacher and not just me that was too busy enjoying life, meeting girls, learning the guitar.

I know that I went from bottom marks for math's in my prelim to top marks at my O'levels. I think a little of both is the answer. I was accepted into college and though still fifteen (though only for a month) I left the relative security of my family for the thundering halls of Edinburgh. I do not deny that it was difficult but in my own way I grew to love it. At first it was incredibly lonely, I knew no one in the whole city.

Imagine then a boy from earlier years whose hormones are about ready to kick in and his face erupts with spots, though he was not as bad as some still he was not a treat to look at. Imagine the same boy also hesitant for he was neither tough nor self assured.

He now lived in the country when he had been brought up near the city as his father and mother moved to Campbeltown, the small seaside town I mentioned earlier to give them a better lifestyle, a promotion for my father and a change was as good as a rest as the old saying goes for my mother.

Despite the bullying or perhaps because of it I began to read more and more.

It was rare that I slept the authors thoughts unravelling in my mind. I learned through the words of greater minds than mine to forgive, though I never really did so, I understood the advantage of doing so. I visited the small Campbeltown bookshop I mentioned more and more and it became almost a place of pilgrimage for me. I can still smell it now, the dustiness of the books crammed in floor to ceiling in the small shop, a slight smell of dampness over that. The brilliance of the covers on the paperbacks assaulting my senses, their covers depicting monsters and daemons, lovers, stars, and every place that you could imagine and some that you could not. I found the place intoxicating in all ways and my passion for books grew and grew.

By the time my exams had arrived I was better read than many adults and so I should have done well at my prelims but my wish to be a rock star, working too hard at my part time jobs and bad teachers had taken their toll, but I made up for it and headed to the bright lights and college.

12. Todd. returning home and thinking.

And so he returned home and recommenced his former life, a life that was already jaded for him. A life of work and more work and his friends on the net, going to Ken and Sheila's on a Friday night for a drink and a chat. Occasionally some astronomy but even that was growing less frequent now. His children were growing older and though they still depended upon him to a certain extent they were beginning to form their own lives and understand their own places in the world and so had less need for him anymore. Mary really had no need for him anymore other than being a provider of money. This was not her fault, he always knew just a thing where they through necessity and circumstance spent so much time apart that they were getting used to the idea.

Jasmine had gone home to her own life, her own daughter and work and though he would not admit to himself yet that he loved her the seed was there and with only a little cultivation it would grow into something more. But his days passed far from home and were centred around a girl on the other side of the world, much of his happiness derived from the odd email or phone call he would get from her yet he still continued on with his life. He went home when he could and still saw little of Mary who had worked out her own routine for all the times that he was gone. He missed Jasmine far more than he had imagined that he would and missed Mary less than he remembered.

Even his own children had little need of him anymore. He had worked long and hard to provide for Mary and them and he loved them but he knew himself he was becoming worn out. There was something missing not just in their relationship but in him.

A change was coming.

There is a name for the car park that we drew into near the loch but I cannot now recall its name. It may be called "Firkin point" We walked along the old road, cracked and broken, beset with fissures that hand in hand we stepped across, It has not been maintained for a while now the old road. There is no need to maintain it for it is the haunt of tourists only rather than those on their way to somewhere.

For those that have not been there the shores of loch Lomond are indeed as pretty and as picturesque as those that are told of in the song. The waters are not always calm but mostly and at times even colder than the seas that surround Scotland. The seas are warmed by the gulf stream, inland fresh water lochs of course are not. In the winters that play across this still wild land at the edge of civilisation the fresh water can freeze in the winter though in my life time that has been long now I cannot remember loch Lomond ever freezing over except in the bays and even then only very occasionally. Parts of it have but I think by its sheer size it never fully has. It is the largest loch in Britain, though I think if you include Ireland then the Shannon is bigger. I cannot say that this is true but my memory tells me that someone smarter or better educated than I told me so and with no reason to disbelieve them I have always accepted it then as truth.

I remember walking along the old road round loch Lomond the tarmac raised and warped with the heat and rain telling her to avoid the potholes that had inevitably appeared over the years. This road, not available to the traffic these days had become rather the worse for wear but of course that was not important then for it was fun avoiding the pot holes and fissures. We were not together but got on rather well and so we could save one another by grabbing onto each other holding the other to stop them stumbling. I remember her being quite able for a girl which I know sounds rather sexist but is not meant to be as most of the girls I had known unto this time had been more concerned with their looks than their abilities. She was a welcome change. a welcome change and a beautiful woman as well.

We went onto the shingle beach at one point and went towards the loch itself. It was far too cold but she asked me if I wished to go for a swim. Oh it really was far to cold for I had swam there before and even in the high summer sun even so rare as we have it here I had done so and come out a shivering wreck. Loch Lomond is not so deep as loch ness or loch dubh but it is deep enough to stay cold all year round.

It has its own species of fish as well, I remember telling her of a species of mackerel that had swam in during the ice age when it was still a sea loch but that had adapted and become freshwater fish when the world changed and the receding ice changed the nature of the loch and they still survive apparently but only in this loch. I cannot remember their name but I remember checking this out and finding out that it was true though in all the times that I had fished there I do not think i ever caught any any.

An epiphany; they may be called pollen (the fish involved) though I cannot say for sure and though I caught a silver fish one dreech day sitting on a shingle beach on loch Lomond side I really cannot say that it was one of them. I really doubt that it was.

She chided me for not being willing to go swimming with her and I made a joke of it but I really did not wish to there for the water is very cold indeed even in summer and this was April. As yet we were still nothing more than friends and I am pretty sure we would have remained so was the thought in my mind but had we gone swimming in the freezing cold waters of loch Lomond. In fact I am pretty sure that my manhood would have disappeared completely within seconds. I remember going for a swim in loch Lomond in mid summer on a lovely sunny day and though I did not swim far I came out of the water shivering.

I told her a story. A true story as far as I had heard it, and that is that there was every possibility of there being the equivalent of a fresh water shark in there (Loch Lomond). The rumour is that the there may be a pike of eighty five pounds in there. There have even been documentaries made on the subject. I have no personal knowledge towards the truth of such a beast existing but I can easily see it as possible, it is such a huge loch but anyway I used this as an excuse not to go swimming but really it was the chill that worried me for though we were nothing more than friends she had hinted a couple of times that she could have been interested in something more.

Much happened on that day not the least of which was the change in my feelings toward her. I considered her a friend as I have said but I had already started thinking of her as more than a friend. She was beautiful, of that there was no doubt. She was also a challenge for she was awkward and defiant and she had a thought style like a man even though she was so obviously a woman. Still I liked her very much. I think that she may have intimidated some men though not because she was tough but rather that despite her beauty she was not lady like but rather a different beast altogether. That was just my opinion and there is every chance that I could be wrong. Still no matter what the truth of the matter, I found myself falling in love with this beautiful wonderful and exciting girl.

10. Ken. Todd is falling in love.

I realise now that from all that he had told me and I am sure that he did not tell me everything that Todd was falling in love with this girl, Jasmine.

Falling in love in a way that he never had with Mary, falling in love with passion, jealousy, hope and an enrichment that he knew he had wanted and hoped for. He realised that everything up until this time had been nothing other than a prelude to his love of Jasmine, perhaps even his life with jasmine.

He knew that she liked him and had fallen for him to a certain extent, I could tell, by the kiss on the grassy knoll in Ardgowan forest and yet despite all that he suspected and all that he hoped; he could not be sure that she really cared for him at all.

Did she lie awake at night thinking of him as he did of her. He doubted it, he really was not the kind of fellow to inspire girls in that way. He had never been good looking though he was not hideous, he would always have been the second choice for a woman and though he hated that fact he also quite understood it.

At the same time he knew that in a strange way things would change over time. Todd read a lot, in all genres, and had come to understand, he thought, the female species through his reading though he had little experience with them in actual fact until his late teens.

Until then it had been nothing other than groping in the cinema and extended kissing somewhere no one else would see. He, as he had told me and others, had never been good looking or attractive to the opposite sex.

Nor am I now, he would also say though he would tell us occasionally of a time long past in his teens where he was and that women were available for him. Even as he told me or us these things there was something slightly unbelievable about it though he did not tend to lie that much as far as I could tell. Yet there were things that gnawed at me for this to be true. For one he was not tactile in the slightest, he would draw away from hugs and kisses and would rather shake hands rather than any other more personal greeting. That is something I thought to myself that would not attract girls except perhaps in the old cliche, the strong silent type but then he was neither strong nor silent. Sullen perhaps and even moody sometimes but even then not silent and as far as strong goes well he was not particularly unfit and though he had a little belly I had always assumed that that was the prodigious amounts of beer that he drank. Certainly he was never sedentary in fact he was involved in something all the time. Wither it be an experiment, or reading or doing something in his garden or someone else's he never stopped even out of work. Additionally he worked long hours and often worked hard hardly stopping after he came home before getting involved with something else.

I have no real taste in men myself and so I cannot verify if he was good looking to women but I certainly know that to some he was or at least his charm made up for his looks. I do not really know what it was but I know that some women really liked him. A few even that I saw as we were at the pub during quiz nights or just for a night out were very attracted to him. I could not tell you why but it was obvious that they were. He always encouraged their attentions but it never came to more than that as far as I knew. I really suspect though that it did not come to anything more as though he would love the attention and revel in it in a way he was always wanting to get onto another topic of conversation. He would never be intentionally rude but sometimes during a girls play for him he would just start talking about something that excluded her from the conversation. The merits of Islamic architecture, the humour of mark twain, the phases of the moon or something equally as interesting to a young woman. The reason, I brought up the phases of the moon is that I remember one night a young girl, blond and pretty though not much older than half his age coming up to the bar to buy a drink. We were in a huddle at the bar as usual trying to work out the answer to a quiz question that we had three possibilities for. Todd moved aside to give her room to reach the bar with a smile and a welcoming wave of his hand directing her to the bar.

The girl stood there for a while as we talked over her head about whatever it was the question had been and Todd not knowing the answer for a change had called out to the barmaid and let the girl get served. She said thanks with a smile just as the quiz started again and the first question was what are the four phases of the moon. As Todd rhymed them off the girl stopped still holding three drinks in a triangle with her fingers. She turned very slightly and looked at him for a second or two. He had not noticed being too focused on the questions and writing in the answers on a small slip of paper that always seemed very full to me when Todd had finished. I think that he always had to offer additional information to prove that he was correct rather than just the simple answer. The girl looked up at him adoringly and said, I knew that too. He smiled down on her, perhaps it was one of the things that women found attractive; the fact that when he was enjoying something his enthusiasm would shine through. He was focused upon it, the very item and I suspect that as he spoke to her that he was imagining those phases in his mind as he talked. Cool, he said, there are so few people these days interested in astronomy. I suppose the great resurgence will come when we first set foot on Mars. Are you an Astronomy student? Physics? or even Philosophy?

The girl laughed jiggling the drinks in her hands and spilling a little over her fingers. None of the above she said with a smile in fact I am doing sociology, last year in fact.

Are you going to pass he asked with a school masters stare. I am she replied and with honours I hope. Honours no less, and what do you wish to do then. Politics (the obvious answer for a sociology student) or are you going to tag on mathematics? She started to answer and he held up his hand palm out. Tell me of Rousseau and what he means to you?

Well which she asked calmly, Jean-Jacques or Henri?

The obvious one, I don't wish for the attributes of a painter. The girl I remember beamed at him her smile luminous in the pub. I think that she fell in love with him then and there. Perhaps he would have noticed but the next question came and without even consulting us Todd scribbled down the answer.

When he looked up lifting his pint at the same time he seemed surprised to see the girl still standing there. He smiled at her, his mind now free of the question that was asked. He knew the answer and did not need to consult and so had moved on until the next question arrived.

The way I have put this, it sounds as though he was winning the quiz all by himself. Nothing could have been farther from the truth. Todd knew things that Todd knew about and he knew them well. On his own subjects he was king but move even a little away from what he knows and he became useless. He knew nothing of sport. I do not mean that he knew very little here but he knew nothing, he knew nothing of soap operas which are a big thing here, in fact Coronation street and Eastenders I think (though I maybe wrong) are the most watched programs on television here. Anyway Todd was only one of the team that won us those quizzes though who the fuck wants to know about astrology, astronomy and the classics?

So how does a sociology student know the phases of the moon? he asked her. It really is not that, he seemed to search for a word and then said, Hip? almost as a question. He had a small frown on his face as though he should know the right word but did not. Oh my dad told me all about astronomy. Cool, he said, all credit to your father. He would love to hear you say that she said still beaming up at him and she was a pretty girl.

He just seemed embarrassed and went back to answering the next question. I think you met him once she said. I did? he replied with a quizzical expression on his face still trying to answer the pub quiz question; who was the goddess of retribution.

Nemesis, he said and wrote it down and returned his attention to the girl.

I think that he was trying to remember what they were taking about as he is just focused on the thought that is in his head and he misses all hints and nuances, your father? Yes he is the one in charge of Airdrie observatory. You were there and gave a talk. I could see that he looked lost for a second then it came back to him. Are you Paulo's daughter? Paulo Clark?

She beamed ever more brightly and said I am. So your father taught you about astronomy?

We had no choice she said. Astronomy or bed and you know how little kids hate to go to bed at night.

I was little at the time, she continued and so we wanted to stay up as late as possible even at three or four it made us feel like grown ups.

Todd was not the kind to take advantage of such a thing, nor do I even know if he noticed it but I saw in the girls eyes, she was there for his taking had he wished to. It was a thing that he never noticed at all he just continued on with his questions about Paulo.

Perhaps Jasmine was the same

11. Todd. My late teens

As a young man, or an older boy, I suppose really, I had learned to play the guitar. I was never that great at it I knew, having met a number of people in the course of my years with bands that were far better musicians than I. I started playing the guitar probably at about the age of eleven or twelve though I cannot say now for sure. With a lot of practice I improved slowly from basic chord structures and simple melodies that were mainly from the country and western genre to some more complex stuff but never was good enough to play really difficult stuff. The only reason for this is I was able to pick up a rather bad steel stringed guitar from woolworths in Campbeltown and when I went to martins, the book shop in Campbeltown looking for a book to tutor me the only one they had was a country and western songbook.

This was a small west highland town in Scotland of course and so the bookshop was small but stacked with books. Many of the authors that I first read and many that influence me still , their books came from this small and rather dank almost Dickensian bookshop in Campbeltown.

As you can imagine in a small west highland town they had many music books, the west highlands of Scotland is famed for its music and so the shop had sheave upon sheave of sheet music but all for bag pipes or accordion. I at that time could not read music except in its most basic forms, I had been taught to play the recorder, badly, at school and do not know to this day why I failed so miserably at it as I now find it easy to play as I do most instruments. Anyway, I could barely read the music never mind convert the notes used in a bagpipe or accordion into guitar notes and so I took the only guitar tutor I found there.

As luck would have it, it was a really good tutor to start on and I practiced and practiced these songs that I had never even heard night after night progressing from the easiest of them to the more difficult over time. In the end it made no difference that I never actually had listened to them as I became proficient with them in my own mind. I was aware that there was every chance that if I ever heard the actual recordings that they could well be very different from the way I was playing them. In a way this was probably the best thing that could have happened though it certainly did not seem so at the time. As i did not know the songs i learned early to improvise adding an extra beat where it may be needed or adjusting the key to suit the way i thought that the song should go.

When my friends and I got together my ten pound guitar from woolworths was rather tinny compared to their better instruments but at the time I could afford no more and my mother and father were struggling just to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table never mind buying me a new guitar. Anyway my dad thought that I was really bad, He asked me to stop playing chords and play a piece of classical music.

I remember being quite ashamed that I could not but then all I had was my country and western chords (and country and western guitar) and that is all I had learned. I disappointed him again but I think that as men of his time would do he still had a thought in his head that a guitar would not save your life. He had been to war and his father had died of wounds gained in the first world war. I cannot say this for sure but I think I was told that his grandfather had died in yet another, earlier, war.

I, however was not dismayed in the way that I might have been for I practiced more and more and I had that basic country and western chords down pat. I can still play some of those songs nearly forty years later and still play them well. Anyway as I was growing better and better at the guitar but still not that good if you see what I mean I miserably failed all of my prelims. Prelims are mock exams that are held in Scotland to prepare you for the actual exams that are your O'levels and allow you entry to college, university, et al. I was to busy learning my guitar, i was to busy earning money doing my milk run in the morning and working in a freezer shop in the afternoon after school to work that hard at school and it showed. of the seven prelims that I sat I had passed only two; English and modern studies (politics and sociology).

Oh yes I wanted to be a rock star at this time, what young boy of my didn't wish for that, I was fifteen, fit, healthy and knew my wee bit of country and western but I also knew that to fail my O'levels would consign me to a job in the shipyard or the clothing factory, both of which have long since closed down. When I think back on this now it was such a good thing that I had made an arse of everything as it shook me from my malaise. At the time it seemed such a disaster but knowing that I could not just cruise my way through life was a good lesson learned and i learned it earlier than most.

I started paying attention in class and started studying. I was struggling with mathematics in particular. Anyway I had made changes and started studying for real by the time that I found that almost everyone in the math's class was failing. The teacher was moved else where or to do something else I know not which and another teacher brought in.

Normally you could never imagine such a thing as possible but i am here to attest that it is, however, true. That a complete class that was pretty much failing as a group suddenly did great in their exams, myself included. Just the removal of a bad teacher and the addition of a good one along with a little studying turned the tide. It makes you wonder if it was the teacher and not just me that was too busy enjoying life, meeting girls, learning the guitar.

I know that I went from bottom marks for math's in my prelim to top marks at my O'levels. I think a little of both is the answer. I was accepted into college and though still fifteen (though only for a month) I left the relative security of my family for the thundering halls of Edinburgh. I do not deny that it was difficult but in my own way I grew to love it. At first it was incredibly lonely, I knew no one in the whole city.

Imagine then a boy from earlier years whose hormones are about ready to kick in and his face erupts with spots, though he was not as bad as some still he was not a treat to look at. Imagine the same boy also hesitant for he was neither tough nor self assured.

He now lived in the country when he had been brought up near the city as his father and mother moved to Campbeltown, the small seaside town I mentioned earlier to give them a better lifestyle, a promotion for my father and a change was as good as a rest as the old saying goes for my mother.

Despite the bullying or perhaps because of it I began to read more and more.

It was rare that I slept the authors thoughts unravelling in my mind. I learned through the words of greater minds than mine to forgive, though I never really did so, I understood the advantage of doing so. I visited the small Campbeltown bookshop I mentioned more and more and it became almost a place of pilgrimage for me. I can still smell it now, the dustiness of the books crammed in floor to ceiling in the small shop, a slight smell of dampness over that. The brilliance of the covers on the paperbacks assaulting my senses, their covers depicting monsters and daemons, lovers, stars, and every place that you could imagine and some that you could not. I found the place intoxicating in all ways and my passion for books grew and grew.

By the time my exams had arrived I was better read than many adults and so I should have done well at my prelims but my wish to be a rock star, working too hard at my part time jobs and bad teachers had taken their toll, but I made up for it and headed to the bright lights and college.

12. Todd. returning home and thinking.

And so he returned home and recommenced his former life, a life that was already jaded for him. A life of work and more work and his friends on the net, going to Ken and Sheila's on a Friday night for a drink and a chat. Occasionally some astronomy but even that was growing less frequent now. His children were growing older and though they still depended upon him to a certain extent they were beginning to form their own lives and understand their own places in the world and so had less need for him anymore. Mary really had no need for him anymore other than being a provider of money. This was not her fault, he always knew just a thing where they through necessity and circumstance spent so much time apart that they were getting used to the idea.

Jasmine had gone home to her own life, her own daughter and work and though he would not admit to himself yet that he loved her the seed was there and with only a little cultivation it would grow into something more. But his days passed far from home and were centred around a girl on the other side of the world, much of his happiness derived from the odd email or phone call he would get from her yet he still continued on with his life. He went home when he could and still saw little of Mary who had worked out her own routine for all the times that he was gone. He missed Jasmine far more than he had imagined that he would and missed Mary less than he remembered.

Even his own children had little need of him anymore. He had worked long and hard to provide for Mary and them and he loved them but he knew himself he was becoming worn out. There was something missing not just in their relationship but in him.

A change was coming.