Bally stands up. His breathing is
heavy but easing. Mine will take a bit longer to calm down. There is a museum
in front of the cathedral but it is closed for the day. I read the sign - St
Mungo’s Museum of Religious Life and Art. A pity it is closed because it is
bound to have a cafe and if I can’t get a pint I could go a cup of tea. Bally
is off for a wander and I look across the road and see an old, old house.
Now I know about this house. I
do. I just need to think and it will come back. There is something special
about it. It is very old and has a small door and three rows of three windows
on the side I can see. It’s a kind of rickety affair; plain at the front but a
bit more arty at the back if I remember correctly. I can’t think what the hell
is so special about it but if I wait it will come back.
Bally is soon on the mobile
phone. I hear one side of what sounds like an argument and then he hangs up. He
tells me we have to sit tight. I ask what for and he blanks me. So I get up and
walk to the pedestrian crossing and across the road. Bally doesn’t stop me.
I go for a wander round the old
building and my memory kicks in. Provand’s Lordship - strange name for a house
but it is the oldest house in Glasgow I think. See I am good at remembering
things. I find a plaque on the sidewall. It reads:
ST NICHOLAS GARDEN
1995
PROVAND’S LORDSHIP
1491
Built by Bishop Andrew Muirhead
for the chaplain of the nearby
St Nicholas Hospital
Admission Free
I’m not sure if that means the
garden was built by the bishop or if the bishop built the house. Even I know it
can’t be both. There is over five hundred years between the dates. Not unless
the old Bish was a time traveller or, maybe there are two Andrew Muirheads. One
around today and one back in 1471. Of course there could be an unbroken chain
of Andrew Muirheads going back in history or maybe you only get to be a bishop
if your name is Andrew Muirhead or maybe you have to change your name to Andrew
Muirhead if you become bishop or maybe it is the same guy and he just hangs
around so long that everyone else dies and he keeps going, the oldest man in
the world and the oldest house in Glasgow. Maybe this is his house and he just
lets people wander round it to avoid paying the council tax.
It
says
it’s a museum but
maybe that’s just a cover. Maybe deep down, out of sight of the tourists there
are a whole set of secret rooms where Andrew lives. Maybe he has a whole family
and they are all over five hundred years old and frozen at a certain age by
some strange power that the house holds. Glasgow could be sitting on the
fountain of youth and not know it. I bet if you know just what to do and just
what to say you can get a bit of the old youth magic yourself.
I think about it and then I have
an idea. I bet the plaque is a clue. Now I’m good at these things. I used to be
good at Cluedo. At least I was good at the kids’ version.
So let’s figure - the old bish
feels guilty about being so old that he has put the secret in plain sight. If
you can figure it out then the jackpot’s yours. I read the sign again. Let’s
see - St Nicholas Garden 1995 Provand’s Lordship 1491. So if we take 1491 away
from 1995 we get? Shit I need a calculator - I’m crap at sums.
I pull out my mobile but it takes
me five minutes to figure out where the calculator is on the damn thing. I hate
maths. After I check the sum a few times I get five hundred and four.
This is so Dan Brown. Not so much the Da Vinci Code but more the Provand’s
Lordship Cipher. I’m not sure if cipher is the right word but it sounds good.
The Provand’s Lordships Cipher, the PLC.
I squat down in front of the
plaque and let my mind wander. I like letting my mind wander.
So we have 504. I count the
letters and numbers in the plaque and get 124 if I ignore the Glasgow Museums
logo at the bottom. So I add this to 504 and get 628. I then add the six, the
two and the eight and get 16. Now there is a thing. Today is the 16
th
and if I add the one and the six I get seven and this is July - the
seventh month. The plaque says the garden was built for the nearby hospital and
we have just been to a hospital. It also says Admission Free and I bet that’s
code to let you know that anyone can have the secret if you can crack the PLC.
I lie down on the ground and
stare up at the plaque. I’m onto something here, I just need to think.
Ta-Da. I’ve got it. The plaque
contains instructions. If I go to the hospital, which I have just done - I’m
assuming the Royal and the St Nicholas mentioned in the plaque are one and the
same - and walk round the garden 1995 times and then round the house 1491 times
on the sixteenth of July, I get the magic.
Seems a bit much though. I’m not
sure how long that will take but it isn’t going to be a short walk.
No the bish is cleverer than
that. My maths is wrong. Maybe I need to change tack. I add up all the numbers
in the first date and I get twenty four. Add the two and four of twenty four
and I get 6. Add up the numbers in the second date and I get fifteen and add up
the one and the five and I get 6 again. Six is the magic number. If I walk
round the building and the garden six times on the sixteenth of July I get free
admission to the youth club - for ever.
I stand up - there is no time
like the present. I pick a start point and off I go. Forget your couple of
grand for a hit - I’m going to live forever. The bish is a smart old coot. I
bet no-one else has cracked the old PLC.
I feel good.
I’m on my third circuit when Bally
shouts from across the road. I ignore him and keep walking. I’m fairly sure
that once you have started the laps you can’t stop and Bally vanishes from
sight behind me as I round the corner. I keep walking and as I start my fourth
lap Bally appears behind me and tells me to get my backside in gear. It seems
we have a potential address for the vic. I blank Bally and keep walking. He
gets mad so I tell him, while still walking, all about the PLC and I can see he
is struggling - but then again he’s just jealous that he didn’t figure it out.
I tell him I only have two more circuits to go and he starts to shout. I walk
on.
One and half laps to go. Bally is
now trailing me threatening me with a range of consequences from loss of
earnings to severe physical harm but the prize behind the PLC is too great for
me to be diverted. I tell him I have only got to go round one and a bit times
more and he can shout and scream as much as he wants but I’m finishing it. I
see his shoulders slump and I know I’ve won. Ten minutes later I finish.
I’m disappointed. I expected at
least a flash of light or the sound of thunder. Something to announce my new
found eternal youth. All I get is more gobbing from Bally but I know it has
worked. I’m sure it has worked and with a spring in my step I follow him to our
car.
As I walk I wonder what the world
will be like in five hundred years from now.
Maybe I should keep a diary.
‘So why the hell should I help
you?’
I’m mad as hell. Strange though,
because I was almost calm when we left the hospital. Even when the two idiots
were after us I simply thought this is something we need to get through. When
we got to the car I was nervous, apprehensive, uncertain but not angry. It
wasn’t until the conversation got round to how going back to my flat was a bad
idea that the anger started. And it built as we headed along the motorway and
now it is at full boil and there is no off switch.
What in heaven’s name am I doing
involved in all this. I don’t know diddly squat about Charlie Wiggs. George
doesn’t know much more than I do and yet we are being chased by thugs. I have a
dodgy parcel in my handbag, my house may not be safe and for what? For Charlie
Wiggs? Why? For heaven’s sake why?
I ask Charlie the self same
question for a second time and it is clear that Charlie doesn’t have an answer.
How could he? What do I expect him to say? “Please Tina you have to help me -
we’ve been friends for nearly an hour. How can you let me down after all this
time?”
Instead he looks at me and says
‘You shouldn’t.’
This stops me in my tracks. It’s
hard to know where to go when the air has been let out of your tyres so
effectively. He repeats and repeats the phrase until his head drops and
somewhere my off switch is hit and I drop from boil to simmer and then down.
It’s not just what he said, it’s
his whole demeanour. He oozes pathetic. His face is half hidden in a bandage
and what you can see of it is either black with bruises or white with shock. He
is slumped in the chair and is struggling to keep himself upright.
To add mustard to his last reply
he gently kicks me between the tits when he says I should go and he will sort
it out.
He could no more sort this out
than my two goldfish. The last of my anger slides away and pity replaces it. I
look round wanting George to be there with three mugs of coffee. But he is
still in the queue and I find myself lifting my hand and placing it on
Charlie’s lap. He tries to smile but even that seems to sap him. I have to lean
forward to catch him as he passes out. Luckily the chair is big enough for me
to push him back. I stand up and use my coat as a pillow and try and make him
comfortable.
People are looking but I ignore
them and settle Charlie before sitting down and waiting for George.
When George comes back he has
three enormous cups of something frothy and high in caffeine. He looks
concerned when he sees Charlie but I’m counting on the fact that Charlie is
asleep and not sliding into some form of coma.
We sip the coffee in silence and
I look around at the normality that I have suddenly been divorced from.
Next to us two older ladies are
chewing the cud and trying to divvy up a slab of what looks like solid
chocolate. Next to them a mother is breast feeding her kid and next to her two
business types are sitting in front of two open laptops trying not to spill
their coffee on the keyboards.
The queue at the till is a cross
section of Glasgow life - all waiting to order their Venti De-Caff Wet Skinny
Latte’s or their triple espressos. Beyond the glass window the shopping mall
teases me with more normality.
A couple of hoodies are being
quizzed by the police. A mother is dragging a child behind her in that
time-honoured manner that all children know and hate. An old man is sitting on
a bench - at work mining his nose for whatever contents it might give up and
next to him a young girl is staring in fascination at the old man. He retrieves
something and pops it straight in his mouth and the young girl squeals in
delight and shouts for her mum to come over.
There are now two worlds. Old and
new. This morning I was a resident of the former and at some point I was
evicted and now wander in the latter. I wonder how I can get the eviction order
overturned but one look at Charlie and I know it won’t be anytime soon. I ask
George what we should do and then have such a blindingly obvious idea that I
feel maybe I can gain re-admission to the old world.
‘We should go to the police,’ I
almost shout. ‘Tell all and we are clear.’
So simple. So obvious. So right.
Just go to the police and tell them everything and let them take care of it
all. OK, so George would have to admit lying to them the first time round but
I’ve watched enough Law and Order to know that the police are well used to the
odd porky.
We pitch up at the local station.
No better still we pitch up back at Glasgow’s main police station. George bares
his soul and throws himself upon their mercy. I tell them that it was me that made
him see sense. We hand over the documents and they can put Charlie back in
hospital and give him a guard until the two thugs are caught. We skip free and
I’m back in the normal world.
Suddenly the coffee tastes
wonderful. The man excavating his nose is repellent but it’s his nose. I want
to tell the two hoodies to get a life and the two men with laptops to get a
life. I even want to tell the two old biddies to get real and buy a slice of
cake each rather than cheaping out.
It is a stunning fact of life
just how quick things can change. I smile at George and then Charlie wakes up
at my shout and chucks a bucket of cold sick on my magic moment.
‘Can’t go to the police. Can’t.
Leonard isn’t the only one that has his hands dirty,’ he says.
The living dead speaks. Obviously
he wasn’t as out for the count as I thought. George leans over and asks what
Charlie means.
It’s not a long story but it
takes a long time to tell as he drifts between full consciousness and somewhere
near sleep. At times he stops speaking for so long I think he has passed out
again. George makes a second trip for more coffee and this time forces a double
espresso down Charlie. It seems to help and we get to the end of his story.
He slumps back and closes his
eyes and I look at George and mouth the word ‘crap’.
It transpires that our Charlie is
not as innocent a bystander in all this as we thought.
I finish telling George and Tina
my little revelation and I feel so bad that I want to lie on the floor and just
drift off but the caffeine is still getting to work so I close my eyes and go
over what I have just said.
I knew the names on the list were
familiar and I knew there was a connection. I knew I had seen them before and
now I knew where.