The Goldenacre

Episode 60

The sugar from the tea worked around Tallis’s body. “Did Mungo ever tell you his story?” he said. “Mungo has recited many a tale,” Theseus rumbled. Tallis shook his head. “There was one. One about being in a cave under the ground. Subterranean. Seeing shrimps in the underground lakes, under the stalactites?”

“He has not.”

“I wish it was my memory. Not his.” “What memory would you change it for?” Theseus said softly.

“The night I met my wife. Knowing I was in love with her. On the steps of the university, our first kiss. Her face under the morning light the first time we woke up together.

“I don’t want that memory any more. I do not want to any more compare the past with the present.”

“You would prefer it to be an underground cave, tiny animals swimming blindly in the dark. Knowing nothing.”

“Yes. In the earth. Knowing less.”

“I am not sure how you could substitute one precious memory of yours for another, a memory which holds no meaning,” Theseus said.

“There is only one way,” Tallis said, and turned his face to the pillow.

Theseus left the room. He bellowed something hearty to his children and strode down the hall.

Tallis’s clothes were in a cleaned and ironed pile at the foot of the bed. He slowly dressed.

He had grazes on both arms, and on his knees, one of which was wet with drying blood.

One of his feet was surely developing bruises. His back was pummelled and felt like ham.

He could feel large bruises rising across his skin between his shoulder blades.

His fall to the bottom of the hill had been through obstacles, and over rocks and hillocks, and his body had a sensitive report of every strike and percussion.

The trousers were ripped at the knees, and a back pocket was torn away.

After a time sitting on the bed, Tallis flapped his way down the hall, to the kitchen.

Theseus was lifting up one of his children and put her down again, over and over. Father and daughter were finding it hilarious.

Laughter boomed and skittered around the room.

“Theseus, you’ll make them sick,” Niamh said.

She was leaning against the wall, in a suit.

Tallis looked at her and felt sudden and overwhelming shame. Instant death seemed a good option.

He saw the rack of knives and seriously pondered it.

“So, the kraken wakes,” she said. “Thank you for—”

Niamh held up a hand. She shook her head.

“Get better,” she said.

Tallis and Theseus walked in silence to the car, parked outside on cobbles.

It was early evening and the sun still illuminated the stone buildings all around them.

“You have not seen it, but the Mackintosh Building at the Glasgow School of Art, it is no more,” Theseus said, as he drove. “What?” Tallis said.

The shock snapped him back into the now.

“Yes. Indeed. A terrible thing. It burned down last night. When I first saw the news, I thought it was a report marking the anniversary of the first fire in 2014. It took me a while to realise that this was a new fire. A thorough conflagration. It is gone.”

“I was due to see it, on Monday – and also see Edie Bradley,” Tallis said.

He felt sick again, the car’s movement swirling his stomach and mind.

“Ah yes, the Bradley mission. Of course. My secret agent. But yes, I am afraid Mackintosh’s building has suffered a biblical conflagration. It looks like the building will have to be pulled down. The fire took hold fast, and it has been destroyed. The walls still stand, remarkably.”

“Disaster,” Tallis said.

“I thought they were renovating.” “They were, and were nearly done,” Theseus said, pulling the car on to the road to Portobello.

“Does anyone know what started Tallis asked.

Newcastle captain Joe Harvey with the FA Cup in 1952. it?”

“Not yet.”

“Poor Mackintosh.”

“What was your business there?” Theseus asked.

“I was going to look at some documentation – a sketch by Mackintosh of The Goldenacre. Some attendant notes, I had hoped.”

Theseus nodded. “They may be ashes now,” he said. “Although there are Mackintosh archives at Glasgow University. Bobby will know. Speak to her.” “Thank you, Theseus, I shall.” “Send Edie my warmest regards. Good luck with your mission,” Theseus said, smiling. “Oh, and some more bad news before you go.”

“I’m ready for bad news. If I didn’t have bad news, I would have no news.”

“Vorn told me she was videoing the event on Friday night for another work. So your escape is probably caught on camera. Not your violent topple, though.”

“Oh just great.”

Tallis screwed up his eyes. He saw circles and shapes. The hot mad eyes of a fox, the bloody claws of a monstrous bear, hurtling through a forest.

Tallis left the car with a crooked wave. He walked slowly down the side streets to the seafront and his aunt’s house.

Every footstep on the cobbles juddered his battered body.

Lights were on at the house. Through the window he could see Aunt Zed talking to Jack, who was standing with a glass of wine.

There was a glow from the television, and from the kitchen. Steam rose from a pot on the stove.

He stood outside, listening to the waves break on the grey beach.

I am afraid Mackintosh’s building has suffered a biblical conflagration. It looks like the building will have to be pulled down

More tomorrow.

Philip Miller lives in Edinburgh. An awardwinning journalist for 20 years, he is now a civil servant. The Goldenacre, published by Birlinn, follows his previous novels, The Blue Horse and All The Galaxies. His latest novel, The Hollow Tree, is to be a sequel to The Goldenacre.

By Philip Miller