Real

Black & Blue

He went home by way of the Oxford Bar - a long detour, always worthwhile. The gantry and optics had a quietly hypnotic effect, the only possible explanation as to why the regulars could stand and stare at them for hours at a stretch...
~~
He stood at the bar, resting one shoe on the foot-rail, one elbow on the polished wood. In front of him sat four objects: a packet of cigarettes with seal unbroken; a box of Scottish Bluebell matches; a thirty-five millilitre measure of Teacher's whisky; and a pint of Belhaven Best. He was staring at them with the concentration of a psychic willing them to move. 'Three minutes dead,' a regular commented from along the bar, like he'd been timing Rebus's resistance. A profound question was running through Rebus's mind: did he want them, or did they want him? He wondered how David Hume would have got on with that. He picked the beer up. No wonder you called it 'heavy': that's just what it was. He sniffed it. It didn't smell too enticing; he knew it would taste OK, but other things tasted better. The aroma of the whisky was fine though - smoky, filling nostrils and lungs. It would sear his mouth, burn going down, and melt through him, the effect lasting not long. And the nicotine? He knew himself that when he took a few days off the ciggies, he could sense how badly they made you smell - your skin, clothes, hair. Disgusting habit really: if you didn't give yourself cancer, chances were you were giving it to some poor bastard whose only misfortune was in getting too close to you. Harry the barman was waiting for Rebus to act. The whole bar was. They knew something was happening; it was written on Rebus's face - there was almost pain there. Jack stood beside him, holding his breath. 'Harry,' Rebus said, 'take those away.' Harry lifted the two drinks, shaking his head. 'I wish we could get a picture of this,' he said. Rebus slid the cigarettes along the bar towards the smoker. 'Here, take them. And don't leave them lying too close to me, I might change my mind.' The smoker lifted the packet, amazed. 'Payback for the singles you've nicked off me in the past.' 'With interest,' Rebus said, watching Harry pour the beer down the sink. 'Does it go straight back into the barrel, Harry?' 'So, do you want anything else, or did you just come in for a seat?' 'Coke and crisps.' He turned to Jack. 'I'm allowed crisps, right?' Jack was resting a hand on his back, patting him softly. And he was smiling.

The Hanging Garden

He saw good people doing bad things and bad people doing good, and tried dividing the two into groups. He saw Candice and Tommy Telford and Mr Pink Eyes. And encompassing it all, he saw Edinburgh. He saw the mass of the people just getting on with their lives, and he saluted them. They knew things and felt things, things he'd never feel. He used to think he knew things. As a kid, he'd known everything. Now he knew differently. The only thing you could be sure of was the inside of your head, and even that could deceive you. I don't even know myself, he thought. So how could he ever hope to know Sammy? And with each year, he understood less. He thought of the Oxford Bar. Even on the wagon, he'd stayed a regular, drinking cola and mugs of coffee. A pub like the Ox was about so much more than just the hooch. It was therapy and refuge, entertainment and art. He checked his watch, thinking he could head down there now. Just a couple of whiskies and a beer, something to make him feel good about himself until the morning. The phone rang again. He picked it up. 'Evening, John.' Rebus smiled, leaned back in his chair. 'Jack, you must be a bloody mind reader...'

Dead Souls

Rebus new he was headed home, meaning Patience's flat. But as he stop-started between the lights on Queensferry Road, he thought maybe he'd go to the Oxford Bar. Not for a drink, maybe just for a cola or a coffee, and some company. He'd drink a soft drink and listen to the gossip. So he drove past Oxford Terrace, stopped at the foot of Castle Street. Walked up the slope towards the Ox. Edinburgh Castle was just over the rise. The best view you could get of it was from a burger place on Princes Street. He pushed open the door to the pub, feeling heat and smelling the smoke. He didn't need cigarettes in the Ox: breathing was like killing a ten-pack. Coke or a coffee, he was having trouble making up his mind. Harry was on duty tonight. He lifted an empty pint glass and waved it in Rebus's direction. 'Aye, OK then,' Rebus said, like it was the easiest decision he'd ever made.
~~
Salty Dougary, one of the Young Street regulars, had just been in hospital: a coronary; they'd operated, angioplasty or something like that. He was telling the bar all about it. For some reason Rebus couldn't fathom, the operation had apparently started at Dougary's groin. 'Way to a man's heart,' Rebus commented, sinking another whisky. He was diluting them with water, but not overly so. He felt fine, as in not drunk; mellow, kind of. But he knew if he walked out of the bar, he'd start to feel the alcohol. A good excuse to stay put, like that character in Apocalypse Now: 'Never get out of the boat.' It was only when you left the boat that you got into trouble. The same thing, in Rebus's experience, was true of pubs, which was why he was still in the Ox at half past midnight. The back room had been taken over by musicians, a dozen or more of them; guitars mostly, twelve-bar blues. One guy with a beard was playing the harmonica like he was in front of a Madison Garden crowd. Janis Joplin: 'Buried Alive in the Blues'. Rebus was talking with George Klasser, a doctor at the Infirmary. Klasser usually left early - sevenish or a little after. When he stayed late, it was a sign things were fraught at home. He'd started the evening advising Salty Dougary to regulate his alcohol intake. 'The pot calling the kettle black,' had been Dougary's riposte. Dougary looking like he'd just been on holiday rather than in surgery: face tanned, ciggies cut down from forty a day to ten. Klasser with dark shadows under his eyes, a slight trembling to the hand when he picked up his glass. Rebus had had an uncle who'd smoked a pack of cigarettes every day of his life and lived to be eighty. His own father had died younger, having given up cigarettes two decades previously. You never could tell. There were only four of them in the front bar, five including Harry. Dougary, who'd drunk in every pub in the city, reckoned Harry was Edinburgh's rudest barman, which was quite a feat, considering the competition. 'I wish youse lot would bugger off home,' Harry said, not for the first time that evening. 'Night's young yet, Harry,' Dougary said. 'How come they let you out of intensive care?' Dougary winked. 'Intensive care's what I come in here for.' He toasted them with his glass and raised it to his lips.

Set in Darkness

Retirement. The word bouncing around in Rebus's skull. Jesus, but what would he do with himself? One man's retirement was another's redundancy. He thought of the Farmer, then waved down the taxi, asked to be taken to the Oxford Bar. No sign of Doc and Salty, Rebus's usual drinking partners, but plenty of faces he knew. The place was buzzing, bodies crammed in the front room. Football on the TV: a game from down south. A regular called Muir was standing close by the door. He nodded a greeting. 'Your wife has a gallery, doesn't she?' Rebus asked. Muir nodded again. 'Ever sell any stuff by Alicia Rankeillor?' Muir snorted. 'If only. Rankeillor's stuff, as you call it, fetches tens of thousands. Every city in the western world wants something from the forties or fifties. Even her limited prints fetch a grand or two apiece.' Muir looked up. 'Don't know anyone who wants to sell, do you?' 'I'll let you know.' The Two Margarets were behind the bar, busy in their confinement. Rebus's IPA arrived, and he ordered a whiskey to go with it. Music from the back room. He could just make it out: acoustic guitar, young woman on vocals. But here was his favourite duet: a pint and a dram. He added water to the whisky, removing the edge. A deep swallow, coating his throat. One of the Margarets was back with his change. 'Friend of yours through the back.' Rebus frowned. 'Singing?' She smiled, shook her head. 'Up by the cigarette machine.' He looked. Saw a wall of bodies. The ciggie machine was in an alcove, up three steps and next to the toilets. Fruit machine there, too. But all he could see were men's backs, meaning someone had an audience. 'Who is it?' Margaret shrugged. 'Said she knew you.' 'Siobhan?' Another shrug. He craned his neck. A new round was being got in. The backs half-turned. Rebus saw faces he knew: regulars. Glazed smiles and cigarette smoke. And behind them, relaxed, leaning against the fruit machine, Lorna Grieve. A tall drink was raised to her lips. It looked like neat whisky or brandy, three measures at least. She smacked her lips; her eyes met his and she smiled, raising her glass. He smiled back, raised his own glass to her. A sudden flash of memory: as a kid, he'd been coming home from school. Passing a street corner by the sweet shop, a crowd of older boys hemming in a girl from his class. He couldn't see what was going on. Her eyes, suddenly catching his between the heads of two of the boys. Not panicked, but not enjoying herself either... Lorna Grieve touched one of her suitors on the arm, said something to him. His name was Gordon, a Fifer like Rebus. Probably young enough to be her son. Now she was walking forwards, negotiating the steps. Squeezing through the crowd, touching arms and shoulders and backs; each touch enough to aid her progress. 'Well, well,' she said, 'fancy seeing you here.' 'Yes,' he said, 'just fancy.' He'd finished the whisky. She asked if he wanted another. He shook his head, lifted the pint. 'I don't think I've ever been here,' she said, leaning into the bar. 'I've just been hearing about the old owner, how he wouldn't serve women or people with English accents. I think I might have liked him.' 'He was an acquired taste.' 'The best kind, don't you think?' Her eyes were on him. 'I've been hearing about you, too. I may have to stop calling you Monkey Man.' 'Why's that?' 'Because from what I've been told, not many people make a monkey out of you.' He smiled. 'Bars are great places for tall stories.' 'There you go, Lorna.' It was Gordon, presenting her with another drink. Armagnac: Rebus had watched Margaret pouring. 'All right, John? You never told us you knew famous people.' Lorna Grieve accepted the compliment; Rebus stayed quiet. 'And if I'd known there were honeys like you in Edinburgh,' she told Gordon, 'I wouldn't have moved out to the sticks. And I certainly wouldn't have married a grim old beast like Hugh Cordover.' 'Don't knock High Chord,' Gordon said. 'I saw Obscura supporting Barclay James Harvest at the Usher Hall.' 'Were you still at school?' Gordon considered the question. 'I think I was fourteen.' Lorna Grieve looked at Rebus. 'We're dinosaurs,' she informed him. .... Gordon shuffled his feet and said he'd see her upstairs. She nodded unconvincingly. 'Have you been drinking all day?' he asked. 'Jealous?' He shrugged. 'I've been there often enough.' He turned so he was facing her. 'How does the Ox measure up?' Her nose wrinkled. 'It's very you,' she said. 'Is that good or bad?' 'I haven't decided yet.' She studied him. 'There's a darkness in you.' 'Probably the beer.' 'I'm serious. We all come from darkness, you have to remember that, and we sleep during the night to escape the fact. I'll bet you have trouble sleeping at night, don't you?' He didn't say anything. Her face grew less animated. 'We'll all return to darkness one day, when the sun burns out.' A sudden smile lit her eyes. ' "Though my soul may set in darkness, It will rise in perfect light." ' 'A poem?' he guessed. She nodded. 'I forget the rest.'..............