The Calling Read online

  The Calling

  Philip Caveney

  © Philip Caveney 2016

  The author asserts the moral right to be identified as

  the author of the work in accordance with the

  Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be

  reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted

  in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,

  photocopying, recording or otherwise,

  without the prior permission of

  Fledgling Press Ltd,

  7 Lennox St., Edinburgh, EH4 1QB

  Published by Fledgling Press 2016

  Cover Design: Kylie Tesdale

  Print ISBN: 9781905916085

  eBook ISBN: 9781905916092

  One

  Arrival

  The boy opened his eyes…

  He had the distinct impression that he was surfacing from deep underwater, rising slowly to meet the rippling surface. At first, everything was blurred. He was aware only of sound and movement, his vision an uncertain fog of muddy colours. Then everything came sharply into focus.

  He was on a train, he decided, which was odd, because he didn’t remember getting on a train or even having the intention of doing so. He looked slowly around, blinking like somebody who had just emerged from a deep sleep. Perhaps he had.

  It was packed, this train – heaving with people, some standing in the aisle, others seated and

  balancing heavy bags on their laps, perhaps because the proper luggage areas were too full. The boy realised that he was sitting at a table. Opposite him, an elderly couple, a man and a woman, were pulling on jackets as though preparing to leave. The boy stared at them helplessly. He didn’t know who they were,

  he was pretty certain he’d never seen them before but he couldn’t even be sure of that, because…

  He didn’t know who he was.

  He didn’t know what he was doing on this train or where he was going or why he had got on it in the

  first place. It dawned on him in a sudden rush of anxiety that he didn’t even know his own name.

  He turned his head to look at the person sitting next to him, hoping it might be somebody he recognised, but it was a middle-aged man in a black suit who was pushing a laptop into an expensive-looking leather case, a man with the cold uncaring face of a stranger.

  The elderly woman must have caught his look of confusion, because she smiled at him and said, ‘Are you all right, dear?’

  He nodded, but didn’t know why he’d done that, because actually he wasn’t all right, he was scared

  and confused and he was trying to piece things

  together in his own mind, trying to remember what had brought him here, but it was like groping around in the mud at the bottom of a pond. There was only darkness in his recent past, a thick veil of sludge that he couldn’t seem to see through or get any kind of grip on.

  ‘Is somebody meeting you?’ asked the woman, clearly trying to be helpful and he could only shrug

  and smile like an idiot, because he didn’t know if anybody was meeting him, he didn’t know anything. He thought about telling her that, but for some reason decided against it. He’d sound like an idiot, he decided. No, he needed to pull his thoughts together before he went speaking to people. He needed to get a grip.

  As if to mirror his thoughts, the train slipped abruptly into shadow. He turned to look out of the window and saw that it was entering a grey stone tunnel. For an instant his reflection stared back at him from the glass. He saw a boy of about twelve

  or thirteen years old, he thought, a boy with dark hair and a face he didn’t recognise. Then a voice came over the tannoy, a man’s voice speaking with what sounded like a Scottish accent.

  ‘We will shortly be arriving at Edinburgh Waverley where this train terminates. Will passengers please ensure they have all of their personal belongings before leaving the train?’

  The voice seemed to act as a kind of goad. Suddenly everyone was up on their feet, pulling on coats,

  heaving down bags from the luggage racks overhead. The boy looked up at the glass shelf immediately above him, wondering if one the bags stored there might be his, but as he watched, eager hands removed item after item, until there was nothing left.

  And then the train emerged from darkness and slid slowly into the station and he saw a sign announcing that this was indeed, Edinburgh Waverley. The boy knew that Edinburgh was in Scotland, but as far as he was aware, he had never been here before and had no reason to be here now, because he lived in…

  No.

  Nothing. Another blank. This was beginning to feel really scary. His heart seemed to leap in his chest.

  The train lurched to a stop, the doors pinged open and the exodus began, everybody seemingly intent on getting off the train as quickly as possible. The boy hung back, not wanting to be caught up in the frantic press of bodies. The elderly woman gave him one last concerned look, as though she might be thinking of asking him more questions, but her husband was clearly anxious to be on the move, one hand clutching her arm, his expression saying ‘don’t get involved,’

  so after a moment’s hesitation, she followed him out into the aisle and off towards the doors. The boy sat there, staring out of the window at the heaving platform, thinking that he really ought to try and come up with some kind of plan, but nothing useful occurred to him and after a little while, there was just him sitting alone in the empty carriage. Then a uniformed man came along the aisle with a bin bag, picking up rubbish from the tables as he came. He paused and gave the boy an odd look.

  ‘You not getting off?’ he asked indignantly.

  ‘Er… yeah, sure.’ The boy got obediently to his feet and shuffled sideways into the aisle. He turned and headed for the nearest door. He came to a luggage rack and paused to see if anybody had left a bag

  or a case behind, but it was empty. He frowned then, aware that the uniformed man was still looking at him, went out through the exit doors and onto the platform.

  It was incredibly busy out there, people sweeping

  to and fro, like a colony of ants all engaged in important business, most people dragging huge suitcases on wheels behind them. The boy joined the tail end of a long procession heading towards some exit gates and noticed, as the queue began to shorten, that people were displaying tickets to a man standing at some electronic barriers. He was using a plastic card to open and shut them, allowing only one or two people through at a time.

  The boy knew enough to realise that he ought to

  have some kind of ticket for travel, so he started rooting in the pockets of his jeans. He pulled out a handful

  of coins from one pocket, a piece of folded paper from the other and a single metal key. The queue in front of him was rapidly shortening and the man at the

  gate didn’t look the sympathetic sort, so the boy tried the pockets of the jacket he was wearing, a hooded khaki affair. He found various bits of detritus but nothing that resembled a railway ticket and now he saw

  that he was next in line and he began to panic.

  The man ahead of him went through the barrier and it snapped shut behind him. The guard turned his baleful gaze to the boy. He was a thickset man with cold blue eyes and a stubbled chin.

  ‘Ticket?’ he snapped.

  The boy looked at him helplessly. ‘I don’t… I can’t… it’s…’

  ‘TICKET!’ growled the guard, looking irritably at the long queue forming behind the boy.

  ‘I haven’t… I can’t find…’ The boy couldn’t see any other way out of this. ‘I don’t know who I am!’ he said.


  A strange expression came over the guard’s grumpy face. He looked weary, as though this was something that happened to him all the time. He rolled his eyes, shook his head, then waved his card in front of the barrier, making it slide magically open. ‘Go on,’ he said. ‘Get moving.’

  ‘But…’

  ‘NEXT!’ roared the guard and the boy jumped forward, galvanised by the urgency in the man’s voice. Then he was following other travellers across a flat stretch of tarmac and up a steep ramp to the open air.

  Two

  Edinburgh

  He emerged into even greater chaos. It was late afternoon, judging by the long shadows, and the street was crowded with people, all of them pushing and shoving their way towards a line of black cabs parked alongside the kerb, so he detached himself from that queue and headed to his right, following the pavement across a wide bridge that was thronged with busy traffic. He had to push and shove his way through the other people heading in both directions on the crowded pavement. When he got to the far side of the bridge, a weird sound assailed his ears, something that sounded like the caterwauling of a tortured animal. Looking around, he saw a band of musicians on the far side of the road. They were playing some kind of rocked-up Scottish folk tune: a guitarist, a drummer and a man playing bagpipes, who was leaping up and down on the spot like somebody demented. The band was standing beside the open gates of a park and an eager crowd were gathered in front of them, clapping their hands and urging them on.

  The park’s entrance seemed to offer some respite from the bustle and noise, so when he got to the top of the road, he waited for the lights to change and crossed over, noticing as he did so how every lamppost along the street was decorated with a colourful poster, advertising a whole series of events, most of them featuring a grinning face. He thought he recognised one or two of the faces, decided he’d seen them before, possibly on TV, but he couldn’t be sure. A name accompanied each face and though some of the names had a familiar ring to them, he couldn’t have said with any certainty who any of these people actually were.

  He made it to the far side of the road and paused

  for a moment to stare at the band. Close up, they

  sounded quite fearsome, the drummer bashing at his miniature kit with manic energy, the sound of his bass drum seeming to thud like a series of punches to

  the boy’s chest. As he watched, a couple of people broke from the crowd and moved forward to throw coins into a hat on the pavement, but the boy didn’t feel he could spare any of the money he’d found in his pocket, so instead he went in through the gates and descended a long flight of stone steps to a wide path some ten feet below the level of the street.

  It was a bit quieter here, though still busy with

  people. The sounds of the traffic receded as the boy walked along. On the horizon, away to his left, perched on a high clump of rock stood what could only be described as a castle. It looked like something from a fairy tale, the boy thought, but he managed to make some kind of a connection with the word Edinburgh. There was an Edinburgh Castle, wasn’t there? He wasn’t sure how he knew this, but it felt right and for the first time since he’d opened his eyes he felt a little cheered. At least there was something he thought he knew. He kept walking. He went past long rows of park benches and a little café serving coffee and ice cream. People sitting at outdoor tables were enjoying the last rays of the afternoon sunshine, but

  the peaceful scene was short-lived because, all too soon, he reached the far end of the park and had nowhere else to go but back up onto the busy road. As he came out of the gates he caught sight of a road sign announcing that he was on Princes Street. Buses and trams rumbled past him and a seemingly never-ending stream of black cabs.

  Thinking that it might be quieter on the far side

  of the road, he crossed over and found himself heading down narrower streets, but the crowds were no thinner here, so he headed up a steep hill that curved slowly around to his left. The railings that flanked the pavement along the route were now an endless procession of garish posters, advertising comedy nights, theatre events, musicals, concerts… Edinburgh clearly was a very busy place.

  He reached the top of the hill, a crossroads, and paused for a moment, wondering which way to go. To his right there was a big black and white pub where throngs of people stood outside drinking beer and wine. A prominent sign announced that this was ‘Deacon Brodie’s Tavern.’ The boy turned left away from it and started walking down the cobbled street beyond, but he’d only gone a short distance when he realised that he’d made a mistake. The way ahead was absolutely choked with people, many of whom seemed to be in fancy dress, some of them carrying placards for various shows, and as he walked along some of them started approaching him, offering him sheets of paper advertising the different events.

  ‘Do you like comedy?’ asked a man who was dressed as some kind of Space Pirate, pushing a leaflet into his hands. ‘Captain Danger and the Super Vixens from Venus,’ he added mysteriously. ‘Starts in ten minutes, just up the street there.’

  The boy didn’t know what to say. He took the leaflet and started to walk on, only to be accosted by a young woman dressed as some kind of medieval wench. ‘The Crucible!’ she barked in his face, displaying rows of teeth that had been artificially blackened – at least, the boy hoped that was the case. ‘Arthur Miller’s brilliant play about the Salem Witch trials, Pleasance Courtyard, seven o’clock tonight. Special discount with this flyer.’

  ‘Er… thanks,’ said the boy, taking the sheet from her, though he really didn’t have much idea what she was on about. As if at some signal, others in the crowd appeared to sense that he was an easy target. There was a sudden rush and he found himself wading though a sea of humanity, every one of whom was intent on shoving a sheet of brightly-coloured paper at him. He’d accepted a dozen of them before he began to gaze frantically around, looking for some avenue of escape. He saw an opportunity and ducked behind a large metal litterbin, then ran around it, only to find himself standing beside a makeshift wooden stage, where a group of what he thought might be Spanish dancers in colourful costumes were whirling and spinning to amplified guitar music. One of the women saw him standing by the stage and blew him a theatrical kiss. He felt his cheeks reddening.

  Then he saw a couple of policemen walking through the crowd towards him and decided there was nothing for it but to level with them. He couldn’t take much more of this. He approached them and said, ‘I don’t know who I am!’

  The policemen looked at him, registered the collection of flyers he was holding and laughed

  out loud.

  ‘Yeah, very good,’ said one of the cops. ‘But we’re on duty. We haven’t got time to take in a show.’

  ‘I’m sure it’s genius!’ laughed the other cop.

  ‘No, wait, you don’t understand. I really…’

  But they were already walking away and the moment was lost. The boy looked down at the sheaf of papers he was clutching and realised what had happened. He made a sound of disgust, hurried back to where he’d seen the litterbin and dumped the whole lot inside. The medieval wench saw him do it and gave him an indignant glare, so he turned away and moved back into the cover of the crowd, looking frantically around for somewhere he could sit down and get his thoughts together. He spotted a small clearing around a statue, a life-size figure of a man in old fashioned clothes and a top hat, so he went gratefully over to it and sat down on the statue’s plinth, thinking he would just rest for a moment and get his breath back.

  ‘Oi!’ snapped a voice above him and he looked up in alarm to see that the ‘statue’ was glaring down at him. ‘Get off me plinth! You’ll damage it.’

  The boy jumped up in alarm, realising that this wasn’t a statue at all, just a man, painted grey from head to foot and wearing specially treated clothes. Even his plinth was just a painted wooden box.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ muttered the boy.
‘I didn’t realise you weren’t… er… what… what are you doing?’

  ‘Trying to make an honest living,’ snarled the man in a broad Scottish accent. ‘And you’re not helping one wee bit!’

  The boy heard laughter and turning, he saw that several passers-by had stopped to watch the proceedings, as though they thought it was all part of a show. One man was even lifting a camera to take a photograph. The boy turned back to the statue-man. ‘I… I’m sorry, I thought you were real,’ he stammered. He waved a hand around at the encircling magic. ‘What… what is all this?’ he asked.

  ‘What’s what?’ snapped the statue-man.

  ‘All these people…’

  ‘It’s the Festival,’ snapped the statue. When the boy just stared up at him blankly, he added, ‘The Edinburgh Festival. What did you think it was? Disneyland?’

  ‘What’s the… Edinburgh Festival?’ asked the boy.

  ‘It’s three weeks of total madness,’ said the statue-man. ‘And a chance for me to earn enough money to see me through the winter. Now kindly stick some coins in the hat or sling your hook.’

  ‘Oh, er…’ The boy shoved a hand into his pocket, then realised he couldn’t afford to give away the tiny bit of cash he had. ‘Sorry, I… I can’t really…’

  ‘Let’s have a photograph,’ suggested the man with the camera, speaking in an American accent. Before the boy could even think about it, the statue reached down, grabbed him by the shoulder and pulled him in close. ‘Smile,’ hissed the statue-man in his ear and the boy did his best to comply, but the rictus grin he came up with couldn’t have been very convincing.

  The photographer stepped forward and dutifully dropped a coin into the statue-man’s hat. ‘Thanks, buddy,’ he said.

  ‘Thank you kindly, sir,’ said the statue-man, doffing his hat and then he pushed the boy away. ‘Scram,’ he said, none too politely.

  The boy walked away, bewildered. He’d never heard of the Edinburgh Festival but had already decided