Chapter 4
I didn't like the look of the first coffee shop we came to. It appeared quite run-down and grimy. It was empty too, which was never a good sign in the middle of a tourist-frenzy city. More staff than customers. Two waitresses, in fact. One young, nerdy-looking girl with glasses and one much older, yet pretending to be a lot younger, with her fake tan, fake boobies, pouted fag mouth, and bleached blonde hair. They both looked bored out of their skulls too. And the round, jolly, Arab-looking chef, attempting to cook something behind the counter with that ridiculous grin, was even going so far as to wink and smile at me as we passed. He didn't look like you could trust him as far as you could put your arms around his waist and throw the bugger.
Instead, we bought a coffee to-go from the famous Harry Potter Cafe just a few buildings down from Bobby and walked back to the Mile. Alex was a fan of the Potter books, but had no idea that the first one was actually written here in Edinburgh. So she delighted herself, along with the hundred-and-one, other tourists in taking another hundred-and-one pictures of the windows, doors, door frames, and even the walls and furniture inside.
Next, we walked back along the Mile and up towards the castle this time. I remembered, years ago, stumbling down one of the many, old, blink-and-you'd-miss-it, narrow Closes and Wynds here, and randomly finding the well-hidden and one of Edinburgh's best-kept, little secrets: the adorable little Writers Museum.
It was hidden behind some old buildings, halfway between The Royal Mile and The Mound. The museum building itself opened up into a good-sized square where, if you drew your attention carefully towards the old concreted slab flooring, you could find old inscriptions from famous Scottish poets and writers of years gone by. Alex loved it, and we took about an hour out of the day to explore all three floors of the museum. Each section was dedicated to three of Scotland's most-treasured writers: Walter Scott, Robbie Burns, and, my own personal favourite, Robert Louis Stevenson, who wrote Treasure Island and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
We headed back onto The Mile and strolled further up towards the castle. I took Alex's picture with a kilted bagpiper and then again with a William Wallace clone. She begged me to let her take one of me and Wallace together. I grumbled, of course, as I was never too comfortable to pose for pictures, but duly got on with it.
We never went inside the castle as we both thought it was rather pricey at about eighteen bob a head. This brought up memories of a visit down to Bath in England a few years back. I remembered the locals who lived there had a certain residence privilege card which entitled them to free entry at any tourist attraction in the area. I wondered if Edinburgh would ever follow in her footsteps, but you know what us tight-fisted jocks are like.
We stopped for a few moments outside the Witchery Pub. Alex was intrigued by the name and remembered reading once upon a time that Edinburgh was very famous for witches and the frequent burning of them, well, innocent women.
“Can you tell me anything about the witch stories here?”
“Well, from what I'd learned at school, a few hundred years ago, the country was obsessed with witchcraft. Where Princes Street Gardens is situated today—remember I showed you the large valley of gardens that stretched out underneath the North Bridge, from the train station all the way around to the bottom of the castle?”
Alex nodded but remained silent, listening, intrigued to know more.
“Well, there used to be a loch down there or a lake, as the English would say, called the Nor Loch. This loch was used for dunking accused witches, with their thumbs and toes tied together, into the waters.”
Alex’s face paled, making me chuckle as this wasn't even the worst part of the story.
“But before they were dunked into the loch, the women were tied to a specially-designed chair. If an accused witch sank and drowned, then would she be found innocent.”
Alex interrupted, looking slightly confused.
“But then, would she not also be dead?”
“Yes!” I bluntly replied.
Alex shook her head at the stupidity of it all, like it had only just happened a week ago.
“But,” I continued, “if she was unfortunate enough to float and survive the drowning, she would then be found guilty and burned at the stake, right here, where you're standing now, on Castle Hill.”
Alex shuddered at the thought. She looked around at the old cobblestone ground at her feet in a new light.
“They say more witch burnings were carried out here than anywhere else in Britain.”
“That is so horrible and tragic.”
“And how about this for a chuckle: apparently, in the early nineteen-nineties, the Catholic church finally made a public apology for all the innocent women who were falsely accused of witchcraft here.”
“This was nice of them,” replied Alex with a sarcastic tone.
I then led Alex towards the opposite side of the street and the west wall of the Tartan Weaving Mill where an iron-wall fountain had been hung and engraved into the stone, commemorating the place where over three hundred women were burned and charged of being witches. Blink and you'd walk by the almost-hidden monument; it was that easy to miss.
“Wow, this is really sad, Ryan. Truly.”
I fell silent as I paid my respects to the murdered women. Alex took her time reading the plaque which I'd read a dozen times before: “This Fountain, designed by John Duncan, R.S.A. is near the site on which many witches were burned at the stake. The wicked head and serene head signify that some used their exceptional knowledge for evil purposes while others were misunderstood and wished their kind nothing but good. The serpent has the dual significance of evil and wisdom. The Foxglove spray further emphasizes the dual purpose of many common objects.”
Next we walked down and along the curved and steep, cobbled path of Ram Lane, which eventually led us onto the glorious scenic Mound, bringing us into a stunning view of the two national galleries situated halfway along Princes Street and its Gardens.
After crossing the traffic lights and proceeding down a sharp set of steps, Playfair Steps, towards the first gallery, we stopped halfway down to admire the view of the East Princes Street Gardens, Waverly Train Station, The North Bridge, Arthur's Seat, The Scott Monument, and then the towering and dramatic Edinburgh Castle, which was directly behind us. Alex was overawed by the dramatic and stunning beauty of the city. Central Edinburgh really was a city like no other.
Afterwards, I brought Alex into the West Princes Street Gardens where the old Nor Loch had stretched further around the castle before it was drained in the mid-eighteen-hundreds to make way for the great Waverly Train Station in the East Gardens and her railway tracks stretching west. Tracks that wound all the way through the bottom of the West Gardens, right at the foot of the castle, before disappearing into a series of black hole tunnels straight through the volcanic rock underneath the west end of Lothian Road, the Western Approach Road, and Morrison Street, and then re-emerging a mile away out into Haymarket Station. Haymarket became Edinburgh's deputy rail station to Waverly's sheriff after the old deputy closed down and was promptly turned into a luxury hotel, known today as The Caledonian.
Once in the gardens we each grabbed an overly-priced ice-cream from a cute, little, tourist snack hub and made our way towards the Garden's beautiful golden fountain, which lay in the shadow of the towering castle. After I finished giving Alex another brief history lesson on Old Edinburgh Town, I decided it was time to get a bit more personal.
“So tell me a little more about yourself, Alexandra?”
Alex continued to lick deliciously at her ice cream while giving me a sly glance. “What do you wish to know?”
“I don't know. How about your story? Or what the hell are you doing with your life right now?”
Alex looked to be thinking hard like she really didn't have a clue in this instance or perhaps didn't wish to let me know. “Well, Ryan, that is really quite a hard question to answer.”
“Okay, we can come back to that a little later then if it's too difficult to answer right now.” I smirked and shook my head.
“Okay, well, right now, I guess I'm just travelling around, enjoying life, living in the present.”
She seemed a little vague with her answer, but it didn't really bother me too much at this particular point. I mean we had only just met a few hours before.
“So how old are you?” I continued with my barrage. If I had to take a guess, then I would have said mid-twenties.
She gave me another sly smile. “How old do you think I am?”
So she was still insisting on playing the vague game. It was a rare skill to answer a question with another question these days. Time to tease her a little more then.
“Gees, I don't know. Thirty something.”
Quite suddenly, the most overly-dramatic look of shock washed over Alex's face. It was fairly charming and amusing. She playfully slapped me on the arm until I smiled and modified my answer.
“Okay, twenty-four.”
“What! Do I really look so old?” she pouted sadly. “Well, I'm twenty-one, actually. So you were not even close.”
Shit, twenty-one. Jesus, that was young. I mean, I realised she did look young, of course, but it had not registered in the slightest since she didn't act and speak like any twenty-one-year-old I knew. I hoped she wouldn't ask how old I was.
“Wow. Twenty-one, huh? So you're still just a baby.”
“So how old are you? This is my question.”
I knew that was coming. Shiite. I couldn't think of a good answer in the moment as I over-contemplated whether to lie or not. Instead I chuckled dismissively, trying to change the subject by making a joke about her age again.
“So tell me what do you want to do with your life when you eventually leave school?”
Alex was having none of this though and continued with her determined interrogation.
“Stop avoiding the question, Ryan. How old are you?”
Shit. Maybe I should lie. Would she really freak out if she discovered? There was quite an age gap. Screw it, I'd just tease her some more.
“Well... I'm old enough to know better than to answer a question like that, that’s for damn sure, missy.”
“Well you must be a hell of a lot older than you look if you cannot even tell me a simple thing such as your age. Why are you so ashamed of your age, Ryan?”
“I'm not ashamed of my age, Jesus.”
“Then tell me how old you are.”
“Maybe I'm too old to be hanging out with a twenty-one-year-old.”
Alex stopped on the path and, out of nothing, leaned rather intimately towards me. Within a few seconds she was right up against my jacket and upper body. I could feel the warmth of her stomach and those small, perky breasts, underneath her thin coat, pressing right up against me. I froze and let her continue. Rather unexpectedly, she then began to seductively whisper into my ear.
“Maybe I don't think you're too old for me at all, Ryan. In fact, I love older men, especially ones who are not too far away from collecting their bus passes and pensions.”
I was utterly confused and completely surprised by her forwardness. I was speechless and had no words. I wanted desperately to wrap my arms around her, pull her even closer against me, smell the soft skin and scent of her neck, run my fingers through her hair, cup my hand underneath her chin and cheek, and kiss her with all the passion I could muster from the darkest regions of my soul.
No sooner had these thoughts flooded through my heated mind though when Alex backed away, but this time standing a few yards further than before.
It took me a few seconds to realise what the hell she'd done, but she held my wallet in her hands and was now peering through it like it were her own. I felt flabbergasted by the furtiveness of her actions. Where the hell did she learn to pull a dirty, sneaky trick like that? Of course, my natural instinct was to instantly grab it back.
I stepped towards her and tried to snatch the wallet. Alex had already pulled out my driver’s license though and turned her back towards me. I grabbed her from behind and wrestled with her to get it back.
“Give me that.”
Alex giggled, twisted, and turned. Holding me off, before I finally managed to grab both license and wallet back from her.
“So, in fact, you are the one who is in his thirties. Well, thirty-three and a few months to be exact.”
She playfully tutted and shook her head.
“Bad boy!”
I smiled and shook my head as I tucked my wallet back into my jean pocket. I was still in shock that she managed to do that ploy. I saw an empty bench only a few yards away and decided to take a seat.
“Nice little trick, Alex. They teach you that at your private school?”
Alex followed me like a wicked, little kitten and sat down beside me. She then stuck her tongue out like a cheeky child. I made a half-hearted grab for it but she swiftly pulled away, grinning. I just shook my head at her child-like antics.
“I have five, older, male cousins, so they teach me things, you know.”
“Jesus, what other illegal activities did they teach you?”
Alex gave me a mischievous wink and shrugged her shoulders. “Who knows, but the day is still young. Maybe you will eventually find out sooner than you think.”
There was a brief silence. We were both distracted by an Asian family who, directly across from us, made us laugh with their humorous photography antics. The father of the family was trying to take the perfect picture of his wife and kids, who were standing in front of the golden Ross Fountain and with the magnificent castle in the background. The kids just wouldn't stand still long enough for their father, who was frantically running back and forth while trying to organise everyone with military like precision, to attain his perfect picture.
Alex then broke our comfortable silence with an out of the blue response to a question I'd asked her previously. “Okay, I thought about this and I always wanted to be an air hostess when I was a little girl.”
“You mean a trolley dolly?”
“A what?”
“It's what we call them here.”
“A trolley dolly.” She looked confused.
“Or a glorified waitress.”
Alex smiled. “Recently though,” she continued, “I have been thinking about going over to Eastern Asia and teaching English for a while.”
“To teach English?” I chuckled at that and couldn't resist making another joke. “You can barely speak it yourself.”
“Hey!” replied Alex sounding offended. She then hit me another time on the arm. “Anytime you wish to switch this conversation to Czech or even Russian for that matter, then I am all tongue and ears.”
“So you see yourself as a teacher one day?”
“Maybe, one day. But every year that passes I seem to change my mind to something new.”
“Hmmm, well if you were my teacher back in high school then I would've asked—demanded—for a transfer to another damn school in a heartbeat.”
Alex gave me another light-hearted smack against my arm as I easily laughed. “Oh really?” she replied.
“Truthfully speaking, I would've deliberately gotten myself put on detention every single day until I graduated just so I could keep annoying you after all the other kids had gone home. And then, when I did graduate, I'd get a job as the school janitor.”
Alex laughed. “Is this some form of compliment from you? What happened to just being mean?”
I smiled and lingeringly stared at her soft, pink, delicate, wet lips for a few moments longer than I should have. I wanted to feel them pressed against my own so bad. To kiss them deliberately and softly caress them with my tongue. To taste her in my mouth.
I could see her blushing at my obviously intensifying stare. I then turned away, breaking my gaze as Alex broke the silence in a teasing manner.
“So what do you do for a living, and is it the same as you dreamed about doing all those decades ago when you were just a wee, cheeky boy?”
I laughed at Alex's humorous attempt at a Scottish accent.
“Well, you know, as a dirty old manof thirty-three years now, it has been an age ago for me to recall all those details from my long-forgotten youth.”
“Oh please, do humour me.”
I had to think about this, although it wasn't long before when those buried dreams and memories of my younger days came flooding back all at once.
“Actually, when I was about seven, I always dreamed of being a magician, you know. I remember my parents bought me a really awesome magic set for Christmas one year, which I used to play with every single day. I liked putting on these really cool magic shows for my family, grandparents, and cousins. I even made my annoying little sister disappear one time. But, unfortunately for us, she turned up again a few hours later.”
Alex laughed at that.
“And then in my teens I always wanted to be like the fifth member of East Seventeen.”
“What the hell! East Seven-who?”
“I think they might have been a little before your time, my dear.”
“Yes, I certainly think so.”
“They were kind of like a rough-edged boy band in the early-mid nineties, round about the same time as Take That.”
Suddenly Alex began flapping her hands and arms around, acting super excited, which I couldn't decipher at first if she were only fooling around or not.
“Oh, I know Take That! Now there is a boy band I have heard of and like very, very much. So what was your next venture after you completely cracked and dominated the world of fantasy pop?”
“Writing!”
“Writing! Cool! So you are like a writer now then or something creative?”
“Kind of, but not quite. I wrote one book in the past which did okay, I guess.”
“What was the book called?”
“You've never heard of it, trust me!”
“Tell me, please. I might have.”
“Somehow, I don't think it was distributed to the far corners of Edinburgh, let alone Europe.”
Alex rolled her eyes. She squeezed up closer to me on the bench and began pulling at my arm like a misbehaving and demanding child. To have her so close to me gave me goose bumps all over my skin. I wanted to put my arm around her and hug her tightly, but I did not.
“Just tell me, Ryan! Please.”
“Okay, okay, if you must insist. It was called Ugly by Name, Beautiful by Nature.”
Alex chuckled and began to get undeniably excited, even more than when she previously revealed her approval for Take That. She must be pretending or else this kind of behaviour would really start to freak me out.
“No way! That is my favourite book in the whole wide world. And you wrote it? Are you kidding me, Ryan? This is absolutely unbelievable!”
Now, I was getting freaked out. There's no way on God's green earth that this girl could have ever read my book. Not a chance.
“You read it? Really?” I doubtfully replied.
Alex chuckled hard and slapped my arm as if I had gullibly fallen for her plausible act, hook, line, and sinker. And I almost had.
“Okay, you're right! I have never even heard of it. Ever. I'm so sorry. Please don't hate me.”
I had to let out a wry smile. She really was a damn fine actress, this one.
“You are bad, Alex. Winding me up like that. So, so bad. I did write another after that, but it completely bombed. So I've never written anything else since.”
“That sounds very sad. I'm sorry to hear that. But if you have a hidden talent there, you should at least try again someday. If you want it badly enough, then it will happen. That is what I believe. What is it these experts say—If you want to be good at something, then you have to keep on doing it and doing it and doing it, every day? Practice, practice, practice, my boy. Practice makes perfect!”
She let out the biggest and cheesiest grin I'd ever seen. I found it adorable. With that smile alone, she had the most unbelievable talent for making me feel so good about myself.
“And do you have any other jobs to pay the bills when you are not trying to be the next Stephen King?”
“Actually, I do, aye. I'm a plumber.”
“A plumber? Sorry my translation...”
“You know. A plumber.”
Alex looked at me blankly and shook her head.
“How can I explain? You know, when you buy or move into a new flat and there is absolutely no bathroom in there at all. Nothing. No toilet, no basin to wash your hands with, no bath, and no shower. Nothing. So you need them installed immediately. Who do you call?”
Alex hesitated. "My parents?”
I laughed, shook my head, and tried again. Alex cringed and shrugged her shoulders.
“You know when you turn on a tap...”
“What kind of tap?”
I took a deep breath to control both my laughter and frustration.
“Any kind of tap. Jesus. Any kind of tap where water comes out: bath, basin, kitchen tap, outside-garden taps, hot or cold.”
“Yes.”
“Well, I'm the guy who makes that happen.” I opened my arms wide and extended them out into the heavens above while letting my own huge, beaming smile spread across my face.
“Oh, so you did become some kind of magician after all, then?”
I lowered my arms but continued to smile. “Yeah, I guess I kinda did.”
“In my language the word is instalatér!”
“In-stall-later?”
Alex laughed hard at my bad attempt at pronunciation. I made an effort to say the word again but with an added gurgling sound this time, trying to match the rough r she herself had put on the end of the word. Alex continued to chuckle. “You make me laugh genuinely, Ryan. You really do.”
“Well, I'm so glad to be here to amuse you, Miss Moneypenny.”
I stood back up onto my feet and boldly held out my hand for Alex to take. She gave me a confused look.
“What are you doing?”
“Come, I want to show you something.”
Alex smiled and took my hand. I helped her up onto her feet and she gave out the most delightful, little giggle as we walked away. “I honestly thought you were going to ask me for a dance right here in the middle of the gardens.”