-oO0Oo-

"So what do you want for breakfast?"
"Gnuuth" I felt like shit, warmed up shit but never the less, shit. "Coffee." The only thing worse than an honest hangover is  feeling all the usual symptoms without having had the drunken lead up.  OK, so I'd had a couple of beers the night before but nothing that would justify the way I felt now.  My head throbbed and I was alternatly too hot and too cold.  Mark fussed around the surprisingly spacious kitchen.  Mark's flat was in a typical south side tenament block, pale yellow sandstone on the outside with and impressive four story bay frontage.  Inside what had been home to three families had been colated into one modern flat.  The kitchen ocupied one complete self contained home.  Behind where I sat was the bid alchove, perhaps seven foot by five, set back off the main room it would have contained the house's only bed and probably a press, a cupboard above.  The range, cooking and heating in one solid fuel lump had obviously long ago been ripped out and now cheap fitted kitchen units lined both walls to the tall rear facing window.  The tall cielings lent the room an air of spaciousness.  An oak table reclaimed from a tailors, the brass rule set in one edge was tarnished and blackened, ocupied the centre of the room and here I sat incapable of making my own coffee.  Mark fussed with the filter machine before persauding it to comence with the gurgling and popping that meant my cafiene dose was on it's way.
"C'mon, I have sausge, eggs, bacon" he said "if you want to pop down stars the paper shop has morning rolls."
"yea, right" I mumbled "pop down stairs, that'll be right"  I wasn't popping anywhere.  "first some coffee, then I'll think about it"  He put something under the grill anyway.

"What are you going to do about the rest of your stuff?" Mark asked as he cleared a pile of magazines off of the seat accross the table from me.
"Stuff?"
"CDs, books, shite.  you must have some thing in that house"
"I haven't thought about it to be honest" I told him "I suppose there are some records and she has all my paperwork, bank statements and things"  I hadn't given it a lot of thought, just packed a bag of clothes and ran.  It had seemed more important to leave, to get as far away from her as quickly as I could.  I couldn't see much value in what I had left behind.
"It doesn't matter, it's only things.  I have left more behind me than some music and books.
"Well if you need to put it somewhere I've got the lockup"

**********futz*

I had exhausted my plan.  The last week or so I spent shutting down my life.  I hadn't had time to hand in my notice but I warned them I wouldn't be in on Monday.  I had closed out my account and taken what little cash was left after I had fronted up for rent and bills through to the end of the month.  I had deleted all my mail and stuff from Mhairi's computer, I had felt like doing a job on it, clearing all the caches, deleting all trace that I had ever used it but I resisted.  The idea was to leave gracefully not make it look like I had never existed, that would have just been petty.  I didn't have room for all my clothes but I took enough that with access to laundry I wouldn't run out.  I envisaged job interviews so took a suit.  Again I left what I wasn't taking hanging in the wardrobe rather than leave it painfully empty. I had looked around our house but couldn't see anything that held much personal meaning for me.  I took *something*, Mhairi's but I doubted she would miss it.  I wondered if I would ever see her again, would I want to ever see her again.  I would miss the kids, Morag's kids, but doubted if they would even notice I had gone.  I looked round the kitchen, the aga, the copper bottomed pans, the framed rural prints, the warm wood of surfaces, it wasn't realy my style.  None of it was me, it had always been Mhairi's house from the day we moved in.  I pulled the door tight behind me, locked it and posted the key back through.  I wondered if the note said enough.  Would she understand?  Would she know it wasn't her, it was me?  Too late now.  I walked away hoping I would get a lift from a stranger.  I didn't want to have to explain myself to anyone.  Just get to Glasgow, that's all I had to do.

"Thanks"  Mark put a coffee in front off me and leant against the cooker.
"Do you want to call her? Mhairi I mean.  You can use the phone in the front room."
"No.  No I don't think so.  I dont have anything worth saying to her.  It's over, finished with.  She doesn't owe me anything and I doubt if I have anything she wants."  I couldn't imagine that conversation at all, what could I say? Sorry?  Mark waited, drank his coffee.
"I couldn't stand being in the same room as her anymore.  It wasn't anything particular, more like everything she did iritated me.  Everytime she opened her mouth I could feel myself flinching.  I used to dread her coming home.  I would hide in the bath with the door locked."
"I didn't know it had got so bad.  You sounded down on the phone a few times but I figured it was just, you know, stuff.  Did you talk to her?"
"I tried.  She couldn't see what was happening.  She thought things between us where OK.  She claimed she was happy the way it was.  I couldn't explain it to her.  What could I say?  I don't like you anymore?"
"Heh, it would have been a start."
"I even tried to start a fight, I thought if we fought it would at least be an emotion.  I never realised not fighting could be a relationship problem.  She would just look at me with those ice blue eyes and tell me to have it my way and stick her nose back in a book."  I finished my coffee and stood up.  

The flat looked out over a neat back court, modern bin shelters in colour matched yellow psudo stone served as a goal for three young lads.  Their blue short sleeved shirts declared their alegance and lent them an air of profesionalism that their lack of skill with the ball denied.  Football is a national obsesion with my fellow countrymen but as in so many things we fail so excell at it.  Directly accross from me a couple raged silently thinking themsleves unseen.  Living out their own kitchen sink drama at their own kitchen sink.

"What about you Mark?" I ask with my back to him "How's Sam doing with her course?"
"She's enjoying it though why anyone would want to come to Glasgow to study I never quite understood"
"Yea right" I grinned. "I have no idea what would make her want to come to Glasgow."
"What?  You mean you would go half way round the world because you thought you might be in love?"
"No." I lied "Half way accross Scotland maybe" Truth was I could see my self going to any lengths for the merest chance of that often claimed and rarely felt emotion.  It was worth the risk, if there was any risk.  I couldn't think of anything more sad than the thought of missing that conection because of purely practical considerations like distance or language.
"When does she get back?" I enquired.  I hadn't seen her for five years and she'd been with Mark for at least two. I'd been surprised that she came back at all, never mind coming back to be with Mark.  I would have thought Scotland was the last place on earth she would want to be.
"She only went out last week, she won't be here for christmas but we are going to spend New Year together, they start back on the 5th"
"Do they do Christmas over there?"
"Oh yes, in a nice tacky way, the same as here realy.  It's funny but New Year seems to be the big one there as well"
"Never all it's cracked up to be New Year, I can't be arsed with it"  

Christmas, I would miss my Christmas.  I had enjoyed setteling in to my own traditions for the festive period.  I liked having a big fresh tree to drop needles all over the carpet.  Our baubles and ornaments where as far from tastefull and coordinated as you would want to get, every year I would buy a few more and break a few old ones.  Mhairi and I would buy the biggest ham we could cook and a goose fresh from the farm.  In the morning we would walk along the shore weather permiting before starting in on cooking for everyone.  Mid afternoon Morag and David would show up with the kids, they would open the few presents that Santa had accidentaly left under our tree and David and I would drink ourselves into a contented stupor while the children used us as trampolines and punch bags.  It was nice having children around for Christmas day but nicer still to wave them off home at the end of the day.  Mhari and I would curl up in our rarely used living room nursing our sore bellies and burn chestnuts on the fire, it would have been unwise to end up with something edible so it was lucky we never did.  New Year would see me in bed before 10 though Mhairi would usualy stay up and read till the bells.  In younger days I had tried to do the whole hogmanay thing.  Dancing in a club, George square for the bells, snogging complete strangers.  Without exception I had ended up walking home in the cold feeling disapointed and deflated.

"What's next" Mark enquired
"Well I supose I had better try and find myself a job and somewhere to live" I didn't see a major problem with this.  It wasn't that I had desirable skills or an organised career I just wasn't fussy.  I would take what I could get, do what needed to be done.  I didn't want to be forced into the position of signing on again, I hadn't had to sponge of the state for some time and didn't feel like jumping through those particular hoops.
"I've got some installs happening at the moment" Mark was did comercial and industrial electrical work, mainly contract stuff, obstensively self employed.
"Labour for you?" I had worked with him before and he was the skilled man, I was the gopher "I'd be honoured.  I don't want charity though"
"Hah, charity.  It's either you or someone other mug.  Personaly I'd rather you had the money than one of the usual wasters I get.  Come on, I'll show you"  He picked up his fags and lighter.  "I have some fans and ducting coming on Monday, I'm going to need at least one other pair of hands to get it started"
I got my jacket and we headed out to the van.

It hadn't been my intention to atatch my self to Mark so firmly but I was grateful he was there to kick me in the right direction.  Someone with a better plan might have already had a job lined up, somewhere to sleep that didn't involve taking the furnature appart each night.  I realy would have to get some distance before Sam came back, I doubted that she would be particularly pleased to see me.  She would be polite, in her own way but her face was incapable of guile.  I could see the hard edge of resentment in those deep brown eyes, a hurt pucker forming in that perfect little mouth.  We hadn't parted on the best of terms, another person I had no reasonable expectation of ever crossing paths with again.  She was everything Mhairi wasn't; frightened as Mhairi was confidant, soft and needy as Mhairi was hard and independant.  Sam had got up and come looking, traveling thousands of miles to a strange country to find the answers she needed.  I knew Mhairi was unlikely to go as far as the phone, she would sit and wait for me to come back and tell her or she would do without.  I could never clear my account with Sam, I would forver feel guilt when I thought of what she had lost.  Mhiari and I had been the mutual support society.  She had been there when I needed someone to be there but she had her own needs.  We filled the gaps in each others lives without ever becoming the next big thing.  As far as I could see it was debt paid and if we had gone on much longer it would have swung back the other way.  I knew she had met other people, if I hadn't been there perhaps she would have found someone else, fallen in love, been carried away on that thrilling, painfull wave of energy and excitement.  Perhaps she would have found the worship and adoration I was sure she wanted but I could never find it in my heart to give her.  I couldn't even kiss her without feeling I was kissing my sister, not that I had a sister but the feelings I had were familial rather than pasionate.

I sat in the van as Mark disapeared inside.  The wind blowing accross the marked out but unstarted plots rocked Transit gently on it's springs.  This little huddle of buildings sat in the corner of what looked like it would be a large estate of light industry and business to business outlets.  The big doors started to roll up.  Mark grew from his feet to his grin inch by inch then the daylight spilled into the cavernous space beyond.  I climbed down and wandered into the unit.  "I'll leave the door up to give us more light.  I took down most of the tubes last week so I could start getting the services up in the cieling."  The unit was still one big contiguous empty room.  Still palleted in the far corner where what seemed to be the parts for the mezanines, waiting to be erected and give structure to the offices and workspaces that would fill the unit.  Mark scurried around pointing out potential problems, tracing lines of ducting, identifying areas for me.  I gazed at the empty canvas letting my mind fill it with with people and machinery, seeing the posabilities build themselves from the raw material lying around to form a fully functional whole.  I could see the busy activity of this small corner spreading out accross the grid outside.  Cars and trucks would flow along those roads, lives would be lived, fortunes would be made.  Another pocket of jobs and money would grow to fill out this gap in the urban sprawl.  I couldn't see my role in this, couldn't find the first step that would lead us through the job.  Mark could.  That was why I was the lacky and he the gaffer.  I was good at being the cog, I had never excelled at all this planing and delegating lark.  We hung out for an hour or so, checking that we had what we needed, dividing up the jobs according to ability.  I would do the lifting and carting leaving mark free do use his skills on the detail.  He looked at his watch "The Sun's over the yard arm" he said "lets go and get some refreshment."

It started to rain as they walked down to the pub.  The darkening sky folded in on the city, the slick streets reflected the monochrome of the yellow streetlamps.  Inside the damp smell of wet people and beer was comforting and familiar.  They found a corner out of site of the band if not out of earshot.  Band was an exageration, it was open mike and wannabe musicos crowded round the low stage awaiting their turn, they aplauded with enthusiasm their freinds and strangers alike.  By the bar an ageing hippie held court, putting the world to right.  It seemed there wasn't a problem or an issue that couldn't be wiped away with just the right amount of cooperation.  No football, no religion the sign behind the bar admonished.  They were interchangeable as far as I could see and both just an excuse for thoughtless tribalism.  You where allways one or the other in this city, Rangers or Celtic, a Hun or a Tim.  I was neither, I hadn't been rased to it and had little or no interest in footbal or being part of a tribe.  If I had an alegance it was by choice and could be changed or ignored at my convienience.  We talked of beer and horses, not meaning to but steering clear of plans and recriminations.  I pictured Mhairi alone in the house by the sea.  I recalled another house by the sea, hardly deserving of the term, another void waiting to be filled with life and function.