– No! My friend will be here in a wee while. He’ll bring wine. He’s probably been held up by the celebrations, some festival in town, not as good as the book festival that year. I’d never seen anything like it! Me – just an embalmer of the dead – sitting in a bar with all of you. Real writers – I’ve only ever read or seen in the papers and never thought…

– That one of them would be offering to suck your cock at half past ten on a Thursday morning in a rainy city – where bagpipes play alongside trumpets and thinkers demand their platforms – because thought is everywhere and should be spread far and wide for the benefit of those that should be free?

– Aye.

– You are quite beautiful.

– I would have let you suck my cock that morning, you know.

Bill waves his hand dismissively in the air. John bends down to kiss the poet. He cradles the man’s face in his hands like an infant. For a long time they are just souls staring into each other’s eyes. It is gentle and intimate. More so than touch. More so than the heat or the want or the violence – although there is time yet for that. The face before John changes as he stares into it. He sees Bill as an older man with a much thinner face. He sees him as a Viking. As a fisherman. It’s like he can see him in all the other lives he has been incarnated through and he loves him – in every one.

1944

Flat 4F4

Ivy Proudfoot (17) the palais

THE BOOTHS on the High Street sell silver jewellery. I gave Morag 4d and she is standing in a queue at the phone box. A man holds the phone down while people shout at him. He is clearly expecting a call. I run my fingers over silver earrings. Stop at the rings. There is one with a heart held in two hands.

– That’s a Luckenbooth design. It was gied as a gift tae a fiancée.

– It’s pretty.

– Aye. What’s lesser known is it was cried a witch-brooch, protects its wearer from the evil eye. A kind ay talisman.

I pick one up. Hand it to the sales assistant. I pay quickly as Morag waves at me through the phone-box window, she’s finally got in. I see them on the other side of the road, watching me.

The recruiters.

When I look up again Morag is chatting on the phone across the street and Violet is in front of me.

– I thought I had passed all the tests?

– You have. I just want to make sure you really want to do this tonight?

– Yes.