“That was a blast from the past. I don’t mean the midnight-flit thing. That was no surprise.” We aren’t too far from the school where I failed. Dair redefines me. “It’s what you do, isn’t it? Help if people are in trouble.” It takes a moment to tune in to what else he shares. “I mean getting approached by a drug dealer was just like being at home. My first home, I mean.” His voice is a touch strangled. “Right down to me almost peeing my pants.”
I do laugh then, and that’s a whole lot better than the slow but sure ratcheting of tension I’ve felt on the way here from a more gentrified location. “You lived someplace like this?”
He blows away all my Highland-heather assumptions. “Look up the Gorbals. Its tower blocks used to be famous for black mould and muggings. That’s where I lived for a while before...” He breaks our eye contact and walks faster. “Before I was taken into care. Then I lived all over.” He speaks quickly, all bright and breezy in a way I’m starting to learn means I should pay close attention. “Which was fun, because who doesn’t want to be the new kid at school after school after school?” He lowers his voice. “Not sure if you already noticed, but I’m a wee bit gay.”
“Yeah, I noticed.” I sling an arm around his shoulder. “Seems like a plus point to me.”
He chuffs out a low laugh. “Well, the kids at each new school noticed as well. And they noticed how I sometimes can’t help getting…” He doesn’t need to sayemotional. I get it.
“No one wants to be an easy target.” This comes from someplace still raw deep inside me. “And it’s shit when it’s due to something you can’t help.” I channel Harry, and even if I have no intention of using his pen as he suggested, I can say this and mean it. “You go ahead and feel your fucking feelings. Don’t let anybody stop you.”
He gives me a suspiciously watery smile, but he also nods. “That’s what my final foster parents told me. Thank fuck for them. They let me finish school at home miles away from anywhere like this.”
“Where was that?”
“On the Isle of Harris.”
“And now here you are on the Isle of Dogs.”
Dair chuffs out another laugh and echoes someone who once labelled me as a brave boy. “I can’t lie. I was expecting a lot more puppies, but at least I’ve got one of my own. Well, Hector thinks he’s a puppy. He’s actually an old fella.”
“Yeah? You got a dog?”
He nods and slides out his phone to show me a blurry photo of pink tongue, white muzzle, and long, silky ears.
“A spaniel? Alice’s favourite.”
“Aye,” he says softly. “Can’t wait to see him.”
“Where is he?”
“Waiting at home. My foster parents are looking after him while I clear this place. And my cat.” He slips his phone away and backtracks to the subject of an isle I never heard of before today. “Once I was done with school, they helped me get a job on the same estate where they still work. Not a housing estate like this. One with a castle where shooting parties are held. The only job there for me was as a game-bird beater.”
We’ve reached the far side of an isle of my own, our toes almost to the edge of a river banked in grit, which is where he comes to the end of his story.
“I helped to raise the wee birds. Watched them hatch. Saw them learn to fly and then I was meant to scare them into taking flight right in front of a line of rifles.” He shakes his head.
“You couldn’t do it?”
“No. And neither could one of the guests at my very first shooting party.”
I remember who told me that Dair might be his ticket to heaven.
“Charles.”
Dair nods. “He had a chat with me. Then he had a longer chat with my foster parents, and they gave him their blessing.”
“To do what?”
“To kidnap me and take me home with him.”
He’s joking about the kidnapping. He must be. For the first time, I do feel a bit weird about both of us going home with the same person. Dair nips that weird feeling in the bud. “He delivered me straight to one of his neighbours. Alice needed care, and I needed?—”
I go straight to the top of the class with this answer. “To be helpful.”
He gifts me the kind of smile that could make me carry no end of beds and sofas for zero payment. “Charles helped me find an adult education course. I started a certificate in care.”
“Which you passed with flying colours.”
