Lockdown Day 25: Thursday 16th April. 2020

August sun glinted deceptively off Bingham’s pond as I leapt on the back of the 11 bus as it trundled off, grasping the grab rail and hauling myself aboard as it picked up speed. As I climbed the stairs, flapping swans in the murky water behind me hissed at encroaching kids and their yelling parents in those leaking boats Clarkie the parkie was still renting out from the decrepit council hut. The bus trundled along Great Western Road past tobacco baron mansions and luxury apartments, pink fading Art deco, ancient warrior respite homes and manicured University playing fields. I barely noticed Derek and Bob waving up at me to join them as they headed into the Esquire for a beer. A train rattled overhead as we pulled into Anniesland Cross, alive with late afternoon shoppers and early evening drinkers, schoolkids meandering home and a constant scrum at the taxi rank where drivers humped the shopping bags of waddling old ladies ill-humouredly into their cabs.

An honour guard of red sandstone tenements lined a broad bustling boulevard, four storey hives of hustle and humanity, kids rushing out tenement doorways, playing dead man falls on the wedge of grass before the close or hopscotch on chalked pavement, kicking a hedge, teasing a cat, racing along the gutter with dogs yapping at their ankles, fish wives and queen bees leaning out window sills gossiping buzzily to neighbours or talking to themselves, thrawn old men sitting by open windows drawing on their Woodbines and waiting for some ethereal distraction before they died, mothers calling down to their children to catch a jelly piece. A city alive in its own expectation.

  I almost jumped off the bus at Knightswood Cross and cut along Baldwin Avenue, but there were too many people I didn’t want to bump into. Questions would be asked. Lies would have to be told. And I was a shit liar. Angela was adamant. Nobody was to know. Not till I grew up. I had decided against telling her that wasn’t likely to happen any time, well, ever, never mind soon. I decided to carry on past the school then walk up the hill. Outside the gnarly crew of acid afficionados I hung with Kit was the only one of my friends who knew.

A police car pulled up outside Wart’s house as the bus passed, who knows what for – dealing, joy-riding, getting in a scrap, all the above. I had been thinking of getting a quarter ounce from him so opted for a carryout instead. As I disembarked at the Lincoln Inn, the heavy door burst open and I was flattened by an escaping blast of stale beer and Cancer Full Strength. A fattened drunk picked himself off the street and staggered into the scrum outside the off-licence. Two queues. He was confused. There were two queues. One for the off-sales and one for the neighbouring chip shop. Two queues. He couldn’t work out which was which. As his brain began to overload in the heat, I decided the line for the wine was too long and left him to his pavlovian indecision.

  I shot across the road, juking between the cars, hurried back along the boulevard and up Cowdenhill Road, then through the side streets as the August sun striped the evening.

  Angela was perched by the bay window as I appeared round the corner. Expectant, inviting, a summer kiss, a delicate bloom, the scent of frangipani and fearless futures, an angelic adaggio, each day she rocked my world in ways I had never known before. As I reached the garden gate she was there, her arms around me, her budding lips on mine, pulling me close, loose limbs entwined in life’s dark embrace.