down toward the prom. He hunched his shoulders against the chill wind, burying his chin in his scarf. He was supposed to be finishing off his Christmas shopping, but he needed some time on his own before he could face the relentless festive cheer of the High Street.
The tide was out, so he made his way down the slimy steps from the esplanade to the beach. The wet sand was the color of old putty in the low gray light of the afternoon and it sucked at his feet unpleasantly as he walked. It fit his mood perfectly. He couldn't remember ever having felt so depressed about his life.
Things at home were even more confrontational than usual. He'd had to tell his father about his arrest, and his revelation had provoked a constant barrage of criticism and digs about his failure to live up to what a good son should be. He had to account for every minute spent outside the house, as if he was ten years old all over again. The worst of it was that Weird couldn't even manage to take the moral high ground. He knew he was in the wrong. He almost felt as if his father's contempt was deserved, and that was the most depressing thing of all. He'd always been able to console himself that his way was the better way. But this time, he'd placed himself outside the limits.
Work was no better. Boring, repetitive and undignified. Once upon a time, he'd have turned it into a big joke, an opportunity for mayhem and mischief. The person who would have relished winding up his supervisors and enlisting the support of Alex and Mondo in a series of pranks felt like a distant stranger to Weird now. What had happened to Rosie Duff and his involvement in the case had forced him to acknowledge that he was indeed the waster that his father had always believed him to be. And it wasn't a comfortable realization.
There was no consolation for him in friendship either. For once, being with the others didn't feel like being absorbed into a support system. It felt like a reminder of all his failings. He couldn't escape his guilt with them, because they were the ones he'd implicated in his actions, even though they never seemed to blame him for it.
He didn't know how he was going to face the new term. Bladder-wrack popped and slithered under his feet as he reached the end of the beach and started to climb the broad steps toward the Port Brae. Like the seaweed, everything about him felt slimed and unstable.
As the light faded in the west, Weird turned toward the shops. Time to pretend to be part of the world again.
Chapter 10
New Year's Eve, 1978; Kirkcaldy, Scotland
They'd made a pact, back when they were fifteen, when their parents were first persuaded that they could be allowed out first-footing. At the year's midnight, the four Laddies fi' Kirkcaldy would gather in the Town Square and bring in the New Year together. Every year so far, they'd kept their word, standing around jostling each other as the hands of the town clock crept toward twelve. Ziggy would bring his transistor radio to make sure they heard the bells, and they'd pass around whatever drink they'd managed to acquire. They'd celebrated the first year with a bottle of sweet sherry and four cans of Carlsberg Special. These days, they'd graduated to a bottle of Famous Grouse.
There was no official celebration in the square, but over recent years groups of young people had taken to congregating there. It wasn't a particularly attractive place, mostly because the Town House looked like one of the less alluring products of Soviet architecture, its clock tower greened with verdigris. But it was the only open space in the town center apart from the bus station, which was even more charmless. The square also boasted a Christmas tree and fairy lights, which made it marginally more festive than the bus station.
That year, Alex and Ziggy arrived together. Ziggy had called round to the house to collect him, charming Mary Gilbey into giving them both a tot of Scotch to keep out the cold. Pockets stuffed with homemade shortbread, black bun which nobody would eat, and sultana cake, they'd walked down past the station and the library, past the Adam Smith Center with its posters advertising Babes in the Wood starring Russell Hunter and the Patton Brothers, past the Memorial Gardens. Their conversation