The Ned Wood Archive

In a corner of the morning
in the past

I got back one evening and found Pete sitting in the kitchen having a cuppa and chatting to Gav. Chatting to not chatting with.

Pete was sat on the throne – the only comfortable chair in the kitchen, the old burned up chair that got rescued from the fire and that had been recovered with a dark golden brown cord material.  Everyone sat on the throne if they could.  The other chairs were just too hard, too painful to stay in for long.  So, Pete’s on the throne, leaning on the kitchen table, his back to the door.  Not how you’d sit if you were really a monarch, worried about getting stabbed in the back.  You’d sit facing the entrance.  But no-one’s gonna stab Pete.  Not even Gav.  In fact, Gav’s opposite, trying to make himself comfortable.  Mind, if I’d tried to put a knife through Pete’s ribs as I’d come in through the door, Gav would have given the game away.  Even if he’d wanted to, he wouldn’t have been able to keep a straight face.    

Pete’s talking and Gav’s listening.  Nothing else in the kitchen is paying attention.  Me gran’s old fridge is standing against the wall humming a tune to itself.  Not really a tune, more like a drone from one of those Tangerine Dream albums.  The almost fitted cupboards are leaning against each other ignoring the world.  The sink in front of the window is staring straight ahead, signalling its boredom by slowly rapping out a monotonous beat from one dripping tap.  A rhythm even slower than the beat from a Tangerine Dream album. The window itself is permanently painted shut as a sign of indifference.  Its job here is to make sure none of our cooking smells ever escape the room.  Only the cooker looks interested, hoping one of us would maybe engage with it and ask for help with a drink or something more substantial.

Looking back, this was one of the last times we saw Pete round the flat.  He was moving on.  There was a rumour that he’d dropped out and then went to work on an oil rig.  That evening it was like he’d come to say goodbye.  But in his own particular way.  Which was 50% I don’t need you anymore disdainful and 50% I really need you to listen and appreciate what I’m saying enthusiastic.  Poor old Pete couldn’t resolve the conflict.

“Hi Pete.  How’re you doing?” I ask.  “Sorry, I forgot, you got yourself a new handle.  Unfortunately, I can’t pronounce your matchstick name.”  He’s got a new splash of dye in his hair.  Covering between half and three quarters of his mop.  Pale yellow, not blonde.  My ignoring it is deliberate. 

“Hi Ned.  Oh, what d’ya mean?” 

“Matchstick name.  Runes.  You remember.”

“Oh yes.  Well…  that’s what I was telling Gav about”

“Oh, really? …. Hey Pete.  How d’ya make a Viking Cross with a box of matches?”  Pause.  For effect.  Not a skill I’ve perfected yet.  “Spell his name wrong!”

“You what?”

“How d’ya make a Maltese Cross with a couple of matches?  Stick ‘em in his eyes… How d’ya make a Viking Cross ….”

Pete pauses.  For thought.  Not a skill he’s perfected yet.  “Oh yeah.  Very clever.”

“So you were telling Gav something about matchsticks and runes?”

So Pete tells us about his recent visit to Scandinavia in search of his Viking ancestry.  Denmark, Sweden, and Norway.  I spend Easter in Derbyshire, he spends Easter in Denmark.  Fair enough.  He’s been round various museums.  He’s played around on various ships.  Or the remains of ships.  The standard tourist stuff.  He’s trying to impress us that this is ground-breaking, but other people’s holiday snaps are pretty dull at the best of times and Gav has heard much of this already today, so I try and hurry Pete along.

Then he starts talking about runestones and we both start paying attention.  Runestones are these whacking great big standing stones like the English menhirs near Avebury and places like that.  Except that the vikings wrote or drew on theirs.  Some have pictures and some have life stories, a bit like gravestones, you know “in memory of my Dad” sort of thing, but some are more boastful.  And not just posthumous.  Folk boasting about themselves.  Like “He attacked England and came back with loads of money” or “Karl put this stone up.  He was beautiful and brave.”  Come to think about it, just the sort of thing Pete would do.  And all of ‘em written in runes.

So he’s been to a couple of places with loads of stones like these and he’s been reading them all.  More likely reading the guide books for them all.  Anyway, the point is that he’s seen one that says “He went to England and came back with the sword stone” which Pete claims is proof that there really was a sword-in-the-stone stone and that he was right all along, viz that the story of King Arthur and the lady in the lake with the sword in the stone or whatever was true.  Not only that. He also points out, however, that this means that there is no point in Gav or anyone looking for it over here in Scotland or even England anymore because the Vikings nicked it.

“And?” I ask.  As far as I’m concerned, Pete is the one who was wasting his time looking for a stone hidden in the sediments of Hunter’s Bog on Arthur’s Seat.  I don’t think me or Gav have told him anything about those books we may or may not have found.  However, I don’t think that matters to Pete.  He’s in his own world.  One where he thinks he’s got one over on Gav which is the thing that mainly matters to him.  But the sort of arrogance that this means starts to feed into the way Gav reacts: he can sense that Pete is feeling superior, so he starts to feel inferior.  Other folk would react differently.  Pete and Fi would have similar conversations where Pete tried to put one up on Fi, mainly related to her being Scottish and his being English, but Fi would give as good as she got and sparks would fly.  Other folk like Nessie and Sarah just ignored Pete.  Mind, he ignored them too.  Like he realised he wouldn’t get a rise out of them, so didn’t try.

Gav is desperate to get back at Pete, but we can’t really disprove what he’s saying. I don’t want us to give Pete any ammo, so I keep Pete talking, always getting in before Gav has a chance to say anything that could encourage him.  I drag Pete back to his holiday snaps and get him to tell us, one more time, about the various viking ships he’s been sailing on.  But Pete’s getting bored now.  He asks whether we’ve seen the girls recently and tries to find out whether we’re expecting them round.  And as we don’t know what they’re up to, he leaves us, probably to go round to Bruntsfield to say goodbye to Fi and Cat in his own particular way.