Free Tombstoning by Doug Johnstone

the fading sunlight on his back, both sensations giving him a tingle down his spine that he liked a lot.
    ‘There’s a card with the flowers,’ said Nicola, pulling away from him to reach it. ‘Colin, I’ll never forget,’ is all it said.
    ‘No signature,’ said Nicola. ‘Isn’t that a little odd? Don’t people always sign these things? Don’t they want others to know who left the flowers?’
    ‘Check you out, cynic girl. It doesn’t matter who left them, they know who they are, and presumably that’s all that matters.’
    ‘It doesn’t look like a mum or dad’s handwriting, either,’ Nicola continued. ‘It’s a real scrawl. It almost looks like a young boy’s writing or something.’ She held the card closer to her face, then passed it over to David.
    For a second David thought he recognized the handwriting, but the moment passed. That sort of thing wasn’t something he’d ever been good at – it was always more of a girl thing, wasn’t it, like spotting wedding rings on fingers – and he let the thought go from his head. She was right about one thing though, even David could see that it was no elderly mother or father’s writing, it was way too messy for that. Older generations always had better handwriting. But what did it matter? So someone was remembering Colin apart from his own folks, well, good. He bent and put the card carefully back in with the flowers.
    ‘This is hardly the thrilling, drunken evening of debauchery you promised me,’ he said, smiling.
    ‘You’re absolutely right,’ said Nicola, deciding that enough was enough. ‘Let’s get the hell away from here and hit the Lochlands.’ She put her arm around him and playfully pulled him up, away from the stone. ‘Let the debauchery commence,’ she yelled, startling a crow into flight from the adjacent field, making them both jump, then laugh. They began running down the hill, using gravity to take them away from the past.
    The Lochlands was heaving, and to David’s dismay they were greeted with a rowdy cheer from a table round the corner when they pushed in the small door, abandoning the last of the day’s sunlight for the smoky rammy of the place. Somebody obviously knew they were coming. This was supposed to be just the two of them, him and Nicola. He tried to catch Nicola’s eye as she headed for the table, smiling and dragging David along with her.
    ‘Look who I found,’ she said to the table. There were half a dozen people squeezed into the corner, and every face was one that David immediately recognized, and yet he couldn’t think of a single name to go with any of the faces. This was a fucking nightmare. He wasn’t ready for all this shit.
    ‘The long-lost David Lindsay, everybody. David, you remember Alison, Carol, Debbie’ – she paused briefly to allow head nods down one side of the table – ‘Steve, Anne and Derek.’ There was some more nodding, smiles all round. Everyone looked fatter than they used to, their faces saggier, their hair shorter in the case of the girls (fuck, not girls, women, very definitely women), or gone in the case of the guy nearest him (was that Steve?) and the other guy, who surely didn’t wear specs before. He felt like he was drowning and his throat was dry. He pulled his arm away from Nicola’s hand, which was still gently anchoring him in reality.
    ‘What do you want to drink?’ he said to her.
    ‘Pint of lager, cheers.’
    He was at the bar in a shot, cursing, his face tripping him. He looked around at the Lochlands; it hadn’t changed a bit. There was football memorabilia covering the walls, framed photos of old Scotland World Cup squads peeking shamefully out from the corners they were tucked away in, signed shirts and scarves for a host of teams mounted everywhere. Two televisions in opposite corners of the room showed football and cricket from somewhere nameless around the world. He saw other faces that he recognized amongst the gangs of men and women sitting at the