This is where I used to hide. Sometimes for hours. Wind whistling through the toilet gap. Nursing a beating or anticipating one. On the day I wet myself at school, I sat there for so long, piss freezing on my legs, that when I went home, my mum thought I had hypothermia.
My father warmed me up by leathering me.
I climb past the latrine, circling up the staircase. As I enter the old laird’s bedchamber, I look at the fireplace. Sometimes when it got too cold to sit in the latrine I would retire here.
A plaque on the wall tells of the castle’s use, in World War II, as an anti-aircraft observation post. Testimony to the building’s continuing impact on history.
I climb to emerge onto the roof. I’m standing at the centre of a concrete-covered square, maybe twenty feet on each side, surrounde
