Scabby Queen

by Kirstin Innes

  It was funny how separate from it all Sam felt. Inside her the boy kicked and spun, secure in his paternity, and his mother wondered whether Mark had been married at the time he was fucking her and fathering Debbie. How would that wife feel? Would she just write it off as work? Not really him? At what point did the policeman stop? When he put his cock in? Whose was the sperm that had fathered her child? Was that erection, that constant need to get her knickers off, all part of the performance?

  They were talking about her as though she wasn’t there again. She watched them all, as the hands gesticulated towards her, helpfully pregnant a second time to demonstrate the extent of the crime. She’d been so much younger than these people when she’d known them that she’d shut up and listened when they talked and talked, impressed by their words and their passion. She saw them now, frayed, middle-aged and flustered, people who’d never held down a job, raised a kid, had managed to coast through to their forties and even fifties on outrage and vim, untroubled by any real responsibility. Mark – Michael – whatever his name was, had recognized them for the squabbling children they were at the time. That’s why he’d found it so easy. Of course he was a police officer. Of course he was. She saw it clearly now. They all flapped their hands about as they talked, the voices rising shrill, changing nothing, and she felt so very, very tired. Couldn’t she just find him, go up to him and punch him in the face? Would that be enough? Could she turn up on his doorstep with pictures of Debbie and hand them to his wife? Something like a bomb, a grenade, some sort of violence on his home? Something exploding in the middle of his life? What would make her stop feeling like this?

  She would need to see it, she realized that. To feel normal again she would need to watch his face. She wanted to see it dawning that his life had been ruined, and that she had done it. She wanted to be holding his face in her hands while it happened, pushing her nails into his skin.

  She’d had enough of them. She slipped her huge self off the bar stool and stood there for a second, in the middle of their circle, holding up a hand until their talk and talk and talk dried up.

  ‘OK. We’re going to be methodical about this. You all need to calm down and we’re going to draw up a plan of action. First thing we need to do: get proof. Nah, not hearing it, Gaz.’

  She raised her hand higher and he stopped. This was good. This felt like having control again. ‘Think about Mark. Really think about him. You know he was police. Of course you do. So, we just need to get proof. After that, you’re going to get straight on to your journalist mates, Clio. They won’t publish anything without checking with their legal team, but they’ll be able to get something in motion. And we’re going to need a lawyer.’

  They all looked flummoxed, again.

  ‘Lucky I know someone who might do it pro bono, then. Good bloke; I’ve done some work with him. I’ll set up a meeting, but one of you is going to have to do the heavy lifting because this baby is my priority, not some mucky revenge plan. But here, let me tell you this – none of you are going to fuck this up, OK? I’m not having you putting me under any more stress. I want you all to remember who he hurt the most with all of this, and who you could hurt the most if you start acting the goat. Me, and my little girl. His daughter. Debbie is thirteen years old and she’s the one with the most at stake here. I don’t want anybody disclosing our identity. I don’t want any of you getting loose-lipped one stoned night and spilling out any information. I am going to need assurance from every single one of you that you are going to act properly and responsibly, hear me? Smallest sign of mucking about and I’m walking and taking your case with you. This is life or death. Take it more seriously than anything you ever have in your life. All right? All right.’

  They nodded at her, silent and huge-eyed, like her problem-kids group did when she’d had to lose it at them. Even though Clio opened her mouth, she closed it again.

  That night, in bed, she wept into the pillow until Dale woke up, rolled round and curled into her.

  ‘Hey. Come on now, Sam. Hey.’

  ‘The fuck am I doing, baby? Am I putting my own need to see that bastard punished before my daughter’s welfare? I mean, what the hell is Debbie going to get out of all this?’

  ‘Do you want to stop it? Cos we can stop it, love. You just walk away right now and it ends here.’

  She thought about that.

  ‘I can’t. It doesn’t. It won’t, though, will it? It’s not going to let me go now.’

  From then on the days bore into her; she felt each one physically. She grew hefty, her hips and feet forced outwards, duck-like, as she walked the pavement, the weight of everything almost too much if she thought about it.

  This pregnancy was different. Her belly had popped early and she found herself relishing wearing bright, skin-tight clothes where as a pregnant twenty-year-old she’d slunk under men’s shirts nicked off the boys in the squat or bought three for a pound from charity shops. She walked belly-first, hands always cradling her boy from the world, making sure they all knew, realizing for the first time the herd instinct, pushing through centuries of London isolationism, which made strangers automatically protective of her body. It was not how she was used to being treated in a crowd. On the Tube, people stood for her. In the street, they made way, the women smiled, even white women; grandfatherly bus drivers asked how she was doing as she paid her fare. People talked to her, asking how long to go, telling her she looked well. Society had never reacted to her like this before and it had taken her a while to get used to it; her body and space invaded from inside and out.

  ‘Of course, you’ll have done all this before,’ said the midwife, trying to distract her from the stab and ache of blood-letting. ‘How old’s your first?’

  The two pregnancies conflated, created a wormhole between two very different people, made it all impossible to forget. Thirteen years, the same womb. She’d wake up at night, her veins throbbing, unsure whether she was Sam Burke or scared little Sammi Smith, carrying a wanted and planned-for baby or a piece of collateral damage.

  And she ached most for Debbie; for the retroactive shame and humiliation she felt about that birth. She’d never had a problem showing her daughter love but couldn’t go near her now without the churning of complication. Their interactions grew more and more clipped, Debbie’s voice rising higher and higher, and as Sam’s due date approached she shipped her lovely girl off to Avril’s every weekend, terrified lest she say something she shouldn’t in the heat of an argument. She spent the three weeks of her maternity leave before Elliot’s birth nursing hatred, pure, clean and focused, for the man she didn’t know how to name, an idea of his blondness always in the corner of her eye, light and lordly, clouding and ruining everything it touched. She hated at the mechanics of a system that had decided it had the right to use her, she hated at Clio for unearthing it all, and she hated herself. In the red height of labour she dug her nails into Dale’s arm and chanted Debbie’s name repeatedly, increasingly frantic.

  Loaded, February 1996

  Hot Scots!

  As Trainspotting becomes the most successful Britflick in yeeeears, Pete Moss turns his eyes (and his, er, jockstrap) to the frozen north for this week’s Shaggable Six. Och aye the YES!

  1. Kelly Macdonald

  Don’t worry, chaps! Renton’s schoolgirl squeeze is totally legal in real life! And as she plays a jailbait hooker in new film Stella Does Tricks, we hope to be seeing a lot more of her, er, talents.

  2. Shiv West

  The pint-sized teenage frontwoman of up-and-comers Costello has a fuckton of attitude zipped into that catsuit, and with a platinum album ringing in the moola, she seems like the sort of girl who’d give you a Good Time.

  3. Manda Rin

  Reckon you could make this Bis cutie squeal even louder? Maybe if you showed her your Kandy Pop …

  4. Laura Fraser

  Form an orderly queue please! The talented teen actress broke hearts in Glasgow gangster flick Small Faces, and with a gorgeous sma
ll … face like that, she’s probably used to men fighting over her.

  5. Clio Campbell

  It’s been a few years since this sexy ginger encouraged gentlemen the world over to Rise Up, but while she prefers to guest on other people’s songs these days, there are those of us who remain firmly, er, arisen …

  6. Shirley Manson

  Another gorgeous ginge (it’s like they breed ’em up there …), this Stupid Girl is Only Happy When It Rains. Reckon a few Loaded readers would be glad to rain on her parade, eh?

  SHIV

  Glasgow, 4 February 2017

  She was relatively early, but the (admittedly small) room was already packed and, having not expected to be one of the oldest people at a fiftieth birthday party, she felt instantly on edge. Clio was dressed in something sparkling, with a centrifugal whirl of youth and energy around her. Siobhan pulled herself up straighter and steadied her heels, relaxed as the heads turned.

  ‘Shiv! Shiv! SHIV!’ Clio shouted, stretching her arms out, parting an obedient Red Sea of bodies to create safe passage. Siobhan stretched her arms out too as she approached, mirroring absurdly, aware everyone was watching them, conscious of the whispers as she passed. Yes, yes, it’s me. It had been so long since she’d been out that she’d almost forgotten the rush of validation a home crowd would always give her, even when she wasn’t playing.

  ‘Happy birthday,’ she yelled in Clio’s ear as they wrapped around each other. ‘Look at us, eh? Two old tarts!’

  She pulled back to study Clio, held her by the elbow. Golden glow, shimmer, and the hair at its curliest, huge glass of wine swilling around in her fist.

  ‘You look fucking great.’

  ‘Aww. So do you,’ Clio said, although Siobhan heard the dull clank of an automatic response.

  ‘Feh. I look like a middle-aged mother. You’re some sort of ageless fucking Botticelli disco ball. How the hell you can afford to look this expensive beats me.’

  Clio waved a hand, fingernails painted green like Sally Bowles. ‘I felt I owed it to myself tonight. At this age, you can’t throw a big party for yourself then trudge out in front of everyone letting all the … fiftyness drag your tits down. Well, you’ll learn all about it when you get there! I might not be able to afford food until springtime, right enough. Where’s Paul?’

  ‘Babysitter fell through. I’m here, though – got the guitar, and I’ll do the song solo if you want. Or perhaps you could get up and join me?’

  ‘Ha! You shouldn’t have asked me in advance. I’ll have time to think of an excuse now.’

  A beat, in which neither of them believed her.

  ‘Oh, let me think about it. Right, you need a drink. And – Ruth? Ruth? Shiv, this is my dear, dear friend Ruth, who, bless her wee button boots, has agreed to stage-manage the whole shebang for me tonight. Ruth, Shiv is – well, she’s Shiv – and performing, obviously – could you grab her something on the bar tab?’

  Ruth was a sturdy, capable-looking woman, make-up already mostly sweated off a round red-cheeked face. She seemed quite distracted, and Siobhan found it a little awkward that a ‘dear, dear friend’ was pulling waitress duty. Sensing Clio’s attention wandering, she created her exit.

  ‘I will absolutely get my own drink. See you shortly. Ruth, do you need me to soundcheck, or isn’t that possible?’

  Clio’s golden back turned and she embraced the next newcomer, screamed their name.

  The businesslike Ruth was saying something quietly about adjusting the levels live.

  ‘It’s – well, we did organize a soundcheck for everyone who’s playing at five p.m. Before everything started. I think you got the email?’

  Siobhan felt the accusation and ground against it. She was doing this for free, for fuck’s sake, as a favour.

  ‘Yeah – I couldn’t do that. School run, kids need their dinner. You know.’

  Ruth nodded. Maybe she didn’t know.

  ‘It’ll be fine to fiddle with the levels when I’m up there. It’s just a birthday party! We’re not playing the Albert Hall.’ Ruth gave a small terse nod. ‘Actually, I think I would like that drink, if OK? I’ll take a glass of red just now. Big one. No, wait, make it a double G&T. Not the house – anything boutique, small distillery, that sort of thing. With slimline. Lovely. Ta.’

  Siobhan flattened her back against the wall as Ruth’s inscrutable face sailed out to combat the bar queue. The crowd shifted into focus; she recognized people. It would be all right. She’d felt quite anxious, going somewhere without Paul, which was ridiculous. They’d been doing professional appearances separately since Daisy was born and had only ever gigged as the band three times in the past decade, so perhaps it was the social aspect of the evening that was worrying her. To be on show at an event like this, with the fierce, constant hug of elastic under her dress making her all too aware of the new flesh she’d never lose, without Paul to tag in and out of their well-rehearsed stories and rescue her from the inevitable parade of humourless former goths who’d loved her when they were teenagers – she had really had to push herself out of the door.

  Camden, 1995

  The bar that everyone went to was deliberately run-down, made a point of its scruffiness. It was December and Shiv was nineteen, out with two music journalists and one of the record-company guys, all of whom, she was pleasantly aware, were trying to sleep with her. She had been ushered through the bar crowd to a raised, ripped banquette by the broken-legged pool table where everyone could see her through the drifts of cigarette smoke. She’d been down a few times and was talking about moving there, but London still had Shiv enchanted then; the spells it had cast were newness, hugeness, difference from home. That grotty pub glowed and pulsed to her, a kingdom hers for the taking. The album had only just come out and, despite her face being on the cover of the current issue of Select magazine under the headline THIS YEAR’S GIRL (with the male parts of the band small and glowering in the very distant background behind her shoulder), she didn’t know anyone. The record-company guy kept passing her wraps of chaz with too knowing a wink and unnecessarily complicated hand gestures. Slipping through a mob of rich kids in stained thrifted T-shirts, everyone squinting out through unwashed fringes hoping for a Damon or a Justine, Shiv experienced for the first time the sensation of being famous, of hearing people whisper her name as she passed, and it felt fucking great. She was here. It was happening around her and to her and it wanted her. It’s maybe why she would always remember the night so clearly.

  There was only one cubicle in the ladies’, and barely enough space by the tiny, grimy basin for one person to wait. Shiv squeezed in close to the other body in there, registered the smell of hairspray, the cluster of badges on the jacket, the mass of red hair and the sheer loveliness of that face.

  ‘Oh my fucking God! You’re Clio Campbell!’

  Her voice rang off the tiles. Clio looked embarrassed.

  ‘Hi. Yeah. That’s me.’

  ‘But I LOVE you. I mean, you pretty much made me who I am! You probably won’t remember me of course, but my God, you changed my life. Watching you on Top of the Pops – that was what made me decide to be a musician. I mean, fucking hell, pal! Clio Campbell! And you’re here! I’m Shiv – Siobhan – and I’m, like, your biggest fan ever.’

  Clio smiled down at her.

  ‘I know who you are, darlin.’

  ‘No, no, but we’ve met! We’ve met before! I went to see you on tour a couple of years ago when you played my town. Ullapool. Fucking Ullapool. We got to speak to you for ages afterwards and I just – oh my God. You were the only act worthwhile who ever came to us. Oh my God, it meant so much.’

  ‘I do remember. Of course I remember that. Wee Siobhan. And now you’re Shiv West? I didn’t make the connection. Look at you!’

  Snorting and snuffling from the cubicle.

  ‘It’s like, what are you doing in here anyway? Oh my God, you have to come and sit with us! You’re the only person in here I know. I need to hear a voice from home.
Come here, come here, we’ll have a bit of this—’ She waggled the origami wrap in Clio’s face, then banged on the cubicle door. ‘Hiya, pal! Could you get out of there please? Other people need to use the facilities!’

  Clio would only have been twenty-eight at the time, but just then, even squatting to do a line off a toilet seat with her curls thrown back to one side, she seemed to Siobhan to be some sort of ancient being, a sentinel, her very presence there a sign from the old gods. Her hand, when Siobhan reached for it to guide her to their table, wondering momentarily if she was allowed to touch her, was cold and smooth.

  ‘Guys guys guys, you will not believe this! This is Clio – she’s, like, the reason we started the band. She did this amazing song, “Rise Up”, a load of years ago, when I was tiny, and it was like the first single I ever bought, and then she played a gig in our town and you’ve got to understand, this was a tiny town. I mean, nobody ever came to our town. Nobody who wasn’t a fucking folkie in a beard, yeah? And I heard her play that night and that’s when I realized it properly, like I started the band the next week. So she’s going to join us for the night. Budge up! Budge up, boys! Make way for an actual living legend, eh?’

  She pushed at the air around the men impatiently until they’d shifted. Clio had glanced at one of the journalists, who was staring straight at his pint.

  ‘Evening, Pete. Long time, eh?’

  ‘Clio.’