Glue

by Irvine Welsh

  He was shaken from his thoughts by a whine from Johnny. Yes, that lightweight was fuckin well toiling. — Ah dinnae see how ye jist couldnae book another room in the Balmoral, he was suggesting mournfully to Kathryn.

  — I don’t want to be anywhere near that asshole Franklin, Kathryn cursed. It had taken them ages to find a room in a city-centre hotel, even for Kathryn Joyner. Now they were heading down Princes Street to Haymarket and a smaller, but comfortable, billet.

  As they checked Kathryn in, Terry mused, — Ye wir perfectly welcome tae stey at mine, wi nae strings attached, he told Kathryn.

  — Terry, you’re a guy. There’s always strings attached.

  The Yank lassie wisnae as daft as she looked but. — Jist sayin, Terry ventured, it’s dead near the Gauntlet. Fir the karaoke, ken?

  — I gotta go to Ingliston and do this show, Kathryn told him.

  — But ye sacked the boy . . . Terry bleated.

  — This is just something I gotta do, she told him briskly.

  Rab Birrell started dragging a case upstairs as the desk clerk issued Kathryn with her key. — Be telt, Terry, it’s up tae Kathryn, he said.

  — Aye, wi’ll make the Gauntlet fir last orders in a fast black eftir the gig, Johnny said, and wondered why he was parroting Terry as he was absolutely fucked and just wanted to get his head down.

  After waiting around while Kathryn got dressed, they piled into the stretch limo that Rab had called to re-route from the Balmoral, and headed out to Ingliston. Johnny sprawled across one side of the car and dozed off. He’d been looking forward to riding in a motor like this, now the experience was passing him by as surely as the busy city outside was.

  Charlene was curled into Rab’s side, enjoying herself. Lisa and Terry helped themselves to drinks from the cabinet. Lisa could smell herself now, her top was dirty and her pores would be blocked, but she didn’t care. Terry was babbling into Kathryn’s ear, and she could tell that the American singer was grateful when she intervened. — Leave Kathryn alaine, Terry, she’s goat tae get ready. Just shut the fuck up.

  Terry looked open-mouthed in appeal.

  — Ah sais shut it, she urged.

  Terry laughed and squeezed her hand. He liked this lassie. Sometimes it could be quite enjoyable being ordered around by a bird. For about five minutes.

  Inner-city tenements gave way to grand villas, which became bland suburbs and motorway slip-roads. Then a plane roared above them and they were pulling into the car-park of Ingliston showgrounds. They had trouble shaking Johnny awake, and Kathryn’s security were not amused when they saw her entourage, but they were so relieved to see her that they unquestioningly issued every member of the party with backstage passes.

  In the Green Room, they got stuck into the free food and drink as Kathryn hid in the toilet, puked and psyched herself up.

  Kathryn Joyner shakily took the stage at Ingliston. It was the longest walk to a microphone she had ever had; well, maybe not as bad as the time she’d staggered on in Copenhagen after coming from that hotel room via the hospital where they’d just pumped the pills out of her stomach. But this was bad enough: she thought she was going to pass out under the heat of the lights, and was aware of every drop of the aching, grimy pain the drugs had left in her undernourished body.

  Nodding to the musicians she let the band strike up Mystery Woman. When she sang, her voice was barely audible for the first half of the first number. Then something both perfectly ordinary and enchantingly mystical happened: Kathryn Joyner felt the music and clicked into gear. In truth, it was a no more than adequate performance but that was a lot more than she and her audiences had grown used to, so in that context it constituted a minor triumph. Most importantly, a nostalgic, appreciative and pretty drunk crowd lapped it up.

  At the end of the set they called her back out for an encore. Kath thought of the hotel room in Copenhagen. Time to let go, she thought. She turned to Denny, her guitarist, who was a veteran session man. — Sincere Love, she said. Denny nodded to the rest of the band. Kathryn stepped out to great applause and took the microphone. Terry danced in the wings.

  — I’ve had a great time in Edinboro’ City. It’s been the best. This sang is dedicated to Terry, Reb and Jahnny from Edinboro’, with Sincere Love.

  It was a fitting climax, though Terry was a bit put-out that she hadn’t given him his proper title of Juice Terry. — It would’ve meant mair tae any cunt oot thaire fae the scheme, he explained to Rab.

  Franklin Delaney tried to greet her as she stepped off-stage, only to be intercepted by Terry. — We’ve a gig, he said, as he pushed her former manager aside. Kathryn brushed away the security guards who were ready to intervene.

  Terry led the way, striding out across the car-park to the taxis, which were waiting to ferry them to the Gauntlet public house in Broomhouse. Kathryn was seeing things come to her in powerful clarity, not on an intellectual level – she was so fucked she could barely think straight – but this was it, this would be her last gig in a long time.

  To the outside world she’d been a phenomenal success, yet to Kathryn Joyner, the years of her youth had flown by in a series of tours, hotel rooms, recording studios, air-conditioned villas and unsatisfying relationships. Since the stultifying boredom of the small town near Omaha, she’d lived a life on a schedule dictated by others, surrounded by friends who all had a vested interest in her continued commercial success. Her father had been her first manager, before their acrimonious split. Kathryn thought how Elvis had died, not in a Vegas Hotel in a jumpsuit, but at home on the toilet in Memphis, surrounded by family and friends. It’s as likely to be the people who love you who precipitate your demise as the new hangers-on. They’re less likely to notice your incremental decline.

  But it had suited her. For a while. She hadn’t realised she was on a merry-go-round until she couldn’t get off. This starvation shit, it was all about trying to exercise control. Of course, they had all told her that, but now she was feeling it, and she was going to do something about it. And she was going to do it without the rescue fantasy figure who always showed up on cue when things got too much, who could recommend a new date, or look, or consumer durables, or a piece of real estate, or self-help book, revolutionary diet, vitamins, shrink, guru, mentor, religion, counsellor, in fact anybody or anything who could paper over the cracks so that Kathryn Joyner could get back into the studio and on the road. Back to being the cash-cow that supported the infrastructure of the hangers-on.

  Terry, Johnny, even Rab, she couldn’t trust those guys any more than the rest. They were the same, they couldn’t help it, swallowed up by that disease that seemed to grip everyone more every day, the need to use the vulnerable. They were nice enough, that was the problem, they always were, but dependency on others and, conversely, theirs on you, just had to stop. They’d shown her something though, something useful and important, during those last few days of drug-addled nonsense. Strange as it was, they cared. They weren’t world-weary or blasé. They cared about things; often stupid, trival things, but they cared. And they cared because they were engaged in a world outside the constructed world of the media and showbusiness. You couldn’t care about that world, not really, because it wasn’t yours and it never could be. It was sophisticated commerce, and it just chugged on.

  She was going to sleep for a few days, then she was going home and disconnecting the phone. After that she was going to rent a modest apartment somewhere. But first she’d sing to a public. Just one more time.

  So it was that Juice Terry Lawson and Kathryn Joyner duetted on Don’t Go Breaking My Heart. When they were announced winners of the prize of a range of kitchen accessories supplied by Betterware, they encored with Islands in the Stream. Louise Malcolmson was hostile, especially as she and Brian Turvey had given a good account of themselves with You’re All I Need to Get By. — Fuckin crawlin up that rich Yank cunt’s erse, she said in loud drunkenness.

  Lisa’s face hardened, but she said nothing. Terry had a quiet w
ord with Brian Turvey, who took Louise home.

  In future years they’d say that Kathryn Joyner’s last gig was in Edinburgh, and they’d be right. However, very few would know that it wasn’t at Ingliston, but the Gauntlet public house in Broomhouse.

  If the Ingliston gig was a watershed for Kathryn, so was the Gauntlet one for Terry. When they’d headed off, he’d deliberately left his jacket over the back of a chair in the pub. He’d never keep shagging cool young lassies like Lisa dressing like a twat. He resolved to make more of an effort to slim down, kick those Häagen-Dazs, white-pudding supper and masturbation sessions into touch. Somewhere along the line, he realised, he’d lost a bit of pride in himself. And it didn’t necessarily mean dressing up like a poof, because Ben Sherman was back now. He’d had his first one at ten. Maybe this was the indication of a Juice Terry revival in middle age. Get a haircut as well. It grew so quickly, but a number one or two every other Saturday would be cool, if he could lose the weight. Buy some Ben Shermans, new jeans. Do over a fuckin clathes shop! Maybe a leather bomber jacket like Birrell’s. He had to admit that was smart. New Terry, New Clathes.

  Aye, he’d be in that Tony Blair cunt’s Cabinet soon! That boy had it sussed, it didnae matter what you did, as long as you looked and talked the part. That was all people in Britain wanted, a sympathetic ear from a well-dressed and well-spoken man. Somebody who told them that they were all very important. Then you could sit back contentedly when they shat all over you and showed you that you were fuckin nothing. It was the spin that was important though.

  After, they planned to go back to Terry’s for a party. Kathryn was exhausted and wanted to crash in her hotel room. — I need the goddamn hotel . . . she kept muttering deliriously. Johnny was comatose. No way was that dirty wee cunt kipping with her tonight, Terry thought, slipping Lisa and Charlene his keys and instructing them to get Johnny’s head down. Rab and him would take Kathryn out to the hotel and then they’d come straight back to his.

  Rab wasn’t too pleased, but Terry flagged a taxi and it was a fait accompli. Lisa and Charlene already had Johnny in another one.

  As they came into the scheme, Lisa minded that she had an auntie and a cousin who lived here. She didn’t know them well. She did mind, as a kid, coming for spaghetti hoops on toast. One of her cousins had died years ago, he’d fallen off a bridge when he was drunk. Just another young guy who went out on the town, full of life, and came back cold and dead. Her mum and dad had gone to the funeral.

  Since she’d last been here, the buildings had broken out in a rash of satellite dishes. Adjacent to the bucket holder, the wall had been pished up against that often that the cladding had been badly stained and it seemed to be dissolving in parts. She didn’t know whether her Aunt Susan’s was this one or the one behind. Maybe Terry knew her.

  Lisa saw that Charlene was totally fucked, and she wanted to get her head down. And that Johnny laddie: he was done in as well.

  Glasgow, Scotland

  5.27 pm

  Buchanan Street; the stench of diesel fumes and Weedgies filling the air, disconnected currents of harshness that the new shopping malls and designer boutiques seem to strangely accentuate rather than cover up.

  I can’t even mind where Queen Street station is from here, it’s been so long. Of course, it’s only just down the road. My mobile doesnae work, so I call my mother from a payphone. Sandra Birrell answers. My Ma’s at the hospital. With my Auntie Avril.

  She tells me how things are. I mumble some shite for a minute then go to get the train realising that I haven’t asked after anybody, I haven’t even asked after Billy.

  Billy Birrell, all those aka’s; some that he liked, some that he was nippy as fuck about. Silly Girl (Primary). Secret Squirrel (Secondary). Biro (scheme mob name, arsonist thug). Business Birrell (boxer). It’s been a long time. The best cunt I’ve ever met in my life. Billy Birrell.

  Now I need to move back. I head round to Queen Street and get onto the train.

  I recognise a boy on this train. I think he’s a deejay, or something to do with clubs. A promoter? Runs a label? Who knows. I nod. He nods back. Renton, I think they call him. Brother in the army that got killed, a guy who used to go to Tynecastle back in the day. Not a bad guy, the boy’s brother that is. I never thought much of that cunt, I heard he ripped off his mates. But I suppose we have to be strong enough to live with the fact that those closest to us will disappoint us from time to time.

  Gally’s funeral was the saddest thing I’ve ever been to. The only thing that was strangely uplifting about it was Susan and Sheena. They clung to each other like limpets by that graveside. It seemed as if the bricks of maleness around them, Mr G. and Gally, had been exposed as straw and just blown away. It was only them now. Yet through the sheer and utter devastation of it all they seemed so strong and so righteous.

  They had a family plot. I was one of the pall-bearers and I helped carry the coffin and lower Gally into the ground. Billy helped as well, but Terry wasn’t asked. Gail, as she said she would, stayed away and kept Jacqueline away. It was for the best. Gally’s old man was missing, probably inside.

  My mother and father, and the Birrells, they were there, including Rab Birrell and a couple of Gally’s fitba mates. So were Terry’s Ma and Walter. Topsy turned up. The biggest surprise was at the hotel, where Billy told me that Blackie fae the school had shown up. He was now the headmaster and he’d heard that a former pupil of his had died. I hadn’t seen him in the chapel or round the graveside, and he didn’t come back to the hotel, but Billy assured me that it was him, standing sternly in the rain by the graveside, his hands clasped together in front of him.

  The gravel from the path got stuck in the treads of my shoe, and I remember being annoyed about that at the time. I wanted to punch some cunt, just because of some fuckin gravel in my shoe.

  It was an ugly, cold morning, the wind drove into us from the North Sea, gobbing rain and weak snow into our faces. Thankfully, the minister kept it short and we shivered down the road to a hotel for tea, cakes and alcohol.

  At the do, Billy was shaking his head, mumbling to himself, still in shock. I worried about him at the time. It wasn’t Billy Birrell. He looked the same but it was like his focus and undercurrent of power had gone. The batteries had been taken out. Billy had always been a tower of strength and I didn’t like seeing him like that. Yvonne Lawson, who was crying, was holding his hand in shock. Billy was fucked and he had a fight coming up.

  I had one of Susan’s hands in both of mine, and I was saying the old speech, — If there’s anything . . . anything at all . . . and her tired, glassy eyes smiled at me, like her son’s, as she told me that it was alright, that her and Sheena would manage.

  When I went to the toilet for a pish, Billy came up to me and hesitantly started telling me something about Doyle that I vaguely got through the drink and grief.

  Doyle had come down to Billy’s club after training. He was waiting for Billy. — Ah thought, he said, fingering his scar, — this is drastic, here we go again. So ah tensed up. But eh seemed tae be oan ehs ain. Eh said that eh kent ah wis in wi Power n that, eh didnae want any bother, eh jist wanted tae ken something. Then eh sais tae ehs, wir you wi Gally doon at Polmont’s that night?

  But back then, at the funeral, I didnae really want tae hear this. Ah’d had enough and ah was selfish. After Munich, aw that shite, that was like a line I’d drawn under that part of my life, that part of my life in my hometown. I just wanted tae bury my mate and move on. The night we’d went out, the night Gally jumped, it was just an old-time’s-sake do for me, before I headed to London.

  Billy dug his hands deep in his pockets, making himself go aw stiff and rigid. I remember being more struck by that than what he actually said at the time, as it was not the body language you associated him with. Billy normally moved in a fluid, graceful, easy way. — Ah sais tae him, what’s it tae dae wi you? Doyle said Polmont said thir wis naebody else there, it wis jist Gally. Ah jist want tae ken if th
at’s right.

  — Well, ah wisnae thaire, ah telt him. So, Billy said, looking at me, — if thir wis anybody else, well, Polmont obviously never grassed um up tae Doyle.

  — So? I asked, shaking oot ma cock and sticking it back in my flies. As I said, I wasn’t interested. I suppose I still felt a great resentment towards Gally, at what I saw as his selfishness. Susan and Sheena were the main concerns for me now; as far as it stood with me, that day was about them. I certainly had nae wish tae discuss fuckin Doyle, or Polmont.

  Billy rubbed his close-cropped scalp. — Ye see, what ah didnae tell Doyle wis that Gally belled me and asked me if ah’d go doon wi um tae see Polmont. Billy let out a long exhalation. — Well, ah kent what eh meant by see. Ah telt um tae leave it, telt um that we’d aw goat in enough bother cause ay that wanker.

  I couldn’t take my eyes off Billy’s scar, from the time he’d been smashed in the face with Doyle’s flenser. I could see his point, he didn’t need that shite again; he had a fight ahead. I think Billy wanted to move on as much as I did.

  — Ah should’ve done mair tae talk him oot ay it, Carl. If only ah’d just went roond tae see him . . .

  At that point I came so close to telling Billy what Gally had telt me: about him being HIV. That, to me, was why Gally jumped. But I promised Gally. I thought about Sheena and Susan through in the lounge bar, how if you told one person something like that, they had a habit of telling somebody else . . . then it was out. I didn’t want them hurt further, knowing the wee man had jumped because he didn’t want to die of AIDS. All I could say was, — There was nowt you or anybody else could dae, Billy. His mind was made up.