Country of the Blind

by Brookmyre, Christopher

  Last night, like everyone else in the world, she just couldn’t believe it, but had been gradually forced to accept the truth of this incredible development as the stark fact was coloured in with details, quotes and human emotional response. Nonetheless, there had remained an unreality about it, in common with all truly momentous events, perhaps because the “news industry” had for so long made its living from over-dramatising the banal.

  Disbelief was a reaction borne of so much wolf-crying, with the public so desensitised by the hyperbole with which the most tedious events were related (and the deceitful exaggeration with which the most harmless quote could be twisted or recontextualised to create “a sensation” where there was barely a story), that when something truly remarkable happened, you just couldn’t deal with it. The media, having robbed every superlative of its meaning through misuse and over-use, did not have a vocabulary with which to convey such import. Once you’ve used up all your language of astonishment on Hugh Grant getting his cock sucked, how do you express the shock of thirty schoolchildren being gunned down in a gymhall, or of one of the world’s most powerful businessmen being forced to watch his wife bleed to death before having his own carotid opened as his bodyguards lie slain in the hall outside?

  Usually, it all got more real in the light of day, as you woke up and found that you hadn’t dreamt it, and (most importantly) as you realised that the world had failed to stop – and that apart from having to listen to tail-chasing discussions on the subject, it wasn’t actually going to affect your life.

  But this morning, the confirmation that it was all still there ("Voss still dead shocker") had been accompanied by the realisation that it was going to affect Nicole’s life. Thomas McInnes. This was a man she knew, that they were talking about, no longer some face in the paper or a name on the radio. A man who had sat down in front of her only a matter of days ago, a man whose voice, clothes, face she could remember. And by extrapolation he was one of the men all those MPs and journalists last night had said they wanted to see hang. One of the perpetrators of the most audacious crime of the decade. One of the men who had slaughtered four human beings in cold blood.

  Which was where it broke down.

  And with his son involved, too – how could that possibly have come about? What was this, The Generation Game does armed robbery? Brucie: “Let’s see, they got the toaster, the teasmaid, the fondue set, the cuddly toy . . . okay, they lose marks for the four dead bodies, but other than that, didn’t they do well?”

  She could not believe it.

  Blank, staringly, simply could not believe it.

  A mocking voice told her she sounded like a serial killer’s nextdoor neighbour. “Eeeh, you’d never have thought. He was so quiet, you hardly knew he was there. Very polite to speak to . . .”

  So she searched for something solid, some rationale that could support her instinct in the face of all the evidence that was already in the public domain and all the evidence that was bound to emerge in the coming days and weeks.

  Exhibit A, your honour: one cup of tea. Milk and two sugars.

  The defence rests.

  God help us.

  In mitigation, it had been a very good cup of tea.

  After the self-doubt maelstrom of the first two days, she had thought that if she could get through the first week of the job she might find her stride, start to galvanise herself, get into the role and gradually remember the plans she had and the ambitions that had driven her this far.

  And she did, battling through with her eyes fixed on Friday evening like a shipwrecked sailor’s on the shore ahead. She had been most grateful not to know anybody in the city, because if she had begun to unburden herself, she feared she would crumble completely. She had gone out for a drink after work with her bosses on the Monday and with Ian, her fellow subordinate, on the Wednesday, but in a way she had still been in character. None of them knew her from any other context, so she could hide behind her mask until she felt confident enough to take it off.

  Unfortunately, it’s the second week that gets you.

  That’s when you realise that last week wasn’t hell because you were new and inexperienced, but simply because that’s what it’s like to work here. When you see an eternity of all the things you hated most on that first Monday morning, priolled out towards the horizon: the dingy Portakabinesque offices, like a candidate for demolition in a street otherwise embarrassed by its wealth of architectural splendour; the musty smell of suspiciously damp books; the rows of hideously Seventies grey-metal filing cabinets, like a set left over from a Monty Python sketch; the flickering strip-lighting and the glowering low cloud outside the draughty windows. That’s when you realise that this is not a game, but what you do when you grow up.

  Thomas McInnes had appeared in the afternoon of that awful second Monday, right after her meeting with Mrs McGrotty.

  Her first appointment of the day had been with a shriveled-looking man called Mr Taylor, who explained at great length and with much historical detail – a great deal of which seemed somewhat tangential, which is saying something when you’re working in a legal context – that he wished to sue the council because it had taken them three years to mend a broken gutter-pipe around the roof of his house.

  “Why didn’t you try and get it mended yourself?” she had asked, with unintended insensitivity.

  “What the fuck you talkin’ aboot, how didnae I get it fixed?” he exploded animatedly, deeply wounded by her apparent lack of compassion. “S’no up to me to get it fixed, is it? Up to the fuckin’ cooncil to get it fixed. S’how we pay wur rent and wur poll tax, innit?”

  “Look, just to help me get this straight,” she said, trying to couch her words in as conciliatory a tone as possible. “Couldn’t you have arranged for it to be repaired and then submitted the bill to the council?”

  “Assno the fuckin’ point but, is it?” he yelped, a flurry of upper-limb gesticulation. “Issi principle of the thing. S’no up to me to go runnin’ aboot after plumbers and then try chasin’ the fuckin’ cooncil for the cally. Be easier chasin’ fuckin’ Red Rum and hopin’ it shites gold.”

  “So you wish to complain to the council for their laxity in responding to your complaint, and their delay in carrying out the repair to your guttering?” Nicole asked.

  “Naw, ya stupit bitch,” he said, eyes ablaze with incredulity at her persistent obtuseness. “I want to sue them for the psychological damage. I’ve been up to high doe ower this cairry-on, so I huv. Fuckin’ post-dramatic stress hingmy. Three years of listenin’ to the drips on the windae ledge – like Chinese water torture. And aw the cairry-on of phonin’ them up and askin’ when somethin’s gaunny get done. My nerves are shot to fuck, so they are. I’m on tablets, you know.”

  By lunchtime she had dealt with half-a-dozen more such victims of a troubled world in need of Manson & Boyd’s assistance in their heart-rending battles for justice, including one man wishing to contest his ex-wife’s custody of his two children on the grounds that her new boyfriend was “a prodisant” and that their spiritual welfare was under serious threat; and a woman seeking compensation from the Strathclyde Passenger Transport Executive after twisting her ankle alighting from one of its orange double-deckers, who was able to furnish Nicole with figures for her settlements down the years from the city’s other main operators as a guide to how much they should ask for.

  Inexperienced as she was, Nicole nonetheless feared none of them were terribly likely to qualify for legal aid in pursuing their cases.

  Ian had joked last week about the mythical “Manson & Boyd Justice Fund”, which he suspected clients would readily believe existed, and which might assist in legal crusades when legal aid applications had been rejected. Just fill in the form: give your name, address and a brief summary of the case you are fighting. Then tick the appropriate box which best explains the moral rectitude of your cause:

  (1) It just isnae right.

  (2) It’s against God’s law.

  (3
) They cannae do that, can they?

  Over the course of the morning, she had been directly insulted eight times (five instances prefixed with the distastefully emotive epithet “English"), been referred to as “hen” (which she suspected was seldom applied in affection) more times than she could remember, and been asked twice by male clients if she would make them a cup of tea “while they waited for the lawyer”.

  This last had happened several times the week before, too.

  “No, I’m rather busy right now. In fact, I’m so tied up, would you mind nipping out to the chemist and fetching me a packet of tampons,” she had promised herself she would say next time, but of course didn’t.

  And then Mrs McGrotty had come in.

  She was an elephantine creature in a shapeless brown coat that looked like it had been fashioned from dog-pelts and then dragged behind a heavy goods vehicle for a couple of days, its sleeves over-reaching her arms so that it appeared that she had shopping bags instead of hands. The door had burst open before her as two accompanying children – one about seven, the other nearer four – formed a noisy vanguard-cum-herald, and the two young girls had continued to burble, argue and occasionally trade punches throughout the early exchanges of Nicole’s conversation with their grandmother.

  “They’re no mine, like, they’re oor Angela’s, but she’s fucked aff withoot tellin’ us anythin’ this mornin’. Fuckin’ cheek of her, me comin’ up here to try and sort this shite oot as well. Treat you like a fuckin’ skivvy, so they dae. Think you’re just here to look efter them and they don’t need to tell you anyhin’ if they don’t waant to. It’s nae wunner I’m up to sixty a day, between this and her Barry bein’ back in the Bar-L. Mind you, polis stitched him up for that wan. He never hut that boay – well, no much, but wance your face is known they’ll just pull you in for anyhin’. Six months just like that, bloody liberty – boay was oot of hoaspital in a fuckin’ fortnight. Right enough I’ve said to her enough times she’d be better aff withoot him, but they never listen at that age, do they, specially not when they’re aw misty-eyed like that. Ach, you should’ve seen him when the weans were born but, picture of young love, so it was. Puts it aw in a different light when you’ve got wee yins, just forget aboot everyhin’ when you look at them playin’ you come ower aw sentimental, so you DEMI! I’LL TAKE MA FUCKIN’ HAUN AFF YOUR FACE IF YOU TOUCH NAOMI AGAIN, RIGHT?”

  Followed by injured wailing on the part of the chastised and a competitive tearful bid for further sympathy by the oppressed sibling.

  “So Mrs McKechnie, what exactly were you . . .?’

  “HERE!” she suddenly barked, Nicole placing a relieved hand on her chest when she realised it was not she who was being thus addressed. “Yous sit nice while I talk to the lassie. ’Mon. Play wi’ this.”

  Nicole watched in horror as Mrs McGrotty’s yellow hand removed a ring binder from the desk and offered it to the older sprog, who took this as a cue to help herself to a further clutch of folders and a box of highlighter pens that had been sitting nearby.

  Nicole found herself rooted to her chair and helpless as Demi and Naomi began to tear documents from the folders and Mrs McGrotty looked challengingly at her, demanding full attention as she resumed her stream of consciousness.

  “. . . way that scheme’s been goin’ it’s nae wunner there’s nae bulbs in the lights in hauf the closes and it’s not like I don’t know my ain business cause I’ve tell’t thon yin a dozen times faimlies like that can get singl’t oot, specially when there’s cairry-on like that nonsense last year with the new railings they were puttin’ in . . .”

  Nicole felt herself slump inside, knowing her eyes were gradually glazing but aware Mrs McGrotty was less concerned about her victim’s on-going attention levels once initial capture had been accomplished.

  “. . . oor Chic gettin’ laid aff by that cheeky bastart ower in Milton just cause he was late a coupla moarnins, as if it was his fault the bookies wasnae open on time that day, and after him comin’ in on a Sunday the week before as well . . .”

  Demi and Naomi coloured in a few affidavits in streaks of luminous yellows and greens, then disappeared around the side of the desk, out of Nicole’s view, giggling and chattering, occasionally silenced by an interruption to the Joycean catharsis.

  Nicole made a couple of attempts to interject, to perhaps maybe kind of sort of ask what legal matter Mrs McGrotty wished to pursue, or even to inquire whether she might have mistaken these offices for those of her GP, but got no further than the words “So Mrs McKechnie . . .”

  “. . . no easy when you’ve weans runnin’ aboot I’ve tell’t them but do they care? N.O. N-FUCKIN’-O. Too busy givin’ oot grants to darkies and sendin’ wee thugs on hoalidays tae Kenya to be worryin’ aboot the state of . . .”

  Demi appeared on the outer reaches of Nicole’s vision; or rather, her hand did, swinging something white on a string.

  “DEMI!’ came the throaty rasp, this time accompanied by a reaching, haymaker of a slap. “Leave the lassie’s bag alane. That’s the lassie’s fanny pads you’re in at there. You’ve no to touch them.”

  Mrs McGrotty smiled understandingly as Nicole felt the colour drain completely from her face, leaning over the side of the desk to see the contents of her bag abandoned randomly within a short circumference surrounding the two little girls.

  “Fuckin’ law unto themsels this pair. Just never know what to dae aboot them, dae ye?”

  Nicole knelt down, frightened for a moment that she might succumb to tears as she gathered up the remaining Lil-lets, her car keys, purse and other items. She found herself at eye level with Demi, and tentatively held a hand out to receive the pendulous tampon for disposal. The girl stared at her in apparent deep puzzlement.

  “Can I have that please?” Nicole said in a croaky, plaintive half-whisper.

  Demi’s brow creased into a determined furrow.

  “NUT! GETTYFUCK!” she suddenly decided, and lashed out at Nicole with an open-handed swipe that caught her painfully around the bridge of her nose.

  “HERE! THAT’S BAD,” stated Mrs McGrotty, further clarifying the moral position with another clout to the offending granddaughter.

  “I’m awfy sorry aboot that, hen,” she offered, then deciding another show of penitence and retribution was appropriate, slapped Demi yet again. “You’re in for it noo,” she warned darkly. “Showin’ us up in front of the lassie, ya ignorant wee hoor. Noo just sit doon and shut up fae noo on.

  “But that’s what I’m talkin’ aboot here, see? What chance have you when there’s that kinna hing . . .”

  Nicole’s eyes were now watering, as was her nose, both in reaction to Demi’s blow. She pinched the bridge and held her head back for a few moments, blinking hard until her vision cleared.

  “MRS McKECHNIE,” she barked firmly as she brought her head back down, beginning to appreciate that volume was the most valid currency of debate. “I’m sorry, could you please tell me concisely what it is you think I can help you with.”

  “What?” Mrs McGrotty asked in disbelief, eyes filling with offended anger. “What the fuck do you think I’ve been talkin’ aboot here the past hauf-an-oor, ya stupit English cow. The poofs! That’s what I’m talkin’ aboot. The poofs next door! There’ two of them, right in the next hoose.”

  “And have they been bothering you in some way? Loud music or something? Late comings and goings perhaps?”

  Mrs McGrotty looked at Nicole like she was the thickest human being ever to have walked the earth, which by coincidence roughly matched Nicole’s own self-assessment at that moment.

  “What do you mean? They’re poofs! Zat no enough? I’ve tell’t the cooncil a dozen times, but they’ll no listen, and I waant them oot. I mean, we’ve got weans livin’ in that hoose. I’m no wantin’ Demi an’ Naomi exposed to any filth. Weans have to be protected. What kinna upbringin’ dae the cooncil want them to have? Tell me that. An’ you’re askin’ me what’s wrang? Mind you, I’ll bet the likes of
you hinks it’s fine, long as you’ve no to live there. In fact, here I’m are, pourin’ rna heart oot an’ you could be wan o’ thay lez-beans. Probly hink I’m the wan that’s no normal, zatit? Probly hink there’s nuhin’ wrang wi’ poofs. Well mark rna words, hen. If they’re sayin’ poofin’s awright the day, it’ll be child-molestin’ that’s awright the morra. Christ, don’t know what I’m daein’ here. Waste o’ rna fuckin’ time. Demi! Naomi! ‘Mon!”

  And with that, they were gone, as if sucked back out of the room by a tornado of indignation.

  As the door slammed, Nicole put her head down on the desk and cried, hearty, snuffly, snotty sobs, the anguish of someone who not only felt very lost, but who feared she was reaping what she had arrogantly and headstrongly sown.

  She used to think Rob had been her self-inflicted punishment for her teenage rebellion, but she knew now that he was merely a separate, self-contained disaster, an integration of sin and retribution, mistake and consequence. The real invoice had just arrived for her, here in Glasgow, September ’96, humiliated, lost, alone and found out.

  This is what you want – this is what you get, as John Lydon put it.

  Jesus. Being fourteen once had a lot to answer for. The dark years. Black clothes and heavy eye make-up, and the obligatory Cure albums providing their soundtrack of facile angst-platitudes, essential listening for huffy teenagers. But you don’t just rebel. You need something to rebel against, and in true Blue Peter fashion, you can use an ordinary household item, like your father.

  It should have told her something that she opted for politics; she had choice of weapons and picked an inflatable squeaky hammer. Annoyance and attention, but no damage. Dad was an Old Tory, sure, and his father was an Old Tory, and politics was in the blood, but it was an enthusiasm, not a vocation. If she had wanted to hurt him, she could have chosen any number of tried and tested methods. Maybe she had just been trying to show off. Little girls like to do that in front of Daddy.