by Tony Black
I stubbed the Marlboro. It lay flat in the ashtray, stray insect legs of tobacco squashed under it. I got to my feet and searched the room.
‘Paper. Where is it?’ I said.
I pulled open a few drawers. Hissed at a Gideon Bible, then: ‘Bingo!’
Hardly the Dorchester on the heading but, never mind, it would have to do. I began to compose a letter to Debs. If she was gonna send me any more mail from her lawyer, she’d better have some facts.
7
I awoke with a start, loud Irish curses filled the air all around me. I heard a thud, then another. For a moment I thought I’d returned to my childhood, my father after me with his razor strop, then reality flooded in.
‘It’s fucked entirely, man, have ye not the sense God gave ye?’ Milo’s voice berated all hell out of somebody. I reached for my 501s. They felt soft, smooth as velvet after a thousand visits to the laundrette. I rushed in with my big toe and caught a hole in the knee, stretched a tear near halfway down the leg, said, ‘Christ on a bike!’ This was all I needed; I’d a busy day ahead.
When I looked down the hallway I saw straight into Milo’s little world. ‘Can I get you a hammer?’ I said.
‘Ah, Mr Dury, it’s your bold self.’ His face lit up like a Chinese lantern. ‘And how are we this grand morning?’
‘I’d be better for a bit of sleep, to tell you the truth.’
‘Sleep, bollocks. A youngster like ye should be up and about, availing yourself of all the wonders of this fine morn.’
Another thud sounded behind him, Milo turned back towards the source of it. ‘Walloping’s not going to mend the thing! Would ye ever fecking listen?’ He shook his head, turned back to me, raised eyes aloft, said, ‘Eejit.’
‘Trouble?’
‘Telly’s on the blink. Yon Russki thinks kicking the shite out of it’s the answer — I tell you, it’s Stalingrad all over!’
I laughed and gave Milo an understanding nod, then turned back to my room. As I closed the door I heard him cheer. I’m sure Anne Robinson blasted a contestant on The Weakest Link for all of a millisecond, before banging on the TV resumed.
I mouthed, ‘Nut house,’ and looked to the heavens.
Got booted and suited. Grabbed my jacket. Checked the pocket — I still had some holding-folding. Col had seen me right so far but I would need to tap some more expenses soon.
On the way out Milo roared like Doran’s ass. I heard him as I hit the street and pulled up my collar. It felt cold enough to grate cheese on my pods. Shit, it was Edinburgh, but nice to be out as Kelly Jones says.
Cars clogged up the crossroads at the top of Easter Road. I choked on the fumes from the school-run mums in their Stockbridge tractors. It was too early a start for me. I usually miss all this mayhem. The days when I needed to be at a desk by nine sharp were long gone.
I watched the pinstriped yuppies power walking towards fifty-grand-a-year, superannuation and medical benefits — would need to come with a crate load of Prozac to get me interested. The big thing with the suits this season appeared to be massive collars and cuffs. Real Harry Hill jobs. They made me laugh, the bloody comedians.
Beyond the grass embankment on London Road, a drinking school knocked the froth off a few cans of Special Brew. The Flower of Scotland got its first airing of the day. Never ceases to amaze me, it’s always time for a celebration with this crew. The desk jockeys shirked past them, eyes down, upping their pace till a few steps clear, then they dropped down a gear.
I let out a wide smile on my way past. I ventured brief applause when the performance finished. They loved it. Thing is, I know my own coat’s hung on a slack hook as well.
I headed on past the cottagers’ cludgie. Too early to see any Careless Fisters, as they’d been renamed following the George Michael contretemps.
Every manor has its Huggy Bear. Just like the character from Starsky and Hutch, they know the lot. I figured if any theories on Billy’s demise had been put about the East End then Mac the Knife would know.
Mac’s a character. What his native Glaswegians call a chib man. Very handy with a knife, until he landed a score at Her Majesty’s extreme displeasure. After the best part of eight years in the Riddrie Hilton, Mac fled to Edinburgh and never looked back. Now he’d turned his attention to the more mundane task of hairdressing. He’d seen to my short back and sides for more than a year before I got the story behind his half Chelsea smile. I’ve never watched a barber more closely since.
A bell chimed and a Super Mario lookalike greeted me with a black robe at the ready. ‘Is it yourself under all that?’
‘The very same.’
Mac flung the robe over his shoulder, a silver comb in one hand and a set of scissors in the other, he stretched out his arms to hug me. I leaned forward, watched my back in the floor to ceiling mirrors.
‘It’s good tae see you, pal,’ he said. ‘Come in, come in. Get yourself oot the cold.’
Mac’s patter hadn’t changed in years. By the look of him neither had his T-shirt — an early eighties job with the words ‘I Came On Eileen’ printed across the front.
I said, ‘Thanks,’ took him up on the offer of a coffee.
Mac looked to be aiming for a more up-market clientele than usual. The way this city was headed, he’d no choice, but it seemed like a struggle against the grain. Especially as the waft of Brut 33 still filled the joint.
The coffee came with a wafer and a little bunch of grapes, three to be precise, on the side.
‘What the hell’s this?’ I said.
‘Call it a wee garnish, eh.’
‘I’ll call it what it is — bloody pretentious!’
‘Pretentious… moi? You say the most hurtful things.’ Mac smiled at me in the mirror. ‘Right, what can I do for you, big man?’
‘Information.’
His comb hovered above my head, he shifted it sideways, said, ‘I meant the haircut, pal.’
‘Short, very. And lose the beard.’
He ruffled my mullet in progress, grabbed up a sizeable ponytail. ‘Do you want your hair cut round the back?’
I joked with him: ‘Why? Have you no room in the shop?’
‘Ha-ha. Funny man.’
He started cutting.
I started probing. ‘Billy Thompson.’
‘Uh-hu.’ Mac looked unfazed. Always his way of doing things. If he knew something, it needed teasing out of him. Though he hadn’t been part of a firm for decades, he still liked to be seen as part of the life, a man in the know.
‘Shame for the boy,’ I said.
‘Och, we’re all headed the same road, Gus.’
‘Some quicker than others.’
‘True. True.’
I upped the ante. ‘Mac, his family’s ruined. Have you a family of your own?’
‘Gus…’ He stopped cutting and looked at me over the comb. ‘You know I’ve a family.’
I snapped, ‘Well, stop buggering about and tell me what you know.’
Mac looked in the mirror. His mouth became a taut wire. ‘Relax, would you?’ he said softly. This Weejie obviously took notes in the anger-management classes. I pulled out my cigarettes and showed Mac the packet.
‘Oh, go on then, haven’t had a red top since Adam was a boy in Dumbarton Rock.’
We sparked up and started to fill the small shop with smoke. It seemed to relax us both.
Mac said, ‘He was an early riser.’
‘What — from his pit in the mornings?’
‘No. No. He was on the up.’ Mac raised his hands, crossed his brows, then continued, ‘The last time I saw Billy Boy he was driving about in a Merc, not any Merc, a fifty-grander. Don’t think it was his, mind.’
‘Benny Zalinskas?’
Mac’s eyes widened. Then they dropped like lead weights. He turned quickly back to the job at hand. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Mac, come on, you can’t kid a kidder.’
‘I really don’t know. Probably was the Bullfrog’s, he didn’t say.
’
‘Whoa, whoa, back up there. The Bullfrog?’
‘Aye, that’s his handle. Benny the Bullfrog.’
I laughed. ‘Nice one — so, so scary!’
Mac smirked, then the smirk trailed off and his face changed. Suddenly a grey pallor settled on him. A real shit-stopping seriousness.
‘Gus, that whole firm’s bad news,’ he said. ‘You don’t want to get involved.’
‘Then put me off,’ I said.
‘I don’t know what to say. I’m well out of it… Christ, in my day carving seemed scary enough, these days all the firms have shooters coming out their arses, but nobody messes with Benny’s mob.’
‘Why? You telling me he just got off the plane from Moscow one day, took over a well-established patch and nobody said boo to him?’
‘He has the numbers. He’s well big, Gus — the Edinburgh firm’s a minor spoke in his wheel.’ Mac pointed the scissors at me. ‘This guy’s fucking Blockbusters, do you get me?’
‘Whatever you say.’
‘I mean it, stay away.’
‘And what do I tell Billy’s family? I got scared off so your boy’s murderer is just gonna be left to walk the streets. No can do, Mac. I owe his father answers.’
Mac threw up his hands once again, said, ‘You’re done.’
‘Come again?’
‘That’ll be five fifty.’
‘But what about the beard?’
8
On the way out Mac’s door I bumped into someone I’d been meaning to call.
‘I might have guessed you’d be headed in there. Is this the on trend clientele Mac’s going for?’
‘Bollocks to that, he owes me big time. Who you think splashed for the decor?’
‘Decor — Christ, you’re getting la-de-fucking-da, Hod.’
A smile. Laughs.
‘It’s business speak. You know me.’
‘Aye, into everything bar a shit sandwich.’
‘That’s about right — anyway, what about that room I offered you?’
Hod was an old, old friend. One I’d kind of let slide, since letting things slide became my way of life. To his credit, he’d kept up, even offered to dig me out of a few holes.
‘Yeah, I’m all for it. Just give me a couple of days to get sorted and I’ll bell you.’
‘No worries.’
Hod turned, swaggered through Mac’s door like John Wayne, testing the hinges. Mac waved me off again, I wasn’t done with him, but he was a slow burner. I knew I’d have to let him think I really needed him before he’d come up with the goods. If I was lucky, I’d sown enough seeds. Mac’s type love to be useful, just can’t help themselves.
I took a stroll down Princes Street. One messed-up main drag if ever there was one. They say the tills ring up more moolah here than any other street in Scotland. That’s no mean feat, especially when you consider there’s only shops on one side of the road. On the other, there’s a gigantic medieval castle complete with cannons and crumbling battlements. There’s a stretch of grass at the foot of it that we call the Gardens. Its 24-7 soundtrack is the skirl of bagpipes; strictly for the city-breakers.
I stuck to the right side of the road. The place seemed to be awash with trendy types. Everyone looked the same — I just don’t get fifty-somethings dressing like beat boys. No matter how trendy it becomes, I won’t be carrying a manbag; I won’t be wearing shoes that curl up like Ali Baba’s slippers; and the day you see me in a hoodie and Kappa cap, I’m on my way to put a gun to my head.
Still, my look played on my mind. After a few brews I cared less, but now I had people to impress. I checked myself in Currys shop window. Sorry, Currys. digital. Sure that dot makes all the difference to the paying public. Mac had done a beast of a job with my barnet, cropped to the wood but with a little weight on top. I looked halfway to respectable.
As I stared, something caught my eye inside the shop. A face I recognised appeared on the wall of television screens. I went inside to catch the verbals, it turned out to be a man I knew well. The Right Honourable Alisdair Cardownie MSP.
He banged on about stemming the tide of illegal immigration. I raised a laugh. Couldn’t help but remember the time he was hardly able to stem the tide of his own nosebleed.
A title flashed up below his name, ‘Minister for Immigration’. So he’d moved on then, landed the top job. A shudder jolted through me. Since our last meeting, I’d taken the opposite direction on the career ladder.
A voice from nowhere, a thick Geordie accent, suddenly landed within earshot, ‘Is it a flatscreen you’re after, sir?’
I turned round to see an acne-covered yoof. A mess of angry red plooks shone on his nose, so much gel slapped on his head he looked like the victim of a water-bombing prank.
‘What?’
‘The Sharp’s our top seller. Is it for your living room?’
He started to fiddle with a little control panel hidden in the side of the telly. ‘It’s a great picture. I can really recommend the Sharp. I’ve got one myself. I bought it when they first came out and no one could believe the picture quality, it’s so, sharp, I suppose. Would you like me to get one from the back?’
‘Whoa now, catch your breath there… Mark.’ I flicked his name tag. ‘Can’t a man look in this shop?’
He smiled. Showed off a row of grey teeth in need of severe grouting and repointing. I saw my accent had him beat.
In this city there’s two types of shop assistant: the demonic home-grown variety and the deeply confused imported ones, like young Mark. You see, the sucking-up gene — a necessity of the salesman’s trade — missed the Scots entirely. We don’t do pleasant. Perhaps that’s why, most of the time, the man with the tag’s a southerner.
The yoof sized me up, went for a catch-all. ‘You won’t find much better than the Sharp in this range, sir. But if you were looking to go to the next level, we have- sir, sir!’
I left him standing.
Shop workers like young Mark just won’t get off your case these days. Despite the fact I was obviously talking Mandarin to a satsuma, he was still gonna try and flog me a telly. A curt turn on the heels is the only language they understand. Was a time when ‘Just browsing’ got shot of them. Now it’s like they’re trained by the Japanese military. A whole generation on a mission. And taking no prisoners. How the likes of my dear old mother deals with them I’ll never know. She has the patience of Job, Christ she needed it with my family, but things like patience and manners are a weakness you can’t afford to show nowadays. Leastwise some butt-munch will walk all over you, and try to sell you a flatscreen telly.
I felt riled.
My temper spiked, to tell the truth. I’d purchases to make, couldn’t expect to be taken seriously looking like Jim from Taxi, but I wasn’t spending any of Col’s hard earned on the high street.
I took my makeover down market, found a charity store, Save the Children. Bought up a pinstripe jacket, black 501s (very black) and a blue shirt with French collar.
I tried the lot on and looked the ticket. Bit like Paul Weller in his Jam days but updated for the twenty-first century.
I caught the old dear behind the counter smiling at me and laughed.
‘What you need’s a nice tie to go with it,’ she said.
She’d a drawer full of them, great florid numbers and a few tartans thrown in.
‘Eh, no thanks. I don’t do ties.’
‘Shame. I like a man in a tie.’
She looked morose, like she might go tearful on me at any minute.
‘My Maurice always used to wear a tie,’ she said, ‘every day of his life, he wore a tie.’
Christ, now I felt bad. ‘Okay, pick me out a tie — a nice one mind. I’m relying on your judgement and good taste to win the day for me.’
She smiled like a hyena and avidly rummaged among the ties. She picked out a horrendous turquoise and lavender swirl-effect number. It looked a real seventies kipper too. Totally bust the look.
‘
Perfect,’ I said.
‘You think so?’
‘I love it. You couldn’t have done any better. Those colours are just grand.’
‘I’m glad you like it. It’ll match the pinstripes.’ She held it up to my new jacket.
‘Well, wrap it up then,’ I said.
A shake of the head. ‘Och no, you have to put it on and let me see it with the outfit.’
I felt an involuntary wince creep onto my face. I chased it off with a broad grin. ‘Right-oh.’
She watched me do up the tie and rang up my total on the till. I got change from twenty sheets.
‘Thanks, then. I’ll be seeing you,’ I said, trying to appear truly grateful.
Outside I gave a wave. Turned and nearly knocked a young girl off her feet.
‘Gus!’ she said. She stared at the tie. ‘Nice neckwear. Very… retro.’
9
Back in the day, when I had a name, I’d occasionally agree to take on keen youngsters looking for work experience. I’d a test, got the idea from Rabbitte, the band manager in The Commitments, asked: ‘Who are your influences?’
Any mention of Pilger, they got shown the door.
Amy, on the other hand, came up with this ripper: ‘Lois Lane!’
I thought she must have imagination or at least ambition. All she did have, however, was a burning desire to find her Superman. In the end she got shown the door. An Ubermensch, I wasn’t. But in those days she was jail bait, and I was very married. The girl before me now had, how can I put it, developed.
I pulled off the tie. Felt fortunate to be standing beside a bin, said, ‘It wasn’t my idea.’
Amy laughed. ‘Hello Gus — you look great.’ She gave me a smile. One of those welcoming, from the heart jobs. It made me melt.
‘Thanks. You’re a great liar.’
The headlight smile came on again. She gave off an air of total calm. I wondered if this was really the same Amy who had once been walked out the office by a security guard after a foot-stamping display of undying love for me before the entire newsroom.
‘I’m on my way to a lecture,’ she said, ‘but it would be nice to, you know, catch up over coffee some time.’
