Paying For It gd-1

by Tony Black

  I sensed a colder side to Col than I had previously known. This whole episode had hit him hard. I hoped he’d be tough enough to take it the distance. I knew nothing good would be turned up from this point; there was no fairytale ending coming soon.

  ‘It’s only going to get worse. Are you up to this? The picture’s not a pretty one.’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ He perked up a little, managed a stock smile. ‘Yes, I wouldn’t worry about me, Gus. None of this is much of a surprise.’

  ‘ None of it?’

  ‘A figure of speech. What I’m saying is, I knew Billy had his… moments — always did. When he hitched up with that Nadja one, I saw there would be trouble. It was only a matter of time. I’ve been following his fall from grace you know.’

  ‘But like you say, he’s your son, it must be painful to hear it.’

  ‘ Was my son.’ Col stood up, his mood flipped again, he looked rattled. ‘By the way, I took down all those pictures of your father.’

  I got the message loud and clear. I’d crossed the line. Took the swipe.

  I stood up to face him, said, ‘Think I’ll go and get a cigarette.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Look, I’m sorry if I, you know, said anything that’s… I know this is very upsetting for you.’

  He collapsed back in his chair, shook before me. ‘Oh, God… what have I done?’

  ‘Col,’ I tried to coax him round, ‘come on, you’re made of strong stuff.’

  ‘God, I’m so, so sorry…’

  ‘Come on, here have a drink of this.’ I tried to get him to sip the whisky.

  ‘No, no — I’m fine, I’m fine really.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes.’ He trembled a little, then seemed to go completely calm again. ‘Gus, I’ve no right to put this pressure on you.’

  ‘I’ve good broad shoulders for this kinda thing.’

  ‘I’ve placed you in terrible danger. Billy’s sins are not your concern. I should never have asked you to take this up.’

  The guy looked ruined. He’d taken himself to hell and back several times. I put a hand on his shoulder. ‘I’m glad to help.’

  ‘No, Gus… I’ve a terrible feeling that this will all end badly. Very badly indeed.’

  I squeezed his shoulder. ‘How bad could it get?’ I said.

  45

  Someone once said life’s all about letting things go. I wish I could let some of this go.

  It’s 1982 and I’m fourteen. My father’s had the call up for the World Cup squad. The Evening News has him on the front and back page. My mother keeps a scrapbook, tapes Scotsport. He’s a Leith boy made good, now it’s official.

  There’s traffic stopped in the street, men hanging out of car windows to shake his hand. I stand watching as my father is surrounded by people. They swarm to him, clapping and shouting, screaming for a word from the man himself.

  I have my own minor taste of fame to deal with too. The Schools League Cup Final. I have the sweeper’s role — same as my father’s — everyone tells me I have a hard act to follow.

  But I’ve invited only shame.

  It happens like a dream. The ball floats down from the heavens, lands at my feet. There’s no one between me and the goalie, it’s a clear run. I’ve only to cross the field, then hit the ball.

  Cheers and roars go up as I take off like a scalded dog. The rest of the players behind me can only watch. I run for goal and as I look up I see all that stands between me and my first taste of mythic success is the scrawny frame of the goalie, Ally Donald.

  Then, I freeze.

  Something stops me. Twice I draw back to strike the ball, but can’t. I hear my father shouting for the whack of the ball to follow but I can’t move. It’s as if I know that if I score, I’ll never escape his influence.

  I look at the ball, black and muddied below, but no matter how hard I stare I can’t summon the force to move it, and then the moment passes.

  The scrawny Ally Donald appears before me, running, his feet already making their way to the ball, which he clears back to the halfway line.

  I know at once I’ll never play again. As I walk off the pitch, my world shifts.

  ‘You worthless coward,’ says my father. He follows me into the changing rooms to tell me, over and over. ‘Too yellow to face a runt of a boy like wee Ally Donald, a streak of a lad without the strength to hold up his own socks.’

  I say nothing.

  ‘Aye, he got the better of you,’ says my father. ‘Ashamed to show your face again you should be. You’ve cost the team the game, the cup, you spineless wee bastard!’

  I don’t care about the game. I hate being in the team. He’s put me here and I hate being watched by him, hearing people say, ‘There goes the next Cannis Dury.’

  ‘They’ll be laughing long and hard after this day,’ he says. ‘I’ll never forgive you for the shame. It’s me they’ll be laughing at! Not you — who are you?’

  I look at him, his face is red, eyes bulging.

  ‘And what the fuck are you looking at?’ His fist comes from nowhere. It catches me on the temple and knocks me to the floor. I feel the cold of the ceramic tiles as I land. The floor’s white but by my eye, where I lie unable to move, it’s turning red.

  I don’t know how long I lie there. My team mates call the coach and I’m carried out to an old Austin Allegro and driven home. For the next four years I hear Ally Donald’s name mentioned on an almost nightly basis.

  ‘My, he got the better of you,’ says my father. ‘Ashamed to show your face again so you should be.’

  His playing days are well and truly over now, but he still thinks he’s someone, calls me a ‘worthless coward’ at every chance.

  I put up with it until Debs appears on the scene. I take her home to see my mother. She stands by the mantelpiece. Those stupid red bulbs twirling behind the plastic coals, lighting up the backs of her legs. She looks so out of place, so uncomfortable.

  Then in he walks, hanging off a tin of Cally Special and says, ‘Yes, very good son. A great wee bobby-soxer you’ve got there, but what’s she doing with you?’

  I let it go. Take Deb’s hand and lead her away.

  ‘I met Ally Donald’s father today,’ he says as we go, ‘he’s in London now, a big job in the government, so he has, the English working for him. You’d be better off with him than with this worthless coward.’

  I walk Debs home. Tell her I’m sorry. She places a hand on my face, cries. She says she had no idea how awful it was for me.

  On the road back I decide to take action into my own hands. I wait outside until my mother’s bedroom light goes out. As I go in he’s still sitting in his usual chair, watching The Benny Hill Show. He’s laughing his guts out as the wee baldy guy’s slapped on the head.

  I walk in front of the television. Turn it off.

  ‘What do you think you’re playing at?’ he says.

  ‘On your feet.’

  He curls up his brow. ‘Fuck off with yourself. Off to your bed.’

  ‘I said — on your feet.’

  He tries to stare me out, but I’m unflinching. Then he says, ‘What are you doing, laddie? You calling me out?’

  The blood pumps in my veins, a strange copper taste comes to my mouth as I say, ‘That’s right.’

  He laughs.

  ‘Called out by a coward like you. A wee coward that Ally Donald got the better of — that scrawny wee streak of piss.’

  My mouth dries over, I wet my lips. ‘That’s not going to work any more. Up, on your feet.’

  He puts down his Cally Special, places his hands on the arms of the chair and raises himself. He’s a fearsome sight stood before me. But as he puts his glare on me I don’t move, he walks forward.

  Clang.

  My fist catches him cleanly. He goes down like a house of cards. He’s shaking his head, patting the floor with his palms.

  ‘Up,’ I say.

  He struggles to find his feet. His great ego won’t let
him be felled. He swings at me, it comes from below the hip and I walk past it. I swat him on the back of the head and he goes through the washing my mother has drying by the fire.

  He thumps on the ground with his fist and raises himself again. He runs at me, head down, but he’s too slow. I kick out and the heel of my boot stops him dead. He drops to his knees, blood pouring from his head.

  I give him a moment, then: ‘Up.’

  He touches his wound. ‘Look what you’ve done!’

  ‘I’ve done? You brought this on yourself.’

  ‘I’m your father.’

  ‘That’s no excuse.’

  He stands up. Faces me. I look into his eyes, I’m ready to strike him again if he moves an inch. But he stands still before me.

  I walk past him to my room. Pack my things. On my way out he doesn’t look up.

  ‘Don’t let me hear you’ve ever raised so much as a bad word to anyone in this family again,’ I warn him.

  He still doesn’t look up as I close the door behind me.

  46

  Another Debs’s lawyer. I didn’t think it worth opening. I mean, what was it going to say?

  ‘ Congratulations, your last call was such a success that Ms Deborah Ross has decided to halt all formal divorce proceedings… ’

  I doubted it. Scrunched the letter into a ball and launched it to the trash. My heart felt scalded but maybe it was time to move on. What’s the phrase? Oh yeah, flogging a dead horse.

  A catch, I wasn’t. My career was washed up. I had a serious alcohol problem and, on top of everything else, I’d lost most of my top row of teeth. I mean, who’d rate me?

  Debs deserved better, deserved to start afresh. It would take a cruel bastard to stop her. Much as I wanted to think she’d always be there, I knew I’d blown it. There may come a time I’ll be able to face her, tell her I was sorry, but it wasn’t right now. I turned to George Burns for support, he’d said: ‘Do you know what it means to come home at night to a woman who’ll give you a little love, a little affection, a little tenderness? It means you’re in the wrong house.’

  I waited for the bus on Leith Walk. A man carrying a canoe strolled up behind me. I turned, thought about asking, then turned back. I didn’t want to know.

  When the bus came the man with the canoe tried to follow on after me.

  Driver said, ‘You can’t get on here!’

  ‘Why not?’ said the canoe guy.

  ‘Cos you can’t walk on a bus with a canoe.’

  ‘Would you prefer I paddled?’

  I liked that, but the driver didn’t, got out his seat and looked ready to lamp the guy, before he took off. A man running down a busy street with a canoe is not something you see every day, even in Edinburgh.

  I sat beside some geezer with a stookie on his arm. He’d a tight T-shirt, a toast-rack chest poked from beneath.

  ‘You look like you’ve been in the wars,’ he said.

  This from a guy with a broken arm, I lied: ‘Car crash.’

  He winked. ‘Aye sure.’

  ‘Excuse me.’

  ‘Had a bit of soapy bubble, big man?’

  I tried to laugh it off. Left at the next stop. I couldn’t go around looking like part of the body count from a Steven Seagal film, so called Col’s dentist. By some kind of miracle he gave me an appointment right away.

  In the waiting room I picked up an Ikea catalogue. Was full of happy couples, rosy-cheeked children and friendly-looking dogs. They all had perfect teeth. Even the dogs. For a moment, I wanted to live an Ikea life. The moment passed.

  I turned to the free paper, the Metro. A picture showed a six-and-a-half-stone cyst that doctors recently removed from an obese woman. The article said the cyst weighed the same as Paris Hilton. Now, if they could cut her out, that’s a story I’d like to read.

  The receptionist called out my name.

  My nerves twitched.

  As I sat in the chair, I felt my knackers tighten.

  The dentist was called Klaus. ‘There’s quite a considerable amount of damage,’ he said. ‘How did you do this?’

  For the second time in under an hour, I lied: ‘Rugby match.’

  ‘You should be more careful.’

  ‘Yeah, it’s a rough game.’

  ‘I mean at your age. Playing rugby. It’s suicide.’

  Right now, if I got given the option of playing rugby or suicide, I knew which one I’d choose. But what got me was the ‘at your age’ bit. I’m only mid-thirties, but it struck me, maybe I look like I’m carrying a few more years on the dial.

  Klaus fixed me up with a set of temporaries. Promised me a full new top row, bridgework, the lot, by the end of the month.

  He handed me a mirror.

  ‘Wow,’ I said. They looked Ultrabrite white, arrow straight. I couldn’t believe that my mouth looked so good.

  ‘I could live with these.’

  ‘They’ll come out in a week or so, then I’ll do the bridgework proper.’

  ‘Great. Well, I’ll settle with you when the job’s done.’

  To my shock, he bought this. Figured I’d be good for it in a week — if I lasted that long.

  I had to check in with Hod, called him. ‘How goes it, man?’

  ‘Christ, you’re still with us, then?’

  ‘Oh yeah, no danger. You’ll have to try harder to edge me out the scene. How’s Amy?’

  He stalled, changed subject. ‘Look, you coming round?’

  ‘Why, what’s up?’

  ‘Nothing, shit, all’s hunky dory here, compared to what you’ve… you know.’

  I sensed cracks in Hod’s voice and his cover story, but I’d too much to think about right now to be delving further. ‘Right, sound. I’ll be in touch soon as… keep an eye on Amy for me.’

  ‘It’s done.’

  ‘But, not that close!’

  ‘Gus… c’mon, I’m on the job here.’

  ‘That’s definitely not what I want to hear…’

  A laugh. ‘Sorry, just a slip.’

  ‘Make that your last. See you later.’

  On the street I kept trying to catch a look at my teeth in the reflections of shop windows. Were they really mine? Well, no. But God, they looked good. With teeth like this, a bit of a tan, perhaps I could pass myself off as a regular guy.

  Maybe not.

  I dropped back to reality, remembered I’d things to take care of. Nadja could expect a second visit from me soon. But before that, a visit to Mac the Knife called.

  47

  On my way to grab a coffee I purposely passed two Starbucks. Finally settled on a place at the end of a side road leading out to Tollcross. Very low-rent. Gave it a month before the place got a revamp.

  Browsed a chicks’ magazine and found one of those top ten worsts — on celebrity quotes. Jade Goody’s gormless utterances dominated the top five, but Mariah Carey had it as far as I was concerned: ‘I’m jealous of Ethiopian kids. I’d love to be skinny like them, except for the flies and the deaths.’

  A case for bitch-slapping if ever I heard one.

  As I flicked through the magazine again I felt a presence at my shoulder. Turned to see a bearded jakey stood over me. He looked old-school, herringbone coat and trousers held up with a length of rope. What was once referred to as a gentleman of the road, a paraffin lamp. He could have passed himself off for one of Van Gogh’s Potato Eaters.

  ‘Can I help you?’ I said.

  ‘Marks and Spencer’s.’

  Not a clue what he was on about, said, ‘Come again?’

  He leaned closer, I got a waft of him and moved in the opposite direction. ‘That,’ he said touching the magazine with a hand in fingerless gloves.

  ‘The magazine…?’

  ‘The advert for Markies, that’s my pitch. Paying a pretty penny now I tell you.’

  I offered him the magazine. ‘Here take it.’ I hoped he’d get the hint and nick off, but he merely folded it down the spine, and expounded.

  ‘Now, y
ou see yon Twiggy there?’

  I nodded, Christ why did they always flock to me?

  ‘That’s the look they’re all after in there. They want the lot, big baggy jumpers, trendy trousers — och, even the hats!’

  I lost patience. ‘Great — but can I ask, is there a reason for this?’

  He looked stunned. ‘Is there a reason for anything?’

  A jakey gets philosophical on you, you listen.

  ‘What I’m saying is my pitch has started paying out. I’m on a winner since Twiggy started on these ads. The women buying the clobber and the hats and that, they’re not short of a bob or two. They see me sitting outside after they’ve just got their hands on some big fancy outfit and they’re splashing the cash.’ He lifted up the magazine. ‘I’ve a lot to thank Twiggy for.’

  ‘I’m sure she’d be delighted to hear it. Why don’t you write her a fan letter?’ I stood up, drained my coffee cup. ‘On second thoughts, you better not, she might ask for a percentage.’

  Outside the caff two uniformed garbage inspectors photographed a pile of wet cardboard boxes dumped beside a row of wheelie bins. They gave me a look I’d seen a million times before, it said: ‘We’ve got authority, you got a problem with that?’

  I gave them a flash of my new teeth, said, ‘Good morning, officers.’

  Totally threw them, they didn’t know if I’d just ripped the pish out of them or been sincere. I wanted them to ask me if I knew anything about the boxes — so I could have a go at them, show them how much authority they really had, but they took one look at the teeth and ignored me.

  I walked to Mac’s shop. Through the window I saw the place was empty of customers. Mac sat on one of the vacant barber’s chairs, reading a book.

  As I walked in an electronic beep sounded. I’d never heard it before and it made me look over my head. When I lowered my gaze again, Mac had risen to his feet before me.

  ‘That’s new,’ I said.

  ‘Holy shit,’ said Mac, ‘I thought you’d shot the crow… or worse.’

  ‘Worse?’