The Bullet Trick

by Louise Welsh

  'Forget it!'

  We staggered towards the exit, no one making any move to stop us, except for Sebastian, who was off the stage now, his progress hampered by the patrons. I looked behind me and saw him leap a table, more threatening than a man in women’s underwear should be.

  We clattered up the basement steps and out into the street. I followed Sylvie blindly, chasing the sound of her heels until at last I realised there was no one behind us and stopped, leaning forward, hands on knees, taking deep gasps of the night air, wondering if I would ever breathe normally again. Sylvie heard the echo of my footsteps fail. She turned and laughed, then resumed her siren flight, her heels ringing against the pavement. I took a deep draught of air and ran on, realising I was no longer fleeing Sebastian. Sylvie darted away from the main drag, down a darkened alleyway and I followed, caught in the chase.

  For a second I thought I’d gone the wrong way. The lane looked deserted. Then Sylvie laughed again and I saw her, hidden in the shelter of a goods entrance. Her smile shone out from the darkness and the fat man’s words flashed through my mind. Her voice was low and teasing.

  'You fought for my honour, William.'

  'Was it worth saving?'

  Her voice dipped an octave.

  'Come here and find out.'

  I walked slowly down the alley until I was facing her. We stood not touching for a moment then I put my hands gently on her hips and we leaned into a kiss that started gentle and grew deep. I broke the clinch, moving my mouth down to her neck, feeling her hand beneath my jacket, warm against my spine. Sylvie pressed herself into me, digging her hipbone hard against my erection.

  I asked, 'What about Dix?'

  She stroked her hand down the length of my groin.

  'This dick?'

  'Your uncle or whoever he is.'

  I breathed kisses against her neck, wondering why I was raising objections.

  'Don’t worry about Dix. He’s been in trouble before. He’ll get out of it again.'

  I wondered what she meant but then her hands moved to my fly, pushing all thoughts away. Her fingers slid inside my trousers, releasing me. I had her dress open down the front now. Her breasts were small and round, soft and firm at the same time. I lowered my mouth and Sylvie arched her back, pushing herself towards me but never letting off the pressure down below. I moved my own hands beneath her dress, pulling at her tights, not caring if I tore them. She whispered, 'Fuck me.' And I steered her against the wall, tugging her knickers down, feeling her soft wetness. I glanced up and saw her pale, smooth face, her mouth slightly open. A shadow hung beneath her cheekbone, the same shade as a bruise.

  She looked young and vulnerable, defenceless beneath my rough hands.

  Something inside me shifted and Sylvie whispered, 'You OK?'

  I whispered, 'Shit.' Sylvie’s hand started to move, trying to revive me, but I knew it was no use. I pushed her away more roughly than I’d intended and she jarred her head against the doorway.

  'Sorry.'

  My voice grated in the darkness.

  'It’s OK.' Sylvie rubbed the back of her head then started to button her dress. 'It happens.'

  'Did I hurt you?'

  'I’m in for a hangover tomorrow anyway.'

  'I didn’t mean to hurt you.'

  'Hey, William, it’s OK. It was an accident.'

  I looked away and we started straightening our clothing, our awkward modesty at odds with the moments before. There was a sound of voices from the mouth of the alley, a couple of youths walked towards us and I realised the madness of what we’d been about to do. One of them said something to Sylvie as he passed and she answered him back in a short guttural phrase that made me think of Glasgow. I asked, 'What did he say?'

  'Nothing.'

  'Was he being funny?'

  She ignored me, righting her dress. I groped through my scant vocabulary for an insult to throw at them.

  'Shitzders.'

  The boys looked back over their shoulders shouting something back at us, but not bothering to rise to the insult.

  Sylvie’s voice was tired.

  'Shitzder? That isn’t even a word.'

  'They got the message.'

  'I guess they did.'

  We were back on the main street now. Glass display cases shone at the edge of the pavement boasting of the fine objects for sale in the adjacent department stores —

  handbags, jewellery, shoes, accessories for your accessories — everything shiny, everything expensive. Two disembodied heads on impossibly long necks gazed out from one of the glass cubes, tiny hats teetering on their Marcel waves. Their stares were superior, as if they found the hatless passers-by rather common, too encumbered by flesh. Somewhere across the city I could see the illuminated sign of the Mercedes Benz building rotating slowly in the night sky. Hidden beyond it the half-ruined spire of the bomb-blasted memorial church would be shining out a warning against war.

  Up ahead the lights of a taxi rank glowed into view, a row of white Mercs waiting for business. We walked to the top of the line, I opened the door and Sylvie got in.

  'Want a lift?'

  'No, I’ll walk, sober up a bit before I get to the hotel.'

  Sylvie gave me a last kiss, her eyes glassy with tiredness, drink and almost-sex. Her smile shone from the cab’s shadows. 'You gonna be OK?'

  'Don’t worry.'

  'See you tomorrow?'

  I nodded my head then slammed the door, not knowing if she could see my face in the darkness of the street.

  Glasgow

  NOT SO LONG ago, in the days when Glasgow was shipbuilding capital of the world, particular pubs opened before dawn to kill the drouth of the nightshift. While rich men slept and children rested safe in bed, while mothers readied themselves for the day and posties sorted through their sacks, the nightshift looked at the clock and licked their lips.

  And not far from the factory gates pub landlords polished glasses, checked the levels in their optics and made certain that floors were swept, tables wiped, the cash register drawer running smooth on its rollers. Then they looked at the clock, unlocked the door and waited, for men who had toiled through the watch hours with the vision of a pint shining golden before their eyes.

  I made my way from the police station with Johnny’s money warm in my pocket. Drink had got me into this trouble and it seemed that only drink could release me. I hardly saw a soul, just a lone dog-walker, who crossed the road at the sound of my footsteps. The armies of men that once filled whole streets at shift’s end are long disbanded. But the early morning pubs are still there, if you know where to look.

  There’s a licensing law demands these bars serve breakfasts to mop up the drink. And so they’re always steeped in the smell of discount bacon, black pudding the colour of blood-soaked shit and gangrenous battery-farmed eggs. Everything fried in ancient lard, set grey since yesterday and melted each morning until it is hot enough to fry any cockroaches that might have burrowed in for a midnight feast.

  I pushed open the door and stepped back into the night, though I knew it was a little past 7 a.m. The bar was busy. A couple of student types sat in a corner using the beer to ease the come down from whatever had kept them up. A businessman sank a predawn brandy. A guy in a brown leather jacket that went out of fashion sometime around 1983

  studied the racing form, putting little crosses next to the horses he fancied, taking quick sips of a beer I’d seen him top up with vodka. No one looked like a shift worker. No one was eating the breakfast. No one talked because no one was here to be sociable. The jukebox pounded out some ancient hit even though no one was here for the music.

  Everyone was here to drink.

  I stepped up and ordered a pint. I was filthy, unshaven and there were still traces of the old man’s blood spattered across my trousers. The barmaid sat my beer on the counter without looking at me. I waited for her to put her hand out for the money and when she didn’t, set one of Johnny’s notes on the counter. She peeled it from the
dirty bar without a word and slapped my change back into the beer spills and fag ash crumblings. I was too tired to care. I gave my pint a full second to settle then raised it to my lips.

  The beer tasted stale enough to be the contents of the slop tray. But I sank a third of it in one deep swallow then used my change in the cigarette machine. I lit up, finished my drink then ordered another, looking at the men around me and realising I fitted in fine.

  I was into my third when the old man’s battered face flashed into my mind’s eye and with it the memory of another face exploding in a spray of blood and brain. I took my glasses off and rubbed my eyes. A voice behind me said, 'That’s your last for the morning.'

  I turned and saw Inspector Blunt, still wearing the same suit he’d had on during my interrogation.

  'You arresting me?'

  'Naw I’m telling you.'

  'What are you now, the bloody beer police? Lager patrol?' I took out a cigarette and lit it. 'You’re not in your station with your wee fat pal now, so fuck off and annoy someone else.'

  'Is one sight of the cells not enough for the day?' Inspector Blunt turned to the woman behind the counter. 'Mary, no more for him, understand?' The barmaid glanced up from the pint she was pouring and nodded. He turned back to me, his ginger moustache looking dry and alcohol hungry. 'You’re going to be needed if this thing comes to court, until then I don’t want to see or hear anything from you.'

  'That makes it mutual then.'

  The barmaid set a nice smooth pint of best beside him.

  'On the house, Mr Blunt.'

  'Cheers Mary.' Blunt took a cigarette from my pack and lit it with my lighter. 'If we got a productivity bonus I wouldn’t be bothered, but we’re a bit pressed right now so I’d like to avoid any unnecessary paperwork.' He picked a bit of tobacco from his tongue. 'Bloody cheap fags. Get over whatever it is that’s bothering you, because right now you’re going in one of two directions, the jail or the morgue. Now piss off. And remember, this is my local.'

  I looked around at the tired décor, the deflated men, the uneasy chairs, then back at the police inspector supping his first pint of the day at eight in the morning and said the worst thing I could think of.

  'Aye, it suits you.'

  I got back to my room, stripped, double-bagged the clothes I’d been wearing in black bin bags and put them in the lobby. I stood in the shower until the water ran cold, and then I stood there until the cold seemed to burn. After that I lay on the bed, looking at the ceiling, thinking. I’d not been doing enough thinking lately.

  Blunt was right. I was headed down whatever I did. There was no point in hiding a skin that wasn’t worth saving. It was time to set some things to rights, and then maybe I should make sure I had some company on the low road I was set to take.

  The Mitchell Library is a wedding cake of a building overlooking the motorway that cuts a swathe through the city. I stood on the bridge and looked down into the ravine of speeding cars. I’d heard that some people claim their loved ones were mesmerised into throwing themselves from bridges like these by the moving lines of traffic. But I found it hard to believe. No one can be hypnotised into doing anything they don’t want to do.

  The Mitchell’s computer hall was busy. I got a ticket, then found an empty berth and sat there amongst the students and school kids, the pensioners and unemployed, the asylum seekers and researchers. The room was quiet save for the clicking of fingers against keyboards, but I could almost feel the electric buzz of thoughts firing around the room.

  Everyone beyond their bodies, absorbed in their own project, back in the depths of ancient Rome, their family tree, legal precedent or who knows what? There was a mix of ethnicity I’d not met elsewhere in the city and suddenly I missed London.

  I logged onto the system, then scrolled through the internet, chasing Bill Senior until I thought I might have an idea of where else to look, then I got a librarian to direct me to where the microfiches of old newspapers were stored and struggled with the small plastic slides until I worked out how to use them. After a while I realised that I might be getting somewhere.

  It was past three when I left the library and caught a bus over to the West End to pay back one of my debts.

  The work address that Johnny had given me was on University Gardens, a short Victorian terrace that had once housed lecturers but was now converted into university offices and seminar spaces. I worked my way down the doors until I came to the number Johnny had given me. The outside of the building was covered in scaffolding that looked like it had been there for a while. I made my way up the entrance steps, past the neglected scrub of front garden and into the hallway.

  Inside there was a fusion of damp, floor polish and books that hit me a smack of nostalgia for a time I’d almost forgotten. The foyer was as dark as I remembered, a notice-board on the wall covered in a confusion of posters and notices for classes, assignments, student theatre shows, political meetings and books for sale. I had a sudden memory of saturating campus with starry homemade advertisements for my new brand of magic. The scent of nostalgia was overlaid by the smell of turps and paint, the stairway swathed in spattered dustsheets, and suddenly it made sense why Johnny had given me this address.

  A man in white overalls was balanced near the top of a long ladder in the stairwell reaching up towards a barely accessible slant of the underside of the stairs. I walked up towards him, the steps creaking under my weight; I could feel a corresponding creak in my chest that hadn’t been there when I’d used these buildings fifteen years ago. The painter peered down and I said, 'Can you tell me where Johnny is, mate?'

  The man’s roller continued moving white on white across the wall; he was doing a fine job.

  'Johnny?'

  'Aye, he said he was working here, I think he’s probably one of your guys.'

  'Oh, John.' The man pointed his roller upwards. 'Second floor, first room on the right, clap the door afore you go in: they might have the ladder in front of it.'

  'Cheers.'

  I kept on climbing. Johnny’s dad had been a painter decorator. I wondered if the firm had fallen to him now. Johnny had been smart enough to do whatever he wanted, but hash and booze had always threatened to hold him back. I’d been no better, spending the best part of my grant in the union bar before leaving halfway through my third year. I reached the second floor, turned right and rapped on the large dark-varnished door. A voice shouted, 'Aye, it’s clear.' And I went through. A broad-set, balding man was poised on the top of the ladder at the far side of the room painting the walls a sunshine yellow that looked washed out in the dim light. His apprentice was crouched on the floor, touching up the skirting near the door.

  'I was looking for John.'

  The older man stopped mid stroke and stared down from his ladder.

  'You’ve found him. What can I do for you, son?'

  I glanced at the nameplates on a couple of the doors until a uniformed attendant with a bundle of late-afternoon post tucked under his arm asked if he could help me. I saw myself as he must see me, a scruffy middle-aged waster skulking round a university campus, and gave him a grin to liven up his nightmares.

  'Aye, is there a good pub round here?'

  The guard directed me to one of my old student haunts, staring at me as if storing up my description for later use. I felt his eyes on my back as I walked down the stairs and supposed he’d reach for his radio as soon as I was out of earshot, alerting the rest of the security squad to the potential menace in range. I looked back up at his worried face peering down from the top of the stairwell and held my right hand up.

  'May the lord hold you and keep you.'

  Making a sign of the cross with my index finger just to freak him out. Then the front door opened behind me letting in a blast of sudden spring air.

  'William!'

  Johnny’s greeting caught me mid-genuflection.

  The guard shouted down, 'Everything OK, Dr Mac?'

  Johnny gave the grin that I bet swelled his
lectures with swell young female students and nodded up at the guard.

  'Fine thanks, Gordon, I’ll look after Mr Wilson.' My old friend turned to me. 'You’ve still got good timing.' Johnny’s hair was slightly wet, his face flushed. He smelt of something fresh and sporty. 'I just dropped by to dump this.'

  I glanced at the sports bag he was carrying, suddenly feeling tongue-tied, and reached into my pocket for the fifty pounds he’d lent me, handing it over awkwardly.

  'I wanted to return this.'

  'Aye, thanks,' Johnny rubbed his fingers through his damp hair. 'I hope you didn’t mind…'

  'No,' I tried for a smile. 'It helped to know someone had faith in me.' The weight of the hours I’d spent in the Mitchell that morning, searching out old newspaper accounts of crimes and cruelties, suddenly weighed on me. 'I was just going for a pint, d’you fancy one?'

  John hesitated.

  'I do but I can’t.'

  I remembered the way that Eilidh had looked at me in the police cell.

  'Fair enough.'

  'No, it’s not that. It’s just I promised to get home early. Listen I’ve some beers in the fridge, why don’t you come back with me?'

  'I’m not sure that Eilidh would be so pleased to see me.'

  John ran his hand through his hair again.

  'Don’t be daft. If you hadn’t dropped by I would have got your number from her and called you.'

  'Ach I don’t know, John.'

  'Well I do. I need a favour and you owe me at least the one.'

  John’s flat was just off Byres Road, a quick fifteen-minute walk from his office. He was waylaid twice by students and each time used me as an excuse to move on.

  'Looks like you’re a celebrity, Dr John.'

  He laughed.

  'They always get friendlier towards the end of term — exam time.'

  I said, 'I’m impressed.' Realising I meant it. 'What happened?' John looked at the ground as he walked.

  'Nothing much. I discovered that I quite liked philosophy, screwed the nut, passed the exams, applied for a postgrad. And the rest is history.'