by Louise Welsh
‘You’re a good man, John.’ He clasped Johnny’s elbow. ‘A good man. You want a bit of advice?’
‘No, I want you to piss off,’ Johnny said, pulling his arm free.
But Magnus had seen death that day and needed to share how important it was to live, while you still could.
‘No one gives a fuck that you’re a poof, especially not me.’ He put a hand on Johnny’s elbow and squeezed. ‘You go for it, man, fuck all the boys you want while you’re still young enough to get a lumber.’
Johnny Dongo pulled Magnus close. Magnus opened his arms, ready to receive Johnny’s embrace. He had liberated him. Sex was sex and nothing more, whoever you had it with.
The comic whispered, ‘If you call me a poof again, I’ll kill you,’ and smashed his forehead into the bridge of Magnus’s nose. There was a moment of pain and blindness. Magnus’s face was warm with blood and there was a fire klaxon sounding in his head. He grabbed a bath towel and held it to his nose.
‘That is what is known as a Glasgow kiss.’ Johnny turned to look at the Dongolites rumpled together on the couch. ‘Did I tell you my dad was Scottish?’
‘You did, John, yes,’ one of them replied, his voice soft, as if he feared he might be next.
Johnny said, ‘Trust nae cunt, son,’ in an accent that would pass muster on Sauchiehall Street. He squatted next to Magnus who was crouched in the bathroom doorway, the bloody towel still clutched to his face, and ruffled his hair. ‘Can you guess why I gifted the gig to you, Mags? Because you’re an ideal warm-up man, no one has to worry about the crowd peaking too early. As my old dad would say, you’re never going to set the heather on fire. I’m happy to have you on board, but don’t take fucking liberties. Now piss off out of here.’
Three
Magnus turned into a lane by the side of the hotel and leaned against the wall, head tipped back in the hope that gravity would help stem the gush of blood from his nose.
The hint of light he had seen reaching through the curtains was merely a nicotine dawn. It was a while since anyone had punched Magnus, but the pain was part of his body’s memory and it recognised and embraced it. Just as it had the time Murdo McKechnie ‘accidentally’ kicked a football into his face in P3. And on the night Rab Murchison decided Magnus was a ‘bloody nancy boy’ and smashed L O V E then H A T E into his ‘poof nose’. And on the only occasion his father had punched him. That last one he had deserved.
He felt his face swelling and realised that there was a good chance it would be him, and not Johnny Dongo, who would need an understudy tomorrow.
‘Fuck!’
Magnus spat a stream of blood and mucus on to the ground. He took off his jacket and shirt, held the shirt to his face and zipped the jacket over his naked chest. Blood was still running down into his throat from his ruined nose and he spat again.
He felt in his pocket for his wallet to check he had enough money for a cab, but it was empty. Magnus shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans and drew out the crumpled fiver dusted with coke. He already knew what had happened. He had followed a routine formed by years of dodgy, shared dressing rooms and taken his valuables on stage with him. His money and debit card were in the pocket of his sharp blue suit, zipped in its garment bag, still slung across the couch in Johnny Dongo’s hotel room.
Magnus slid down the alley wall and squatted on his haunches. He could probably face the humiliation of seeing Johnny again, but the night porter on duty at the reception desk possessed the bulk and Zen of Mike Tyson. The big man had been woken by the ping of the lift and raised his face from the reception desk as Magnus emerged into the lobby. Magnus had held his hands in the air and walked to the exit. But the porter had rubbed rabbit-pink eyes with grazed knuckles and shadowed him to the door, complaining about the bloodstains dripping on to the lobby carpet and detailing in a low voice, hoarse with a summer cold, the kind of things that happened to people who bled without consideration. Magnus could still feel the point, low on his spine, where the big man had shoved him into one of the rotating door’s compartments and spun him from the hotel. There was no prospect of going back there.
He slid his mobile from his pocket and then remembered that its battery was dead.
‘Fuck!’
He hurled the phone across the alley. It hit the brick wall on the other side and smashed open. The battery bounced from its casing, skittered across the ground and disappeared beneath one of the large container bins that serviced the hotel. This time Magnus did not bother to swear. He rose unsteadily to his feet, crossed the alley, lowered himself on to his hands and knees and looked beneath the container. It was dark, but he thought he could see the battery. He stretched a hand towards it, flinching at the touch of grit and detritus, but the battery was out of reach. Magnus stood and put his weight against the bin. Its wheels were padlocked and it refused to move. It was a problem beyond his ability. He gave the container a kick that hurt his foot and then slithered to the ground, rested his back against the bin and closed his eyes.
Magnus woke slumped on his side. His mouth was dry, his face a dull thump of blood and bruise. He had no idea where he was except that it wasn’t bed, it wasn’t home. Something touched his feet. Magnus batted out a hand, and drew up his knees, sharp to his chin. He had been on stage bathed in the audience’s laughter and then … Oh God. It all came back to him in a rush of shame and vomit. He wiped his mouth on the blood-crusted shirt still clutched in his hand, like a baby’s security blanket.
He had no idea of how long he had slept. Magnus struggled upright and looked towards the mouth of the alley. It was brighter, the sun higher in the sky, but there was a lack of traffic noise that made him think it was still early. Something rattled at the dark end of the lane and he found himself drawing deeper into the shadows thrown by the hotel bins. His mother had warned him more than once of the fall that followed pride. And here he was, like an illustration of a cautionary tale for children, skulking in ordure just hours after his big bow.
Someone coughed. It was a harsh animal sound, loud in the early-morning stillness. Magnus looked towards the noise and saw a couple locked together in the gloom. His first confused thought was that they were dancing. The man had his arm around the girl, her head rested against his shoulder and they were swaying together. Then he saw the floppiness of the girl’s limbs, the way the man was bearing all her weight, his legs scissored wide, spine pitched back for balance. The couple’s shadows reeled against the alley wall and Magnus realised that they were drunk. No, the man’s movements were quick and sure. The girl was beyond drunk, but her dancing partner still had his wits.
Magnus had made drunken love to drunken women in shadowy outside places. He spat on his ruined shirt and dabbed at his face, hoping to clean off the evidence of blood and dirt. There was a long walk ahead and whatever was happening at the other end of the lane had nothing to do with him. He was in no fit state to judge anyone. He thought, as he often did, of a woman he had met in a Belfast bar, late one night, after a gig. They had matched each other shot for shot of tequila and then fucked on the bonnet of a car parked in a deserted street, both of them reckless. Not so reckless he had not rubbered-up though. They had produced a condom at the same time, both of them laughing to see the other so prepared. ‘Quick draw, McGraw,’ she had whispered in exotic Ulster tones. And then she had kissed him.
Magnus got unsteadily to his feet. His legs had died at some point during his sleep, and he felt as if he were fresh from a night’s fishing, feet and knees skinkling at the firmness of solid ground. He looked back at the couple. The girl’s head lolled to one side and he caught an impression of blonde hair shining. The cough that had woken him rasped again, harsh and fox-like. The man spat on the ground and then started to busy himself with his fly. He shoved a knee between hers, pinning the girl against the wall, sliding between her legs. There was no ‘both’ or ‘together’. The man was alone with a human doll.
‘Fuck.’
Magnus cursed his consci
ence and stretched a hand beneath the bin, searching again for the battery of his phone, but it was useless. The battery was dead and lost in ratty darkness. He looked towards the mouth of the alley, but the road beyond was silent. He was on his own. He stepped into the middle of the alley and walked towards the couple.
‘Excuse me, mate.’
The man froze. He looked up and Magnus was reminded of the expression on the face of a cat interrupted in the act of dispatching a kill. He stepped closer and saw that the man’s hand was not on the girl’s arm, as he had supposed, but at the base of her throat. The girl’s eyes were slits, open and unseeing.
‘Like to watch, do you?’ the man asked.
He was older than Magnus had thought, a craggy business-suited fifty, his white shirt unfastened at the neck.
‘Only if both parties know what they’re doing.’
‘How fucking politically correct of you.’ The man coughed again, his throat grating, metal on un-oiled metal, but the girl did not wake up. ‘Don’t worry,’ the man said, ‘she knows what she’s doing, this is the way she likes it.’ His voice was low and so assured that Magnus almost hesitated, but then the man said, ‘You can have next go if you want. She won’t mind.’
‘You’re a fucking rapist.’ Magnus took another step towards him.
‘Piss off, son. You don’t know who you’re dealing with.’
The man’s arm must have been growing tired with the strain of holding the girl up, or perhaps he wanted to use her as a shield, because he let her fall against him, her face on his shoulder, his arms clasped around the small of her back. The girl’s short skirt had ridden up and Magnus saw that her tights were shredded around her thighs, her underwear pushed to one side. She was wearing high-heeled yellow sandals and had painted her nails the same sunny colour.
Magnus said, ‘Put her down and walk away.’
‘So you can finish what I started?’
He had been wrong to think the man was sober, Magnus realised. He was drunk enough to have lost his inhibitions and lucid enough to carry through.
‘So I don’t kick your fucking head in.’
‘Like someone did to you?’ The man had shouldered the girl’s weight again. He walked slowly towards Magnus, keeping as close to the far wall as possible. ‘Don’t worry. We’re out of here.’
‘Where are you taking her?’
‘A nice warm bed.’ The man’s voice took on an apologetic tone. ‘You were right to interrupt us. We’d been drinking. Things got out of hand. You know how it can be when you drink too much. Don’t worry, she’s safe with me.’
The man smiled. He was level with Magnus now, the girl still wrapped in his arms. It was easier to take the stranger at his word and let them go.
‘Okay.’ Magnus let out a deep breath and leaned against the wall of the alley, allowing the man a clear exit. Close to, the man’s suit looked expensive, his shoes well polished beneath their scuffs. The girl’s skirt and top might have been her best, but even Magnus’s untutored eye could tell that they were chain store rather than designer. He said, ‘Will you look after her?’
‘Don’t you worry.’ The man grinned. Teeth shone white in his brick-red face. ‘I’ll see she gets what she needs.’
It was not easy to hit the man while the girl was still in his arms but Magnus managed it. He ducked to the right and slammed his fist into the stranger’s cheek. The man crashed against the alley wall, still holding the girl close. Magnus grabbed her under her arms and they struggled together for a while, the girl between them like a rag doll. Magnus thought he could feel her waking. Perhaps her assailant felt it too because he let go suddenly, sending Magnus sprawling with the girl on top of him. It should have been enough, but Magnus pushed her to one side and stuck out a leg that sent the man sprawling. Then Magnus was on him, driving his fist into the man’s face, one, two, three … he lost count of the punches in the rhythm of violence.
Magnus’s hand had begun to hurt and he would have stopped soon of his own accord, but he was distracted by an unwelcome early-morning noise, harsh and mechanical, punctuated by regular, high-pitched beeping. He looked towards the source of the sound and saw a refuse van reversing into the alley flanked by bin men. Magnus heaved himself to his feet and gave the man a boot in the ribs. It was a good job well done. The girl had dragged herself to the side of the alley and was cowering against the wall, her hands over her face as if she could not bear to look at the world any longer.
‘It’s okay,’ Magnus said. ‘You’re safe.’ He sent his foot into the man’s side again. The body moved with the impact of his kick, but the man did not make a sound and Magnus found that the silence pleased him. The bin men were running towards him, but they halted a foot or two away, as if scared to come any closer. They were big men, made bigger by their overalls and fluorescent jackets, but they looked hollow-eyed; deathly in the early dawn light.
‘Call the police,’ one of them said.
‘Yes.’ Magnus nodded. He was winded and his words came out in gasps. ‘Call the police.’
He would have liked to have kicked the man again, but two of the bin men screwed up their courage and grabbed hold of him. One of them punched Magnus in the belly. ‘Fucking rapist,’ the bin man said. Then he punched Magnus again.
Four
Magnus sat on his bunk, staring at the small screen of the TV in the corner of his cell, watching a chef with a face as soft and smiling as the Pilsbury Doughman put a pastry lid on the fish pie he was making. On the bunk below, Pete moaned in his sleep. Magnus turned up the sound.
‘Ask your fishmonger to dispose of the heads if you’re squeamish,’ the dough-faced chef said. ‘But traditionally these form part of the decoration.’ He started to insert dead-eyed fish heads into the pastry. ‘This is why it’s called Stargazey Pie.’
Magnus switched channel. A petite, blonde woman dressed in pastels was walking through an abandoned room. Whoever had lived there had not been house-proud. They had left in a hurry and remnants of their belongings were scattered around the space in dusty piles.
‘Marcus paid £292,000 at auction for this derelict Victorian townhouse,’ the woman said, stepping over a sleeping bag lying rumpled on the floor like the skin of some giant serpent. ‘But with a bit of TLC the property has the potential to realise much more than that. Marcus, what are your plans?’
A sallow-faced man with large bags under his eyes stared nervously into the camera. He hesitated and then his words tumbled forth.
‘I fix it up nice, nice fixtures and fittings, nice wallpaper, nice carpets, then I rent it out to young working people who want a nice place to stay.’
‘That sounds nice,’ said the blonde woman.
Magnus switched channel again. A good-looking girl with a wide smile and café au lait skin was displaying a set of exchangeable screwdriver heads.
‘… you need never be scrabbling around to find the right size of screwdriver,’ the woman said. ‘Because the perfect tool for all varieties of screw is right here in this little box.’
She laughed in a way Magnus might have found appealing had he not been locked in a cell in Pentonville for the last two days.
He changed the channel again and saw an exterior shot of a hospital somewhere in India. The scene shifted to the hospital’s interior, then to a full ward and then to a small child gleaming with sweat. A doctor with a cotton mask stretched across her mouth and nose placed a hand on the child’s forehead. The doctor’s hands were encased in thin plastic gloves. To avoid infection, Magnus supposed, but it seemed terrible to deny the sick child the consoling touch of flesh.
The child was critically ill, the voiceover said, and although it came from a poor family, poverty was not to blame. This was a virus that affected rich and poor.
Pete turned over in his sleep and started coughing. Magnus felt the force of his coughs reverberate through the bunk. One of the warders had promised that Pete would be heading to the dispensary, but that felt like a long time ago. Pete
had been ill but lucid then. He had not said why he was in Pentonville, but then neither had Magnus. They were in the wing reserved for vulnerable prisoners and sex offenders and the fashion was for discretion.
The television screen shifted to Beijing and the portrait of baby-faced Mao smiling out across Tiananmen Square. It flashed to the White House then to Big Ben and back to the newsroom. The World Health Organisation was co-ordinating responses to the virus, the newsreader said, his face stern. In the meantime it had recommended that theatres, sports stadiums and other places of public entertainment be closed. People should go to work as usual – the newsreader gave a reassuring smile – but the advice was to avoid unnecessary crowds. Someone coughed off camera. The newsreader’s eyes shifted from the autocue to the studio beyond. He hesitated, as if unsure whether to comment on the interruption or not and then got on with the final item, a story about a family of chicks who had hatched next to a toy fire truck and decided it was their mother. Magnus watched a film clip of the chicks waddling in a line behind the red plastic truck and thought there was something obscene about it.
The television was getting on his nerves, but there was nothing else to look at except whitewashed walls and a barred window through which he could see a scrap of blue.
Sometimes in Orkney the land seemed like a thin strip between sea and sky. Few trees interrupted the view or the wind. He remembered how he and his cousin Hugh had played at superheroes when they were boys, leaping from rocks and ridges, arms outstretched, their parkas around their shoulders like capes, in the hope that a gust would take hold and carry them across the fields.
Pete coughed again. The grating sound reminded Magnus of the man he had beaten in the alleyway. The police had told him that his ‘victim’ was a Member of Parliament, a man with connections in high and perhaps low places.
Magnus heard a click as the flap covering the Judas-hole on the other side of the door flicked up and someone looked through. He slid from his bunk. He was still bruised from the beating the refuse men had given him and the movement made his body sing with pain. He banged against the door and shouted, ‘There’s a sick man in here.’
