by Unknown
— What ur ye fuckin sayin, Norrie?
— It’s jist this album, this Greatest Hits album. Eh’s dressed like a bird in one picture n done up as a poof in another yin.
Begbie’s jist shakin. — Whit dae ye mean dressed like a poof! You think Rod Stewart’s a fuckin poof? Rod fuckin Stewart? Is that what ye fuckin think?
— Ah dinnae ken if eh’s a poof or no, Norrie laughs.
Malky sees the signs n aw. — C’moan, Frank, deal the cairds.
Mikey says: — Rod Stewart’s no a poof. Eh shagged that Britt Ekland. Did ye see her in that film wi that Callan boy, the yin thit they filmed up in the Highlands?
Franco’s no hearin anything but. Eh says tae Norrie: — So if ye think Rod Stewart’s a poof, ye must think thit cunts thit like Rod Stewart are poofs n aw.
— Naw, ah . . . ah’m . . .
It’s too late, man, ah look away bit ah hear a crash n some shouts n when ah turn roond ah cannae see Norrie’s face, it’s like eh’s goat a black mask oan.
But it’s jist a cowl ay blood cause Franco’s went n broke the boatil ay Jack ower ehs heid.
— Aw, Franco, man, thir wis still some nips in that boatil, Mikey moans, as Franco stands up and heads tae the door. Malky’s helpin Norrie through tae the bathroom. Ah jist follays Franco oot the door n doon the stair. — Fuckin wide cunt wi ehs snidey remarks, eh goes, starin right at me, but ah’m no lookin at um, ah’m jist thinkin, git tae Nicol’s n huv a pint, chill um oot, then pure vanish hame. Ye dinnae want company that bad, man, ye nivir want it that bad.
42
‘. . . ruptured his penis . . .’
Poor Terry, it was a bad one alright. We called an ambulance and they took him straight up to the hospital where they examined him and told him that he’d ruptured his penis. It was serious, as they took him straight from casualty up to a ward. — If it responds well, the doctor said, — then things should be fine. It’ll be fully functioning. There can be complications though, but at this stage we shouldn’t be thinking about amputation.
— What . . . Terry said, absolutely terrified, realising that they didn’t give beds away unless it was an emergency.
The doctor looked grimly at him. — That is only the worst-case scenario, Mr Lawson. But I can’t emphasise how serious this is.
— Ah ken it’s serious! Ah fuckin well ken that! It’s ma cock!
— So you must rest and avoid any strain. The medication we’ve given you should prevent you from getting an involuntary erection while the tissue hopefully repairs itself. This is one of the worst ruptures I’ve seen.
— But we wir jist . . .
— This is far more common than you think, the doctor tells him.
Rab’s mobile goes and it’s Simon. Rab says he’s very upset, but it’s obviously because of the problem that this presents for the film rather than Terry. Even Rab and I are finding it hard to joke. Eventually he turns to me and says: — I always thought that Terry’s cock would get him into trouble, everybody in the scheme used tae say that. We never thought that he would get it into trouble though!
But we just can’t find the humour in it. Gina, Ursula, Craig, Ronnie and Melanie are stunned in disbelief and Mel feels terrible now that the reality is setting in. — Ah couldnae help it . . .
— It was an accident, I say, rubbing her back. I kiss them all and head home, where I’m telling Lauren and Dianne the story. Dianne raises her hand to her mouth and Lauren’s little face can barely conceal its glee. She’s made some vegetarian lasagne and we sit down to eat.
— So that’s put paid to your porn-film plans then, Lauren says, pouring herself a glass of white wine.
It’s almost a shame to deflate her, she looks so happy. — Oh no, darling, the show must go on.
— But . . . Lauren looks really distraught at this news.
— Simon’s determined, we’re still shooting the movie. He’ll find a replacement.
Now Lauren explodes with anger. — You’re being exploited. How can you! They’re using you!
Dianne puts a forkful of food into her mouth and looks at me with a strained expression. She swallows hard and shrugs evenly. — Lauren, this is nothing to do with you. Please calm down.
This is doing my head in. I have to try to make her see through her own neurosis here. — I’m fed up studying film when I’ve got the opportunity to make one. Why are you getting so het up about it all?
— But it’s pornography, Nikki! You’re being used!
I let out my breath slowly. — What do you care? I’m not stupid, it’s my choice, I tell her.
She looks at me with a quiet, composed rage in her eyes. — You’re my friend. I don’t know what they’ve done to you but I’m not going to let them get away with it. What you’re doing is against your own sex. You’re enslaving and oppressing women everywhere! You study this, Dianne! Tell her, she urges.
Dianne grabs the wooden forks and pulls some more chopped salad onto her plate. — It’s a wee bit more complex than that, Lauren. I’m finding out a lot about this as I go along. I don’t think porn per se is the real issue. I think it’s how we consume.
— No . . . no, it’s not, because the people at the top are always men!
Dianne nods in assent as if Lauren’s proved the point she wants to make. — Aye, but probably less so in the porn industry than any others. What about girl-on-girl action filmed by women for the consumption of women? Where does that fit in with your paradigm? she asks.
— It’s false consciousness, Lauren bleats.
I’m too busy to debate, even if I had the notion. — You’re no fun, Lauren, I tell her, rising from the table and picking up my holdall. — Leave the dishes, girls, I’ll do them when I get back? I promise. I’m running a little late.
— Where are you going? Lauren asks.
— To my friend’s place to practise some lines, I tell her, leaving the sad, frigid little bitch choking on her hang-ups.
She even stands up, but Dianne grabs her wrist and yanks her down, talking to her like she’s the child she has evidently become. — Lauren! That’s enough! Sit down and eat your food. Come on now.
I hear some noises as I leave and head downstairs and out into the cold. I take the bus to Wester Hailes and Melanie’s place. It takes me ages to find her flat. When I get there she’s just put her son to bed. We practise our lines, then we practise a little action as well, and I end up staying the night.
Next morning we wait for her mother to come before getting the 32 bus down to Leith. There’s a spray of fine rain, which soaks us through by the time we reach the pub. The shaggers are looking somewhat upset and I realise that there’s not a camera in sight. Instead a tall, lean man of about thirty-five with curly hair, sideboards and piercing eyes is sitting in a chair.
— This is Derek Connolly, Simon explains to me. — Derek is a professional actor and he’s going to coach us. You might have seen him on the box as the Scottish villain in The Bill, Casualty, Emmerdale or Taggart.
— Actually, I was an advocate in Taggart, Derek says defensively.
We start off doing some role-play exercises, then working on the script. If he’s frustrated at our attempts at acting, he doesn’t show it. It has me wishing that I’d done more in the university drama groups. Nothing is wasted.
After, I head up to Simon’s flat with him and tell him that I was practising with Mel. — Should have invited her up, he says.
But no, that won’t do. I’m having him all to myself.
43
Scam # 18,746
Even though it’s now spring it’s still nippy, and it’s not easy to pull myself away from Nikki. Additionally, I’m starting to dread facing Mo and Ali at the pub. I put it off, taking her breakfast, then out to the editing suite in Niddrie where I run off a few copies of the tape of Paul having his fun.
— What’s all this about?
— Oh, just a wee bit extra-curricular, I tell her, belling the Leith adman on my green mobile phone. Nikk
i announces that she has to go to classes, and she’ll call me later. I watch her getting ready to go, her arse moving elegantly in that long skirt. It’s funny, but in our sickening ladette culture, very few women have the grace to wear a skirt properly these days, so you notice one that does. She pulls on her long hooded coat, zips it up and I can see her dazzling smile even under the fur-trimmed hood as she waves farewell and exits.
I tell Paul to meet me urgently at twelve noon in the Shore Bar down by the Water of Leith. We get there at exactly the same time. Paul looks flustered, but not as much as he will be. I stick an invoice, chequebook and pen in front of him. — Right, Paul, if you’ll just countersign this.
— You’re keen, he says, pulling on his specs, obviously long-sighted, and then studies the invoice and the chequebook. — Can’t this wait . . . what . . . this is the money for the education video . . . where is it going? I haven’t seen those invoices. What is this Bananazzurri Films?
I look around the high-ceilinged, solid wood-panelled bar with the huge windows. — It’s my film production company. Called after the Banana flats round the corner, where I grew up and with a natty little reference to my Italian roots.
— But . . . why?
— Well, I explain, — Sean Connery called his film production company Fountainbridge Films, after where he grew up. It just seemed a pretty fucking nifty thing to do.
— But what’s this got to do with the Leith Business Against Drugs video education project?
— Absolutely nothing. It’s to part finance a movie called Seven Rides for Seven Brothers. There’s some start-up costs. It’s an adult entertainment, or if you like, pornographic film.
— But . . . but . . . what the fuck is this! You can’t do this! No way! Paul stands up, like he’s going to have a go at me. I hadn’t bargained for this.
— Look, I’ll put the money back once I get my other finances in place, I placatingly explain. — It’s business. Sometimes you have to rob Peter to pay Paul, or the other way around, I smile, thinking of the Dutch porn man, Peter Muhren, aka Miz.
Paul gets up and starts to walk out. He stops and points at me. — If you expect me to sign that you’re crazy. And I’ll tell you this right now: I’m going to the committee and to the police and I’m going to tell them just what a crook you are!
He’s being quite loud. Fortunately the bar is still empty. — Funny, I tell him, — I thought you were a cunt that knew the fucking score. I was wrong. I pull out a copy of the video. Your boss might be interested in this, mate. Destroy it if you like, I’ve got copies. Not just for him; there’s one for the News, and one for that cunt on the council. It’s got you doing that line of ching, and talking about the gear your gaffer gets.
— You’re joking . . . he says slowly, looking steadily at me. Then there’s a shiver in his eye.
— In a word, no, I say, handing over the cassette. — Take it with you if you don’t believe me. In fact, take it anyway. Now sit down.
He seems to consider this for a second or two. Then he flops in crushed obedience into his seat, as a lassie comes over with two big bowls of cappuccino. They know how to make a cappuccino down the Shore. I’ve a sad feeling that it may go to waste on Paul, as his mind is elsewhere, in fact it’s probably already downsizing his taste-buds for prison food. This is way, way far in excess of his biggest nightmare. I don’t want him moping around all destroyed though, people will notice and he’ll give himself away easily. — Don’t go beating yourself up about it. You’re not the first cunt to act a bit flash and get stiffed, I say, thinking of Renton, — and you won’t be the last. See it as a learning experience. Never trust a schemie with a wad, I wink conspiratorially, — cause it inevitably came oot ay some dippit cunt’s pocket. You’re the dippit cunt, I tell him, pointing the finger. — But you’ll emerge stronger, I guarantee it.
— What gives you the right to do this to me? he pleads.
— You’ve just answered your own question, mate. Think about it. Now if you’d be so kind as to fuck off, I’ve business to attend to. I mean, have your cappuccino first, they make great cappuccinos here.
But no, he leaves it, and I think of how I’m trying to cut back on the drugs of the millennium: caffeine and cocaine. Yet as he staggers off, broken, into his car and back to suburbia, a career hanging in the balance, I take his coffee and, as I sit watching the circling, squawking gulls, I think, yes, Leith is the place to be. How could I have stood it so long in dirty, drab London?
There’s been a bit of a bonus with Derek Connolly, the actor. He and his bird Samantha are into playing the part of the brother who wants straight sex and gets seduced in the B & B. So we hire a scabbo place down the Links. Rab protests about his college work but, after a bit of cajoling, I’ve got him down with Vince, Grant and the riggings and DV cameras. We do a quick bit of guerrilla filming of the straight-shagging sequence with the seduction part, and the results are very good. If you count the incomplete orgy, I’ve ‘done’ two brothers from the seven.
I head back to my pub to look in on the troops. It’s pretty busy. I check Begbie, his face set in hunter-killer mode, and that Larry heading in through the side door, so I decide to visit Terry before I go to Glasgow with Nikki. Mo’s doing her nut about being left on her ain again. Ali comes in, looking rough. I tell Morag it’s just the way things are and I’m off to Glasgow to examine expansion potential. — Expansion? Glasgow? What ye talkin aboot!
— A Leith theme-pub chain. Take the Port Sunshine franchise through west, then down south. I look around at the decaying slum. — Export the brand, I laugh. — Notting Hill, Islington, Camden Town, Manchester city centre, Leeds . . . they’ll fall like dominoes!
— It’s no oan, Simon, she says shaking her heid, but I’m trying to get offski before Begbie and his bum-chum clock me. But it’s too late, he sees me and he’s over.
— No steyin fir a fuckin peeve? he more or less commands.
— I’d love to, Frank, but I’m visiting a sick buddy in the hossy before catching a train through to Glasgow. Bell me on the mobby in the week and we’ll hook up for a gargle.
— Aye . . . what’s your fuckin number again?
I spit out the green number and Begbie punches it into his phone, obviously noting that it’s not the one that the text message came from. — Is that the only mobile you’ve fuckin goat?
— No, I’ve another one for business. Why? I enquire. Actually, I’ve three mobiles, but the ones for chicks are nobody’s business but mine.
— Ah goat a fuckin text message fae some cunt tryin tae git wide. It wis like oan an abroad number. Didnae work whin ah called it back.
— Aw aye? Abusive phone calls, eh? You’ll be getting stalked next, Franco, I joke.
— What’s that fuckin well supposed tae mean? Begbie glowers.
I feel my blood run cold and I’d almost forgotten the sheer depth of the man’s paranoia. — It’s a joke, Frank, lighten up, buddy, for fuck sakes, I quip, closing my fist and making a matey but flimsy contact with his shoulder.
There’s a pause of about two seconds, which seems about ten minutes, as I see a huge black hole opening up and my life spilling into it. Then, just when I think I’ve taken too much licence, he seems to calm down, and he even makes a joke himself. — Nae cunt’s fuckin stalkin me, every cunt’s keepin oot ma fuckin road it seems. Ma so-called fuckin mates n aw, he says, now looking at me hopeful and hard.
— Like ah sais, Frank, we’ll hook up in the week. I’ve been a bit busy recently, learning the ropes here, but I’ll be in the clear soon, I tell him.
That Larry looks at me with a sly grin. — Ah’ve heard thit yuv been busy oan other things n aw, mate.
A cold nick tweaks my spine as I wonder who’s been blabbing, but I nod enigmatically and head off, smiling at Franco and Larry. As I go, I turn to Morag. — A beer for the boys Mo, on my tab. Cheers, chaps! I sing, and when I’m out of sight I fairly skip up the Walk, legs as light as a child’s, delighted to have extri
cated myself from the mess in the bar.
44
‘. . . record-breakers . . .’
It must be the company I’m keeping, but I find myself starting to think like a local. Life is sweet; it’s a warm spring day so there’s a bounce in my step and I take some builders’ wolf whistles with a casual, snooty contempt, feeling like a nasty, hot, arrogant bitch. I can do it wholeheartedly now that the coursework is over. I’m heading through the increasingly tourist-clogged city streets to get up to the hospital to see Terry. Poor Terry.
The air has a cold, fresh sting, but with a jumper on it’s not unpleasant. I realise that I really am enjoying myself with the movie. Surprisingly, not so much the sex. I’m up for it but it’s never as good as I anticipate. It’s too much like work, too much like playing to the camera, and because of that it’s often dull and uncomfortable. Sometimes you feel like those record-breakers, that one hundred people in a mini sort of shit, and Simon’s stop-starting seems to go beyond the needs of the film, it’s like a way he exercises power over us. But the main thing is being part of something, being involved, that’s what makes you feel alive.
Yesterday we shot the castle scene, one of the potentially most difficult, down at Tantallon in North Berwick. Simon had a joiner friend make up a pair of false stocks. He got Ronnie with his glasses on and Ursula done up to the nines in a short white skirt and T-shirt, showing the blonde hair and sunbed tan to best effect. Early morning we filmed Ronnie getting on a tour bus, with her stalking him. Then we headed down to the bus station. The bus to North Berwick was almost empty. We filmed Ronnie inside sitting down, looking a nerd with glasses, notebook and camera. Rab was outside in the back of a van driven by Craig, shooting the exteriors.
Inside the bus we shot Ursula saying to Ronnie: — Mind if I sit here? I am from Sweden.
Ronnie’s had the most benefit from the acting lessons, and Derek reckons he’s a natural. — Not at all, he explained. — I’m exploring old castles.
Then we did the stocks scene, where he sees her and she explains that she’s stuck. That’s when he can’t help but take her from behind. Thus the third brother bites the dust.
