Southsiders

by Nigel Bird

  Ray shrugged. Tilted the baby’s bottle a little higher to get the last of it down into the rubber teat.

  “You really should get out, you know. See the sights.” Izzy laughed at her words. She looked pretty when she smiled, her eyes lighting up and seeming to warm the room around her. “Most people like to look at the murals. Pretend that they’re in the middle of the troubles and all that.”

  “Aye,” Ray said, putting the bottle down and lifting Rose to his shoulder. “I will. I just need...” He didn’t know exactly what he needed. The confidence, he supposed. Or just to lose the fear. So far he’d spent most of his time indoors, happy to help out with the baby while he watched the telly and got involved in a bit of idle chitchat with Izzy when the ads came on. They had a mug of tea every time things became too dull.

  Looking after Rose was a treat. It brought so much of Jesse’s early days back to him. Days when there was still hope of something more. A life and a happy home and all the rest. At first, he’d loved the whole thing about being a dad. The memories, the ones he held on to, all felt warm and soft. Until he remembered the way Paula had been. That was when it had all started to go wrong. The booze took hold of her and anger burst out from her splitting seams. She’d doused his happiness just as effectively as if she’d poured icy water over his head.

  “Maybe all you need is a little company.” Izzy ran the iron backwards and forwards over one of Cliff’s white shirts. “How about coming out with us this afternoon? It’ll do you good.”

  “Like this?” He held his free hand to his head and pointed. The bandage seemed like a pretty good excuse. Should get him out of having to go anywhere.

  “Sure, I can take it off if you like.”

  “The doctor said to keep it on for a week.”

  “What’s a couple of days?” Izzy finished off folding the shirt she was working on, put it carefully down on top of the pile and went to the drawer. She rooted around for a while and pulled out a pair of scissors. “Here we go. It won’t take a sec.” She snipped the air and closed in on her target.

  He’d have moved sharpish if he hadn’t been holding the bairn. “Please. Watch the hair.” His hair was sacred. It was just about the only thing about him that reminded him of a happy self, from the days of jiving and belting out tunes at Karaoke machines across Glasgow and Edinburgh. The nights at the Spider’s Web and the weekends away. The romances and the rumbles. The days before Paula smashed down every tower he’d ever managed to build. His style had been modelled on Elvis circa 1969 by a barber in the Old Town and he’d kept it that way for over twenty years since.

  She smiled. “You like your hair, do you, Ray? Let’s see what all the fuss is about.”

  Her hands tilted his head to one side. She leaned into him and he felt her breast pressing into his back. She smelled of washing powder and fried food and the mixture was enchanting. Without pausing, she pulled gently at the bandage that had glued itself to him and snipped.

  Ray kept himself together enough to remain still. Held himself that way until the snipping stopped.

  Izzy unwrapped the bandage and teased it away. She worked quickly and tidily around him and he savoured the feel of her body pressing into him. When it came to the ear, she took extra care, removing the dressing as carefully as if she’d been trained.

  “How’s the hair?” he asked when she eventually stepped away.

  She leaned back and smiled. “I’m not sure it says lady-killer.” She went over to the wall, lifted the small mirror from its hook and held it out so that he could see his reflection.

  “Holy crap,” he said as he saw hair plastered against his scalp. “I look like a lunatic.” Like he’d just had a lobotomy and escaped from the asylum.

  “To be sure, you’re going to have to do something about that look of yours if you’re hoping to get back into circulation.”

  “I’ll fix it up before we go out then, shall I? Wouldn’t want to lower the tone of the neighbourhood or anything.” He wasn’t sure what she’d done, but she’d removed his fear. Taken it away and thrown it into the bin along with the bandage. If she wanted to walk then they’d walk. If she’d asked him to walk over hot coals right then, he’d have given it a go. He handed Rose back to her, went upstairs and set about restoring what was left of his dignity with a comb and a heavy scoop of grease.

  One Broken Heart For Sale

  At first it looked like the shop was closed. The windows were full of jewellery and antiques, but were dim in the poor light of the winter afternoon.

  Jesse held the bag of records to his chest and wandered down the alley to the side door. He read the gold lettering on the glass, ‘A. FISH. Pawnbroker. Established 1839’. A sign above it said the shop was ‘Open’, one below ‘Cleaner wanted – Apply within’.

  Cleaner wanted? Jesse’s dad had told him all about Tony Fish, so the sign could have two very different meanings. Either he was after someone to dust the shelves or he was looking for someone to break bones when there was call to tidy up loose ends of the financial variety. Even though he needed the cash, Jesse didn’t think he’d be up for the job, whichever of those it was.

  He pushed open the door and heard the bell above his head tinkle. His nostrils filled with scents that were not unlike that of his gran’s old flat, the slightly comforting mix of age and mothballs.

  Even though it had been murky out on the street, it took a while for his eyes to adjust. Before things came fully into focus, the sound of footsteps tapping their way down a spiral staircase at the back of the room caught his attention.

  Emerging from the bottom of the steps and taking his place behind the counter was a man in a suit. He was built like a house of straw – just the one big puff might be enough to put him down. The sleeves of the jacket weren’t long enough for a man of his lanky stature and the smile he gave Jesse exposed far too many teeth for one mouth. Jesse took him to be Christmas staff or maybe one of the Fish family who wouldn’t cope in a job without close supervision.

  “Can I help you?” the man asked. The pitch of his voice was high, like his voice hadn’t broken yet.

  Jesse hid his records behind his back. “I’d like to see the manager.”

  “Mr Tony Fish, at your service.” He held out his hand and Jesse had to take it. “But you can call me Uncle.”

  The man’s palm felt slippery and cold, like he’d been using a moisturiser that he kept in a fridge. And him wanting Jesse to call him Uncle was creepy. Made Jesse pull his hand away quickly and take a small step back.

  “I’ve brought some things for you, Mr Fish. Old records. Not to sell, just to get some cash.”

  “I understand,” Fish said, “but we don’t have much of a market for records these days. We hardly bother with CDs, truth be told. It’s all MP3 and iPod and the like.”

  “These are different,” Jesse said, carefully pulling them from the doubled-up Aldi shopping bags. “Collector’s items. Mint-condition originals. Some of them are even signed.”

  “Then let’s go and take a seat in my office.” Fish stepped into an alcove at the side of the counter. In it was a desk finished in green leather, on top of which were a silver inkwell, a quill and a few sheets of paper. He sat down in a big wooden chair behind the desk and leaned forwards, his elbows on the table. He gestured for Jesse to take the seat opposite and he sat, laying the records down carefully on the green leather just next to the inkwell.

  Tony Fish reached over. Picked them up with respect, as if he was handling the ashes of recently deceased relative. He examined the top one. Chuck Berry’s ‘Sweet Little Sixteen’, recorded in Illinois, released January 1958. Chess Records. Slipped the sleeve from the cover and the vinyl from its sleeve. The black plastic caught the light from somewhere. It glinted as Fish turned it around in his fingers, careful all the while not to touch the playing surface. “I’ve not seen one in this condition before,” Fish said. “Not of this age.” He nodded his head and pursed his lips as if in thought. Even with his mouth close
d, Jesse thought he could see the shape of the buck-teeth.

  Fish did the same for the others. All ten of them were clean. All in immaculate condition.

  As Jesse had expected, the record he showed the most interested in was a single. A signed copy of the double A of “That’s All Right” and “Blue Moon Of Kentucky”, Sun Records, 1954. It had the sunburst sleeve, looking as if there were rays of gold running across it, and across the rays a scrawl that looked like it defaced a thing of beauty.

  Fish took out a magnifying glass from a drawer, pressed a button that switched on a light above the desk and studied the dedication. ‘To my good friend Tam. Thanks for the help. Elvis’.

  A smile curled at his lips, then stretched into a grin. The glare from his teeth alarmed Jesse for a moment, and then disappeared when the light was switched off again.

  “Of course, we do have to be careful with this sort of thing. Signatures are easily forged.” Jesse sensed that this might be Fish’s way of talking down the price. “I don’t suppose you have any kind of authentication?” He lay the record on the desk while he spoke. Looked at the way it rested there. It was perfectly flat.

  Jesse reached inside his coat, delved into his pocket and took out an old photograph. It was battered around the edges and there was a fold running right through the middle. Even so, the picture clearly showed a young Elvis Presley standing with his arm around a short, even younger-looking man. Their hair-styles were identical, dark and slicked back into quiffs that must have taken ages to get right. “This photo,” Jesse said, passing it over to Tony Fish, “is of my grandad Tam with the King of rock’n’roll himself. They were on the same tour for a while there.”

  Fish looked at it. His face creased and seemed unimpressed. “This is just an old photograph. It could be anyone.”

  “Course it couldn’t.” Jesse clenched his fists at his side. Felt the volcano in his tummy stir and send heat into his head and his eyes. He wished his dad was there to tell Fish that he was telling the truth. “We’re peas in a pod, me and Tam. Everyone says so.”

  It was true. There was a strong look about the two of them. It was the softness of the eyes. The gentle look to them like they should be priests or saints or vets or something. Not that Tam lived the life of a saint. Or died like one, stabbed in a brawl in the Barrowlands just before his seventieth birthday. Jesse remembered hearing the news the morning after the fight, the same morning they were packing to go over for the party. Remembered his dad locking himself in the bathroom for an age, then hiding in his room and playing his music all that day and the next. Recalled the way his own heart had popped and deflated like a bouncy castle when the power’s turned off.

  The thought of pawning the only things his dad cared about made Jesse ’s insides twist. The guilt gripped hard and grew so that it felt like he’d swallowed a lump of coal. The thought of leaving the pawnbroker’s without the money he needed made it feel like he’d swallowed two. “I need a grand,” he said and was pleased that Tony Fish didn’t laugh.

  An enormous hand at the end of a very long black-suit sleeve reached over Jesse’s shoulder and gave him a shock. He’d thought he was alone with the pawnbroker. The huge hand took the records that Fish handed to it and removed them.

  The man who’d taken the merchandise was a giant. Like Lurch from the Adam’s family and about as cheerful looking. There was a scar running across his face that made him look incredibly menacing. He went behind the counter, slid open a door and placed the records inside. After sliding the door back into place, he rang a small bell and a moment later there was the sound of machinery from upstairs.

  “What’s he doing?” Jesse was half expecting to hear that his stuff was being stolen. Imagined them throwing him out of the shop and laughing at him and his stupid ideas.

  “I understand the value of what you’re offering,” Fish said. “But I do want to be sure.”

  “They’re worth a lot more than a grand. Dad always says the Elvis single’s worth a couple of thou’ at least.”

  “Maybe your dad would like to come down and tell me for himself.” Fish picked up the quill from the desk and scraped a little something from behind the fingernail of his ring finger.

  “He’s dead.” Jesse said it before thinking it through. “And that’s why I need the money, see?”

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” Fish said, and that seemed to end the conversation.

  They sat in silence at the desk for a couple of minutes. Tony Fish seemed relaxed throughout. Jesse tapped his feet to the rhythm of “(We’re Gonna) Rock Around The Clock”, Bill Haley, 1954, written by Max C Freedman and James E Myers, put out as a B-side to “Thirteen Women (Only One Man In Town)”, Brunswick Records, colour of the label: black. By the time he’d run the song through his head once, the mechanical sound from upstairs returned.

  When it stopped, Lurch slid the door open and took out the records and a sheet of paper. He carried them over and put them on the desk like some posh waiter serving soup in a fancy restaurant.

  Tony Fish unfolded the paper. “Well, well, well. It seems your dear departed knew his music. My employee upstairs agrees with his valuation and therefore I’d be happy to offer you the amount specified for the objects in question.”

  Jesse’s heart jumped a couple of times and did a somersault inside his chest. He tried his best to look cool and collected, but the broad grin on his face gave him away.

  “The only thing we’ll need,” Fish said, “is identification. And a little, how should I put it? Discretion.”

  Discretion? It wasn’t a word Jesse knew. He wracked his brains for something similar. He drew a complete blank. “What are you talking about?”

  Fish sat back, surprised at the spirit of the boy. There weren’t many adults who asked him questions using that tone, especially when any of his staff were around – they were usually scary enough to intimidate the hardest Edinburgh had to offer. “What I mean is, I shouldn’t be doing business with a minor like you.”

  “I’ve never been down a pit in my life.”

  “No,” Fish laughed. “A child. I’m not supposed to be doing business with a child, at least not the way the law sees it. I will, however, bend the regulations if you can provide me with some means of identification.”

  “My dad always says the law’s an arse.”

  “Said.”

  “What?”

  “Said. Your dad always said. And it’s...never mind. Do you have the ID?”

  Thankfully, Jesse had come prepared. He reached into his jacket, pulled out an electric bill, a gas bill and the rent book and put them onto the table.

  Tony Fish picked them up, read them, looked over at Lurch and nodded. “Have them send down the paperwork and the cash.”

  Within a minute, there was an envelope of cash on the table.

  In front of Jesse were several pages of a contract he was to sign. He knew all about the need to read things before signing them, but the words didn’t make any sense. He pretended to pay attention to the detail for a short while and then skipped to the end.

  Tony Fish tipped the lid of the inkwell in Jesse’s direction and handed him the quill. “Sign at the mark of the cross.”

  Jesse picked the quill up and attempted to write on the line. It scratched on the paper, but left no mark. He tried again. “I think it’s broken.”

  Fish leaned across. Dipped the end of the quill carefully into one of the wells and carefully took it out again. He passed it over to Jesse. “Try it now.”

  This time it worked. His signature may not have been as valuable as Elvis’s, but it did look pretty grown up for a lad of his age.

  Lurch took the forms. Rolled a blotter over the ink and folded them up neatly.

  “And here’s your cash.” He slid it over the table. “£1000 as agreed. To be paid back in full within a period of sixty days with the accrued interest of 10% per thirty days.” Jesse’s face wrinkled at the news and Fish must have noticed. “Bring back either £1100 after
thirty days or £1220 after sixty and you can take your precious records away with you. Should you fail to do so, the goods will be sold in the shop at whatever price we deem fit. Understand?”

  Jesse nodded. Felt the thickness of the cash he was holding. It was thicker than any of the books he’d ever read. “Thanks, Mr Fish.” His voice had a nervous crackle to it, betraying the fact that he felt like Hansel imprisoned in a house of gingerbread. “I’ll see you next year. Happy Christmas.” He’d have leant over and offered his hand had the memory of the first shake not been implanted in his brain.

  He tucked the cash safely away into his inside pocket, nodded to the two gentlemen and left the shop, heading in the direction of the housing association rent office with a gentle bounce in his step as he went.

  Suspicious Minds

  The stairs were murder with arms full of groceries. Jesse had maybe gone a bit far on his first time in charge of the budget and the shopping list. Not that he was regretting the purchasing of all those Christmas decorations. The flat was looking pretty Spartan and the ancient collection of decorations weren’t going to be up to the job for yet another year.

  By the time Jesse got to his floor, he was completely out of puff and dropped all of the bags before going over to his door.

  “Hello, Jesse.” The voice came from behind. Gave him a start. There was something familiar about it, but it took him a while to place it. Rupert Wallace, Social Work. “I see you’re feeling a bit better now. That’s good.” Wallace always managed to sound sarcastic even when he was trying to be nice.

  Jesse turned to face him. He wore a black duffel coat with polished wooden pegs for buttons, drainpipe jeans and a pair of shiny brown brogues.

  “Yeah. I’m quite a bit better.” What the hell was Wallace doing there? And how the hell was Jesse going to get out of this one?

  “I’ve been waiting for a while. The nice man on the ground floor let me in.” Nice? In this block? Must be someone new.