by Tony Black
‘This isn’t a help, it’s no’ good news,’ said Mac.
‘I know, I know.’
‘In fact, Gus, I’d say it’s actually fucked things right up.’
He was keen to get moving, to act. I had to wrestle him to the ground on that: ‘Look, just fucking well hang fire, eh. You’ll get the chance to use your hammer, but I have to sort some shit out first.’
A pause.
Mac’s breathing grew heavy; he was pumped, I could tell. ‘Right, okay. I hear you. Just don’t leave it too long, yeah? These things have a habit of slipping away from you if you don’t seize the moment.’
I heard Debs move from the hall to the bedroom. I dropped my voice, said, ‘I’ll have to go.’
Hung up, opened the door.
Debs stood outside the bathroom with the hairdryer in her hand. She tested: ‘Were you on the phone?’
‘Yeah, yeah… It was Mac banging on about the footy transfers.’
She squinted at me, knew I was bullshitting her once more. I saw she had me sussed — I was up to no good, doing exactly what she’d begged me not to — she just hadn’t made up her mind how to react. Once she got a handle on how she felt about my behaviour, I was in the shit. I could feel the pressure building in my skull.
I played for a distraction, said, ‘That dryer bust again? It’ll be the fuse, electrics in this place are… shocking.’
She tried to smile, mocked, ‘Har-har.’
I felt a blast of speed-fired optimism — had I won her round? Said, ‘I’ll get a screwdriver.’
Debs followed me through to the living room. I dropped in the chair and started to open up the plug, took out the burned fuse.
‘Everything all right?’ she said.
‘Yeah, fine.’
‘You sure?’
I looked up at her, tried to steer the talk off the rocks. ‘Well, you’ll need a new fuse.’
She poked me in the shoulder. ‘I’m not talking about that.’
‘I know,’ I snapped. My temper ramped up: ‘Debs, everything’s fine.’
She started to twirl her wet hair in her fingers. ‘You’re not… y’know, thinking about…’
‘Drinking?… Fuck no.’
‘Okay. Okay.’ She turned away from me and went to the kitchenette, retrieved a comb from the windowsill. As she parted her hair she spoke: ‘Do you have another appointment with Dr Naughton soon?’
Shit, I’d forgotten about that. ‘Yeah, today as it happens.’
Debs leaned over, let her hair fall over her face and combed from the nape of her neck; she looked left to right and repeated the motion. ‘Will you call me, let me know how it goes?’
I closed up the plug, tried it in the wall. The hairdryer blew hot air. ‘Is that really necessary?’ I sounded tetchy. ‘I mean, I’m going, isn’t that enough?… Do you have to check up on me?’
The dog heard the sound of the hairdryer and stirred in his basket. Debs knelt down, patted him on the head, placed a kiss on his nose. ‘I’m not checking up. I just thought you might want to talk it through.’
I shook my head, carved the air with my hand. My heart was quickening as the speed raced through me. ‘I don’t want to talk about it, Debs. I’m going to the shrink and that’s enough as far as I’m concerned.’
She made a moue with her mouth, wondered where the outburst had come from, spat out, ‘Okay, fine.’
My pulse raced. I knew I was barking at her because I resented giving over my time to a pretence when I should be hunting my brother’s killer. I didn’t want to be told I needed to change any more. I didn’t want to be moulded any more, or have the worst of me cut out so Debs could find the confidence to stay with me. I knew I needed to change, but that didn’t alter the fact that I wanted her to accept me as a whole person. I needed to let her see this, make her understand how tired I was, but I was losing control now. It seemed like just a matter of time until things exploded between us and I couldn’t take the pressure that was building — I needed to release it.
‘Don’t give me the fucking cold shoulder, Debs. I’ve said I’m going, haven’t I?’
She stood up. Usual watched her movement as she came over and snatched the hairdryer from my hand. ‘I was only trying to help.’
I turned away from her, punched out at the open door. The hinges shrieked, then dust rose from the door frame and along the skirting. As I looked at my knuckles Debs shook her head. She said nothing as she turned away from me and started to dry her hair. The tension in the small flat had become too much to take. I stormed into the hall and snatched down my coat.
‘Fuck this for a life,’ I yelled.
The quarter-bottle of Grouse in my pocket cracked off my hip as I threw the coat on.
Chapter 28
I hadn’t landed in the street and ripped the knees out my trousers while sober since I was a boy. Since the day Michael was born. The sensation of dropping to the ground felt familiar enough, like the direction of my life speeded up to a few milliseconds, but the collapse stung my pride. I’d come down like a meteor. For some reason, an image of my father flashed. Was it the thought of my brother, going back to the past? I don’t know, but I saw my father hacking the legs off a gangly winger when he was playing in the reserves. It must have been one of his final matches; he carried a bit of a paunch then, but had lost none of his ferocity. I remembered the tackle had got him sent off, effing and blinding at the ref as he went. The winger’s ankle had broken. I could see his face torn by pain as I raised myself, brushed off the wet, black slush and the white snow from my trousers.
An old woman stood back from her tartan shopping trolley. ‘Are you all right, son?’
I felt such a fool, heat rose on my cheeks. ‘I am, yeah.’
‘You took an awful clatter.’ She had a woolly hat pulled down over her brows, stray white curls escaping its edges as she pointed to my legs. ‘You’ve cut the knees out your trousers!’
I tried to laugh it off. ‘I’ve done worse to myself.’
‘Wait there, son.’ She went back to her trolley and reached in a hand. She removed a little paper bag — it had the name of the chemist shop down the road on it. She struggled in her gloves to open it, said, ‘I’ve got some Germolene… It’ll take the sting out.’
As I watched the old woman I felt like taking her up in my arms and blessing her kindness. It seemed surreal to me, in this world, that there were still people with any compassion for others. I said, ‘There’s no need, dear. It’s very kind of you, but really, I’m fine.’
She seemed to freeze in the street. I watched her breath escape beneath her dentures, but she didn’t say another word. I wondered if I’d offended her, if I’d broken some protocol that had been instilled in her long before I was born; the thought wounded me.
‘Thank you,’ I said. It seemed so trite. ‘Mind how you go on those pavements.’ I smiled at her as I went. She stood holding the little paper bag, unmoving.
At the end of the road I turned back and saw her shuffling up the street, trailing the trolley behind her like a child with a teddy bear. What I wanted to know, as I stared at her on the frozen path, was who would look after her?
As I walked, my father followed.
I couldn’t shake the memory I’d dislodged.
The reserves drew a fair crowd then. Cannis Dury was still a big name, even though his World Cup outing had faded in Scotland’s collective memory. I tried to recall if Michael had been at the game, but I couldn’t. I’d blocked him out. I was used to memories of my father flooding back to me unbidden, but I didn’t want these heartscalds to be confused with any recollections I had stored of my brother.
I clutched the quarter-bottle of Grouse in my pocket again, played with the seal. I had just about worried the label away; it no longer felt smooth, it was coarse on my fingertips. I tried to still my jittering hand — had this become some kind of obsessive compulsion? It was like a nervous tick, a disorder. I pulled my hand from the bottle. It sank to the bottom of my pocket and lay
still. I schlepped all the way to the Mile. At Parliament Square a crowd of shivering Japanese tourists spat on the Heart of Midlothian: they’d obviously been told this was an existing tradition at the site of the old Tolbooth. I thought, these days, it was more likely to get them arrested.
I felt low as I walked. My thoughts lit on my father again, then, inevitably, my brother. I hoped I was getting closer to finding his murderer, but I was also getting deeper into the shit by the day. I’d pushed Debs away too, and I knew she couldn’t take much more; the real question was how much more could I take?
Dr Naughton’s receptionist greeted me with a cheery hello and directed me to a chair in the waiting area to the side of her desk. Two piles of National Geographic lay on the table but I still didn’t have the urge to read anything. As I sat, I heard the door from my therapist’s room open. She was ushering out a patient. The woman looked like a librarian or a schoolteacher; some of the teachers I’d had were walking wounded — I wondered if I’d fallen into this category now.
My palms began to sweat as the doctor called me in.
I kept my coat on, covered the bloody knees that showed beneath my torn trousers.
‘Wouldn’t you be more comfortable with your coat off?’ said the doctor.
I shook my head. ‘I’m fine.’
She stood up, adjusted the thermostat on the wall. ‘And how are you today, Gus?’
‘I said already, I’m fine.’
She let the sting of that settle. I turned away, didn’t want to catch her reaction.
The child’s tricycle still sat in the corner. She caught me staring at it again. ‘I thought we might try to talk about something different today,’ she said.
‘Oh, yeah?’ I snapped. I really wasn’t in the mood for playing the patient any more. I wiped my palms on my coat sleeves.
‘Would you like to tell me about your working life?’
I rolled my eyes. ‘Oh, sweet Lord.’ I knew I was being difficult for reasons of my own, it wasn’t her problem. I checked myself. ‘Look, my career is over. The trade’s finished, and I’m what you might call on the scrapheap. So, not a good choice of subject really, doc.’
She sat forward in her chair, put out her elbows as she crossed her fingers together. ‘We can talk about whatever you like.’
I didn’t want to talk about anything, so that was going to be a short conversation. I stood up, sighed, ‘Is there much more of this to come?’
Dr Naughton’s voice softened. ‘That’s up to you… Do you feel you’ve made any progress with these visits?’
I shook my head. ‘Not really. I don’t much like going over the past.’
She motioned to my chair. There was nowhere to hide in the room so I sat down again. ‘Surely there must be some moments of happiness you recall.’
I kept my hands in my pockets, manoeuvred my coat over my knees again. ‘Some…’ They all involved Debs; it touched a deep part of me, registered why I was there.
‘Would you like to tell me about one?’
I dredged up a few images: expressions on her face, how she looked at one time or another. How happiness felt. My heart seemed to still inside me, and a warmth washed over my mind. A precious memory lit up; I almost smiled.
‘We were at the birth of my niece, Alice…’
‘Go on.’
‘It was special. Debs had taken a real interest when Jayne got pregnant — my wife, we were married then, she’d lost a child and couldn’t have another… I think she got something out of being around Jayne, do you understand?’
‘I understand, yes.’
I fiddled with a hangnail as I spoke. ‘It was all, y’know, baby talk and baby books and clothes and so on for months. Jayne and Michael were so young it was a bit of a shock to them both but I think it focused them, it was a real spark for Michael making something of himself… He was still trucking then, was halfway across Europe when we got a call to rush Jayne to the hospital. We were on standby, so to speak, we drove her in the back of the car.’ Now I smiled at the recollection. ‘She was so bloody big, like a house. We could hardly get her through the door of the car… Debs sat with her on the back seat, doing the breathing exercises.’
I stopped to savour the memory. My eyes misted.
A prompt: ‘And you drove the car to the hospital?’
‘Yeah, yeah, I did that…’ I remembered pacing the corridor. A nurse had asked me if I was the father and I had had to explain that Michael wasn’t coming. I remembered the way Debs had lowered her head when the nurse asked me; she was wounded. I stopped smiling.
‘Was it a simple birth?’
‘No, not at all… Christ, I must have emptied that coffee machine, we were there all night. They put off doing a Caesarean for hours but in the end Jayne was so weak that they had no choice.’ The moment we were called into the ward still lived in me: Jayne was almost too drugged to hold baby Alice, her head was lolling from side to side and Debs had to put her hand underneath to support it. We couldn’t believe the black hair on her, thick, thick black hair. When Debs took Alice in her arms they looked so similar that they could have been mother and child. We both had so much love for her that it felt as if she was ours. Jayne looked exhausted but she had enough energy to cry — we all knew why.
‘How did you feel when you held your niece for the first time?’ said Dr Naughton.
My throat seized, my eyes filled and I knew if I moved my head, even slightly, tears would fall. ‘I felt joy…’ I said, ‘real joy… and the most incredible pain that my wife would never hold our own child.’
Chapter 29
Debs had left a note stating she’d gone to stay with her friend Susan.
‘Just… great.’
Susan would not be talking me up — we shared a mutual antipathy. The note was brief, said she’d taken the dog because he needed looking after and ‘You have enough to do mending yourself, Gus.’
Debs claimed she wanted to give me some space, that I needed to think.
‘Fuck that!’
Thinking was the last thing I needed more of right now. I knew why Debs had left, couldn’t fault her for it, but it still felled me. I just couldn’t expect her to stick around while I delved into my brother’s murder. Way things were shaping up, she was safer out if it.
I stormed to the bathroom and kicked off the cistern. It flew in the air, made a one-eighty then clattered off the sink, splitting in two. I fired into the speed wraps and took myself back to the living room. As my heart rate increased I immediately felt panic settle on me. The flat was silent and cold, empty. I paced to the bedroom. Debs had cleaned out her make-up and styling products. A small wheeled suitcase that usually sat on top of the wardrobe had been taken and her dressing gown no longer hung on the back of the door. The room seemed to have changed very little, but what had altered was seismic. I loped back to the living room in a daze, sat on the couch. I looked through to the space we’d cleared under the kitchenette counter for Usual’s basket. It was gone.
A throbbing started in my temples. I put my fingers around my skull and squeezed.
‘This isn’t happening,’ I told myself; but I knew it was.
I picked up Debs’s note and read it through again. She’d left the number for Susan’s house. It seemed such a strange thing to do when we all had mobiles nowadays. As I thought it through I sussed she was trying to say I could still contact her, she’d still speak to me. At least I hoped that’s what she meant; maybe I was being optimistic.
I got up and made myself a coffee, tried to buy off my shrieking brain with caffeine. Didn’t work. I found myself back on the couch looking through Debs’s Cranberries CDs and wondering what the hell I should do next. Nothing I’d tried so far seemed the right move. I was sure the shrink had made me feel worse, raked up old hurts. I wondered if there would ever be a future for Debs and me. It just seemed like the world was against it. We’d tried so many times to make it work but it always ended the same way — with me hurting her. I felt asha
med at the realisation.
I held my head in my hands once again, then my phone rang. The noise broke through the desolation of the flat.
I dived up to grab it from the mantel.
‘Hello…’
‘Ah, Dury, ’tis yer bold self.’
‘Fitz.’
‘Ye sound disappointed… Who were ye expecting, Angelina Jolie?’ He laughed at himself. I wondered if he had a drink in him.
‘What do you want?’
A harrumph. ‘I was, er, thinking we might have a little, whatsit they say these days?… A catch-up.’
I remembered our last one: ‘Do I need a brief this time?’
He roared laughing. ‘Ah, Dury… yer some joker.’
I was deadly serious. ‘I’m not laughing.’
‘Okay, so… Look, I’m after clearing my desk of one or two items relating to your late brother’s unfortunate demise, and I was needing to return some of it. I thought I could let you have them, save disturbing others.’
I got the picture, said, ‘Yeah, fine. You want to meet the same place?’
‘Caff on the Mile… Can you be there in an hour?’
‘I’ll be there.’
Clicked off.
The auld wifey from number three was coming up the stairs as I walked out.
‘Hello, there,’ she said.
I nodded, had passed her with little recognition when she spoke up again. ‘Your wife told me about the poor dog.’
I stopped still, turned. ‘She’s not my wife.’ The words came out too harshly. ‘I mean, we’re not married.’
The wifey creased her mouth into a thin smile. ‘Well, the pair of you look made for each other… I’m sure there’ll be a big day soon.’
I didn’t know what to say, stumbled on the step.
She went on, ‘She’d make a beautiful bride. A bonnie-looking girl she is.’
I found my feet, managed, ‘I don’t deserve her.’
The truth, I knew, was that she didn’t deserve me.
The street looked as if it had just been dusted with icing sugar; another light snowfall had settled over the city. Footprints had started to erode the white covering on the pavement but the wider view was so bright it burned my eyes. I schlepped over the road at the Arc building and turned under the railway bridge. I bent into a chill wind that cut into my face and froze my jaw. I longed for winter to be over, for the temperature to rise and the sun to make an appearance again. Even the weak Scottish one that shows too rarely, and when it does, not for long enough.
