Delilah's

by John Maley

  Joanie clocked the clientele. A couple in their fifties were up doing the twist. They looked a handsome pair. An old guy sat at a table trying to get as much creamy froth from his beer onto his moustache as possible. He kept winking at Bobbie.

  ‘He’s givin’ me the boak,’ said Bobbie.

  ‘It’s when they stop winkin’ ye start worrying,’ joked Joanie.

  A woman with greasy hair and a cheesy smile came in with a collecting can and started working the tables. She arrived at Joanie and Bobbie’s table and looked down at them, grinning.

  ‘Would you like to help disabled children?’ she asked, in a stupid little song of a voice. She had a silver-coloured chain round her neck and attached to it was what purported to be an ID badge. Joanie thought she was probably at it but put a pound coin in the can anyway.

  Then they heard a big barmaid shouting, ‘Right you! Oot!’. The woman scarpered. Bobbie laughed.

  ‘This is some joint,’ she observed. ‘Is this what’s ahead of us?’

  They talked some more about the old days, Bobbie telling Joanie stories from her mixed-up teens, dating guys and fancying their sisters, fancying their mothers. Joanie told her about his roaring twenties in high heels and high hair. They were tripping down memory lane when the DJ appeared at their table, taking requests. Bobbie asked for Especially For You.

  Joanie went to the bar for more drinks and when he came back the DJ was playing their request. He said it was for the lovely couple in the corner and beckoned them onto the floor with an outstretched hand. Bobbie grabbed Joanie’s hand and led him onto the manky dance floor. She pulled him close and they danced slow, holding each other’s hands. Joanie could see the handsome older couple gazing admiringly at them. Over Joanie’s shoulder Bobbie could see the old guy with the frothy moustache, winking like fuck.

  Swing Low, Sweet Chariot

  There was a big man with a baseball cap and there was the guy in the chair. There were four steps up to the entrance, then a landing, then two more steps. Then they were through the swing doors, backing in, then turning and cutting a swathe through the busy Friday night revellers. Some people saw the wheelchair and thought they were collecting for charity. One guy shook his head disapprovingly – as if the place wasn’t overcrowded enough, you didn’t need to be run over by a cripple in a wheelchair. But they carried on up to the bar. The service at the bar was pretty slow that night. Joanie had a night off and so wasn’t there to crack the whip. The man and his pushchair pal waited patiently. Eventually a blond bombshell of a barman leaned across and said to the man in the baseball cap, ‘Being served?’ The man nodded down at his pal who was brandishing the fiver.

  ‘What can I get you?’

  ‘A pint of lager and a pint of heavy please.’

  The barman poured the pints. There was a surge forward as more people swept into the bar. The big man was pushed against his pal’s wheelchair and the chair moved. The man in the chair put his brakes on.

  ‘You okay?’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  The guy in the chair smiled good-naturedly. The big man lifted the pints and took the change. He gave his friend the change and then his pint of lager.

  ‘It’s so busy,’ he sighed. He adjusted his baseball cap and looked around to see if he could see a space for them to go. A woman tried to squeeze past and the strap of her bag caught in one of the wheelchair’s handles. She tugged at it violently, not realising where it had stuck.

  ‘Fuck sake,’ she gasped, exasperated.

  ‘Sorry’, she said, as the guy in the chair unhooked her. She smiled and hurried on.

  ‘God, it’s busy.’

  The capped man thought he saw a space and they started moving to a far away corner.

  ‘Excuse me.’

  ‘Excuse me!’

  There were various pushes and shoves and apologies and curses as they made their tortuous journey to the vacant space in the corner. Once they got there they felt a bit more relaxed. There was a small table where they could rest their drinks. There wasn’t a chair or stool but the big man was happy to stand. He could see what was going on. He’d look about him then he’d lean over and speak to his pal. Sometimes he’d crouch down and talk to him that way. People paid them some notice. They were okay looking. They had never been in Delilah’s before, not that anybody remembered. Somebody thought they might be foreign tourists but the blond barman shook his head. No one could remember seeing a wheelchair in Delilah’s before.

  When the big man crouched down some people thought he’d gone and left the guy in the wheelchair. Then he’d bob back up again, over the sea of people. There was some speculation as to what the relationship was between these two guys. A woman with a nose ring and an eyebrow piercing suggested that the big man was a social worker.

  ‘Or some kinda helper,’ she said firmly. Her friend nodded in agreement, and stared at them again. The big man took off his cap and scratched his balding head. A man who stood beside the wheelchair at the bar when the pair got served was suspicious.

  ‘There’s somethin’ creepy about it,’ he complained. ‘He’s a good lookin’ guy. What’s he doing pushin’ a spastic around?’

  The big man was crouched down again, an arm around his pal, speaking to him. The man at the bar craned his neck but couldn’t see what was going on. He turned to the blond barman.

  ‘What’re they doin’ in here anyhow? Don’t they have centres for people like that?’

  The barman shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘It’s a free country.’

  The woman with the nose ring spoke to her friend.

  ‘I knew a girl who worked in a home for the disabled. There was this guy who had no prick, it was jist like a tube. Can ye imagine it? She said there was a woman who had no speech or movement or anything. She communicated by blinking her eyes. You had to go through the alphabet and she’d blink and you’d stop at a letter. That’s how she communicated. It was a home for the disabled. She had to spoon-feed them and wipe their arses and everythin’. She said it was terrible. She said wan day she turned a corner and there was a hunchback jist standin’ there. I feel sick jist talkin’ about it.’

  The man at the bar stood on his tiptoes to see where the man in the cap had gone. He was both relieved and annoyed to see him crouching once more beside his paralysed pal. He wondered if they were lovers. He wondered if the guy in the wheelchair could get it up. Or whether the big guy just turned him over and banged his numb, oblivious arse. They were both quite attractive, he decided, right up on his tiptoes now.

  After a while it got even busier. People were getting ratty, drinks were being spilled and people were being knocked off balance. They had let in too many people. The woman with the nose ring said she was leaving before she fainted.

  ‘As for that wheelchair,’ she said, ‘it’s an obstruction and a fire hazard.’

  She left with her friend. Some other people left too, and the place quietened down a bit. There was more elbow room and it became more tolerable.

  The man in the wheelchair looked up at his pal.

  ‘You need the toilet?’

  The man nodded.

  ‘I’ll ask somebody.’

  He turned and looked around, deciding whom to ask. His eyes rested on a big woman with a wild mane of blonde hair falling over her face.

  ‘Excuse me, d’you know where the toilets are?’

  The woman swept some of the hair off her face with her hand. She looked with resignation at the man in the cap.

  ‘The toilets?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘They’re upstairs and they’re stinking.’

  ‘Upstairs?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Fuck.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s for my boyfriend. He uses a wheelchair. He can’t walk.’

  The woman cocked her head to one side and looked over at the guy in the chair. She turned back to the man in the baseball cap.

  ‘I’m presuming it’s a pis
s?’

  ‘Aye.’

  The man in the cap nodded. The woman looked thoughtful. She brushed back her hair again with a leisurely sweep of her hand.

  ‘Does he have a bottle?’

  ‘Aye but he cannae just pull it out here.’

  ‘I think I know a place. C’mon.’

  She put down her drink and walked over to the guy in the chair.

  ‘The loo’s upstairs, pal. But I can take ye somewhere private.’

  The guy smiled up at her. ‘That’d be great.’

  ‘C’mon.’

  She took charge of the chair and began pushing it purposefully forward. His boyfriend followed closely behind. They had to travel a fair distance till they came to a stairway through a back doorway. The woman pushed the guy in the chair through the doorway and made a sharp right away from the stairway. There was a small alcove with a barrel in the corner of it. It was out of sight of the stairway and the doorway.

  ‘Here we are,’ she announced. ‘You’ll be okay here. I’ll stand guard at the stairs.’

  She walked over to the stairway and lit a cigarette.

  ‘I’ll show ye where to empty it,’ she added, absently. She puffed at her cigarette. The guy in the cap took a bottle container out of a small bag that was slung over the chair. From her position at the bottom of the stairway the woman couldn’t see them, but she heard the sound of the piss flowing into the bottle and the guy sighing, relieved.

  Mama’s Papa

  Mama and Joanie were in a booth, talking about Papa. Mama was worried about him. She’d seen him get pissed a few too many times and slope off with this or that drugged up boy. Mama told Joanie she didn’t even think Papa was that interested in younger guys – it was just the attention he liked. As for the boys, Papa was a good-looking guy with money to throw around. These crazy love affairs didn’t seem to last any longer than the following morning.

  ‘I wish he would settle down with somebody,’ sighed Mama. ‘Somebody mature.’

  Joanie nodded and smiled ruefully. ‘I wish we would all settle down sometimes,’ he said. ‘But what about you Mama? When are you gonnae love again?’

  Mama shook her head. ‘I don’t do encores,’ she said.

  Joanie knew the story of Mama’s great love. She had married a fellow doctor in her early twenties. They couldn’t have children. They lived a life filled with romance. It was all violins and roses. Then her husband was killed on one of his rock-climbing trips and Mama had cried a river. Mama had been widowed ten years and looked like she was hell-bent on making a career out of it.

  Joanie never really bought into that once-have-I-loved thing. He always believed love was just around the corner. Mama was only fifty-five and it seemed sad for her to be wallowing in widowhood. She looked good, loved her job, and had a variety of friends, gay and straight, although her friendship with Papa was probably the most interesting of them.

  Mama said she met Papa in Frasers, Buchanan Street. Papa had been looking for a tie and had asked Mama’s advice. Mama had told him she didn’t work there. ‘I know,’ Papa had retorted, ‘but you look like a woman of taste.’ Mama helped him choose the tie. That was at three on Saturday afternoon; they parted company at two on Sunday morning, Papa dropping Mama off at her flat in a taxi. In between times they had wined and dined and roared around the gay scene, Papa being a vivacious tour guide. Papa later swore that Mama had tried to pick him up but Mama laughed this off and said she knew a big jessie when she saw one.

  Their friendship had grown since then. They dined together at some of the fancier Glasgow restaurants, saw opera and ballet at the Theatre Royal, cruised and boozed in Delilah’s. They were a fine pair.

  But Mama worried about Papa. She had been there for Papa through bad times as well as good. Once, when he’d been robbed by a pick-up that’d stolen his father’s ring, he sobbed down the phone to her and she’d gone to comfort him. He’d also had a bout of crabs and a dose of the clap. Mama didn’t approve of his bed hopping. Her views weren’t based on morality, but safety. Bringing strangers into your bed, your life, could be a hazardous business. Picking up a stranger could lead to anything from robbery to rape. She had seen a good doctor friend die of AIDS, and didn’t want that to happen to Papa.

  ‘This place is great fun,’ said Mama, ‘but I wish you guys would slow down once in a while and think before you fuck.’

  Joanie nodded, and considered what Mama said. More than anyone, he knew things could get a bit OTT in Delilah’s. Some nights everybody seemed to be out of their fairy face on something, from alcopops to Ecstasy. He couldn’t remember the names of some of the notches on his belt but he’d cleaned up his act a while ago. Joanie didn’t like to judge. It was hard to live your life in the closet and some of the queers he saw surface in Delilah’s were like drowning men gasping for air. They had been starved for too long: starved of sex, starved of the right to be themselves, they wanted to make up for lost time.

  ‘A lotta the people that come here don’t get a chance tae be queer through the week,’ reasoned Joanie. ‘They have to cram a week’s poofiness into one night.’

  True, not everybody was cowering in the closet these days but it could still be tough even if you were loud and proud. It was no fun being the only fairy in the factory. Joanie didn’t want to argue with Mama. She was usually a good sport and if she appeared judgemental it was because she was concerned, not because she was a killjoy.

  ‘I think there should be something called queer leave,’ said Joanie, decidedly. ‘Y’know, like maternity leave, or like academics get sabbaticals. If they won’t let us be queer at work they should give us more playtime. Then maybe you’d see us slow down a wee bit.’ That didn’t even raise a smile with Mama. She was in a maudlin mood and he would just have to let her work her way through it.

  ‘I wouldn’t mind if Papa was happy,’ sighed Mama. ‘But he’s not. You see him in here high as a kite and being the belle of the ball but that’s not the whole story. When that boy stole his father’s ring it broke his heart. He called me at four in the morning. He cried in my arms. He’s not happy.’

  ‘What would make him happy?’ asked Joanie.

  ‘Love,’ said Mama firmly. ‘The only thing that can make anyone truly happy.’

  ‘I’ve seen him in here dangling a twenty-year-old on each knee. He looked blissfully happy,’ said Joanie, trying to lighten the mood.

  ‘I’m talking about enduring happiness,’ said Mama, softly. Joanie was getting slightly annoyed with Mama now. Here she was a pretty, intelligent, woman, who seemed resigned to spending the rest of her life alone. Yet she seemed to be pining for a husband for Papa. Joanie suspected she was projecting her own anxieties about being single onto the footloose Papa. They were quiet for a while, listening to the soft music, Joanie clocking the clientele in the backroom, Mama watching the snow fall through the long windows.

  Maybe Mama’s just got the winter blues, thought Joanie. Winters in Glasgow could be pretty harsh. He knew she sometimes took a winter break. Not every year, but every couple of years. She’d been to Australia last Christmas. She had an aunt there.

  ‘You need a holiday,’ said Joanie. Mama gave him a sad smile.

  ‘I like the snow,’ she said. ‘The snow makes me think of my father.’ She leaned on the table, arms folded, and Joanie thought she looked like a neat little schoolgirl.

  ‘One of my favourite memories of my father is of him making a snowman in our back garden. I remember him crouching down on the white lawn, building this beautiful big snowman. It was meant to be a surprise but I was watching from my bedroom window. When he was finished he took me into the garden and pretended the snowman had just appeared. It must have been six foot tall. I remember it didn’t have a nose – stones for the eyes and mouth but no nose. Daddy sent me in to get a carrot from the kitchen. He stuck it in the middle of the snowman’s face and there it was, the snowman had a nose.’ Mama smiled and Joanie thought she would cry.

  Joanie fel
t like crying too. He envied people who had sweet stories to tell from their childhood. His own father was a violent man, full of beer and curses. Joanie spent much of his childhood farmed out to cousins for safekeeping.

  ‘Your daddy sounds like a nice guy,’ said Joanie. Mama nodded.

  ‘As far as I remember he was. He died when I was eight. My mother remarried ten years later. I was at med school by then. I was glad she’d found someone. I got on okay with him, but he wasn’t my daddy.’

  Joanie said that at least she had some happy memories. Mama leaned forward slightly, her voice hushed.

  ‘I visited an old aunt of mine in Sydney last year. My mother’s sister. We talked about my father. He killed himself when I was eight. He got up early one morning and took poison. He was found in his car. Some of what happened was kept from me while my mother was alive. But my aunt told me the truth.’

  Joanie listened to the story of Mama’s Papa. Her aunt had told her that her father had been arrested at a public toilet for ‘lewd and libidinous behaviour’. Cottaging. On the Sunday the police had charged him, and by the Tuesday he was dead. Mama’s aunt told her that her mother had guessed about her father’s sexuality. She regretted never having spoken to him about it. She said that she understood. The aunt had asked of her sister, ‘Who else would’ve understood? Your understanding wouldn’t have been enough.’

  The aunt hadn’t been keen to tell Mama anything, but she had pressed the old woman until she had given her the truth.

  ‘That’s awful,’ sighed Joanie.

  ‘My father was a kind, gentle, man. I think he killed himself because of the disgrace. He was gay and couldn’t live with it.’

  Joanie held Mama’s hands in his.

  ‘That still happens,’ he said. They sat for a few moments like that, then Mama broke free. She gathered her things.