by Irvine Welsh
Caroline was already rising but as she got to her feet she stopped and looked Beverly in her eye. — Is he my brother?
— What do you think, Beverly snapped. — Go on, go and find them!
Caroline had no time for any more diversions. She quickly left the house, running down the stair and into the night, heading towards the Shore.
Beverly looked at the London Calling album on the wall, the signature and the date, and remembered with fondness and guilt that over the course of that bizarre evening she’d taken not one, or even two, but three lovers.
44
Stranger on the Shore
THE SCORCH OF the hard liquor enlivened his spirit, and in the toilets he’d also sneaked down a big line of cocaine. Perversely, Danny Skinner had the notion that he’d share it with Brian Kibby, then realised just how daft that would be.
His heart was thudding steadily in his chest, like the jungle drums of tribesmen preparing for war. But even through those rushes the stupidity of the situation was starting to eat at him. What was he doing here with Kibby? What could they possibly say to each other? Then, as he returned to his stool, Kibby noticed powder on the hairs of his nostrils. — Have you been taking drugs?
— Just a line of coke, Skinner said nonchalantly. — Want one?
— Yes, Kibby replied, trembling at the abruptness of his response. He was anxious to try the powder; it seemed important to experience it, important to keep up with Skinner.
Skinner moved back towards the toilet, bidding Kibby to follow him. They got into a cubicle and he closed the door behind them, chopped out a big line, then rolled up a twenty-pound note. The two men were crushed together in uncomfortable proximity. This was crazy, Skinner thought ruefully, as he watched Kibby snort it back; they were only going to suffer for this later on.
— Whoa . . . that feels fuckin good . . . Kibby gasped, his eyes watering as the cocaine rush fused through him, stiffening his spine. He felt so strong, like he was made of metal.
His reaction didn’t escape Skinner. — People criticise the criminals . . . until it’s them who want to get a hold of class-A drugs, he said in affected pomposity.
Brian Kibby had to struggle to repress a chuckle as they left the toilet and headed back to the bar.
Skinner caught the young barmaid’s eye with a smile, and got one back. Kibby saw this, feeling something seethe inside of him. — It comes easy tae you, eh, he said bitterly, nodding towards the girl.
It made Skinner stop and think. In the past, when he was out with his mates, he – more often than not – was the one that pulled. Since he was sixteen, he had been more or less continuously sexually active, either with a girlfriend or through a series of casual flings. From the point of view of someone like Kibby, he considered, he would be regarded as highly successful with women.
But the real problem is relationships, which fucking social retards like Kibby can’t grasp, because they’re just so obsessed with getting their hole.
Skinner realised that he’d seldom thought about a woman in purely sexual terms. Even if somebody was an object of his desire, he invariably found himself thinking about her level of intelligence, music, clothing, film and book preferences, the sort of friends she had, her social and political views, what her parents did for a living. Yes, he had got involved in one-night stands, but casual relationships were always unsatisfying to him. He looked searchingly at Kibby.— I’m just interested in women, Brian.
— So am I, Kibby whined in urgent complaint.
— You think you are, but you’re not. You read sci-fi magazines, for fuck sakes.
— I am! What I read’s got nowt tae dae wi it! Kibby blurted.
Skinner shook his head. — You’re not curious about girls, other than sexually. I know you fancied Shannon, but you never talked to her about anything that she might have been interested in, you just inflicted your own shite about video games and hillwalking clubs on to her. You’re hiding, Bri, Skinner said, now feeling the coke rush and slurping a bit of beer back, — hiding in model railways and Star Trek conventions . . .
— I don’t even like Star Trek. Kibby thought bitterly of Ian as his head swayed furiously. — I’m just shy, I’ve always been shy. It’s like a fucking disease, shyness! You don’t understand, he shouted, — the likes of you are never gonnae understand the daily humiliation the likes of me get in life, his voice rose, — THROUGH BEING FUCKIN SHY!
A few drinkers looked round at him. Kibby nodded semi-apologetically, grinding his teeth. — You don’t fear humiliation, Brian, Skinner said, — you invite it.
— I’m just unlucky with girls . . .
Skinner nodded, and was powerless to stop a mischievous thought settling in his mind.
— What? Kibby said, catching his contemplative grin.
— I was just thinking that if you fell into a barrel of naked Corrs, you’d end up with the guitarist sucking your cock, Skinner guffawed.
Kibby glared at him, felt that anger sop in his veins again. Then it seemed to settle into something colder, crueller. — So how many marks oot ay ten would you gie Shannon . . . as opposed tae that lassie Kay you were engaged tae . . .
He watched Skinner’s face freeze over.
— . . . or ma fuckin sister! he spat.
Skinner felt his own rage rising up in him, and forced it back down. He coolly regarded Kibby for a beat. — They’re women, Brian, not fucking video games. If I were you, I’d get a wad of cash out and I’d go to a prostitute and get my fucking hole. Once you’ve got rid of the stigma of virginity and unwound a bit, you might achieve a more realistic perspective about people.
As Skinner turned towards the bar, Kibby felt those liberating thoughts of violence again, surging through him like an electric current, working with the drug. When you let go, he wondered, what actually happened? How bad could it be? He was in uncharted waters, and he loved it. He was longing to let go.
That bastard Skinner: he’s fuckin well getting it. Maybe now isnae the time. But he’s getting it!
Just like McGrillen and that nonce Radden and that dirty poof Ian even, all those wankers that’ve crossed or patronised or rejected me. And that Lucy slag, I should have knobbed her when I had the chance. Couldnae see that the filthy wee hing-oot was ganting on it! And that Shannon, if she let the likes of Skinner up her then she must . . .
He looked at Skinner, now in conversation with the barmaid. She was pretty and was laughing at something he said to her. And he’s supposed to be with Caroline, he thought in a murderous rancour.
Ma fuckin sister . . . Skinner, you fuckin animal . . .
— See, if you hurt ma sister, Skinner . . . Kibby hissed in his ear.
Skinner turned to him, as the barmaid departed to get their order. — I would never, ever do anything to hurt Caroline, he said in such emphatic sincerity and conviction, Kibby almost felt foolish.
— Chattin up other lassies as soon she’s oot the door . . .
— I’m just talking to the girl, I was getting us a round in. Skinner shook his head. — For fuck sakes, lighten up, Kibby, he snapped, his smile returning as he saw the barmaid advancing with the drinks.
Just as he was considering that he would tear into Skinner with all the power he could muster, Brian Kibby caught a glimpse of his adversary in profile and was stunned with a strange semi-recognition. He heard an old voice in his head:
I’ll cut your fucking cock off. I’ll dae that, cause it will fucking rot away and fall off anyway, if you put it anywhere near those filthy slags . . .
That dehumanised voice, the evil simplicity of the statement, spilling from a poisoned, spiteful mouth, it was so easy to see it coming from Skinner’s. But it wasn’t from Skinner’s.
It seared so sharply into his brain. That time his dad had seen him with Angela Henderson and Dionne McInnes. They were just talking and laughing, that was all they were doing. His dad came down the road, hunched, shuffling and shot his son that terrible look; a satanic stare that chilled
his soul. When he got into the house his father was angry, rambling and semi-coherent. Then Keith Kibby grabbed a hold of his son’s arms with those claws of this, would not let him go. Brian could smell the alcohol on his breath, see the burning red wrath in his father’s eyes, feel the spittle on his face, as Keith Kibby warned him about hanging out with those dirty wee hoors, how they carried Aids or got up the duff deliberately, how they could only mess up a laddie’s life and how if he ever saw him messing around with that rubbish again he’d . . .
No. He wasnae well. He said so.
The next day his dad had approached him in a terrible sober guilt, restored to his normal self, exorcised from the horrible demon that possessed him. — I was silly last night, Brian . . . when I got on to you. I wasnae feeling right, I’ve no been too well, son. You’re a good lad and I don’t want you tae the make the mistakes that I’ve . . . some other people make. I’m really sorry though, son. Still buddies, eh, mate?
He remembered how craven and apologetic his dad was, how he sadly tried to make things up. As they watched Star Trek, Keith Kibby conceded to the son that The Next Generation was better in every way to the original: deeper, more interesting and philosophical storylines, better characters and superior special effects. As he sat there on the couch, Brian Kibby was cringing again, this time for his father rather than himself, once again wanting this tortured man to just stop.
His father had been weak, and so had he, but there was no time left to stay weak. — Here’s to mosquitoes in Birmingham, he smiled in sudden inspiration, raising his glass at Skinner.
Skinner briefly shuddered, looking at Kibby’s sly grin with real fear for the first time, but then quickly raised his drink in defiance. — Broom-may mos-kay-toes, he said in a put-on West Midlands accent, then curtly added, — and not forgetting the sci-fi nerds of Ibiza!
It had the desired effect of stopping Kibby in his tracks and making him contemplate Skinner in bewildered awe.
She had been running in long bursts, down Henderson Street, as the Water of Leith came into view, the moonlight dancing across it as she succumbed to breathlessness and the weight of the food and drink in her guts. She held on to a railing and filled her lungs with air. Two boys passing her stopped and said something but Caroline was hearing only white noise as the contents of her father’s journal and Beverly’s disclosures, or the lack of them, flooded her mind.
Her father: an alcoholic thug. It seemed impossible, way beyond her conception that a drug could change a person so much. But some things were starting to come back, fragments of long-repressed memories from childhood. That one time when she heard shouts coming from downstairs, and her mother crying. She got upset and wanted to see what was wrong. Brian stopped her; he came into her room and cuddled her and wouldn’t let her go downstairs. In the morning her mother was tense and her father silent, probably in his hung-over guilt.
Brian. How much had he known, how much had he protected her from? Her hands were shaking and her belly fluttered continuously, at one stage threatening to relinquish the rich food inside it.
In an almost splintering burst of empathy, Caroline realised that her brother as a young boy had probably witnessed at least some part of this mess, something that had almost completely eluded her.
The thick fog coming in from the sea had now been blown away by the storm, but the rains whipped at her in stinging bursts. She pulled her mobile phone from a pocket in her already soaked jeans, only to find that the credits had run out.
Top up . . . fuck!
Caroline got on her toes again, her feet cold, wet and sodden, but as she increased her speed, she regretted not changing into a pair of trainers as her squelching foot slipped on the wet stones and her ankle twisted in an audible wrench. She hobbled on, tears coming from frustration as much as the pain.
A crowd of girls staggered out of a restaurant right in front of her, their drunk laughter bellowing through the storm. — Don’t come back, said a suited restaurateur in the doorway, holding open the door, as the last of them stumbled out into the street.
— How’s yir cock fir lovebites? one girl with a sweaty face and long brown hair rasped at him and her mates let out accompanying volleys of shrieking laughter.
The man shook his head and went back inside.
Caroline approached the girls in appeal. — Have youse got a mobile I can borrow? It’s an emergency . . . I really need to call somebody!
One chunky, nervy-looking girl with a short fringe handed over her phone. Caroline eagerly took it and dialled Danny’s number. It was still switched off.
As the drinks slipped by the fight in them seemed to ebb and flow. When they met each other’s eyes it was in a quizzical disgust, which appeared to come from a mutual disappointment. Indeed, to onlookers they seemed more like intense lovers who had just had a stupid, drunken row and were now embarrassed but unsure of how to make up without losing face. In both men the urge to drink had also taken a sudden flight. It was as though they realised that there was little to be gained by trying to poison themselves.
In a shuddering awareness, it dawned on Skinner in his fraught, jaundiced state, that his relationship with Kibby was now almost exactly the same as it had been with all his binge-drinking buddies.
We tried to poison each other. We were like lemmings, but instead of jumping over a cliff together, our suicide pact was long and turgid. We just wove the bastard imperceptibly into our social life.
They looked up at the television above the bar, at the sly, grinning face of the American President, re-elected as Skinner had been positive he would be, in spite of wishing Dorothy good luck as she had cast her vote for the other candidate, whose name he’d already forgotten. Danny Skinner and Brian Kibby, in private unison, both wondered where the next war would be. Skinner didn’t want any more wars though. He was tired: very, very tired.
Somehow, through a combination of my intense hatred for Kibby and my burning need to carry on living the life, I was able to concoct a psychic spell so powerful it allowed me to transfer the burden of my consumption on to him.
I got someone else to fight my battles for me.
I look up at Bush as the US forces assault Falluja, the no-hopers; cannon fodder from de-industrialised places like Ohio with rising unemployment, who voted him back in. Down the line they’ll be penniless jakeys like their betrayed forefathers who went to Vietnam and now panhandle in the Tenderloin. Their role is to be shafted for somebody else’s dreams and schemes. The Iraqi children’s corpses off-camera during the election, the rows of coffins with Old Glory draped over them, verboten for screening in the world’s supposedly greatest democracy.
You can get away with it if you have the power and you’re fucked if you don’t. But it’s all shite: who needs it?
— I’m gaun hame, Skinner suddenly said, climbing down from his bar stool. Kibby thought of a response, but he didn’t feel like arguing, didn’t feel victorious. He needed his remaining strength because he was going to do something to Skinner. He didn’t know what, but he was going to do something to make him pay, to stop him getting to his family. He was beyond anger; now all he felt was cold certainty.
They staggered outside, both very drunk, but still keeping a distance from each other. The weather had changed again for the worse and a storm of lashing wind and cold, driving rain greeted them. The shock of the frozen reception to his system seemed to reignite Kibby, and a frustrated rage pulsed through him. He needed to know. Not even how, but why. — WHO ARE YOU, SKINNER? he shouted through the wind. — WHAT DAE YE FUCKIN WELL WANT WI ME? WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?!
Skinner stopped immediately, relaxing the shoulders he had braced against the storm. — I’m . . . I’m . . . He couldn’t answer the question. It burned in his head through the haze of drink and the whipping wind that swirled around it.
Brian Kibby seethed.
This . . . thing, this bastard who’s all but destroyed me and will surely destroy my family . . .
Kibby suddenly ch
arged towards Skinner and swung at him. Skinner quickly dropped his shoulder, stepping off, remembering the moves he’d learned as a boy at Leith Victoria Boxing Club. Frustrated, Kibby launched himself forward again, only to be met with a swift, solid jab, which snapped into his face.
— Fuckin well calm doon, Brian, Skinner said, somewhere between a threat and an appeal.
Feeling his split lip swelling up, Kibby backed away in shock. Then another surge of anger took hold of him, propelling him back towards Skinner.—AH’LL TEAR YIR FUCKIN FACE OFF, SKINNER!!
But Skinner clipped him with a jab again, stopping him in his tracks, then smacked him with a heavy right-hander which rattled his jaw and made his head spin. Before Kibby could react, a solid body punch squeezed the wind out off him, jackknifing him. He bent double and spewed up his rich food and drink into the street in solid, wrenching heaves.
— That’s enough. I don’t want to hurt you, Skinner said, realising that he really didn’t. He was worried about Brian Kibby’s new liver, his wound.
What the fuck was I doing hitting the poor cunt in the body!
Skinner felt almost as nauseous as Kibby, as if he had been the victim of his own blows. He moved closer and rested an arm’s-length hand on his rival’s shoulder. — Take deep breaths, you’ll be awright.
Kibby breathed heavily, like a snorting, wounded bovine beast in a bullring. As the rain plastered his hair to his cranium, it dawned on Skinner that his bladder was going to burst. So he broke into a rubbery trot and lurched up to a large wall by the old dock gates and pissed up it, in a long, liberating expulsion of the steamy, hot yellow fluid that filled his bladder.
Skinner scarcely noticed that there was another man just a few yards down from him, doing exactly the same thing. He was a lorry driver named Tommy Pugh and he’d had a long day coming up from Rouen in France with his load, bound for Aberdeen. Good time had been made but now Pugh was exhausted. He’d parked up by the old dock gates and was anticipating a good rest in the cab of his rig, and a substantial saving on his B&B allowance.
