They sat on the bed passing the loosely made joint and the ashtray between them.
‘I won’t smoke too much,’ she said. ‘My head is still dizzy.’
‘Ye could stay on here. Save ye the money on a hotel.’ He looked at her, a hopeful query in his eyes:
‘Ur ye here on holiday?’
‘No.’ Gina hesitated. ‘I came to Scotland to do something . . . something to do with what happened to my mother when she was in jail in Italy a long time ago.’
‘Oor mam was in jail too fur a wee bitty. Just a bit of shopliftin,’ said Jimmy sympathetically. ‘What wis yours in fur?’
Gina pushed her fair hair back from her face. The words came out in a sort of gasp: ‘Murder. Kidnapping and causing explosions.’
Jimmy recoiled. An involuntary look of distaste passed over his face.
‘My mother was a revolutionary,’ she explained. ‘They kidnapped a Catholic cardinal once to get their comrades released.’
‘Ye’d better no tell ma granny that.’
She frowned as she continued. ‘I think a rich banker was kidnapped. But something went wrong and he got killed. There was an informer in their group. That’s how my mother was caught.’
‘Ah hate a grass.’
Gina found it difficult to justify her mother’s actions in the face of his solemn attention. ‘My mother wanted to help working-class people.’
Jimmy looked unconvinced. ‘It’s still murder though.’ He sounded oddly conservative. Some sense of morality had been stirred up from the bottom of a long neglected reservoir. Aware that his tone might have sounded disapproving he tried to make amends. ‘Ma granny has a friend called Billy Knox. What he does is basically he takes people tae this warehouse an slaughters them. As soon as ma gran mentions his name tae people they pay her back the money they owe her.’
It was Gina’s turn to look doubtful. ‘That’s different. My mother didn’t kill innocent people. They blew up banks and government buildings at night when they were empty. My grandad was a partisan.’
Gina stopped. She could see that Jimmy was not making sense of what she was saying. Gradually, he became more relaxed. The dope kicked in and he began to enjoy the floating feeling. He lay back on the bed again with his arms folded behind his head.
‘My grandad was a brickie. I never met him but gran says he used tae hang a cloth oot the windae at night an if it wis frozen in the mornin he’d go back to bed. Ye cannae lay bricks when it’s freezin.’
The lamp threw a revolving pattern of coloured light onto the ceiling.
‘Ah like to look at they lights when I’m stoned.’
He continued with his family history, counting off the family members on his fingers.
‘Ma dad is an alcoholic. Ma step-dad is an alcoholic. Ma gran’s faither was an alcoholic. Ma two uncles are on heroin – well they get methadone substitute now. They go to collect their methadone three times a week. Ma uncle can drink 50 mills of methadone and still be all right. He’s that used tae it.’
He turned towards her. ‘Whit’s your favourite film? One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is mine.’
Gina curled up on the stained grey duvet. A warmth was spreading through her stomach that diminished the nausea of the last few days. Jimmy looked sideways at her dark eyelashes with admiration. She had rubbed her skin with rosewater cream. He breathed in the scent of it.
She began to talk faster, sounding increasingly Italian.
‘I can’t really remember my mother. She was an anarchist. But later it was proved that it was the fascists who were causing the explosions and blaming it on the anarchists.’ She turned to Jimmy with an indignant look on her face. Jimmy started to giggle. Gina looked at him, startled, then she began to giggle too.
‘This skunk is ace,’ he said.
They lay flat on their backs next to each other looking at the swirling patterns of light on the ceiling.
Gina continued: ‘I work for an estate agent now.’
‘Can ye get free tickets to places?’
‘That’s a travel agent.’
They dissolved into laughter again. The laughter subsided.
‘Whit’s an anarchist?’
‘Someone who is against the state, I think.’
‘Ah don’t like the polis either. Ah’m fallin asleep here.’ His lids rolled shut over his eyes.
‘So am I.’
His hand was warm. He took hers and braided their fingers together as they drifted into sleep. Gina glanced at the figure beside her. Jimmy turned away on his side, his shoulder blades two folded wings, his dreams iridescent on his back.
When Jimmy and Gina returned from the off-licence later that night about ten youths between the ages of fifteen and eighteen were standing around in the front room of the flat drinking vodka and Red Bull. Zombie Lover played on the cd player. Gina found the noise overpowering and disappeared to her bedroom.
The front room was a seething den of conspiracy and whispering.
‘Dinnae retaliate back.’
‘He’s gone ballistic. Mental.’
‘Turn it up.’
‘Naw. Turn it doon.’
‘Never mind what he says. Turn it up, cocksucker.’
The drumming and screaming of the Zombie Lover music swelled as someone turned up the volume to full pitch.
‘Haw, Jimmy. Psycho’s been up.’
Jimmy put the six-packs on the coffee table. A shaven-headed youth sitting on the sofa grabbed a Heineken.
‘Someone left the door open and Psycho marched right in, eh. I tried tae shut the door on him but the doorknob came off in ma hand. He wis carryin a can of Lynx deodorant in wan hand and a high velocity airgun in the ither. We aw tried to find somewhere to hide, right? He just went intae the kitchen an sprayed the deodorant ontae the washing-up tub full o’ water. Then he lit it. This blue flame exploded an lit up the whole kitchen. Then he came in here and shot at a your Celtic posters. See – they’re a pitted wi slugs.’
Jimmy went to see the damage in the kitchen.
‘Whaur’s Brian?’ he asked.
‘He’ll be back in a minute.’
Just then Brian walked in and threw down his jacket. ‘Dave can ye cut us hair for us please?’
‘Psycho’s been in and tried to blow up your kitchen.’
Brian pulled up a chair and sat in it. He put a tea towel round his shoulders. ‘I dinna gie a fuck. Ah want ma hair cut. Pronto.’
Dave took the electric clippers and began to shave Brian’s head. With his head only half shaved, the electricity failed. The music and the clippers stopped working at the same time. Brian jumped up from his seat in a panic:
‘Fix it. Fix it ye cunt or Ah’ll kill ye,’ he yelled. ‘Look at ma hair. Ah’ll no be able to go oot like this.’
Everyone looked in awe at his half-shaven head. Someone went to put fifty pence in the meter. The clippers motor and the music started up again. Dave went on with the job.
‘Whaur’s the broom?’ asked Dave, looking at all the hair on the floor.
‘Whistle an it’ll come tae ye, ye cunt.’ Brian’s good humour returned.
That seemed to be a signal for them all to pile on top of each other on the sofa in a joyous muddle like a scrum of puppies. The music pounded:
‘I think Jimmy’s in love with yon Italian bird.’
‘No Ah’m no,’ said Jimmy.
‘She’s knock-kneed.’
‘No, she isnae.’
‘Ye fancy her tho’ don’t ye?’
‘She’s aw right.’
‘She’s old. She must be twenty or even thirty.’
‘She’s not fucking thirty. Ma mum was only thirty-nine when she died.’
Up the steep hill, Jimmy and Gina walked pushing their way against a fierce blue wind. Jimmy’s grandmother lived a few streets away. As they reached the top of the hill the sky rushed towards them and Gina looked out over the steep escarpment at the Edinburgh housetops.
Jimmy’s grandmother posses
sed the same air of bleak realism as her grandson. A large picture of the crucifixion hung behind her chair. Two smaller pictures of a sad-eyed Virgin Mary stood on the dresser with rosaries hanging over them. One of Jimmy’s uncles sat on the sofa. His greying hair touched his collar and he stared straight ahead as if he had recently suffered a shock. He was so full of methadone that he was incapable of speech. Everyone ignored him.
Jimmy went to make tea and Gina sat down next to his grandmother:
‘Ye jist caught me. Ah’m on ma way tae ma neighbour’s funeral. Gangrene,’ she said approvingly. ‘He smoked too much. Startit in his toes. Reached his bowel,’ she added with grim satisfaction as she stubbed out her cigarette.
Jimmy brought in a tray of tea and some scones. His grandmother scanned Gina up and down. ‘Jimmy tells me your frae Italy. We were in Rome once on a trip tae visit the Pope.’
Without warning, Jimmy’s uncle got up and bolted from the room. The door of a back bedroom slammed shut.
Granny went on to recite a litany of disasters.
‘It’s ma neighbour’s husband whose funeral Ah’m gawn tae. We went to see him on the Friday and he was breathin at a hundred and twenty-five miles an oor. We didnae see him when he brought a the blood up. We were in the cafeteria.’ She looked critically at Jimmy. ‘Jimmy Ah want ye tae go with me to the funeral. I jist want someone tae hawd ma arm gawn doon the steep bit of the hill.’
She looked at Gina’s neat appearance with approval. ‘Ye can come tae if ye wouldnae mind.’
Half an hour later the three of them walked down to the graveyard of the Sacred Heart church. Jimmy’s gran wore her best blue hat. The burial service was already under way as they approached the graveside. Jimmy’s gran crossed herself and gave a sympathetic nod to the assembled folk huddled together in the bitter cold. Just as the pall-bearers were lowering the coffin into the grave someone’s mobile phone went off, playing a jazzy tune that cut through the silence. Jimmy’s gran cast a look of outrage across the grave at the offender.
‘Wull ye switch that thing awf. Huv ye nae respect?’ she said sharply. ‘There’s a cunt lyin deid in that box.’
A dark navy-blue evening closed in over Edinburgh. Back in the flat Gina caught a glimpse through the half open door of Jimmy in the kitchen eating from a bowl. He ate with his eyes half shut in order to enjoy his food more. Her heart gave a lurch at the beauty of his pale ancient face as he spooned cereal into his mouth and there was some satisfaction in understanding that her mother had sacrificed herself to support people like him.
She returned to his mother’s room and studied herself in the mirror. Then she checked once more on the yellow bag that lay beneath the bed and pushed it further out of sight. Last night she had dreamed of her mother. From the criminal glare in the police mugshots Gina had always assumed that her mother was a devotee of rage, living her life under a black cloud of fury. But in the dream her mother was laughing and looking down at a huge red flower that was opening out, unfolding its blood-red petals under her ribcage and radiating warmth. ‘Look at this, Gina,’ she was saying. ‘Look at this.’
Jimmy hovered in the doorway. He came and sat next to her on the bed. His hand found its way to hers. His eyes were shining.
‘Come intae ma room, eh?’
She allowed herself to be led into his room.
‘I’d feel funny daein it in ma mam’s room. Ah dinnae think she’d like it.’
Gina undressed with shivery excitement and slid into the cold bed. She pulled the duvet up to her chin. Jimmy went to wash his hands. He let himself back into the room, switched off the light and climbed into the bed with her.
In the early hours of the morning Gina lifted her head from the pillow, half awake. The room was filled with an unearthly pallor. A movement by the door caught her eye. Standing there was a figure that seemed to have squeezed itself out of the thin shadow of the door jamb. It was both solid and dissolving but with no distinguishable perspective or dimensions and it was shedding feathers of light. For a moment she thought it was Jimmy. Then she saw that from its head two wings folded themselves over its eyes. Two other wings spread from its shoulders and two smaller ones from its feet. The upper wings drew back for a moment to reveal two enormous eyes that consisted only of black pupils spreading right across the sides of its head.
Her mouth opened in astonishment. She reached out her hand to wake Jimmy. There was no-one in the bed next to her. It was empty. She sat up.
Jimmy was standing by the window.
‘It’s snowin,’ he said.
‘I’ve just seen something weird. Something with wings,’ she gasped.
‘It wis me,’ he said and turned to her with a grin. ‘I’m an angel. Aw, ma wing muscles are so sair.’ He gave a mock shrug of his shoulders.
‘No really. I saw something.’
‘Yir just stoned,’ he said matter-of-factly and pulled open the curtain.
Soft snow sifted steadily from the sky casting a pale light into the room.
The two brothers sprawled across the sofa watching Scooby-Doo on television. Gina poked her head round the door:
‘I’m going to the Post Office to send a card.’
Jimmy smiled at her. Brian caught the smile and gave Jimmy a vicious jab in the chest with his elbow while using the remote control to flit from programme to programme.
In the street, flurries of fine snow stung Gina’s cheeks. She posted a card to her workmates in Italy. When she came out of the Post Office she thought she saw the same creature unfolding itself from the corner of the betting shop next to the newsagent. But it was nothing more than tiny whirlwinds of snow. A bitter blast of freezing air rushed past her. At the same time a searing grief for her mother took her by surprise. She would deal with her mother’s remains and then return to stay with Jimmy. Or perhaps he should come and stay with her in Italy. For the first time she thought she understood what her father had meant when he said her mother was on the side of the angels. Her boots crunched in the snow as she made her way back to the flat.
‘Whit is it?’
When Gina returned Brian and Jimmy were standing in the front room looking at the jar containing her mother’s brain, which was on the coffee table. The yellow bag had been thrown to one side. The brain bobbed about in the clouded water. Jimmy was whining in distress:
‘Ye shouldnae hae gone into her room. Ah dinnae ken whit it is.’
Brian was looking at the jar with horror. ‘Whit the fuck is it?’
Gina approached the table her face white. ‘If you’ll sit down for a minute I’ll explain.’
They remained standing. The words rushed out:
‘My mother . . . was in jail in Milan. They found her hanging in her cell. They took her brain out and sent it here to Edinburgh for experiments. I’ve come here to collect it.’
Brian collapsed back on the sofa screaming. He rolled over and put his hands up to cover his face:
‘Just fuckin get it oot o here. Ah’m nae comin back till it’s gone.’ He jumped up and ran out of the flat slamming the door behind him. Jimmy stepped back unsteadily and tightened the belt around his jeans:
‘Ye should hae told us, eh. Why did ye pit me in this situation?’ he whimpered. ‘I don’t want somethin like that in the hoose. It maks me feel sick. People will think we’re cannibals.’
Back in her bedroom she sat on the bed. Jagged triangular tears slashed at her cheeks.
A minute later she heard Brian coming back into the flat.
‘It’s fuckin’ Baltic out there. Whaur’s your jacket, Jimmy?’
‘You’re no havin it.’
There came the familiar sounds of a tussle and fierce yells. In the front room the boys faced each other. Brian’s thin face was alight with sly hatred.
‘Get rid of it. Our mam wouldnae like it. Ah’m your big brother. We’ve only got each other. She’d want me to look after ye. Mam wouldnae want it in the hoose. Get rid of it.’
‘It’s Gina’s . . .’
‘Fuck Gina. If you loved oor mam ye’ll get rid of it. Gina’s leavin anyway. I jus seen her packin.’
‘Ye didnae.’
‘Ah did. Go and look.’
Jimmy’s skin prickled all over. He peeped through the open door of the bedroom. Gina was folding her clothes into a small case. He came back into the front room, his eyes large and dark. Brian stood watching. In one movement Jimmy grabbed the jar and pushed it into the yellow bag. Clutching the bag to his chest he ran out of the flat, leaping down the stairwell three steps at a time.
Suddenly he was flying through the hilly streets with tall tenement blocks towering like cliff glaciers on either side of him. Parked cars frozen into igloos. He was airborne, his ribcage a vessel full of air, the wind at his feet. At the top of the hill the rough ground fell away in a steep slope. Jimmy alighted. His eyes were black and enormous. His jaw cracked with the cold. With all his strength he hurled the bag and its contents over the railing and watched it falling away like a meteor until it lodged under some bushes, a fuzzy patch of yellow in the muddy undergrowth. In the distance the council garbage truck edged along the road. Council workers fanned out collecting litter and rubbish from the open snow-blanketed hillside.
Jimmy sat on a bench. After a while the cold got the better of him and he set off for home.
When he returned to the flat he found Brian and Gina in the front room. Her blonde hair was scraped back so tightly from her forehead it made her eyes bulge. Her bags were by her side.
‘Ah telt her ye dumped it,’ said Brian. ‘She’s booked her ticket back tae Italy.’
She turned a tearful gaze on Jimmy. ‘Where is it?’
Brian smiled. Jimmy said nothing. The eyes of a panther looked out at her from his pale skin. She watched the bony-wings of his shoulder-blades shift as he pushed past her and went into his bedroom. The key turned in the lock.
‘Will ah get ye a taxi tae the airport?’ asked Brian politely.
SINGING IN THE DARK TIMES
It was a fine summer morning in June. Office workers streamed in and out of Finsbury Park tube station. Most people kept their heads down except for the tramp standing just outside the entrance. He was squinting up at the blue sky. He attracted attention because he was the only person who looked strikingly alive – albeit destitute. There was a burning vigour in his red cheeks that might have derived merely from exposure to open-air living, or from methylated spirits. Compared to the commuters, whose features seemed to have been modelled in soft wax, blurring any distinction between them, he stood out like a Rembrandt portrait – all warts and whelks, with a face that had been forged in adversity and realised by a master painter. He had a bushy head of grey hair, a broad nose threaded with a network of purple veins and he wore a greasy greatcoat – old army issue with umpteen pockets – that was tied around the waist with string. His eyes were bright blue but without lashes. Two strands of beads were visible under the collar of his coat.
The Master of Chaos Page 16
