2007 - A tale etched in blood and hard black pencel Read online

  “And before we can go, we have to tidy up,” she adds. “Colin, as you were keen to be on your feet, you can go round and collect the jotters. On you go.”

  Colin likes being given the task, particularly as it involves going right round all the desks, but is less pleased that it also sounds a bit like a telling off. Lots of children stood up, but he is the one they are all now looking at because of it, and that makes him feel uncomfortable.

  He soon forgets this, however, once he begins pacing the aisles and picking up the jotters. It’s like being a postman doing his rounds, trading brief greetings with everybody as he goes, except he is taking things, not delivering them, which makes it also like being Mummy at the supermarket. This reminds him of the pennies he has in his pocket. He and Mummy dropped in at Gran McQueen’s house on the way to school, and Gran gave him pennies ‘for the tuck shop’. Mummy said she didn’t think there was a tuck shop and they should go in his piggy bank instead, but she let him keep them in his pocket anyway. Gran’s always giving him pennies. It will be his birthday soon, and she’s promised to get him a Dinky UFO Interceptor, like on the telly. Colin loves programmes about space. He’s going to be a spaceman when he grows up.

  He decides it would be fun to pay for the jotters with Gran’s pennies, and places a small brown coin on the desk next to the pile of workbooks as the girl sitting there adds hers to the top. “There’s your change,” he says, which he has heard shopkeepers say to Mummy.

  “Thank you,” the girl replies with a smile.

  He repeats the exchange three times, saying the same phrase on each occasion. The second recipient, a girl called Alison, gets a small silver coin. The third, a boy called Martin, gets a big brown one. The game ends with the last coin, a big shiny silver one with jagged edges, which goes to James Doon.

  Colin wishes there were more coins so that he can keep doing it. He thinks about asking for them back so that he can give them to the people in the next row, but he catches a glimpse of his mummy out by the gates and knows he must hurry up and finish. Most of the children have been too focused on the gathering outside to notice him doling out coins, so they don’t look disappointed when they don’t receive one. He says thanks to each of them as they hand over their jotters, and gets a smile back from all except one boy, who gives him a nasty look and says: “Fuckin sook.”

  §

  Martin is sitting at Gran’s kitchen table, where she has laid on a surprise party to celebrate his first day at school. There are sandwiches with egg, which he likes, and some with tongue, which Gran loves but Martin hates. Well, in truth he has never tasted it, but he knows it will be horrible just by looking at it. There are cakes bought from the baker’s, and Gran’s homemade clootie dumpling—Martin’s favourite—as a special treat. Gran, Granda and Mummy are there, of course, but so is Great Auntie Peggy, Auntie Lynn, Auntie Joan, Uncle Peter and Auntie Mhairi, who is not a real auntie but Gran’s friend.

  Gran announces that they are going to have ‘a toast’, which Martin knows is about clinking glasses together like at Granda’s birthday, and not an actual piece of toast. “To Martin, the big schoolboy,” Gran says, and they all do the clinking thing, which Martin loves. “And did you enjoy your first day at St Elizabeth’s?” Gran asks.

  “Yes,” he replies. “It was fuckin brilliant.”

  The Rattler

  She turns over in bed and he holds his breath, hoping she’s just going to roll over in her sleep. She doesn’t.

  Shit.

  “What you doing?” she asks.

  “Sorry. Didn’t mean to wake you. It’s okay. Just go back to sleep.”

  But she doesn’t. Instead, she sits up and pulls the sheet over her breasts. It’s like wrapping an awkward parcel, as there’s no give in the things. They’re not massive, but they still seem an encumbrance, maybe because she isn’t long used to having them sit there like that. He doesn’t get it. Why would she do that to herself? Yeah, okay, he knows: she never made the cover of FHM when she was 32B. But he doesn’t get that either.

  “Are you leaving?” she asks.

  “I couldn’t sleep. I was just checking messages.”

  “Yeah, right,” she says, turning on the bedside lamp.

  Bollocks. This means there’s going to be an argument. He’s seen the script plenty of times before, with plenty of others. She has too, let’s not kid ourselves.

  “Suppose I should be flattered you actually turned your mobile off long enough to shag me.”

  There’s a self-deprecatory gag just waiting to be used, something disparaging his sexual longevity, a way to make light of it, turn accusation into flirting, flirting into foreplay. But he can’t be bothered. Nothing personal, hen. He’s just tired. Not tired tonight, but tired of a whole lot else. Tired of the politeness ritual that attends what’s going on here, for one thing, whereby she gets to pretend that she thought this might be more than a one-night stand, and he either takes the blame or finds a way for them to part as friends in the morning.

  “Look, I was checking messages, okay? It’s the middle of the night and I’m not at home. I’m contractually obliged to be contactable at all times. It’s why they pay me the big bucks.”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard sharks never sleep. Doubly true of the ones in Armani.”

  “And if I wasn’t a shark in Armani, what’s the chances a girl like you would have given me a second look?”

  “I hope that’s not you saying I’m shallow. Cause I’m sure you were only paying me attention because I’m such an intellectual and you were interested in my opinions on, I don’t know, the Turner Prize or whatever.”

  “Yeah, okay, touche. So we’ve established that neither of us was in the market for a life partner at the launch party last night. I think that means you can knock off acting surprised and offended at the idea of me leaving. Especially as I wasn’t fucking leaving.”

  “Not yet, you weren’t, not physically. But your mind’s been back at work since two seconds after you came, and I’m already last night to you.”

  He looks at her, the bedsheet clinging to her designer tits, two-grand hairdo up top, five-grand dress draped over a nearby chair. Her People’s Choice soap starlet award is on a shelf downstairs, beside her treadmill and rowing machine and weights. He’s ten or thirteen years older than her, depending on conflicting claims about her age. She’s about fourteen inches around the waist and lives almost entirely on apples, despite her chocolate-bar commercials and stories of ‘pigging out’ in the glossies.

  “And what was I to you, Kara? Consolation prize because you didn’t get back with that boy-band prick? Not going to get much copy out of me, are you?”

  “No, I’ll tell you what you were. You were a default. A certainty. I heard people say you’ll fuck anyone who’s got the merest hint of fame or glamour about her. I guessed they were right, but I just thought there might be more to you than that.”

  “Do I take that as some kind of compliment, or are we back to pretending you were looking for love?”

  “You’re acting like we just met. We’ve known each other for three years, Martin. Jesus. And I always liked you because I thought you were one of the good guys. When did you turn into such a prick?”

  “What the fuck’s this? You’ve had my body and now you want to save my soul?”

  “No, I think it’s well past saving now,” she says, turning over and tugging at her pillow. She lies flat again and turns off the lamp.

  He walks out of the bedroom in just his shorts and heads down the open-plan staircase into the living area. The light atop Canary Wharf blinks at him from across the Thames through the floor-to-ceiling windows. Kara said it’s one-way glass, but he wouldn’t be surprised if some wee fanny across at the Mirror had pointed a telescopic lens at the building the odd time just in case. There’s certainly something kind of unnerving about shagging in front of all that glass. Surprised it didn’t inhibit Kara. She was right: he has known her for three years, and she’s not the vampish ex
hibitionist the FHM accompanying copy made out. Nobody is, right enough.

  He takes a seat on her sofa, turns on a lamp and flips open his phone. He wasn’t lying: he was just planning to check his messages. But, that said, Kara was spot-on when she said his mind had been back at work since he came. It was worse than that, in fact: he’d been thinking about what shit he was going to spin to the BlueDay Productions people tomorrow in order to delay ejaculation.

  He looks at the texts first. Nothing very interesting and absolutely nothing that won’t wait until morning. He checks voicemail. David Ptrajic telling him BlueDay have read the straws in the wind and cancelled the meeting. A blank call follows, a hang-up or lost connection. Then the familiar but unexpected voice of Antonia Heston-Michaels, his old boss back when he worked at the Beeb. He needs to play it back to be sure of what she said, then again to write down the number she left. He has to go searching for a pen, finds one next to Kara’s phone. The notepad is missing, though, possibly up by her bed, so he has to fish a copy of the Evening Standard out of the bin from a host of apple cores. He scribbles the number across the top of the front page. It’s the first time he’s ever seen anything worth reading in the loathsome shite-rag.

  He looks at his watch. It’s after two, but the message said to call urgently, no matter when. It rings five or six times. He’s about to hang up and assume nobody’s home, but he remembers that there are other, more civilised places where people are sleeping at this time of night, and it might take a while to get a response.

  “Hello?” says a croaky, yawning voice.

  “Scot?”

  “Aye. Who is…Martin? Is that you?”

  “Yeah. Sorry about the hour, but…”

  “Naw, naw, honestly. Thanks for gettin back tae us. And thanks tae that Antonia lassie as well. It was the only number I had for you. It’s been that long since we spoke.”

  “Yeah, it’s been a while. So what’s up? Antonia said it was an emergency. Is everything all right? You and the kids? Helen?”

  “We’re fine, aye. It’s Coco. Colin Temple.”

  “What about him?”

  “He’s deid, Martin. He’s been murdered.”

  “Murdered? Shit.”

  There’s a pause. Martin doesn’t really know what to say, or more pertinently what he ought to say. He hasn’t seen Colin in twenty years, so while he’s sorry the guy’s dead, he doesn’t get why they should be talking about it in the middle of the fucking night.

  “When’s the funeral?” he asks, already thinking of the reason he’ll give not to go, regardless of Scot’s answer.

  “Dunno, mate. That’s kinna problematic, due to the circumstances. That’s why I called, in fact. It’s Noodsy an Turbo they’ve got for it. Turbo’s dad was murdered as well, an Turbo’s critical in hospital. So fairer tae say right noo, it’s just Noodsy facin the music. I was his phone call. Well, he called me, but he wanted you and he knew my number. He needs a lawyer.”

  “Noodsy needs…? I’m not a criminal lawyer, Scot. Haven’t been for more than a decade. I work in the me—”

  “I know, I told him, but—”

  “And for Christ’s sake, Noodsy must know more lawyers than I do, the amount of times he’s been arrested. Why the hell would he ask for me?”

  “He says he needs somebody who’ll trust him.”

  “Trust Noodsy? What the hell makes him think I’d do that?”

  “I don’t know, but if I was tae hazard a guess, it would be because he trusts you.”

  “Well, that’s hardly the same thing, Scot. I’m sorry, mate, but I cannae help. Seriously, it’s desperate, and I wouldnae even be any use.”

  “He’s up for murder, Martin, and he sounded like he’s scared shitless.”

  “I’m sure he is, but I don’t see what difference anybody thinks I’m gaunny make tae the situation.”

  “Look, fine, he asked me to ask ye, and I’ve asked ye. I guess it’s fair to say the answer is naw.”

  “Aye, well I’m kinda fuckin busy, what wi havin my own job to get on with, so forgive me for no droppin everythin and ridin to the rescue of some bastart I havenae spoken to in twenty years.”

  “Naw, don’t worry aboot it, Martin. I’ll let him know. He’ll be touched. Didnae sound like he was haudin oot much hope anyway, though I’ll confess, was. But that’s cause it was Marty Jackson I was lookin for, and no this prick he’s turned intae.”

  There are a few moments of silence. Martin thinks for a while that Scot might even have hung up.

  “Naw, look, sorry, Martin, that’s no fair,” he eventually says. “It was all a long time ago. Forget aboot it. Sorry I bothered you.”

  “No, I’m sorry, Scot. Tell the truth, you caught me at a bad moment. I’ll call you another time. We’ll need to get together, maybe if you’re down in the Smoke. It’s good to be back in touch.”

  “Aye, sure,” Scot says, though it sounds like ‘drop dead’. He hangs up, leaving Martin sitting on the edge of Kara’s sofa, his bare feet agitatedly kicking the bin.

  “Shit,” he says aloud. He looks at the phone in his hand and is already wishing he could rewind and have another go at that call. He shakes his head. That’s twice in the past half-hour somebody’s called him a prick, and what really stings is that he knows they’re right. Even worse, he can’t answer Kara’s question about precisely when that was what he became. He used to be one of the good guys, she told him, but it’s something Scot said that’s really resonating: “he trusts you”. When was the last time anybody had honestly said that? A date prior to the one Kara’s query sought, that was for sure.

  There’s a smell of fusty, old-but-not-quite-rotten apples from the bin. It’s been filling his nose for a few minutes, since the start of the phone call, in fact. It’s an olfactory ambush, and he knows it’s kidnapping him and putting him on the first plane north.

  Christ, Kara, why could it not be alfalfa sprouts or fucking wheatgrass or whatever else the professionally malnourished lived on these days? Why did it have to be apples?

  Primary Three

  41 Arae 2

  The Abandoned

  Karen gets out of her mum’s car just outside the gates to the Infant Building, like she has done most days for the past two and a half years. Sometimes her mum plays a game where she waits until Karen opens the door and then moves the car forward a tiny wee bit to give her a fright. She doesn’t do it this morning, though, because she is in too much of a hurry.

  “I’m in a right guddle,” she kept saying as they were getting ready to go out, and they were about ten minutes later than usual leaving the house. Karen is a little nervous that she might get a row from Miss Clarke about being late. Miss Clarke is a lot stricter than Mrs Murphy, who was her teacher in Primary One and Two. She is thinner and prettier, but not as nice.

  Karen normally stands and waves at her mum’s departing car until it disappears out of sight over the bump in the road that goes to Glasgow, but this morning she can’t afford the time. She gives the briefest wave as the car pulls away and then starts running towards the entrance, where the lines go in. After the summer holidays, when she’s a Primary Four, she will move to the Main Building, which has an upstairs, though it’s only the Primary Fives whose classrooms are up there.

  Normally there would be dozens of children in the yard, playing games before the bell goes or maybe joining the lines early to be near the front. Karen can tell the time herself now, but she doesn’t need to look at her watch to know she is late, because there is hardly anyone outside. The only times she has seen it like this have been on previous incidences of sleeping in or after being to the dentist. Both of these thoughts contribute to a sicky feeling in her tummy as she jogs across the concrete, head down, one hand grasping the straps of her bag around her shoulder.

  She catches sight of someone coming around the corner from the back of the building and looks up to see who else is trailing in late. She hopes it is one of the goody-goodies, like Michelle or Helen or Mar
tin, because then she won’t get so much of a row. Miss Clarke didn’t shout at Kevin Duffy that time Helen was late as well, and Kevin Duffy was always getting shouted at for being late. But it is none of these. It is Joanne. She is not one of the goody-goodies. Joanne is not a bad girl either, not like Eleanor who pulls hair and says swearie-words, but Karen isn’t really friends with her because she always tells lies and she’s one of the ones who still talk about Karen peeing herself in Primary One. Joanne is quite fat. Not as fat as Geraldine Butler, but still fatter than anyone else apart from Geraldine, so it’s just as well for Joanne that Geraldine’s in the class. Karen knows you’re not supposed to make fun and has never called Joanne any names, but she doesn’t always feel sorry for her when others do it.

  “The school’s shut,” Joanne tells her, her chubby cheeks glowing red with satisfaction at being the bearer of news. “There was a fire an it’s aw burnt doon.”

  Joanne is always making things up. Last week she said the whole of Primary Three were going to get the belt until someone owned up to who broke the wee statue of Our Lady that used to sit opposite the boys’ toilets. Zoe said Joanne was talking shh-ugar and Karen’s inclination was to agree, but she’d still felt very nervous in case it turned out to be true, especially when the headmaster, Mr Monahan, came into their class. Also, whenever they had the nit-nurse, the girls got to go first, and Joanne always went back to class rubbing her arm and telling the boys it was a jag.

  This morning’s story, however, seems a lot more ambitious—and more immediately verifiable—than Joanne’s usual fibs, so Karen holds back on her instinctive scornful response. She looks up the steps and notices for the first time that the wooden outside-doors are closed, then at the classroom windows, which show no lights on inside.

  “Come an see,” Joanne says, almost breathless with excitement.