'Wee argument,' he said, sitting heavily on the side of the bath and looking at his hand. He put his head back while I dabbed gingerly at a cut just under his hairline. I've reached that stage where I don't so much have friends as accomplices, and McCann is one of my two closest. He's about fifty, a one-time docker and several times unemployed person; greying now, short but fit, with beetling brows and a collection of lines between those brows which give him the look of one who is perpetually finding much to be unimpressed about, as though the world owes him not so much a living as an apology. This is indeed exactly how McCann feels, so no false signals there.
'You stick the nut on some punter?' I jiggled the TCP bottle a bit too much and some of it ran into one of his eyes.
'Ah! Ya basturt!' He ran to the sink and sloshed water into his eye.
'Sorry,' I said, lamely. I handed him a towel. This is me; Mr Clumsy. I always hurt people. All my life I've been knocking things on top of people, bumping into them, turning round too quickly and bashing them in the eye, treading on their toes; you name it. I'm used to it by now, but then I'm not on the receiving end (apart from the big G, of course).
'Sawright, nevir mind Jimmy.' McCann isn't calling me Jimmy the way he'd call any man Jimmy; he thinks that's my name. I've told him I'm called James Hay. This is actually a joke I've never had the nerve to explain to him; it's Jimmy Hay as in 'Hey, Jimmy!'. Hay is my mother's maiden name. McCann doesn't know who I am; he thinks I'm just the caretaker here.
I tried to unpeel a plaster but it stuck to my fingers; I handed him the packet while I picked the plaster off my hands. He sat down on the bath again.
'What happened?' I repeated.
'Ach, Ah goat intae a wee argument wi some stupit bugger in Brodie's.'
He dried his face, got up and looked in the mirror to put the plaster on. 'What about?' I asked.
'Oh, the usual; poalitics. Some balloon talkin aboot how we needed tae keep nuclear weapons. Ah tolt him he wiz a dupe of the imperialist propaganda machine an the so-called independent nuclear deterrent wiz a farce; we were paying for the Americans' war machine, an that wiz only there to threaten the gains of the workers' states an force the Soviet Union tae devote so much aw their Gross National Proaduct on defence the workers wid question the priorities of the leadership.'
'So he hit you.'
'Naw; he called me a commie an Ah said Ah certainly wiz, an proud ofit too.'
'So then he hit you.'
'Naw, he said well then Ah'd want the Russians over here then, wouldn't ah? An Ah said it wiz up to each an every working class to make its own revolution, an the idea that the Soviet Union wantit to invade Western Europe was a load a mince; the last thing they wantit wiz a whole load of Polands and Czechoslovakias oan their hauns, no that they'd get the chance anyway cos if they didnae bomb oot aw the major manufacturing centres in the process, the Yanks wid, an as fur sneak nuclear attacks on anithir country, there was only wan state in history had ever done that, an it wiznae the fuckin Soviet Union.'
'So
'Naw, then he said it wiz people like me that had wantit to appease Hitler and started the Second World War, so Ah told him it was the communists that had fought against the fascists in Germany, an, far frae helpin them, the Stalinists had cut them adrift just like they cut the Spanish Republicans adrift, an the people who'd done the appeasin were the right wing basturts that thought they an the fascists should be fightin the Soviet Union together, the same ones that had supported the White Russian army an the Imperialist invasion of Russia after the First World War, an their successors were the ones that still wantit to roll back the revolution noo, usin the threat aw Star Wars or anyhin else they could lay their hauns on, an anybody who couldnae see that wiz a fuckin eedjit.'
I hesitated. 'That was when he hit you?'
'Naw; he said ye couldnae trust a commie an he'd be votin fur the Alliance at the next election. Next thing Ah knew ma heid wiz in his face.'
'You hit him?' I said. McCann nodded wearily and rubbed his forehead.
'Ach, Ah didnae really mean tae; it wiz instinct, like. Ah didnae know whit Ah wiz daein. Totally involuntary.' He made a tutting noise. 'See ma heid? It's got a mind of its own sometimes.' I thought about this. 'I believe this calls for a drink.'
We sat in the nave on pillow-covered pews, drinking bottled Budweiser and shorts of Stolichnaya. 'It's not done these days, you know, McCann. Glasgow's miles better and much nicer; head-butting is out.'
'Oh, Christ, aye, European City of Culture nineteen-ninety, eh? Bloody garden festival...' He snorted and drank.
'More hotels.'
'An anuther fuckin exhibition centre. God, this place is goin tae the dogs all right.'
'Aye, but the dogs have left it.'
'Bloody right, son,' McCann said, disgusted. He was still in mourning for Shawfield Stadium, where they'd held the dog racing; its English owners had closed it in October. McCann had had to find other ways of losing money every Saturday. He shook his head. 'Ah wiz doon the docks yesterday; well, where they used tae be. Whit a mess. They're even gettin rid aw the auld fit tunnel, did ye know that?'
'Aye.' The foot tunnel under the Clyde at Finnieston Quay was being filled in.
'There's just yon one big cran left an the rest's aw that bloody exhibition centre.'
'Shug from the Griffin told me they only kept the crane there because they might need it to load tanks in a war.'
'Aye, fuckin typical, isn't it?' McCann shook his head at the general deterioration of everything. 'City of Culture... bloody garden exhibitions; just mair excuses fur the businessmen tae make a killin. Fresh paint on the double yellow lines an a bigger subsidy fur the opera.'
'Cynical bastard, so you are, McCann.'
'Ahm no a cynic, Jim; cynicism is fur the rich. Us poor punters are just cautious; cannae afford tae be any thin else. Cautious, an no so stupit.' He drank some beer.
'You banned from Brodie's then?'
'Don't think so. It aw happened in the cludgie; nobody saw.'
'Jesus, you left this guy lying in the toilet?'
'Whit wiz Ah supposed tae dae? Say sorry? Stupit wanker. Hope it knocked sense into him. Ah mean, Christ. Ah coulda been a real bastard and swiped his white stick as well.'
'
Glasgow is not, in my experience, a violent city. I do a lot of walking in the city at night, just plodding through the streets, looking, listening, smelling the place, and I've never been bothered. Of course, being six and a half foot and looking like a mutant baboon might have something to do with that. And, okay, so I do carry a shooting stick cum golf umbrella, but that's not just for defence. It rains here, quite a lot sometimes, and I like to have something to sit on, wherever I am. I was stopped a couple of times in the early days by the police, wanting a look at the stick's business end, but they know they can't do me for it.
They seem to be used to seeing me wandering around now; they leave me alone.
The shooting stick has a thick metal plate at the bottom and a stubby two inch spike on the end, and it's not light; a pretty offensive weapon in the right hands (not mine though, I'd probably swing it and crack my own skull. Looks good though; I wouldn't mess with somebody carrying one. Mind you, I'm a paranoid coward).
Purely a defensive weapon in other words; a deterrent. McCann, on the other hand, had once told me that when he was younger and running with a gang, one of the little tricks they used was to sew fish hooks behind the lapels of their jackets, so that if anyone grabbed them there to head-butt them they'd get a nasty surpnse ...
Anyway, most of the violence that does take place in Glasgow is between gangs, not against strangers, and usually doesn't happen near the centre. I'd sooner waik through Glasgow alone at night than through London with a bodyguard. For New York, I think I'd want air support; and that's just during the day.
'Diet Irn Bru,' McCann said suddenly, sounding like he was about to cough something up.
'What about it?'
'The very fuckin idea of it, that's whit,' he said. 'God almighty; whit next? Low calorie fuckin whusky?'
'Aren't they working on some new colourless, tasteless whisky to compete with vodka?' I said, sipping some
