fuck up.
It is like the city is whispering at you. All babbling away at once, the way crazy people hear voices.
‘When you on till? Working again tomorrow? Been doing this long? My wife left me. I hate my job. Read about that murder? What team do you support? Been busy the night? I’ve been waiting an hour for a fucking taxi. See what happened to that lawyer? Terrible night, eh? What time you been on since? I hate this weather. This traffic is murder, isn’t it? Did you read about that murder? Did you read about that murder? Did you read about that murder?’
‘Been busy the night, driver?’
CHAPTER 5
There was a girl from school. Jill Hutchison.
My first love.
So corny but nothing truer. First time I’d felt it and it threw me big time. I couldn’t understand what was going on. Every time I saw her, my stomach turned over and my thinking went wonky. Stammer, stutter, smile, sweat and scarlet. I couldn’t put sentences together properly. I talked complete and utter shite when I most wanted to talk sense.
Didn’t know what it was at first and when I worked it out, I wasn’t impressed. If this was love they could keep it. Couldn’t help myself though. For all I couldn’t understand what was happening to me, it wasn’t hard to work out why.
She was amazing. Beautiful. Smart too. Sweet and funny. She made my head spin. Long, lush black hair and fiery brown eyes. Her smile killed me.
It was three years before I had the guts to ask her out. Could barely believe it when she said yes. On the way out of a physics class, I bumped into her accidentally on purpose and we got talking. For once, the words came out more or less as I meant them. By the end of a three-minute conversation, I had asked her to see Top Gun. I’d had a plan to suggest going to see Nine and a Half Weeks but chickened out. It seemed for the best. Mickey Rourke and Kim Basinger would have given the wrong impression. Tom Cruise was a safe bet.
I kept my hands to myself and my verbal diarrhoea under control. It went well. It must have, she kissed me and said we should go out again.
I was fifteen and the happiest guy in the world. Pictures. Parties. Walks. Her room or occasionally mine. Listening to Prince, the Thompson Twins and the Jets. Touching each other. Never more than a snog and a grope. That was fine by me.
Of course I wanted to do more. I strangled myself three times a night thinking about doing more. The thought of it burned me up every time I looked at her. But that’s not the way it was. I loved her. I respected her. If she wanted to wait then I’d wait. God knows she was worth waiting for.
She had this thing where she would look right in my eyes as if I was the greatest thing since I don’t know what. It was a kind of shy thing, looking up as if I wouldn’t notice. Sometimes she would put a hand on either side of my face and touch me really gently. Then she’d kiss me really slowly, full on the mouth. Sensuous, that’s the word for it. Sensuous.
So sensuous that one time I actually came in my pants by her just holding my face and kissing me like that.
Of course I wanted to do more. Guys would ask me if I was doing her and I’d say no. They’d laugh but I didn’t care. They said that they definitely would and I didn’t doubt it but there was more to it and they just wouldn’t understand.
I told them I respected her and they laughed some more.
Then, four months into it, we were to go to a party that I couldn’t make it to on time. I was playing football and we’d agreed she would go along first then I’d get there as soon as I could after getting changed. 119 Clelland Avenue. I remember the address even though I don’t remember whose house it was.
It sat on the sweep of the bend and had two large conifers either side of the door. The path was gravel. I can still hear its crunch. I knocked on the door although the music banging through the windows should have told me it was a waste of time. Madonna. Full blast. Funny the things you remember.
After a couple of minutes I just pushed the door and went in. There were kids everywhere, most of them I knew by sight or name.
Couldn’t find her at first and tried the kitchen and the various groups that stood around in huddles. I dragged a couple of kids from their drinks and asked if they knew where she was. A girl shook her head, a guy smiled and shrugged. Then one told me she was upstairs.
I made my way through the folk on the stairs. Talking, snogging, drinking. I missed the sniggering though or else I might not have opened that door as I did.
There she was.
Naked and impaled on top of an eighteen-year-old bastard named Tony Di Rossi.
Not sure what was worse. Seeing her. Writhing. Her head back, hair flying. Listening to her beg him for more. Beg him for it harder. Or knowing that I’d have to walk back out of that house, my ears burning, my face scarlet, my mouth hanging open and salty with my own hot tears. Every dickhead in the place laughing at me.
Fucking bitch.
Maybe I’d opened the door quietly, maybe she just wasn’t listening. Either way she didn’t know I was there.
He did though. He saw me and looked. He kept on thrusting at her. His bastard grin said, ‘Enjoying the show?’ His bastard grin said ‘Oh she’s good.’ ‘Oh she’s loving it.’
I couldn’t move. I watched. Watched her drive herself down on him. Talking dirty to him.
No, the worst thing was that I was turned on by seeing her naked. First time. I was being humiliated beyond my worst nightmares. The girl I loved was betraying me in front of my eyes and all I could think of right then was how amazing her breasts were. I was hard. Maybe if she’d seen me earlier, she’d have stopped but by the time she did, it was way too late. She came all over him as she saw me.
There was a flicker of surprise and maybe some guilt on her face. Not much. Certainly no remorse. Right then, she wasn’t regretting anything.
He saw her look and knew it for what it was. He loved it. He was laughing. Laughing loud. At me.
As I found my legs and my senses and lost my hard-on, I left the room, left the house, left Clelland Avenue.
I knew everyone was laughing at me.
Fucking bitch.
Fucking dirty bitch.
I got over it a long time ago though. It’s not the thing, not the reason. I moved on, met someone, got married, had a beautiful daughter. I left Jill Hutchison and that house in Clelland Avenue behind me.
Some scars never quite heal though and sometimes I remembered. Sometimes I was fifteen again and it stung and I hated Jill Hutchison.
First love, first hate. Never forget them.
That was why I was sitting with the Glasgow South phone book and working my way through the Hs. Not looking for her, not that stupid. If you are going to pick a name from the phone book at random then you need somewhere to start. Hutchison was as good a name for my purpose as any. Better than most. She’d be ruled out, so would anyone related to her. Anyone else would have to take their chances with fate.
There were Hutchesons, Hutchiesons, Hutchinsons, Hutchisons and one solitary Huntchinson. More Hutchisons than anything though – maybe 200 of them on the south side. It would be one of them.
I paused a moment and considered what I was doing. And what I would do. There was anticipation, fear and excitement. There was an uneasiness crawling deep in my stomach. Uncertainty. Possibilities. Power. An unmistakable feeling that there would be no turning back. Once picked it couldn’t be unpicked. No matter what.
I realized I was breathing heavily. I could sense the very ends of the hairs on the back of my arms. Maybe
