guess at the name of the drinker. Had a vague recollection of writing a story on a shooting in there some time ago… Writing stories, holding down a job, was all the dim and distant past. I’d been burning my bridges for so long there was no way back for me with so many people. Call it the drink, depression, self-pity, whatever. I’d screwed over so many folk I was in danger of having no one left. Now another man had died; holy Christ, what was happening here?
Debs had said it. She’d made the prediction long ago that I’d end up alone and bitter, cursing the world, blaming everyone and everything for my mistakes. Roaring and ranting. Not even choosing my targets any more. Blasting. Just blasting. She’d seen the future, and it wasn’t bright. Thing is, that was a long time ago. Funny how the past catches up with you.
Called over the barman – squat beer gut with a shaved head and a star tattooed on his neck – said, ‘Pint. Chaser.’
Got a nod. All it took. Places like this, the chat’s minimum, if uttered at all. Another couple of scoops and Beer Gut would be over with a nod at the pumps and we’d be away. There’s a comfort in this kind of interaction, if you can even call it that; people will say these types of joints are for the lonely. They’re wrong. They’re for the seriously fucked off. The beyond lonely. People who are lonely crave company; people who hole up in spit-and-sawdust drinkers are after the opposite. Knew I was. I was looking for complete anonymity. If I could excoriate my skin like a snake I would, shed the lot, all identity with it. The past. The mistakes. The lost dreams. The heartache. The loss… Christ, I’d shed the lot.
The drinks came. Tanked them. Couldn’t even look at the barman. He took the hint, said, ‘Same again?’
I nodded at my empty pint glass.
My mind was all over the place. I knew where it should be: on the case. Each time I thought about it, the tweed Hod had bought me itched; I could feel those business cards weighing heavily in my breast pocket. But the straight road had long been a stranger to me. There was a place in my head, a cold spot… the kind that people refer to when they say
My mind went back, further back beyond the recent hurts…
I’m to be married; Debs is happy. For the first time in an age I see her start to thaw, smile again. It has been so long. She…
‘Look at the way it sparkles.’ She holds up the diamond in the engagement ring to the window. The rare blasts of Scottish sunlight – scarcer than hen’s teeth, as my mam always says – alight on the diamond, the rays dissemble, spread and fill out. It’s beautiful. It says happiness.
‘God, it does… You wouldn’t think something so small could shine like that.’
Debs smiles. ‘It’s beautiful.’
My throat tightens. I feel welled up with emotion. I want more than anything to make her happy. I put my arms around her and hold tight. We have a chance, I can sense it. The bad times are behind us now; this is a fresh start.
We collapse onto the bed, giggling.
For a long while we just lie there, looking at the diamond and smiling. I’m overwhelmed that something so simple can create so much happiness. Debs’s eyes hardly blink; she’s blissed out.
‘I’ll never take it off,’ she says.
‘Oh, no?’
Her face hardens. ‘No… never. The day I take it off, it’s over!’
I know she doesn’t mean it, it’s just one of those things people in love say to each other, the kind of words they use to try to communicate the incommunicable. We both know there are no words for how we feel. It’s written in the sky…
I sit up, lean in and kiss her.
Debs sits up beside me. ‘Time for me to go. Got to get back to work.’
She smiles as I stand up, puts out her hand for me to raise her from the bed. I take her fingers, grip them and lean back to help her up. I’ve done this a million times before but something has forced me to make too dramatic a gesture this time, I heave her too suddenly. Her hand loosens within mine, seeming to shrink. She falls back onto the bed. I try to grip her fingers but they slip through my own.
As Debs lands on the bed, I feel my hand go into a fist. A small hard object is in my palm, I turn over my hand, open my fingers.
‘Oh, Gus…’ Debs’s mouth widens. She touches her cheeks. The diamond engagement ring has came off in my grasp. I hold all our fallen hopes in my hand.
‘I’m so sorry… I didn’t mean to, it just…’
Debs’s lip trembles, she starts to cry. ‘Oh, Gus… Oh, Gus…’ It’s all she can say. She pulls herself from the bed, runs to the bathroom and locks the door behind her.
I look down at the small, shining rock.
I don’t know what to do.
I walk to the bathroom door; I can hear Debs’s sobs inside.
My heart flutters. There’s an emptiness in the pit of my stomach that seems to be rising up into my chest, into my jaw, my head. I feel bereft.
I want to talk, to say something to her. But there’re no words. Nothing can repair this. Just like there are no words to say how we truly feel, there are no words to explain this kind of message. My fist tightens around the little ring. I want to throw it into the bright sky… but I can’t. I walk over to the dresser, place the ring in the little mauve box from the jeweller, close the lid.
My shoulders and spine tense as I pass the bathroom door, leave for the stairs, and head back to the office. I can sense the heavy hand of predestination on me as I walk along the road. I want to know what the future holds… but at the same time, I really don’t.
‘You fucking sack of shit, Dury…’ I was drawn back into reality by the gravel tones of a shortarse pug. He was squat, but brick shithouse, jaw like a snowplough jutting in my face. My eyesight was a bit hazy after the good bucket I’d taken but I could smell Bovril on his breath, wondered who drinks that outside the footy? As my vision started to focus I saw the answer: Danny Gemmill. He had both hands on the bar, some of Elizabeth Duke’s finest sovies on show. I suddenly felt a spark of life return. ‘That’s some manners your mother gave you, Gemmill.’
The taciturn barman arked up, got gabby for a change: ‘Look, he’s been in here all afternoon, been on a right fucking sesh, but if yer up for bouncing him aff my walls ye can take that patter outside!’
Gemmill showed his bottom row of teeth, grey and craggy; two lone tombstones sat higher than the rest – made him look like a missing link between man and ape. ‘Shut yer fucking yap, boss!’
Barman retreated, eyes darting left and right as he edged himself closer to the telephone.
I got off my stool, was surprised how light-headed I felt; the floor seemed to swim beneath me, or was that my legs caving? Said, ‘Look, what’re you about?’
Gemmill didn’t seem to have an eloquent rejoinder on hand; decided he’d punch a hole in my gut instead. I folded like paper. I saw the barman pick up the phone as I fell on the floor, squirmed. It felt like my stomach was on fire; I could taste acid in my mouth. I vomited heavily. Then dark frothy blood came – a good whack of blood rose into my windpipe, spewing out of my mouth. I coughed the lot on the floor. The pug laughed.
‘Look at that, fucking claret…’
I twisted on the ground, felt like my knackers had been cut off. The pain was beyond agony. The room started to fade on me, tables and chairs floated up to the ceiling.
Gemmill was shouting at the barman: ‘Put that fucking phone down or I’ll wrap it round yer fucking heid!’
The barman had plod on speed dial. ‘Yes, King’s Arms… Aye, I want polis… An ambulance, aye, y’better…’
Gemmill mounted the bar – no mean feat for such a shortarse. He grabbed the phone; I watched him slap it off the barman’s brow. He dropped like a horse taking a bullet. The ripped-out phone was flung over the bar, hit an old Younger’s mirror, smashed it to smithereens. Gemmill went scripto now, pulling down optics and smashing bottles. Something told him to empty the till, fill his pockets. A stack of KP nuts went for a flier as he mounted the bar. His arse skited on a Tennent’s towel and cardboard mats floated to the floor.
His boots stomped towards my head, but I couldn’t move. My arms held in my guts as he grabbed my collar, yanked me to my feet.
‘Aff yer fucking arse, Dury. You’re coming wi’ me.’
