Fitz got the motor rolling. He drove slowly, like he was driving Miss Daisy, or heading a funeral cortege. ‘Have ye had a bite?’
The thought of food made me want to chuck; the thought that even Fitz wanted to look after me made me despair. ‘I’m fine…’ Though there was another craving that needed satisfied. ‘Wouldn’t mind a drink, though.’
Fitz pointed to the glovebox. ‘‘Tis a wee drop in there.’
I opened it up: was a half-bottle of Talisker. I looked at it, thought about it, even felt my hand reach in, but I closed the drawer. ‘Gonna keep off the hard stuff… for now.’
Fitz turned to me, looked stunned. ‘You’re off it?’
My voice croaked. ‘I’m knocking the scoosh… but could murder a pint.’ They used to give stout out in hospitals, as a builder-upper… and the Queen Mum thrived on it for long enough; what harm could a few pints of black do me? That was my reasoning. Well, what I told myself was reasoning. I craved alcohol – I was an alcoholic – there was no way round it. The trip to the hospital was already beginning to fade.
‘Okay, so… I know a wee place out of town where we can talk.’
‘Well, we need to do that.’
‘Christ, Gus… don’t we ever.’
‘That sounds ominous.’
Fitz steadied the wheel, stared at me. ‘Ominous as the devil.’
Chapter 17
THERE ARE FEW WONDERS IN the world to behold like an Irishman on a mission. Fitz flung his filth-issue Lexus round the hospital car park as though he was auditioning for
I took a bit of a coughing fit on the way, felt my bones tremble. I wasn’t up for this lark; should still be kipped up in the crisp white linen, turning the Sad Sam eyes on the nurses and kicking back. What was I at? This was lunacy. I was off the scale. But sure… when was I never?
Fitz revved the engine. I watched him spin the steering wheel.
I gripped the door handle. ‘Think this is fucking Le Mans?’
He smiled, liked that. Took it as a compliment, clearly. ‘In my day I was told I had a look of the Steve McQueen about me, y’know.’
I put the eye on him, ‘You’d be fucking lucky to be taken for a drag queen these days.’
He found the high gears, shot along the road. Felt the back of my skull pinned to the headrest. Was in no mood for this patter, said, ‘Ho, cool the beans, eh.’
‘What you on about?’
‘The driving… calm it!’
He looked at me as if I’d suggested a fruity threesome. ‘Cop on man, sure, I’m a top driver.’
This was the same argument I got regularly from Hod… and Mac. Was there a bloke on the road didn’t think he was the equal of Jenson Button? I despaired, gave up. My energy wasn’t worth wasting on this lark. I settled back in the seat; as we took a corner to the main road, the bag full of Harry Hills I’d drawn from the pharmacy made a noise like a kid’s rattle.
‘The fuck’s that? You got a snake in there?’
I laughed that up. ‘One of the deadliest!’
‘Ha… go way outta that! Sound like yer carrying a dose of chemicals there, laddo.’
I filled him in on the doc’s orders. Left out some of the juicier details but could tell by the way his eyebrows dropped, the slowing of his breath, that he got the picture. There had been times in the past, long before I really knew him, that Fitz had had his own battles to fight. Some drinkers, and I’ve observed this from them, simply give up. They get tired of the rigmarole… the late starts, the brain fag, the wreckage it wreaks on your life. They crash their jet and walk away. I wasn’t so lucky. Fitz was a breed apart, though. Rarely have I seen a man called that worst of misnomers -’functioning alcoholic’ – able to drop one of those tags without becoming the other: you’re either an alcoholic, or you’re functioning. Never both. Well, that was my experience, and most others’, but Fitz had managed to cut his consumption and clean up his act. It was a dangerous path, but he kept to it. I watched him with something close to awe. What’s the word? Oh aye: envy.
‘I’ve got a few pills to get me through.’
Fitz turned his eyes from the road. ‘Oh, Jaysus… what have they got you on – not feckin’ Antabuse… ‘
‘No… not that.’ Knew I’d gone beyond the Antabuse stage – the stuff that makes you barf yer guts up at the merest whiff of an alcoholic unit. You wear too strong an aftershave, it can have the same effect. I’d read George Best had been on them; didn’t do it for him. Drinkers get used to skipping the dose, going on a skite. Some just drink anyway. I remembered an episode of
‘Glad to hear it… sounds serious, though.’
I didn’t bite; knew Fitz had no more of an interest in hearing about my problems than I had in hearing about his. There are some things you keep to yourself; if you don’t, that’s weakness, and I didn’t do weakness.
‘Look, can we get off this subject? It makes me want a fucking drink.’
Fitz’s cheeks tightened, a slight smile crept onto his thin lips. ‘Ah, now…’
‘Ah, now fuck all… Are you my mother? Get us to a pub, eh.’
‘Okay, so… Sure, there’s no man knows what he needs better than the man himself!’
Fitz gunned it, took to the fast lane with the needle twitching. The engine purred like contentment. There was nothing to give away the extra effort save a slight lift in the bonnet. Thought: Can a car show off?
The pub was out of town, on the other side of Newtongrange, an old mining village that had been reclaimed by the tourist board for its history. I liked the place, lots of narrow streets, looked like a Hovis ad. There was a great park in the middle, full to bursting with school-holiday bairns and young mums with Maclaren buggies. I wondered if this was the patch of grass where the miners had once took the pit ponies to grab their five minutes of fresh air a day. How many of them had expired at the thought of going back into the black earth, a quarter-mile under our feet? How the place had changed; but isn’t that life? Isn’t it one continual change? The thought washed around in my mind. I’d been doing a lot of thinking recently; funny how a few knocks at death’s door will do that to you.
The barmaid was friendly and, unusually, Scottish. I’d grown accustomed to having my order taken with a Polish or an Australian lilt these days.
Fitz ordered: ‘Make mine a Jameson and for my laddo here…’ He turned to me.
‘What stout you got?’
She pinched her lips. ‘Oh… Guinness. Might have a bottle of something else if I have a look about.’
Went for the old favourite. ‘The black stuff’s fine, love.’
Her face lit up as I called her love. Don’t know where that came from – wasn’t like me to be so familiar. There were changes afoot in this man and I didn’t understand a one of them.
Fitz nodded at a secluded table in the corner. I followed behind him with my pint glass in hand.
‘So,’ I said, ‘coming round to my way of thinking are you?’
‘Y’wha’?’
I gulped my pint, felt my entire body twinge. ‘Ben Laird…’
Fitz played coy, sipping his whiskey, ‘The actress’s boy.’
I was in no mood to extract teeth, said, ‘If he was murdered, Fitz, I’ve started taking it up the Gary… and you and I both know that’s a fucking cover story on Calder’s suicide. I was there, I heard people in the hall… suicide note my balls, it was typed! Anyone could have written that.’
Fitz put down his glass. ‘Okay, okay. I hear ye, calm it, eh.’ He looked about the room. He’d never looked comfortable in a pub since the smoking ban. Never looked comfortable in public, come to think about it; certainly
