The thought of the corpse on the hill rose, and I wanted to get tanked up, immediately. That’s how I do business: problem rears its head — drown it.
I got the gear off, started to fill the sink. My hands trembled. I needed another drink.
I grabbed soap, dooked the bar towels. It was cheap soap, took a while to work up a lather, but we got there. The blood went from black to red as the soap foamed. I dropped the bar in the sink, got to scrubbing. In a minute or two, the blood was merely pink streaks. I pulled the plug, ran my hands under the gushing taps.
Couldn’t say I’d scrubbed up like they do on ER, but I was in the ballpark. I didn’t want dead-guy blood on me; call me picky.
I caught a glance at myself in the mirror. From somewhere, the phrase death warmed up hit me. My skin looked grey, hollows in my cheeks like Peter Cushing. I could see past the fact that I needed a shave, a haircut, some serious dietary attention, but the man before me was someone I didn’t recognise.
‘Who or what the fuck is haunting you, Gus Dury?’
‘Tits up’ might describe my life. What shocked me was the way I seemed to be projecting this to the world.
I touched my face. When did my skin get so leathery? When I was a kid, Clint Eastwood had skin like this. What had happened to me? I didn’t want to look, but something held my gaze where it was.
I had black rings under my eyes. When I was a hack, back in the day, my wife — scrub that, ex-wife, I recently got the papers to prove it — would say I had panda eyes when I worked too late. I wonder what she’d make of these jobs? The predominant colour was red, where it should be white, few specks of yellow creeping in.
‘Quite a look, buddy,’ I said into the mirror. ‘You make touchline Alex Ferguson look a picture of health.’
I turned away. Just as Debs had. We’d tried to patch up our marriage recently, had made a trip to Ireland with high hopes, but my self-destruction had terrified her; she said that she couldn’t watch me ‘doing myself in slowly’. I knew I couldn’t change, but I also knew I couldn’t put Debs through any more hurt. I’d done enough of that.
I lifted my pile of clothes, took them up to my flat and dumped them in the laundry.
I showered, hot as I could take it for near on an hour. Got dressed in a pair of Levi’s, frayed and faded, white T-shirt, and a black cardigan from Markies. Looked like a jazz musician, said, ‘Not nice!’
My problem was footwear. My Docs were wasted, caked in blood and dirt. I was down to an old pair of Converse All Stars. There were holes at the edges. I could hear my mother say, ‘They’ve seen better days.’ I thought, Haven’t we all?
I went back down to the bar, grabbed a pack of B amp;H off the shelf, sparked up. The blue smoke was a comfort. Since the ban, pubs don’t quite have the same appeal, the same… atmosphere.
I took time over a pint of Guinness. Less time over the chaser; it became more of a starter.
I was verging on comfortable — there’s something about a good wash and clean clothes that can make you feel like a new man — when in walked Mac. Straight away, he reminded me I inhabited a world of shit.
‘You all right?’ he said.
‘Och, you know… usual.’
‘Fair to fucked.’
‘Sounds about right… The dog, how’d it go?’
‘Those wee bastards,’ Mac strangled the air in front of him, ‘I swear, I ever get my hands on them they’ll need photographs to put them back together.’
He wasn’t kidding. I hit my Guinness. ‘Well, is the dog gonna be okay?’
‘Hard to say, doing X-rays and that. Vet said this kinda thing’s all too common these days.’
I shook my head. ‘When will we know?’
‘Says we can call tomorrow… Can’t do anything else, Gus.’
He was right. The night’s events suddenly seemed to overwhelm me. I was glad to know the dog had survived this far, felt a surge of relief. The exhaustion hit.
Said, ‘I’m gonna hit the hay, mate.’
Thought the sky was coming down.
‘The fuck’s this… Armageddon?’
It was noise to split eardrums. I jumped out of bed, checked the window. Two hardy types rolling steel barrels off the back of a brewery truck. I say rolling: there was more dropping involved. By the look of things, it was just the start too — they had a lorryful to unload.
I opened the window, yelled, ‘Can you keep it the fuck down?’
The pair halted, shrugged shoulders at each other, then the bigger one puffed out his chest from under an England top, said, ‘Geezer, we don’t have a fahkin’ off switch.’ He put his hands together, scrunched his big padded gloves tight. There was a definite bead in his eye. Like I was having that.
‘All right, fine, sorry to trouble you,’ I said. ‘As you are, lads
… Oh, one thing: use the word “geezer” round me again, I’ll install an off switch in your fucking mouth.’
I put eyes on him for a few seconds. Was enough. He turned back to his mate, who was laughing at him.
As I closed the window I heard the barrels start to roll again. Couldn’t say they were any quieter. Least I’d made my point on that score.
Truth told, I was glad to be out of bed. I’d had a restless night. Kept waking, visions of Tam Fulton’s corpse coming back to me. Over and over. It was going to play on me day and night.
Usually I sleep sound as a pound. Few brews, maybe a Jack Daniel’s or ten, and it’s sayonara, suckers. Till last night it was my one great source of escape. But drink will only take you so far when it’s oblivion you’re after. Blackout’s the house next door, and it was a comfortable one until this shit broke. The thought of trudging on without that safe haven at the end of the trail was something that, to say the least, shook me up.
I put on some Clash. Joe Strummer’s demise still taking the shine off them for me, but I was working through it. Felt more for that man’s passing than my own father’s. True fighter. So few of us left.
Put ‘Train in Vain’ on repeat play as I showered again. Still enough blood on me to turn the soap pink. Had it loud enough to drown out the brewery diddies’ best work.
I had a three-day growth. On some this says style. The old designer-stubble look. Me, it yells ‘Jakey’. Maybe a ‘Get a job, y’bum!’ thrown in. I wasn’t far south of Spencer Tracy in The Old Man and the Sea… all I needed was the grey hair to kick in. Still, it was staying for a few more days. My jaw was bruised, tender. Couldn’t match the shiner I had going on with my left eye, but it was running a close second.
‘Real nice look, Gus,’ I told myself.
I put on the old Levi’s again, found a T-shirt with a picture of a Pernod bottle on it — had a stack of them from a failed promo at the pub downstairs. Covered it with a heavy-check flannel. Thought: Kurt Cobain, go spin. Had the man upstaged in the grunge stakes. Tatty All Stars kicking the look down another level. Oh yeah, I was gutter. No boho chic here.
I grabbed my Bensons and headed for the bar.
Mac stood polishing a pint glass. His last business had gone tits up thanks to my involvement with gangsters; minding the bar was helping us both out for now.
‘Morning, Gus.’
‘Is it?’
Sighs. Glass clanged on glass. ‘Get you anything?’
‘Usual.’
‘No’ fancy a bite to eat?’
I’d just sparked up, unplugged the tab, rose quickly. ‘No thanks, usual’s fine… Is that the paper?’
Mac leaned over to pick up the morning paper. The page-one splash made my heart jump: CORSTORPHINE HILL MURDER.
I snatched it from his hand, scanned the text. It was what I thought — the bare bones; the late reporter had got nothing from the filth.
Mac brought over my pint of Guinness, a grim nod towards the paper, said, ‘They were quick.’
‘I tipped them off last night.’
‘You did what?’
