I look like a fucking pantomime villain. If I grew a moustache I’d be Dick Dastardly.
Danny Skinner knew that although he was relatively young in his department, his sharp tongue was respected and feared, even by some of his elders and superiors, who had seen it mercilessly deployed on several occasions. More than that, he was good at his job: popular, bright and well liked. And yet he was starting to sense a growing disapproval from some senior colleagues regarding his drinking and his often cavalier, irreverent attitude.
But so many of them are corrupt bastards, like Foy.
He jumped on a 16 bus and got off at the east end of town. In Cockburn Street he met his favourite colleague, Shannon McDowall, coming into the Chambers from the back entrance and they took the lift to the fifth floor. In the workplace she was the one person Skinner really talked to, beyond superficialities, and they often enjoyed a casual flirtatiousness with each other. He couldn’t believe how prim Shannon looked in her long brown skirt, yellow blouse and light brown cardigan. Her hair was pinned up. All that hinted at the vivacious, clubby, girl-about-town of the weekends was the shit-eating grin she wore. — Awright, Dan? Good weekend?
— Must have been, Shan, must have been, I remember nothing about it, Skinner said. — Yourself?
— Yeah, me and Kevin were at Joy. It was a brilliant night, Shannon leered.
— Good for you. Any naughtiness?
Shannon’s voice dropped to a whisper and she looked around, pulling a loose strand of hair back from across her face. — Just one pill, but I was up all night.
Fuck just one pill, Skinner thought, and then with a sideways glance considered, fuck Shannon as well. But he’d never cheat on Kay, and anyway, Shannon had that boyfriend, Kevin, the up-himself-cunt with the weird hair. No, he’d never deceive Kay, but it would be great to screw Shannon’s brains out, just to piss that Kevin cunt off, Skinner thought, then felt a rush of shame.
Shannon’s okay, a mate. You cannae think about friends in that way. It’s the alcohol: it leaves a taint of sleaze, of dirt in your mind. Mix it with cocaine and in large quantities and over long periods of time and you’re probably heading for the beast’s register. I’ve got tae fuckin well –
He remembered the time that he and Kay were at a club in the West End, and they met Shannon and Kevin. It ought to have been a cosy foursome, but he and Kevin never hit it off for some reason, neither, he could tell, did Shannon and Kay. It wasn’t so pronounced as to be an instant dislike on either side, as things were superficially friendly enough, but the mutual antipathy was apparent.
Different lassies, Skinner thought. Kay was the youngest in her family with two much older brothers, the spoiled little Princess. When Shannon was a teenager and still at school, her mother had died unexpectedly, her father subsequently going to pieces. This meant that she’d effectively had to bring up her younger brother and sister. Skinner looked at her rounded face in profile, saw that focus and strength in her eyes. She caught him admiring her and shot him a disarming smile, like a sun coming out from behind a cloud.
On the first floor a skinny guy in a blue C&A suit shuffled nervously into the lift. Something about the boy’s awkwardness made Skinner feel sorry for him and he smiled at the guy before noting that Shannon did too.
Skinner’s guts were in turmoil from the beer and curry at the weekend and a viscous, silent eye-stinging killer of a fart slipped out off him, as poignantly weeping as a lover’s last farewell, just as the lift stopped at the next floor to let in two men wearing overalls. Everybody suffered in silence. As the workmen got off at the following level, Skinner seized the opportunity, announcing, — That is minging, looking towards the departing workies. He knew that when it came to farting everybody turned into Old Etonian High Court judges. Men would always be suspected before women and men in working clothes would always be blamed before men in suits. Those were the rules.
Danny Skinner and Shannon McDowall were making their way to the office, when the thin guy in the suit stopped them and asked for directions. He really was an emaciated youth, Skinner thought: all skin and bone. From the front he looked as though he’d been run over by a steamroller, while at the side elevation he displayed a matchstick-thin body with a slightly oversized head. But he was open-faced enough, with freckled skin and fairish brown hair.
— Follow us, Skinner smiled again, making the introductions.
They took the new lad, Brian Kibby his name was, into the open-plan office. Foy was late, so they made him a coffee and introduced him to everyone. — We won’t take you round till Bob comes, Brian, Shannon explained, because he’ll have his own induction programme planned. So, how was your weekend?
Brian Kibby started to enthusiastically recount his weekend. After a bit Skinner felt himself switching off, as the hangover kicked in. He noted the copy of Game Informer the new guy had taken from his bag, and picked it up. He wasn’t a big video-game player, but his friend Gary Traynor had loads, and often press-ganged him into playing. He saw a review of one that Traynor had mentioned, Midnight Club 3: Dub Edition.— Ever played this one? he asked Kibby.
— It’s brilliant! Kibby said, his voice going high. — I don’t think I’ve ever played a game where you got as much a sense of speed as this one. And it’s not just racing; so much of the emphasis is on customising your wheels so you spend a lot of the time in the garage pimping rides.
— Phoar, Skinner exclaimed, — that sounds right up my street, pimping rides!
Kibby blushed red. — It’s no . . . it isnae . . .
Shannon cut in: — Danny was only joking, Brian. He’s the office comedian, she smiled.
Brian Kibby got back in his flow about the game. Skinner’s growing lack of interest turned into mild contempt when Kibby embarrassingly had to open his box containing a model train, after being pressed by Shannon to explain its contents. He also had, in his bag, McGhee had noticed, a Manchester United hat. — So you’re a Man U fan, Brian? he’d asked Kibby.
— No, I dinnae like football, but I like Manchester United because they’re the biggest team in the world, so you’ve got to follow them, Kibby squeaked eagerly, remembering a family holiday in Skegness, where he and his father had watched the 1999 European Cup Final in the hotel. It was there that he’d bought the hat, which, since Keith’s illness, had taken on a sentimental attachment.
Oh my God, Skinner thought, Shannon will talk to him. He excused himself and slumped into the chair of his desk by the window.
This place is full of annoying, straight pricks who just dae your fuckin heid in with their home, garden and golf bullshit. That churchy old cunt Aitken’ll be in soon . . .
. . . and now the new boy, he’s as straight as fuck n aw . . .
Skinner acknowledged his disappointment, realising that he’d secretly wanted another drinking partner-in-crime. He glanced across at Kibby.
Fucking incorruptibly straight. The whiny fucking voice . . .
Those big, camel eyes radiated enthusiasm, but Skinner also thought he could witness, on fleeting occasion, a sneaky calculation in them, which maybe afforded a clue to a less wholesome side of this Kibby guy’s nature.
As Aitken, then Des Moir, a perpetually cheerful middle-aged guy, trooped in wet and damp and made their coffees and shook hands with Kibby, it seemed to Skinner that only he could see this dupli-citous streak in the new boy.
I’ll fucking well keep an eye on that cunt.
A volley of hailstones urgently rattled the large windows, which, despite their size, only at certain times of the day seemed to let in enough light. This was due to the proximity of taller buildings on the other side of the Royal Mile, that narrow thoroughfare which ran from Castle to Palace, a place where sovereign powers once sat, but now essentially just a large open-plan museum.
Skinner stood up to look out at the pedestrians below running for cover. A soaked man, his grey suit made black across the back and shoulders, face red with bombardment from hailstones, scurried into an arched
close, peering out with impotent belligerence in the face of the weather’s assault. It was only when he plucked up the nerve to make the dash across the forecourt and his face came into sharper focus that Skinner recognised him as Bob Foy.
Delighted at his boss’s discomfort, Skinner sank into his chair. As befitting his status, it had no armrests. There was a leather-wrapped football tankard on his desk, with a black-and-white Notts County FC crest, in which he kept pens and pencils. As the strip lighting above bounced off the paper on his desk and into his head, how he wished that it was full of refreshing lager.
Just one fucking pint tae get me going. That’s all I ask.
He thought about toughing it out till lunchtime, when perhaps Dougie Winchester upstairs might have similar needs. Winchester, stuck up in his garret, a small office-cum-broom-cupboard at the top of an old staircase, the struggling council piss artist that the non-job had been found for.
Dead wood, just waiting tae be chopped oot by some cunt ruthless enough to wield the axe. And he’ll be along soon, no doubt about that, chavy.
In his mind’s eye he could see Winchester’s ashen face, now almost neckless, and the dead, sunken eyes with the thinning hair swept across the balding pate, a display of vanity so ludicrous that it could only be contemplated by a clinically depressed old fucker. Skinner recalled a particularly dismal conversation he’d had in the pub with him, one Friday after work. — Of course, as ye git aulder, sex becomes less important, Winchester had contended. Skinner looked at him in his shiny suit, reckoning that he was stating the obvious. — Och aye, ye still like the idea ay sex, but it becomes too much faffin aboot. Too uncomfortable and sweaty, Danny son. A nice wank, or a blow job fae a tasty wee hoor, och aye, that’s bliss. But see aw this tryin tae satisfy a woman; too much ay a burden, too uncomfortable. Ma second wife couldnae get enough. Aw they friction burns on the welt, scrotum and inside ay the thighs. Nae use. Nae use at aw.
In his hard office chair, Danny Skinner squirmed, chilling as he tried to think of how many times he and Kay had made love last weekend. Only once, a violently sweaty hangover-cure fuck on Saturday morning, devoid of any sensuality. No, there was also a drunken one on Saturday night he could scarcely recall.
She should be having sex with an athlete, not a fucking jakey . . .
Sitting up, Skinner saw Foy appear and his torn face mould into an avuncular grin as he noted the presence of Kibby. He winked, rubbed his cold hands together and led the new boy upstairs to the mezzanine and his office.
Another fucking clone, another Foy arse-licking sycophant. Somebody else who’ll be right up the hole of cunts like that fat fandan Chef De Fretais!
6
Little France
IT SNOWED LAST night. Some of the gritter lorries are out but there seems no need as it’s all gone into slush. This kind of weather always gets me thinking about how tough it must be to work on a farm. You get an idea of it from Harvest Moon. Just a big, long slog, where, before you know it, it’s morning once more and you have to get up and do it all over again. It annoys me when they show you farmers on television, always standing around, lazing about or drinking in country pubs. I once said to Dad, ‘they don’t have time for that,’ and he agreed. That kind of life would just kill most people. The likes of us city folk in offices don’t know how lucky we are.
Nup, I wouldnae want to be outside in this. We’re in Dad’s car and I’m driving us out to the new hospital at Little France via the city bypass. We’ve all been pretty silent on the journey. It’s making Mum nervous and she says something about the snow up on the hills at the Pentlands, but Caroline is just sitting in the back reading her book.
— Wonder if it’ll snow again later? Mum asks, pushing it. — Looks like snow clouds to me. Then she turns to me and says,
— Sorry, son, I shouldnae be distracting you while you’re driving. Caroline, a wee bit of conversation from you would be welcome.
Caroline lets out a sharp exhalation of breath and puts her book on to her lap. — I need to read this book for my course, Mum, or should I just jack in the university because I haven’t done the required reading?
— No . . . my mum says quickly, and she’s sorry, you can tell, because she knows how much Dad wants Caroline to do well at the uni.
It should be good at Christmas; it always was before, always the best time. No now but.
I’ve got to be really careful about who I marry. It’s not something you can just rush into. I’ve narrowed it down to five candidates:
Ann
Karen
Muffy
Elli
Celia
Ann is sweet and reliable, but I like Karen cause she’s really friendly. I sort of like Muffy as well, but I’m no quite so sure about her. I think that she’s the kind of girl that Dad would describe as ‘dodgy’! Elli’s dead nice as well, and though I don’t want to rule out Celia, I think she may have to go from the list.
We pull into the car park and Mum and I share the brolly as the rain is now coming down hard. Caroline could share too if she wanted tae, but she just puts the hood up on her red sweatshirt and wraps her arms around herself and strides quickly across the tarmac to get under the canopy above the gateway to the entrance.
When we get on to the ward I’m nervous as I approach my dad’s bed. As I see him I feel a terrible force rising in me, it seems like it’s coming up from the lino floor through the soles of my leather brogues, and for a second I think that I’m going to pass out. I take a deep breath but it’s all I can do to bring myself to look at his gaunt, tired face. Something hangs heavily inside me. I have to admit to something that I couldn’t accept before: my dad is fading fast. He’s just skin and bone and I see now that we’ve all just been pretending – me, mum and even Caz in our different ways – that it’s all going to be okay.
I’m so shocked at my father’s decline it takes me a couple of seconds tae register that there’s this guy standing by the side of his bed. I haven’t met him before. He’s a big man, quite rough-looking, though Dad always says that you can’t go by appearances, which is true. He doesn’t introduce himself and Dad doesnae introduce him either, he doesnae shake hands, he only nods to us all, then heads off pretty quickly. I think he was embarrassed that he’d intruded on the family’s time, but it was good of him to come.
— Who was that guy, Dad? Caroline asks. I can see my mum looking worried, cause she obviously doesn’t know who the guy is either.
— Just an old friend, my dad wheezes.
— A chap from the railways it’ll be, Mum coos. — From the railways, Keith?
— The railways . . . Dad says, but like he’s thinking of something else.
— See, the railways, Mum says, now seeming pacified.
— What was his name? Caroline asks, her brow furrowed.
Dad goes to speak and he seems really uncomfortable, but Mum cuts in, grabbing his hand, and says to Caz, — Don’t tire your dad out, Caroline, then she turns to Dad and says, — Tired?
It was unusual cause my dad doesn’t have many friends, he’s always been more of a family man. But yes, it was good of the man to come.
When I speak I know that I’m trying hard to make it right for Dad, as if to convince him that I’m okay . . . like before we part. But I’m not okay, I know that much. The job is working out fine and they’re all very nice, well, most of them, although I wouldn’t want to get on Bob Foy’s wrong side.
The person I don’t get on with that much is that Danny Skinner. It’s funny, because he was nice to me the day I started, he smiled at me in the lift and introduced me to everyone. But since then he’s been funny, a bit sarky. It’s probably cause I get on well with Shannon and I think he might fancy her. I heard that he’s got a girlfriend but there are some rats around whae that doesnae make a difference to, they’ll just use lassies.
You read in the papers about the likes of David Beckham. There’s girls claiming that he’s going with them when his wife’s having a baby. I
used to like David Beckham, so I hope it’s not true and that those girls are all just money-grubbers.
I wonder if Shannon fancies me! Probably no cause she’s two and a half years older than me, but that’s nothing really. I know that she likes me!
I look at Caroline. She has this terrible tension in her eyes. I know things are horrible but she should try and make an effort to smile, for Dad’s sake, or even Mum’s. I worry that Caroline’s getting in with a bad crowd. She did so well in getting into Edinburgh Uni, but I saw her going down the road the other day with that Angela Henderson lassie, her that’s working in the baker’s now. That Angela’s exactly the kind of lassie who would make false allegations about the likes of David Beckham if there wis any money in it for her. I won’t let the likes of that drag Caroline down.
Dad’s breathing is shallower and quite laboured and he’s talking about the railways. He seems dislocated and confused. It’s probably all the drugs they’re giving him but Mum’s finding it really upsetting. He’s ranting a little, and I see agitation in his eyes, like he really wants to make a point.
He signals for me to get close to him and he squeezes my hand with a power you wouldn’t believe was possible for somebody so ill. — Don’t you make the same mistakes I did, son . . .
My mum hears this, starts sobbing and says, — You never made any mistakes, Keith. Never! Then she turns to Caroline and me and forces a strange smile. — What mistakes? Silly!
My dad won’t let go of my hand though. — Be honest, son . . . he wheezes at me,— . . . to thine own self be true . . .
— Okay, Dad, I say, and I sit with him as his grip releases and he zones off into unconsciousness. A nurse comes along and tells us to let him rest for a bit. I don’t want to, I want to stay here, I feel like if I go I’ll never see him again.
But she insists, says he’ll be comfortable and needs to rest. I suppose they know best.
We’re quieter than ever on the journey back. When I get in I head upstairs and grab the hooked stick, pulling down the attic hatch, freeing the aluminium stepladder. As I got older I could see that it hurt Dad that I still came up here so much. He’d hear the step-ladder being pulled down, the snap of the aluminium, its strain and creaks as I pulled myself up. I know that it angered him, although he seldom said anything. Sometimes a shake of the head from him made me feel so very small. Like I felt outside and at school. But up here I was away from them all, McGrillen and that lot. They picked on me because I wasn’t like them. I didn’t always know what to say, I wasn’t interested in football or the bands that they liked, or raves or drugs, and because I was shy around girls. And the girls could be even more horrible: Susan Halcrow, Dionne McInnes, that Angela Henderson . . . all that sort. I can tell that kind of filthy tart a mile away. I nearly died when I saw Caroline with that dirty tramp of a Henderson lassie. I know it’s not really the girls’ fault, it’s the families they come from that are to blame.