A Decent Ride (3 page)

Maggie, comforting and placating a pent-up Stevie, has guided him away from Terry, in the hope that he’ll cool off. As she glances across at Terry, she recalls their early trysts, how she (perversely now) preferred him to the sweet and successful Carl Ewart, who had such a hopeless crush on her. But Terry had possessed that bombastic confidence, which obviously hadn’t changed. And, it has to be said, from his cocky bearing, perched at the bar on a stool, that he looks well. He is obviously taking care of himself and still, implausibly, has those force-of-nature corkscrew curls. They seem not to have thinned or receded at all, though she suspects he runs Grecian 2000 through them.

Maggie is thus moved to give her own reflection a surreptitious glance in one of the full-length windows, pretending to be looking outside into the darkness. As a younger woman, her small body and breasts had never felt much of a blessing, but as she drew close to her forties, Maggie had grown grateful for them. There was little for the hungry ravages of gravity to work with, and any potential traction was thwarted by a four-times-a-week gym regime, an obsession with healthy eating and the discipline of moderate food portions. Maggie also finds it hard to pass a spa, and indulges in high-end skincare products and exfoliation treatments. That she is often genuinely taken for her daughter’s elder sister is a great source of quiet pride to this elfin woman.

She turns to see that Terry has caught her lingering glance of self-regard. Her heart sinks as a smile splits his face and he moves over, waving a lecturing finger. — Aye, caught ye thaire, checkin yersel oot in the gless! No that ah blame ye mind, ah’m likin what ah’m seein n aw!

Maggie feels an invisible hand tear her face into a smile. — Well, you look very well yourself, Terry.

— Goat tae make an effort but, ay, Terry winks extravagantly.

He hasn’t changed, Maggie thinks. He never changes. She looks back across to the fire. Stevie has a whisky in his hand, and is thanking some elderly guests for coming.

— So how’s things? Terry asks, and before she can inform him, answers on her behalf. — Big changes wi the divorce n the lassie bein away at college, or so ah’m hearin.

— Aye, well, impeccable sources. Maggie raises her glass of whisky to her lips.

— Aw oan yir lonesome, Terry beams, pitching it as a statement.

Maggie chooses to answer it as a question. — Who says ah’m on my lonesome?

— So thaire’s a new felly? Well, eh’s a lucky laddie! Tell ye that for nowt!

— I never said that either.

— Well, what is it then?

— ‘It’ is my life, and it’s none of your business!

Terry spreads his arms. — Hi! Kin ye no comfort an auld pal in her hour ay need?

Maggie is about to retort that Terry’s attempt at mass comforting at the funeral speech has given him near-pariah status, but now Stevie is tearing towards them, murder in his eyes. — What was aw that aboot? That speech, he confronts Terry, in bug-eyed rage.

— Wis a tough balance, Terry nods, seemingly oblivious to Stevie’s seething anger. — Ah wanted tae keep it
Alec-friendly
but at the same time gie the family some closure, ay. He nods semi-smugly. — Ah think ah pilled it oaf if ah say so masel, and he pulls out his mobile phone and goes into photographs. — Ah took some pictures oan the mobby, like that Damien Hirst gadge. Huv a shuftie, and he thrusts the camera phone in Stevie’s face.

Stevie had never been close to Alec, but seeing the image of his father’s head frozen into a block of ice, with yellow vomit trailing from the mouth, is too much to bear. — Ah dinnae want tae see that! Git the fuck oot ay here!

— C’moan, mate! Closure!

Stevie lunges to grab Terry’s phone, but Terry shoves him in the chest and he stumbles backwards. — C’moan now, pal, yir makin an exhibition ay yirsel here . . . Alec’s day but, ay . . . Terry warns.

— FUCK . . . FUCK YOU, LAWSON! Stevie stammers, as two relatives are on hand to pull him away. — Cunt’s fuckin mental . . . ye see what he’s got on that phooooone . . . Stevie’s voice rises to breaking levels, as he is protestingly hauled off to the other side of the room.

Terry turns to Maggie. — Ye try n gie some cunts, the family n that, a wee bit ay closure n git nae fuckin thanks!

— You’re crazy, Maggie says, and not in a flattering way, her eyes bulging in disbelief. — You huvnae changed!

— Keepin it real, Terry says proudly, but Maggie tears across the room to comfort her cousin. She always was a snooty wee cow, he thinks. Besides, Stevie never got on with Alec, what’s the hypocrite doing, playing the grieving son?

And now The Poof has caught his eye and is heading across to him. Despite rarely dressing in anything other than expensive designer suits and button-down shirts, there is always something slightly soiled-looking about The Poof. It’s as if he’s slept all night in his clothes and just been disturbed into consciousness. This impression is reinforced by the fact that The Poof is almost blind, his permanently screwed-up mole eyes adding to his sleepy demeanour. For a man who sadistically enjoys violence, he is paradoxically squeamish about anything to do with his eyes. Laser surgery is no-go, and he even baulks at fiddling with contacts. The Poof is also prone to heavy perspiration, thus clothes quickly look grubby on him. He has driven Edinburgh’s (and some of London’s) finest tailors to despair; despite their best efforts, around four hours will see him go from spruce to loose. The Poof’s younger sidekick, his face all tight angles, is backed up against the brickwork pillar in the centre of the bar, drink in hand, slyly scanning the gathering’s few younger women.

Terry turns back to The Poof. He recalls how everybody got called a ‘poof’ at Forrester High School in the seventies. Back then, only ‘wanker’ possibly rivalled it as the most common term of abuse. But The Poof was
the
Poof. Continuously bullied, rather than take the stock revenge route of joining the polis to get payback on the world, The Poof had gone against the grain and become gangster no. 1.

Of course, Terry knows that The Poof, strictly speaking, isn’t homosexual, and that he is one of few folk who still refers to him by that old school moniker. This is dangerous, as The Poof has worked his way up through the ranks by being a wide, vicious bastard. However, in Terry’s consciousness, part of Victor Syme will always be the dippit wee cunt in the brown duffel coat, whom he regularly took a crusty roll and crisps off of from outside the baker van at school break.

The game-changer for The Poof was his totally left-field attack with a sharpened screwdriver on Evan Barksdale. Barksdale was a bully: a twin who, along with his brother Craig, pursued a campaign of systematic, unremitting viciousness that pushed The Poof into the frenzied, psychotic bloodletting that instantly caused the world, and Victor Syme himself, to redefine his street status. Evan Barksdale, like a scheme Dr Frankenstein, had unwittingly created a monster substantially more dangerous than he, or his brother, could ever hope to be. Of course, The Poof had met with some pain and grief along his violence-strewn personal road to Damascus, but Barksdale’s persecution had schooled him well; everything else was insignificant compared to the psychic torture he’d already undergone.

On The Poof’s approach, Terry feels his buttocks clench involuntarily. There’s going to be trouble. He has done some business with The Poof before, delivering cocaine to the sailors at the naval base in Helensburgh, before a security crackdown had burnt his fingers and made it too dangerous a market. — Terry . . . A familiar fetid cabbage-stalk breath assails him.

— Sorry, Vic. On reflection, ah realise it wis in bad taste . . . the speech likes, Terry concedes, again checking out where The Poof’s young accomplice is situated.

— Fuck that! It was brilliant! Some cunts huv nae sense ay humour. The Poof shakes his head. — Alec would be laughin his heid oaf. The day wis aboot him, no thaim, and he flashes a reprimanding sneer over at the grieving family.

Terry is so relieved, he lets his defences fall, showing a greater receptiveness to The Poof’s subsequent pitch than would normally be the case. — Listen. Ah need a wee favour. I’m off tae Spain for a wee spell, two or three weeks, mibbe mair. The Poof drops his voice. — Between you n me, ah’m gittin a wee bit ay heat here. I need you tae keep an eye oan the sauna. Liberty, the one doon by Leith Walk.

Terry feels his meagre nod slowing to immobility. — Eh, ah dinnae really ken that much aboot saunas . . .

— Nowt tae ken. The Poof waves a dismissive, ring-covered hand. — Besides, ah hear yir still at that porno vid stuff, wi that cunt, what’s his name again, him doon in London?

— Sick Boy, aye. Now and again. A wee hobby. Nae poppy in it but, ay.

The Poof raises a doubtful eyebrow. — Just check in a couple ay times a week, and he glances at his young cohort, now putting a sandwich and sausage roll onto a paper plate. — Keep that taxin wee cunt Kelvin, he’s the wife’s younger brother, and they fuckin nippy hoors on their taes . . . or thair backs. His face creases in a grin. — Make sure it’s the doonstairs lips that’s gittin wide, n no the upstairs yins!

Terry knows he should be sharing a collusive cackle, but feels his features sinking south. This is hassle he doesn’t need.

The Poof is far too astute not to realise that threats are a last resort in securing compliance, and that, in the first instance, winning hearts and minds always works best. — Obviously, thaire’s free cowps in it for ye, oan the hoose. Some nice goods n aw.

— Fair dos, Terry says, unable to stop the words spilling from his mouth, even though a part of him is outraged. He has genuinely never paid for sex, and he tells The Poof this.

— We aw pey for it in some weys, The Poof observes.

Terry considers his three previous divorce settlements and the CSA harassment he’s been subjected to, and can’t dispute this. — Yir no wrong. Ah’ll swing by later.

— Kent ah could count on you, buddy. The Poof gleefully, and not too lightly, punches Terry’s shoulder. — Kelvin! he shouts to the sidekick, who pivots, tuned like a dog to a high-pitched whistle, and bounds over.

— Terry, this is Kelvin. Kelv, Terry’s gaunny be helping ye oot at Liberty while ah’m away.

— Ah telt ye, ah dinnae need –

— Done deal, The Poof waves his protests down. — Be nice, he warns.

Kelvin seems to contemplate this, before dispensing Terry a curt, gunfighter nod, which is returned in equally minimal measure. The Poof, catching the vibe, attempts to introduce levity by throwing out some football inanities. If Terry had wanted to extricate himself before, he is now determined to do so. He likes football, watches it on TV and still occasionally goes to Hibs games, but regards it as utterly pointless as a general topic of conversation. He excuses himself and goes to look for Maggie, deciding that it’s time to build bridges. He finds her standing alone by the bar, drinking whisky, seemingly in deep contemplation. He grabs a glass from the table and holds it up to her. — Absent friends?

She reluctantly clinks drinking vessels.

— Sorry aboot the speech. Ah jist thoat it was what Alec wid’ve wanted.

— But what aboot what ma cousin wanted?!

Terry is delighted that the alcohol has brushed aside the professional refinement and Maggie’s tones are, once again, straight out of Broomhouse. — Ah admit, ah wis wrong. Ah didnae think aboot that, Terry nods. The truth is that his speech was partially pitched as a wind-up to Stevie. Alec was a jakey, yes, but at least he had a good heart, unlike his own father, and Stevie had never appreciated that.

— You n him were close, Maggie says.

— He wis one ay the best, n we wir great mates for years, Terry agrees, then his face tightens teasingly. — Mind ay how him and I first met? Through you!

Maggie blushes through her whisky glow. — Aye . . . she says, evoking a younger, previous self to Terry, and with enough flirtation in it for him to feel encouraged.

After another couple of drinks, their chary joint exit follows, with a stroll down Newhaven Road. It is cold and wet, and there are no taxis around. They take the gamble of pushing on to Ferry Road and the only vehicles in the vicinity are the heavy lorries that whip menacingly past them, bound for Leith Docks. Terry senses Maggie is quickly going off any boil she might have been on, but thankfully, a cab approaches, driven by Cliff Blades, a drinking friend of Terry’s from the Taxi Club in Powderhall. — Hop in, Terry! Blades cheerfully sings in his English accent, before he notices their demeanour, dress and locale, and puts two and two together. — Ah . . . you’ve been at the crematorium . . . sorry for your loss. Anyone close?

— Naw, it wis the cemetery, ay. Aye, her uncle, Terry sombrely nods to Maggie, — and a very close pal ay mine. Maggie, this is ma mate Bladesey, and he forces levity into his tone. — Dinnae get him started on Scottish nationalism, for fuck’s sake.

— Scottish
independence
please, Bladesey ticks.

— No, I won’t be doing that, she says pointedly.

Cliff Blades, despite being English, is a keen advocate of Scottish independence, while Maggie, though privately convinced of the argument, still holds the Labour Party whip in the council chambers.

Bladesey is known to be discreet and drops Terry and Maggie off at her place in Craigleith. Terry is surprised how rampant she is, how Maggie leads him straight to the bedroom without any pleasantries. Surely he couldn’t have expected her to be the chaste, demure teenager he’d encountered in this scenario all those years back? It seems that Maggie is just pleased to get a bit of solid cock inside her, with no questions asked. He’d heard the split from this Colin guy had been long and protracted. Now with her daughter at university, she can let rip again.

And they do, with gusto.

Later, as they are lying in bed, and Terry is looking at his watch, wondering how long it will take him to get another erection after just spending himself (he reckons somewhere between three and four minutes), they hear the sound of the key in the door coming from downstairs.

— What . . . Maggie sits up, torn out of a satisfying post-coital doze, — what’s that . . .?