A Decent Ride (6 page)

Aye, it’s great bein wi wee Jinty. Jinty n Jonty, Jonty n Jinty. Sometimes we argue aboot which yin comes first. She’ll go: Jinty n Jonty. Then ah’ll go: Jonty n Jinty. N we’ll hae a big laugh aboot it. Aye we will! Aye sur, aye sur, aye sur. A big laugh. Aye sur, that we will. Aye.

AH HAD A
shift at Liberty Leisure tae pit in. Jonty wouldnae be happy, he’s such a wee prude, but tae me it’s a wee bit extra jist for lyin on yir back or suckin oan something. N some ay the clients: thair patter’s no bad. This one auld boy keeps gaun oan at me tae come wi um, tae Barbados or the South ay France. Ah jist goes, — Aye, right, cool yir jets, auld yin, n cough oot the prices. Hud tae laugh oot loud at that yin!

Ah work ootay this place doon by Leith Walk, cause ah’m no likely tae be spotted doon here in Hoboland, n perr wee Jonty thinks ah’m cleanin offices! Cleanin oot pipes mair like! He asks me if thaire’s foreign lassies fae the likes ay Eastern Europe n Africa whaire ah work n ah goes, — Too right, Jonty, ah’m aboot the only Scottish lassie thaire! N eh ay laughs at that, bless his wee hert.

So this Terry felly wi the wild curly hair is overseein the place while Vic’s off tae Spain. Ye kin tell that bastard Kelvin’s no pleased. But if this Terry keeps him in order then ah’m happy. This Terry but, ah’ve heard eh’s a sleaze bucket, cause eh does they scud films thit go oanline. Eh comes in when Andrea’s pittin Leigh-Anne’s hair intae pleats. That Kelvin but, eh’s lookin at me n goes, — It’s weird the wey you lassies kin spend fuckin donks daein that shite tae each other. Like apes fuckin groomin each other.

He eywis gies ays the creeps, Kelvin does. Eh’s goat two basic looks. The first yin’s a pinched sneer; it’s like eh’s sortay frozen in the act ay stabbin somebody. The second yin’s a dumb scowly face, like eh’s tryin tae work oot if it’s a guid idea tae grass some cunt up. That dark, near-skinheid cut oan that low forehead: ah swear that laddie defies nature cause it’s as if that hair’s advancing acroass it, instead ay recedin. One day it’ll fuckin meet they dark, knotted brows, n hopefully cover up they treacherous dancin eyes.

— No bein sexist or nowt like that, ken, Kelvin goes, — but tae me that shows wir further up the evolutionary ledder than burds. We’ve goat other things tae think aboot besides dressin each other up, eh goes, — like dressin youse doon!

— Guaranteed, Terry goes, but just tae shut Kelvin up. — Mind that Desmond Morris gadge?
The Naked Ape
? Boy hud a comb-ower n telt us aw aboot groomin rituals. He’d say thit youse two daein that means yis fancy each other!

— Git lost! Andrea goes.

— Hi! Dinnae shoot the messenger! The boy wis oan the telly. Comb-ower!

Ah’m lookin at his big mop ay corkscrew curls. — Is that a wig?

— Is it fuck! Gie it a tug, goan!

Eh leans intae ays, so ah dae it. — It feels really soft, n ah kin tell he’s gaunny say something so ah gits it in first, — Soft one end, hard the other, n ah gie um a wink. — It’s the wey tae go bit, ay?

— Guaranteed, eh goes, wi a big smile, as Kelvin’s nippy wee puss goes aw tight.

Anywey, Terry soon diverts ehs attention when Polish Saskia comes in! They aw like her! Ah’ve goat tae go anyway, ah’ve done ma shift n ah’m meetin some ay ma mates before ah git hame tae ma wee Jonty boy.

So wir in the Haymarket Bar. Fiona C’s goat that fringe cut straight n kind ay silly flyaway hair. Ah widnae say she wis a fat hoor, but she’s no exactly skinny! Naturally chunky, wid be the kind description. Angie’s goat dark curly hair, dark eyes n aw, like the fuckin gyppo she is. So wir oan the voddy n Rid Bulls n ah gits tae talkin aboot Sandra’s bairn. It wis born wi that Down’s syndrome and ah sais tae Angie and Fiona C, — Thaire’s nae wey ah’d be bringin up a mongol bairn. No thank you!

— Suppose you’ve goat wee Jonty tae think aboot, Fiona C goes. Straight away she pits her hand tae her mooth. — Ah didnae mean it like that, like ah wis sayin thit wee Jonty’s a mongol! Jist thit eh kin be a bit slow . . .

N ah’m sittin thaire, seethin at this fuckin bitch.

— . . . but ah’m jist gaun by what you sais, Jinty, Fiona C’s nearly beggin now, the fuckin hoor, kens she’s
that
close tae gittin her fuckin cunt kicked right in, — like you huv tae dae everything, n Jonty’s useless! Like ma Phillip! N aw ah’m sayin, Jinty, aw ah’m sayin is, ye widnae want a handicapped bairn tae deal wi n aw.

The fuckin bitch hus begged enough: ah’ll lit it go. Cowbag! — One ay thaim came oot ay ma snatch ah’d be sayin tae the midwife, dinnae bother batterin its back soas it kin breathe, it’s no fuckin well comin hame wi me!

Thaire’s two laddies up at the bar. One’s goat a barry erse.

— It’s different if yuv carried it tae term but, Jinty, felt it grow inside ay ye, Angie sais.

— Suppose.

— Trust ays oan this yin, Jinty. Whin you’ve hud a bairn ay yir ain . . . Her voice goes aw that low wey. — . . . Nae plans fir you n Jonty tae git busy then?

— Busy aw the time, but ah’m no wantin a bairn yit, ay.

— Yir thirty-four but, Jinty, Fiona C goes. — Yuv goat tae think aboot Sandra. She’s forty-three, ah ken, but if ye lit it drift yi’ll be movin intae that zone whin bad things kin happen. Think ay Miscarriage Moira.

She wis right. Moira had miscarriaged eight times – n that wis jist the yins we kent aboot.

Angie sits back, takes a drink, screws her eyes up n looks ootside through the windae. — They tell ays thaire’s gaunny be a proper hurricane.

Fiona C goes, — Like one thit picks up motors n aw that?

— That’s a fuckin tornado, ya dozy hoor, Angie goes.

Hud tae laugh oot loud at that yin, cause Angie’s no far wrong. — What does a fuckin hurricane dae? ah asks thum. — It’s jist strong winds blawin in yir face. Means nowt unless yir by the coast. What’s it thit Evan Barksdale sais the other day? – aw it does is cause flood damage. It’ll be aw they pikey Hobos doon in Leith n Granton thit’ll git it. Proves thit God’s a Jambo!

Fiona C laughs but Angie sais nowt, cause she’s a fuckin Hibee hoor.

Oan that note it’s time tae say farewell but, ay, so ah leaves tae git doon the road tae ma wee felly. It’s blustery ootside. A posh sort ay Jenners cow gits her hat blown off and goes eftir it, but in that slow, auld wey, where ye jist make a total cunt ay yirsel. Hope ah die before ah git that auld.

SEVERAL YEARS BACK,
whilst idly twiddling the radio dial, Jonty MacKay had accidentally stumbled across the shipping reports. He found that listening to them, with their lashing rain and wind FX, made him sleepy. Thus Jonty loved to doze off with the headphones on, curled around Jinty, imagining that he was on a boat that was being tossed on the high seas and lashed at by stinging winds.

Jonty’s instinctive awestruck expression had been curtailed by repeated skelpings across the head by his father, Henry. This punishment was administered every time he caught the boy standing with a fly-catching mouth hanging open. This tuition was so complete that when Henry moved out and was replaced by a stepfather, Billy MacKay, there was no need for the new man to mete out the same punishment, had he been inclined to do so. Those systematic beatings had conditioned Jonty into tightly pursing his lips together. His hair had started to thin and recede at the temples and crown when he was still in his early twenties. In combo with the tight mouth and bug eyes, it gave him a bewildered, but intense, almost slightly professorial bearing. People often initially engaged with Jonty as an eccentric, seerlike man of wisdom.

Jonty had heard news of a storm that was approaching the east coast of Scotland. Then it was suddenly upgraded to hurricane status. This was bad. You didn’t get hurricanes in Scotland. Maybe they would help us down in England, he fretfully considered. Surely the English wouldn’t let anything bad happen to us. Then he’d gone online to research further, but his findings only caused him more alarm.

Jonty learnt that people had already given the hurricane a bad name. Hurricane Bawbag. That is the problem with Scotland, he thought. People are always taking the pish. In the same way they did with him down in The Pub With No Name, they were now laughing at this poor hurricane. It was like taking the pish out of nature, out of God. You were asking for trouble. It’s just as well we have England to keep us right, he considered. They would never mock a hurricane in that way.

The programme changes to a news item.

With Hurricane Bawbag on its way, advice given by the Scottish government spokesperson, Alan McGill, that Scots should simply repair to their local hostelry for the duration of the storm, was condemned as irresponsible. Matthew Wyatt of pressure group EROSS, End Repression of Scotland’s Smokers, said that such advice put Scotland’s smokers in jeopardy. ‘Scotland’s smokers are again being discriminated against by this patently bad steer from the government. They would be better served going home and having a drink, and smoking in comfort, rather than having to brave the elements and step outside in that potential carnage in order to secure a quick puff.’ But today Alan McGill was dismissing his own advice as an off-the-cuff remark and not to be taken seriously
. . .

Jonty is scared. He worries about Jinty, going out in that hurricane. He goes to the Internet, to Face the Future, the website he likes, the one run by American survivalists. He doesn’t know what a survivalist is but it sounds good. Everybody wants to survive.

JUICE TERRY HAD
risen early in order to check on the girls at the Liberty Leisure. Big Liz is back on Control, so he knows that he won’t be bugged with unwanted jobs. The keyboard tells him that she has started her shift.

PICKED YOU UP ON THE SATELLITE OF LOVE.

Terry types back:

HAVE GOT A BIG ROCKET HERE WITH A COUPLE OF ASTEROIDS EITHER SIDE.

Liz retorts:

GET THEM INTO MY ORBIT.

Terry thinks of Joy Division and types:

SHE’S LOST CONTROL AGAIN!

Liz gets him a fare straight away, outside the Scottish Parliament, to take a man out to the airport. At this time of the morning, he’s certain to pick up another one quickly back into the city. The fare is a fat and ruddy man, like most Scottish parliamentarians. It’s a gravy train; a survey showed that election to Westminster added over two stone on to the average Scots MP in their first year of office.

— You in Parliament then, mate?

— Yes.

— MP?

— MSP, Scottish Parliament.

— The boy we had here in Edinburgh South, he got ehs jotters for bringing prossies back tae ehs office in Westminster, Terry says, looking round with one eye closed. — Hope youse urnae up tae that in Holyrood!

— No . . . well, not that I’ve heard of, anyway!

— Aye, keep it clean. Mind you, if ah got the chance, ah’d be right doon thaire tae Westminster. Aw that parliamentary sleaze? Too right, Terry laughs, playfully swiping the dashboard. — But ah’d much rather be in the Hoose ay Lords than a commoner, though, mate, cause ah’ve got a bit ay expertise at pittin a big, thick, hefty piece ay legislation through the second chamber, if ye catch ma drift.

The MSP has a giggle, and Terry thinks it is shaping up to be a good day. Big Liz from Control has him back on the satellite and finds him a businessman at the airport, whom he takes into the financial centre, before it’s time to head to Liberty Leisure.

Customarily outgoing in the company of women, Terry finds himself oddly diffident stepping into the backstreet office that nestles in the bottom of a tenement building in a nondescript street off Leith Walk. Despite having absolutely no scruples about his low-level involvement in the pornography industry (he and his friend Sick Boy have made about thirty movies of varying quality, many of which he’s starred in), prostitution has always disquieted Terry.

It is the men.

Clients come in at all hours. He is most surprised by the office employees who arrive early for a session with the girl of their choice before work. Many are young, their sex lives wrecked by small children or post-natally depressed partners, but who seek to avoid the complications of an office affair. He tries to understand them as he watches them come and go, some in sneaky guilt, others with a swaggering arrogance. It isn’t good for business though, Terry reflects, to display overt disdain for clients, and it might get back to The Poof. They never seem to bother Kelvin though; it is Terry who cops most of his hostile vibes.

Terry considers how this is pretty much inevitable, given the unspecified but vaguely supervisory role in which The Poof has cast him, thereby building conflict and distrust into the relationship. The girls, once they figured out that he was there to monitor the detested Kelvin, are generally sound with Terry, enjoying a mug of tea and a laugh with him.

Kelvin is particularly edgy today, responding to Terry’s overtures in gruff monosyllables, so despite enjoying the girls’ company, he is glad to leave and return to the cab.

It’s a cold, blustery day, and Edinburgh is bracing itself for its first officially designated hurricane in living memory, which is to hit the town later this evening. Many people prepare by selecting the pub most expedient to get stuck in, and the town is already empty. Terry picks up a couple of fares, then some messages from his supplier, Rehab Connor, down in Inverleith, and drops them off to clients in Marchmont and Sighthill.

It is the afternoon by the time he gets back into the city centre. Locating the backstreet New Town hostelry of his choice, the Bar Cissism, Terry parks the cab outside on the cobbled road. It is a darkly lit spot, full of busy-looking professionals. Terry takes a number, B37, like the ones issued in government offices. Moving to a vantage point at the bar, he nurses a fresh orange juice, scrutinising a sea of occupied tables. When his number comes up, Terry saunters towards a wholesome-looking brunette, sitting down in front of her. He knows how he will play this one.