Glue (57 page)

— Kathryn Joyner, a top head . . . Lisa said in an enchanted endorsement.

Catarrh saw his chance and moved in. He started dancing with Kathryn, pulling her in towards the heart of the bass. Kathryn felt herself being swept along with the groove in a bouncy rush. Catarrh was an old soul boy, and he really knew how to dance to house music.

Juice Terry and Rab Birrell looked on from the bar in mounting dismay though Rab managed to draw considerable comfort from the fact that Terry looked even more upset than he did.

Terry couldn’t stand it any longer, he decided to head to the toilet,
maybe take a line ay that charlie. He didn’t go out so much these days, but when he did, he preferred charlie to E’s. In fact, he didn’t know why he’d taken a pill. The booths were full of people doing lines though, and it was better to save the charlie for later. Standing at the latrine, Terry whipped out his cock and did a long E pish, the kind that never seem to be finished, even when they are.

Not enjoying the sensation that he was pissing his troosers and continually checking to make sure that it was just an illusion, Terry tried to fix his hair then exited. Outside the toilet, three girls, done up to the nines in club gear, were talking, smoking cigarettes. One in particular looked stunning to him. She’d made a real effort and he always appreciated lassies that did that. He approached cheerfully and said, — You look gorgeous, doll, it hus tae be said.

The girl looks this fat guy in the strange threads up and down. — And you look auld enough tae be ma faither, she replies.

Terry winks at her pals then smiles at the girl, — Aye, and ah would’ve been n aw if that pit bull terrier hudnae been chewin oan yir Ma’s minge at the time, he states cheerfully, exiting with the laughter of the lassie’s friends sweet music in his ears.

Terry got back to the bar where Rab was still standing, watching Johnny and Kathryn dancing. — John Boy’s enjoying ehsel.

— That’s the only wey Catarrh kin bag off. Stick oan a white shirt, neck an ecky and dance wi a bird that’s E’d up, Terry sneered. Although he’d put that cheeky fucker outside the toilets in her place, he was still rankled at her comment. He looked at Birrell and Catarrh. The five or six years between him and them seemed more like ten. Somewhere between his age and theirs, gadges had started to look after themselves a bit better. Terry lamented the fact that he was just on the wrong side of a cultural schism.

Catarrh was well into his pills, and he loved the way they made him effortlessly surrender to the beat. He put Kathryn through a pretty gruelling shuffle on that dancefloor, waiting until the glistening beads of sweat which formed on her head underneath those strobes merged into their first rivulet, before taking that as his cue to nod across to some free seats in the chill-out area.

— You sure can dance, Johnny, Kathryn said as they sat down close to each other and pulled on the Volvic. Johnny had a chaste arm round her thin torso which felt good for them both. There was something really fresh and beautiful about this boy, Kathryn told
herself, feeling the pill flutter through her as she luxuriantly spread her arms.

— Ah play guitar n aw, ken. That’s how ah got ma name, Johnny Guitar. Played in bands fir years. Ah love dance music, but ma first love is rock ’n’ roll. Guitar, eh.

— Guitar, Kathryn smiled, looking searchingly into Johnny’s magnificent, dark eyes.

— Aye, see thir wis this boy called Johnny ‘Guitar’ Watson n that wis barry cos wi baith played guitar n hud the same name eh. That wis how ah goat the name Johnny Guitar, eftir the boy. Black boy likes, American n that.

— Jahnny Guitar Wahtson, I guess I’ve heard of him, Kathryn lied, in that vague American stoner way, which seemed designed not to cause too much offence.

— Ah like ma acoustic, but ah kin be the mad axe warrior fae hell whin ah like tae n aw. And wir no jist talkin aboot a few Status Quo numbers or
Smoke an the Water
here . . . so, Catarrh prepared his pitch, — . . . if yir ever needin a guitarist, ah’m yir man.

— I’ll bear that in mind, Johnny, Kathryn said, stroking the back of his hand.

This was all the encouragement Catarrh needed. A myriad of opportunities shuffled through his brain. Elton John and George Michael on stage in a massive, televised, stadium charity extravaganza, when who should come on, from each wing, wielding their axes, looking cool and focused, but with those slightly ironic, knowing nods to the audience and the cameras, but Eric Clapton and Johnny Guitar. Elton and George would ceremoniously bow and wave each axeman to the front where a blistering, showy-but-tight-as-a-duck’s-arse guitar duet building up to new heights through its twenty-minute duration would be picked and battered from the strings of those Gibson Les Pauls by the legendary guitar hands, sending the audience into a state of uncontrolled rapture. Then Elton and George would move back to the front of the house and recommence
Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me
and a close camera shot would reveal, to billions of viewers, the tears streaming down Elton’s face, so overwrought would he be at the blinding performance of the maestros. At the end of the song, he’d completely break down and implore: — Come back on . . . Eric . . . Johnny . . . and the two axemen would look at each other sagely, in mutual respect, shrug and reappear to the biggest cheer of the night. Catarrh would stride forward confidently (his talent deemed that he
had a right to such a stage) but not arrogantly (he was, after all, still an ordinary guy from the Calders, that was why the punters loved him) and give that slightly self-deprecating smile which made the guys envious and the chicks wide and wet in the nether regions.

Elton would extravagantly hug the maestros, overcome with emotion. Hysterically and in halting sobs he’d introduce them as ‘. . . my great friends . . . Mr Eric Clapton and Mr Johnny Guitar . . .’ before being led from the mic by a sympathetic George.

Elton and George would take turns to hug Guitar, which might be a bit dodgy with the boys watching it on the Silver Wing telly, what with them being poofs and all that. But the gadges would surely understand that showbiz people,
artists
, were, by their nature, more expressive and passionate than the rest of humanity. Mind you, Guitar didn’t want anybody taking the piss. The bitter punters left behind, Juice Terry being a prime example, would play up that one for all it was worth. Ugly rumours would be developed on the basis of one innocent, emotional, theatrical guesture. Johnny would have to think long and hard about those hugs from Elton and George. They could be misconstrued by the unaware and twisted by the jealous. He thought of Morrissey singing
We Hate It When Our Friends Become Successful
. Well, they would just have to, because Johnny Guitar, yes, that was GUITAR, not Catarrh and not John Boy, was on the move. Kathryn Joyner was just a stepping stone. She was a nobody. Once he was established, that old dog would be traded in for a succession of younger models. Pop starlets, TV presenters, party chicks, they would all come and go as he played the circuit with ruthless abandon before finding true love with some intellectual but beautiful woman, perhaps a young post-modern academic, who would have the brains but also the heart, to understand the complexity of the mind and soul of a true artist like Johnny GUITAR.

Things couldn’t be taken for granted though, Juice Terry was a rival. But he just wanted to use Kathryn. Granted, Johnny did too, but he was using her to become ultimately independent and self-sufficient. Terry’s vision ended at her shelling out for a few beers, some charlie, a curry and then shagging him before they settled down to a night of watching the telly in that stagnant pit of his. That would be a result as far as that fat frizzy-heided jakey was concerned. It would be criminal to let Kathryn be exploited for such trivial concerns. She was worth more than being used as a glorified remote control.

And then there was Rab Birrell. The typical cynical schemie
intellectual, too much of a critic to ever achieve anything in life. Birrell, so smug about telling you how things are and what is and isn’t shite that he forgets that the years are rolling by and he’s still done nothing more than sign his name every fortnight and do a few modules at Stevenson College under the twenty-one-hour rule. Birrell, who actually believed that talking his pompous shite about politics to half-pished or jellied cunts in west-side pubs was going to raise their consciousness and inspire them to take political action and combine to change society. What would Birrell want with Joyner? To tell the daft Yankee cow that she was suffering from false consciousness and should reject the world of capitalist entertainment and give her money to some bunch of nae-mates sad cunts who called themselves a ‘revolutionary party’ soas that they could go and visit other dippit fuckers like themselves in different countries on ‘fact-finding missions’? The problem was that Birrell’s poxy nonsense might have a moonies type of appeal for a rich Yank who had probably tried every other kind of religion, politics, medicine or lifestyle fad going. Rab Birrell, in his self-righteous way, was more dangerous to Johnny’s ambitions than Juice Terry. After all, she’d soon get bored of living on the dole in Saughton Mains with a fat cunt and his mother. It was a long way from Madison Square Gardens. But those political and religious cunts could get right intae yir heid. Brainwash ye. Kathryn had to be protected from them as well. Johnny shot a glance over to the bar where the predators were grazing at their watering hole. Spurred on, Catarrh continued, — Ah write songs n aw.

— Wow, Kathryn said. Johnny liked the circles her mouth and eyes made when she did that. That was it with Americans. They were so positive about things, no like here in Scotland. You couldnae share your dreams and visions here, not without some bitter cunt sneering at you. That ‘ah kent his faither’ brigade. Well they could aw fuck off, because his faither kent them as well and they were, are, and would always be a set of fuckin wankers.

Kathryn felt another rush from the ecstasy and she had a surge of goodwill towards Catarrh. He was a really cute guy, in a dirty, ratty sort of way. Best of all, he was thin.

— Thir’s one ay the songs thit ah wrote . . . it’s called
Social Climber
. Ah’ll jist sing ye the chorus: ‘Ye kin be a social climber, ye kin git right oaf the dole, but remember who yir friends are, or you’ll faw doon a black hole . . .’ Catarrh crackled, sucking down more mucus from the
back of his nasal cavities to lubricate his dry throat. — But that’s jist the chorus likes.

— It sounds really neat. I guess it’s saying that you gotta remember your roots. Dylan wrote something similar . . .

— Funny you sayin that, cause Dylan’s one ay ma biggest influences . . .

Back at the bar, Terry and Rab’s brief unity didn’t last. Frustrated at Catarrh’s success, Terry was getting a mischievous rather than loved-up buzz from the E. — ‘Business’ Birrell. That’s a good yin, eh, he laughed, looking at Rab for a reaction.

Rab looked away and shook his head with a tight smile.

— Business Birrell, Terry repeated softly, his voice wobbling in mirthful disdain.

Even through the luxuriant bullshit-free clarity the pills afforded him, Rab had to admit that Terry was a supreme wind-up merchant. — Terry, if you’ve goat anything tae say tae ma brar, say it tae him, no me, Rab smiled again.

— Naw, ah’m just thinkin aboot the headline in the paper that time, Birrell Means Business. Mind ay that?

Rab slapped Terry on the back and ordered a couple of Volvics. He couldn’t be arsed getting into it. Terry was okay, he was his mate. Yes, he was jealous of Rab’s brother, but that was an issue for Terry to resolve. Sad cunt, Rab thought cheerfully.

In Terry’s head he was playing the mantra: Billy Birrell, Silly Girl. He minded that one: fae way back at primary school. Then there was Secret Squirrel. He had made that yin up. Billy hated that! This starts Terry thinking back though, or rather forward from that point, about how pally he and Billy Birrell were. They were great mates; it wasn’t Terry and Rab or Terry and Post Alec back then it was Terry and Billy, Billy and Terry. The two of them, and Andy Galloway. Galloway. He was some cunt. You missed that wee fucker. And Carl. Carl Ewart. N-SIGN. The techno star. It had been Terry that had given him the name. Terry tried to think about the influence the name N-SIGN had on Carl’s deejay career. It meant everything. He was entitled, surely, to a cut of his old mate’s earnings for suggesting that. Carl Ewart. Where was that cunt now?

Rab sucked on one of the Volvics and let the music take him into the dance. The pills were excellent. He was cynicial of E’s potential as a life-changing force; it had motivated him into going to college, but he felt that he had taken it as far as it could go. It was now just in the
alcohol, speed, charlie, and, on occasions, downer mix which made up the menu on nights out. When you got pills of this quality though, it made you reconsider. A vibe of the good old days of a few years back was apparent: the place was glowing in that sense of carefree unity. And now, without actually realising what he was doing, he was talking to not one, but two fuckin gorgeous birds. More importantly, from Rab’s point of view, he was doing it without any of the bullshit baggage of self-consciousness or trying to be smart or aggressive to hide the fact that he was a shy Scottish schemie with a brother and no sisters and had never really learned how to talk to women properly. But no problem now. It’s easy. You just say, how’s it going, having a good one? and things flow without testosterone or social conditioning playing their ugly tricks. You see one of the girls, Lisa’s her name, she’s dancing away, her long blonde hair swishing side to side, her white top glowing with an electric-blue sheen, her arse looking like it rules the world, and it does, as she swings in a sensuous groove. He sees the deejay, Craig Smith, executing a difficult mix and pulling it off with the casual nonchalance of an experienced New York pizza chef in Little Italy, throwing together one of those appetising creations. All those girls and the deejay just working them all, knowing that the boys will fall into line. That’s Lisa, a willing prisoner of the groove. But it’s the other one, Charlene, that dark-heided wee gypsy-lassie who Rab finds the real work of art in this exhibition of the sheer, overwhelming, magnificent beauty of women. She’s telling him that she’s wanting to gouch and now she’s sitting on the knee of one Robert Birrell in order to do this and she’s rubbing his back and he’s stroking her arm and she says to the boy Birrell, — Ah like you. Does the Birrell gadge mumble something in gruff embarrassment, does he spoil the moment by the alcoholic, flighty, ‘Ye fancy a shag then?’ or does he look around all paranoid, worried that he’s been set up for ridicule by some so-called mate like Juice Terry?