Glue (70 page)

— You go hame son, ah’d like tae stey for a bit, she said.

Carl felt a bit jealous; Billy was doing what he should be doing, saying what he should be saying. Not that Billy said much, but when he did, it was usually spot-on. Knowing when to shut the fuck up was a great and underrated talent. Carl could spraff shite with the best of them, but sometimes, especially at times like these, you could sense the limits of bullshit. It was the likes of Billy, the timely interventionists, who really had it sussed. — Naw, we’ll stick aroond. Till yir ready. Thir’s nae hurry, he told Carl’s mother.

They stayed long after the line on the oscilloscope was flat. They knew Duncan wasn’t there any more. But they hung around for a bit, just in case he came back.

Billy called Maria’s sister, Avril, and his mother, Sandra. Then he drove them all out to Sandra’s. The women sat in with Maria, while the boys went out, walking aimlessly, finding themselves in the park.

Carl looked up at the dull sky and started to convulse in tearless, heavy sobs that shook his thin frame. Billy and Terry glanced at each other. They were embarrassed, not so much of Carl, but for him. He was still a gadge, after all.

But through Duncan’s death something hung in the air between them. There was just
something
, some kind of second chance, and even Carl seemed to sense it through his grief. He seemed to be trying to steady himself, to catch a breath, to say something.

They saw some young kids, they must have been about ten, playing football. Billy thought back to when they used to do the same. He
considered time, ripping the guts out of people, then setting them in stone and just slowly chipping away at them. The newly cut summer grass had that sweet-and-sour whiff. The machines seemed to tear up just as much dogshit, ripping open toalied-over crusts. The kids were fighting with grass, stuffing it down each other’s necks, just like they used to do, not even thinking about being smeared with canine shite.

Billy looked over to the corner of the park, beside the wall where everybody went to fight, to settle disputes which had broken out in the playground or the scheme. He’d battered Brian Turvey a few times there. Topsy, Carl’s mate. A game boy but, didnae know when he was beaten. Kept coming back. That tactic often worked: he’d seen a few guys who had done Topsy be worn down by his persistence and just capitulate on the second or third time so that they could live in peace. Denny Frost was an example. Half-killed Topsy a few times, but got so sick of being attacked or pulled up that he just got it over with, lying down to the boy.

It never bothered Billy though, he’d kick Topsy’s arse every day of the week for the rest of his life if the cunt wanted it. After the third time, Topsy had the good sense to consider that the long-term effects of the Doctor Martin boot on the brain cells might impair future economic and social opportunities. He was a game cunt but, Billy reflected, with a strange mix of approval and contempt.

Terry breathed in the damp, fetid air, its fusty vapours tugging at his throat and coating his lungs. The alcohol and charlie binge had given his immune system the dynamo of a low T-count hiver and he fancied that he could
feel
the tuberculosis incubating in his lungs.

The grey gets in, Gally once told him. Not after the first time, but the second time, when he’d done that eighteen months in Saughton. When Gally came out he said he’d felt part of the grey matter in his brain setting into breeze-block concrete. Terry thought of himself; yes, there were now some grey hairs in the temples of that brown corkscrew.

The grey gets in.

The scheme, the government employment scheme, the dole office, the factory, the jail. Together they created a squalid stink of low expectation which could choke the life out of you if you let it. There was a time when Terry felt that he could keep it all at bay, when the weaponry in his social arsenal seemed substantial enough to just blow big Technicolor holes in it all. That was when he was Juice Terry, wideo, fanny merchant, and he could skate above the ice as deftly as
Torvill and Dean. But struggle, survival, they were a young cunt’s game. He knew some of them, the young team, and how they now held him in the same affectionate contempt with which he had regarded Post Alec.

Now the ice was melting and he was sinking fast.

Becoming one with the grey.

Lucy had told him about the problems their son was having at school. Like father . . . it was the unspoken assertion on her lips. He thought of his own father, as estranged from him as he was from his son. Terry had a sickening, mature reflection that there was nothing he could do to be a more positive influence on the kid’s life.

Still, he had to try.

At least Jason had him, poor bastard. Jacqueline didn’t have Gally.

Carl was getting his breathing under control. The air smelt sweet and strange, yet common to his experience. The park seemed familiar and different, all at once.

Terry’s glance was a plea for affirmation. Billy was lost in thought, but it was like he was groping for something. He looked to Carl who nodded at him.

Billy began to speak slowly and deliberately, looking at the broken glass and the purple tin at his feet. — Funny, he began, as if he were a lawyer, — eftir it aw came oot, Doyle came doon tae the gym. Ah goat in the car wi him. Eh said tae ays, ma mate’s soundin like a Dalek. Your mate’s lucky eh’s deid. It disnae need tae go any further now. Billy shot hard, alternate glances at Carl then Terry, then Carl again. — Tell ays, Carl, you wirnae thaire that night, roond at McMurray’s, wir ye?

— Ye mean wi Gally likes? Carl asked. He was thinking back to the funeral. Billy had mentioned this.

Billy nodded.

— Nup. Ah didnae ken that McMurray had been done that weekend. Ah just thoat we wir oot on the pish, ah didnae huv any idea that Gally did that.

Terry shuddered inside. He had never believed that confession was good for the soul. Growing up in police interrogation rooms had taught him that keeping tight-lipped was the best policy. The dice was loaded against you when it came to officialdom. The way was to tell them fuck all, and only that if they beat it out of you.

But something was happening; the pieces of the circumstances of Gally’s death were coming together. Terry’s head was buzzing.

Looking at Carl and then Billy, he said quietly, — Ah went roond tae Polmont’s that night wi Gally.

Billy shot a glance at Carl, and they both looked back at Terry. Clearing his throat, Terry continued, — Ah didnae know eh goat in touch wi you first, Billy. It must’ve been eftir you telt um tae leave it. We went for a drink, n ah tried tae talk um oot ay daein anything. We only had a couple, doon the Wheatsheaf, but ah kent that Gally’s mind was made up to confront McMurray. Ah wanted tae be thaire, cause . . .

— Ye wanted tae back up yir mate, Carl finished the sentence for him, looking coldly at Billy.

— Back up ma mate? Ha! Terry laughed bitterly, tears welling in his eyes. — I fuckin well shat aw ower ma mate!

— What ye oan aboot, Terry? Carl cried, — ye went doon thaire tae back um up!

— Shut up, Carl, git intae the fuckin real world! Ah went thaire cause ah wanted tae hear whit wis gaunny be said between they two, because . . . because thir wis things thit ah didnae want McMurray tae say tae Gally . . . if eh telt Gally . . . ah jist couldnae huv it.

— You fuckin . . . you fuckin . . . Billy wheezed. Carl put his hand on his shoulder.

— Calm doon, Billy, listen tae Terry.

— Thir wis things wi me n Gail, Terry coughed, — McMurray n her hud split up cause ah wis . . . but it hud been gaun oan fir years. Ah didnae want Gally tae ken. Gally wis ma mate!

— Ye should’ve fuckin well thoat ay that when ye wir shaggin ehs wife every time his back was turned, ya cunt, Billy spat.

Terry raised his head to the sky. He seemed in great pain.

— Just listen, Carl pleaded with Billy. — Terry, he urged.

But Terry couldn’t be stopped now. It would have been like trying to squeeze toothpaste back into a tube. — Gally took the crossbow, wrapped it in a black bin-liner. He was gaunny dae McMurray. Ah mean really dae the cunt. It wis like eh didnae care aboot anything else. It wis like eh hud nothing to lose.

Carl swallowed hard. He’d said to Gally that he’d never tell anybody about the HIV.

— Aye, Terry coughed, — Gally wis different. Something had cracked in um. Mind how eh wis in Munich? Eh wis worse that night, fuckin deranged the cunt wis, he tapped his head. — The wey eh saw it, McMurray took ehs liberty, ehs wife, ehs bairn. Made him hurt the
bairn. Ah tried tae talk him oot ay it, Terry said, now whining, — but ken what? Ken what kind ay cunt ah am? Part ay ays thought that if eh goes thair n does McMurray, then it’s awright. It’s a fuckin result.

Billy looked away.

Terry clenched his teeth. His nails dug into and scrapped along the green paint of the park bench. — Ye ken the state eh wis in then? Ye remember the perr cunt’s state ay mind? Us, daft laddies, jokin n drinkin, while that perr cunt wis crackin up . . . cause ay me.

Carl closed his eyes and raised his hand. — Cause ay Polmont, Terry. It wisnae you she left um fir, it wis Polmont. Mind that. It wisnae right what ye did, but she didnae leave him cause you wir shaggin her. She left him fir Polmont.

— That’s right, Terry, keep it in perspective, Billy said, and reached out and pulled on his sleeve, looking away, before asking: — What happened thaire, mate?

— The funny thing wis, Terry began, — we thought we’d huv tae kick the door doon. But naw, Polmont just opened it and let us in. He walked through, like eh expected us. ‘Aw it’s youse,’ eh goes. ‘Moan in.’

— Ah mean, we jist looked at each other. Ah wis expectin the Doyles tae be thair, expectin some kind ay trap. Like a big fuckin ambush. Gally seemed tae freeze. Ah took the bin-liner oaf um. Gie’s that, ah telt um.

— Polmont . . . eh, McMurray but, eh wis in the kitchen oan ehs tod, makin some coffee. Cool as fuck; no even cool, mair resigned. ‘Ah’m gled yis came along,’ eh telt us. ‘It’s time wi sorted aw this oot,’ eh goes, but eh’s lookin at me rather thin Gally.

— Gally looked at me, aw confused. This wisnae what eh expected. It wisnae what
ah
expected. Ah wis shitein it. It wis guilt, but it wis mair thin that. It was the thought ay Gally hatin ays, us no bein mates any mair. Eh wis startin tae tipple something wis up.

— Then McMurray looked at um. ‘You did time for what ah did, n ye never grassed ays’, eh said tae Gally. ‘Then ah took up wi yir bird . . .’

— Gally looked at him, stood thair glarin in shock. It wis like the cunt’d taken aw the words oot ay the perr fucker’s mooth, stolen ehs big fuckin speech.

— Polmont wisnae gloatin but, it wis like eh wis tryin tae explain. But, me, ah didnae want um tae explain. Ah wanted ehs mooth shut. But eh went oan aboot ehs Ma, tellin Gally aboot the night way back, ootside Clouds. Ehs Ma hud died earlier that year, eh said. Wi cancer.
She wis jist thirty-eight. Ah mean, Terry said, — ah’ll be that age next year. But eh kept gaun oan aboot it. Eh telt ays thit he jist went mental. That eh lost it. That eh didnae gie a fuck aboot anybody . . . eh wis a young laddie . . .

— N Gally spoke up at last, eh goes, ‘Ah did time for you. Ma bird, ma daughter’s wi you!’ eh squealed in pain.

— ‘Yir bird isnae wi me. She’s away. Took the bairn,’ eh says, lookin straight at me.

— Gally goes, ‘What are ye oan aboot . . .?’

— Ah shakes the bin-liner. ‘Eh’s bullshittin ye, Gally,’ ah telt the cunt. ‘Fuckin bullshittin ye! Gie the cunt it!’

— Polmont ignores me, turns tae Gally. ‘Ah loved her. She wis a cow, but ah loved her. Still do. Ah love the wee lassie n aw, she’s a great wee bairn. Love her like she’s ma ain . . .’

— Gally got radge at this. ‘She’s no your ain!’ Eh stepped forward.

Terry stopped, swallowed hard. Carl started to shiver, put his hands to his head. Billy looked not so much at Terry as into him, trying to see his soul, trying to see the truth.

Terry took a deep breath. His hands shook in front of him. — Polmont was gaunny say it then, ah kent what eh wis gaunny say tae Gally in front ay me. Or mibbe eh wisnae, ah dinnae ken! Ah didnae ken! Ah dunno if ah meant tae scare um or shut um up or if it wis an accident, but ah pointed the bow at him and ma finger wis roond the trigger. It jist went off or ah fired, ah still dinnae ken, whether ah meant it or no, ah jist felt this wee bit pressure.

Billy was trying to work this out. What was McMurray going to say to Gally? Surely that Terry had taken Gail away from McMurray. Surely that was it. Or that Terry had been shagging Gail for years. When they got married, Carl was the best man. Billy remembered his speech. He said that Terry should have been the best man, cause it was him that got Gail and Gally thegither. Terry.

The words he used: Terry was Cupid.

— Aw fuckin hell, Terry said, taking a gulp of air and continuing in a low whine. — Thir wis a hissin sound and the bolt ripped oot through the bag. It flew straight intae his neck. Eh didnae scream, eh jist staggered back n made a gurglin sound. Gally edged away. Polmont’s hands were at his ain throat, then eh went ontae ehs knees and the blood came oot, dribblin ontae the kitchen flair.

— Gally was in shock. Ah grabbed ehs airm and pilled him oot the
door. We went doon the road. Ah wiped the crossbow clean, broke it up and dumped it oot at Gullane.

Juice Terry Lawson paused, feeling a slight smile play on his lips at the thought of Gullane, and he glanced briefly at Billy, who remained blank-faced. So Terry continued. — On the wey oot, we stoapped n Gally called an ambulance for Polmont. It saved the cunt’s life. Gally did! Gally saved ehs life! Every cunt thought that he shot Polmont but it was me! It wis me! He wis the yin that saved the cunt’s life. Ah’d huv let that fucker bleed tae death. The bolt hit ehs Adam’s aypil; it missed the spinal column, the carotid artery and the jugular vein. But eh would have choked on ehs ain blood! If it hud been up tae me! The ambulance came and they wheeled him in and gave him an emergency op. It crushed his voicebox, now eh’s got one ay they robot things that eh presses in ehs throat. But eh nivir said nowt, the boy never grassed ays. Eftir Gally died ah thought eh would’ve.