GUILT TRIPPER (12 page)

 “So how are the
lessons going then?” Judith asked.

 “I’ve been round at
the Currans house every other day for the past month. Like a fool, I actually
forgot that I was round there to be punished, until last week.”

 “Why, what happened
last week?”

 “Carina was
struggling to get a grasp of a sketching technique I was showing her and then
she erupted. She said she had more contempt for me than for Bob Fitzgerald, and
that she’d only asked me to teach her how to paint so that she could see just
how far I’d crawl for absolution. She reckons that the fact I even want
forgiveness indicates that I’m not really contrite at all. In her opinion, a
truly contrite man would accept his guilt as just rewards and suffer in
silence, not go trying to buy peace of mind by dropping money through people’s
letterboxes. She said that the only person I was really concerned about was
myself, and even though she’s since apologised, she’s right. I used her tragic
situation to get cash and never gave her another thought. Then, when I learnt
where it came from I tried to use her to get rid of it. Just as Bob and other
men exploited Carina for sex, I’ve been exploiting the poor girl for my own
salvation.”

 “So what happens
now?”

 “Well, I either
suffer in silence like Carina says, or I put myself in the same misery as those
I’ve profited from. I think the latter is probably the only way my remorse can
ever be seen as sincere.”

 “Or, you could just
forget all this nonsense and start living like a normal human being.” Judith
jumped up from the bed, turning to face Danny. “Bob Fitzgerald’s right. What
makes you think you’re so bloody special? That you’re entitled to a life of
virtue? You’re fast enough to forgive everyone else’s sins, why not your own? Can’t
you see how arrogant that is? I mean, why’s it wrong for you to spend McLeod’s
money, but ok for Katy and the Cruickshanks to have it? I’ve as much to feel
guilty about as you. I was complicit in the blackmail and I enjoyed the
proceeds of drugs money.”

 “No, no…it’s not the
same.”

 Judith laughed,
flabbergasted. “You think you’re better than me don’t you.”

 “Eh?”

 “It’s ok for me and
everyone else to sin because, we know not what we do. But you, you’re a
superior being. There’s no excuse for you.”

 “That’s because of
my Christian, socialist upbringing! Have you still not got that? It’s all about
caring for others while flagellating yourself. Remember what I told you about
Crazy Ferguson hitting me with a bottle? How my mother said it had served me
right for defending the enemy against my own? Well, it would have been the same
had I just stood back and allowed him to slash Bob. Then she’d he have recited
the story of the Good Samaritan and condemned me for being a poor Christian. And
that’s how my life’s been for the past forty three years Judith, looking for
the best in everyone else and the worst in myself… stopping during every
experience and wondering: what would mum think of this? Am I a true socialist? Am
I good Christian?”

 “You can shake it
off! I saw the change in you at Gairloch…it was amazing!”

 “I must admit, I had
started enjoying things without constantly consulting her in my head. I could
still hear her talking, but she had to compete with the kids’ voices. In the
end they were having far more of an influence over me than I ever could have
had over them. Thanks to Hamish, Ryan, Angie and yourself, their intellects
were expanding, exposing my own mind as stagnant by contrast. They had myriad
points of view to offer at the dinner table debates, where as I was trotting
out the same tired old Marxist mantras, like a priest performing his thousandth
communion. To keep up, I had to become more flexible in my thinking and
consequently felt much lighter as a person. I thought that glass of Haut-Brion
I drank was symbolic of the great change which had taken place within me. But
then Bob turned up, almost as if my mother had sent him to remind me that in a
capitalist world, one man’s pleasure is always at the expense of other men’s
misery.” Danny poked a forefinger against his temple. “And now she’s the only
voice in there again, shouting louder than ever, each second of the day.”

 “Well I think it’s
time you heard some new voices then. I’m off to Iceland in the morning, and I
know for a fact that there are still seats on my flight. Why don’t you come
along?”

 “I’ve never been out
of Scotland before…I’d never been out of Glasgow except for Gairloch.”

 Judith laughed. “You’re
not scared of flying are you?”

 Danny stared
forlornly at her. “Ma always said that folk who holidayed abroad were traitors
to their community. She reckoned that every penny earned in Glasgow should stay
in Glasgow, not be used to subsidise the development of some Mediterranean
fishing village, while our own city was rotting and shrinking. Old Annie hated
the fact that people spent fifty weeks a year daydreaming about their fortnight
in Majorca or the Costa Del Sol, when they should have been living in the here
and now and improving one another’s lives. Of course, I inherited this outlook
and never hesitated to castigate anyone who was about to embark on their
annual, lifesaving break from everything oppressive about Scotland. So, as I’m
sure you’ll understand, it would be unforgivably hypocritical of me to jump on
a plane now.”

 “Weren’t you going
to follow Ingrid to Italy that time, only there was no one to look after your
mother?”

 “Not finding anyone
to look after my ma was only half the story. Truth is I was as petrified of
being sneered at as a hypocrite then as I am now. That’s the real reason I
never followed her to Italy.”

 This impossible mind-set
was draining Judith, so she left before he could depress her any further and
concentrated on Iceland.

CHAPTER: 17

 Iceland’s mountains,
glaciers and near twenty-four hour daylight erased all things Danny from
Judith’s mind, until the flight back to Glasgow, when he re-established himself
in the most tragic manner. She’d picked up a Daily Herald on boarding and it
was there, in a tiny square at the bottom right hand corner of page-seven that
she read the shocking news:

CITY ARTIST’S FUNERAL

Friends of Glasgow
painter, Danny White will pay their respects tomorrow morning. White, 43, who
will be best remembered for his work with underprivileged local teenagers, was
found dead last week after a drug overdose. The service will take place at ten
o’clock, in St Teresa’s Church, Possil.

 Numbed, Judith
remembered nothing more about the journey, or even how she’d acquired her
luggage at Glasgow airport. Somehow she’d managed to find her way to Katy’s
parent’s tenement, where, over a bottle of vodka, the youngster explained the
gruesome details.

On Wednesday morning,
the week before, a warden at the Great Eastern Hotel had discovered Danny
kneeling by his bed, head slumped, a syringe stuck in his left forearm. The
Police said he’d been dead for approximately twelve hours. As part of their investigation
to eliminate foul play, they’d accessed his internet account at Dennistoun
library, where he’d browsed sites which described how best to commit suicide
using opiates. The only thing which couldn’t be explained though, was how the
burnt remains of a thousand fifty-pound notes came to be in a small plastic bin
by the wardrobe. Compressed in five tight bundles, a portion from each note had
survived the flames, which were unwittingly extinguished when Danny’s foot made
contact with the bin, during a spasm just before death.

 Danny always told
Judith that, when he died, a pauper’s grave would be fine for him. And this is
precisely what he would have got had it not been for Katy, who’d spent a large
chunk of the ten grand he’d given her organising a respectable send off. However,
despite all the effort she’d gone to, on the day, only a single black Rolls
Royce followed behind the hearse. This contained Katy, her parents and Judith,
who’d been in town early buying a dark dress for the service. They’d been waiting
for Fin, but he’d suffered a relapse since returning from Gairloch and was
obviously too heroin sodden to turn up. Unfortunately, the police had given him
Danny’s painting of their mother, which he’d then sold to a Bath Street art
dealer for a grand, before embarking on a mammoth bender of a heroin-fest.

 St Teresa’s was a
rectangular, redbrick church with a lead-spired bell tower, set back from the
road beyond green lawns. Much to Judith and Katy’s relief, there were a good
fifty people waiting outside in watery sunshine when they arrived, including
all twenty-five students who’d ever attended Gairloch College. The turnout
should have been much bigger, but, sadly, most people kept away because of a
rumour going round that Danny had been a money launderer for big heroin
dealers. According to the gossips, he’d been caught stealing from his masters,
ostracized and forced to live in the Great Eastern Hotel. Apparently, his
demise hadn’t been suicide at all, but a gangland execution which the police
were now covering up. Judith thought it a cruel irony that a man so dedicated
to doing the right thing his whole life, should be remembered in death by such
a slander.

Throughout the
service, rain lashed so heavily against the church roof it threatened to thwart
the actual burial. But by the time everybody reached the sprawling Lambhill
cemetery, on the city’s northern fringe, shafts of sunlight had penetrated the
clouds, making the sky look like a translucent big top. As Danny’s coffin got
lowered into the ground, a rainbow arced above the vast field of white, stone
crosses and a blackbird began singing somewhere in the distance, prompting
Judith to sob.

During the wake at
The Brothers Bar, Judith was accosted by Ingrid, who looked solemn in full-length,
black funeral dress. After a specious display of grief she began snooping to
find out what money Danny might have left behind. She proudly recounted how her
lawyer had launched a legal claim to the burnt remains from his bin at the
Great Eastern, because some notes — eleven-thousand-seven-hundred and fifty
pounds worth — where still half intact and so could be exchanged for new ones
at the Bank of Scotland. On hearing about Fin’s acquisition and subsequent sale
of Mrs. White’s portrait, she couldn’t contain her rage, just as Judith could
hardly suppress her delight while telling the tale.

 “What is it with
that family of morons?” Ingrid wailed. “That picture’s probably worth at least
fifty grand…possibly more now that Danny’s dead! It’s not Fin’s to sell! It’s
little Lawrence’s!” And with that she clattered out of the pub to ring her
lawyer and start legal proceedings to reclaim the painting.

Over the coming
months, Judith would grieve profoundly and struggle to accept she’d never see
Danny again. At first, she’d blamed herself, analysing their last conversation,
trying to find anything she’d said which might have contributed to his fate. Worse
still, she’d thought of all the things she should have said that might have
prevented it. Then, once she’d finally convinced herself she wasn’t culpable,
she started hating his mother, until it dawned that Annie had inspired all the
heroic characteristics she’d admired in him as well the infuriating one’s she’d
pitied. However, she concluded that chasing moral perfection could be a very
dangerous activity, because when you fail, it often results in self-loathing
and sometimes tragedy, as epitomised by the fate of Danny White.