GUILT TRIPPER (7 page)
Authors: Geoff Small
When Judith arrived
back at the apartment, Fin had just returned from the clinic, where he’d
provided his fourth consecutive, opiate negative urine sample. But there was no
Danny as yet. It wasn’t until well past six that he eventually came home,
carrying a large pile of property agent’s print-outs. Among these he found the
location for his college — a semi-derelict, granite-stone crofter’s house, up
on the west coast, near Gairloch. Situated in the shadow of a mountain, the
dwelling was of modest size, but there were ten acres of land on which to place
mobile classrooms, and, a spacious byre (cowshed) that could easily be
renovated to shelter students. More importantly, it was going for just
one-hundred and seventy-five thousand pounds, leaving plenty of cash to make
the overall project viable.
By December, Danny
had regained weight and looked a lot healthier, so the White’s rented a trailer
home up at Gairloch, where, together with some of their unemployed friends,
they renovated the cottage and transformed the byre into comfortable accommodation
for twelve people. At weekends they returned to Glasgow. Here, Judith joined
them, distributing leaflets to tracksuited gangs on concrete housing schemes,
which were in the process of being demolished and replaced with a mixture of
privately owned and socially rented beige brick houses, similar to those
popping up in Danny’s old neighbourhood. They were usually subjected to drunken
sarcastic remarks for their trouble, often downright abuse and, just once,
outright aggression. The most intimidating experience, though, was the night a
black Range Rover with tinted windows kept appearing, cruising slowly behind
them. It turned out that the occupants were foot soldiers of Rex McLeod, the
most feared man in the city. They’d obviously had reports of three strangers
approaching youths on housing schemes and so naturally assumed they were either
drug dealers, trying to establish new patches, or undercover police officers. Fortunately,
Danny knew their boss – having painted portraits for him – and so managed to
reassure these bull necked, shaven headed characters that they were neither.
Danny reckoned that
Rex McLeod was a “paternalistic, communitarian gangster”. Known as The Big Man,
he’d made his money robbing banks in the Sixties and Seventies, but nowadays
relied mainly on other people doing truck heists for him — truck heists which
provided cheap goods for folk who couldn’t afford them otherwise. If Danny, Fin
and Judith had been dealers, they’d have been punished not because they were
competitors, but because Rex detested drugs and lamented the damage they’d done
to his city. Truth be told, when he wasn’t raising money for drugs charities, he’d
be either informing on pushers or having their legs broken.
The following May — the
same day Bob and Herman were finally officially acquitted of Carina Curran’s
attempted murder — Danny delivered a presentation to a dozen teenagers, on the
top floor of an old textiles mill which had been converted into artist’s
studios. While herding them in off the stairs, where they’d been hanging about
diffidently, he’d been shocked to discover a particularly nasty character among
their number. Wearing a white Lacoste tracksuit and checked Burberry baseball
cap, he had a gaunt, embittered face with a thick, purple line of scar tissue
beginning below his right ear and running just above his jaw line to the corner
of his mouth. One night, during a recruitment walkabout on the schemes, his
gang had heckled Danny and co so venomously that they’d deemed it wise to
leave.
After a drink and
nibble from the Mediterranean buffet, which degenerated into a full on olive
and feta-cheese fight, Danny sat everybody round him in a semi-circle of
orange, plastic chairs. While trying to explain his vision he was constantly
interrupted by ‘Scar Face’ much to the amusement of the girls present. However,
a raven haired beauty called Belinda became embroiled in an argument with Scar
Face, causing Danny to have to intervene and ask the lad what he hoped to
derive from the course, should he embark upon it.
“What’s it to you?” He
stared through Danny as if challenging him to a fight.
“Well, I’m here to
help you.”
“Oh is that right
big man? What do you want me to do, kiss your butt or something?” His audience
roared with laughter.
“No, I…”
“Aye you do. This
isn’t about helping us. It’s all about your middle class ego. We shouldn’t be
in a position where we’re beholden to ‘charitable’ individuals like you.”
“I quite agree,”
Danny concurred. “But we’re here to facilitate and develop whatever interests
you may have in art?”
“Listen, I couldn’t
paint ma shoes and I never want to.”
“Ah, so you want to
learn about writers?”
“Learn? Listen pal,
there’s nothing you and your ilk can teach me about ‘literature’. Shakespeare,
Cervantes, Hardy, Dostoyevsky, Joyce, Kafka, Carver, Kundera, they’re the only
existence I’ve ever been able to afford. I don’t need to be taught how to read,
I need to be enabled to write.”
Danny’s eyes dwelled
on the lad a moment, as if identifying something there that nobody else could.
“How can we enable
you to write then?”
“By getting me out
of that hell hole I live in and allowing me some peace. They reckoned that J.K Rowling
wrote in crowded cafes. Well, I’d like to see her even write a note to the
milkman at our place, with my sister’s kids running about the apartment and my
dad watching the TV at full blast, night and day.”
“Tell me about it. I
had to share with a brother and four sisters”
“Yeah, in a nice big
house I bet?”
“No. Possil.”
“You’re from Possil?
Get away.”
“What made you think
I came from a big house?”
“I don’t know, the
way you talk — all bourgeois like.”
Judith sniggered at
the irony.
Once Danny and this
particular lad had established some mutual respect, the rest of the meeting
continued in an orderly fashion, ending with the handing out of application
forms to be returned at enrolment the following week. Unfortunately, only three
people were to turn up, including Scar Face and Belinda, who completely ignored
one another.
Poor student numbers
were to be the least of Danny’s worries. After six months deliberation,
Gairloch Community Council seemed set on denying permission for the college, fearing
that drug addicts and razor gangs would invade their idyll. He was about to abort
the project when, one cloudy afternoon in June, a Daily Herald journalist and
photographer came knocking at the trailer home door. They wanted to know Mr.
White’s feelings about his recent exhibition in London. Of course, Danny thought
they had the wrong person, but they hadn’t. An anonymous dealer had organised
the event, which resulted in a collector, who owned a string of kebab
restaurants, paying one million pounds for the whole lot.
Just as Judith had
predicted, Bob Fitzgerald was now two hundred and forty thousand pounds richer
for having been blackmailed. Thankfully, though, the journalists knew nothing
about his involvement, otherwise Danny’s dream would have been sunk forever. As
it was, the Daily Herald interview spawned a tissue of positive publicity,
prompting Gairloch Council to change their minds. However, there were
conditions. Places would have to be provided for local youth and the situation
would be subject to quarterly reviews.
Now Danny had
discovered public relations, Judith went into Glasgow and selected him a
wardrobe of clothes that the kids on the schemes would connect with. Undoubtedly,
his hotchpotch of rags had repelled them up to now, so she purchased a pair of
Nike trainers, Rockport boots, two pairs of Armani jeans, some check Lacoste
shirts and a navy blue Stone-Island bomber jacket. At first he went berserk at the
cost — a grand in total — until Judith argued it amounted to less than two pounds
a week over the decade he’d gone without any new garments whatsoever. Once he’d
calmed down about the cash, he went into one of his moral diatribes. He claimed
it was principles and beliefs, not clothes, which made a person, and that a
true socialist prophet would never set himself above those he professed to
help, in any way. But Judith reckoned that people would only follow if they saw
their own aspirations reflected in their leader. Just because he valued an
ascetic existence, she said, he shouldn’t expect everybody else to. Eventually
he wore the clothes, though not before having removed all the logos, including
the swoosh from his trainers. This infuriated Judith, because she knew that
without them Danny remained a nothing in their target group’s eyes.
As the street kids
got used to them being about, recruitment drives became less hassle and, by the
middle of August, they had at last secured a full complement to take up north. The
only thing they needed now was an English teacher.
Rather than having
to pay obscene salaries, Danny reckoned he knew unoccupied guys from his
neighbourhood who were capable of teaching; their love of literature far
outweighing any lack of formal qualifications. In fact, he argued that he’d
sooner have self-taught guys with passion than some kid who’d been through the
sausage machine of university, merely to attain an “easy” twenty grand a year
in the classroom. But he was to be disappointed. The people he’d been banking
on were too set in their beer, cigarettes and gambling ways to relocate to the
wilderness, making him so angry that he vented his spleen on several, telling
Judith that he’d be glad to get out of “this amorphous dump.”
It was beginning to
look like they’d never find a teacher, until Judith’s graduation day up at the
university, where the White brothers were her guests. Here, she introduced them
to Angie and Angie’s boyfriend Hamish, the couple having just collected first
class English Literature degrees. On learning this, Danny wasted no time
inviting them to teach with him up at Gairloch, in return for free board and
lodging and a hundred pounds a week pocket money. Hamish – who had his sights
on a career in journalism – declined the offer outright, until Angie agreed to
go along for free. This caused an argument between them, but by lunchtime the
next day both had committed themselves to the project. Just as things were
looking up for Danny, events had most definitely taken a turn for the worse for
Judith. The morning after her graduation, she awoke with a hangover to a letter
giving notice of redundancy, from her employers at Worcester City Council, who were
cutting staff in non-essential services due to a budget shortfall.
PART THREE
But for a small
lounge, the ground floor of the crofter’s cottage up in Gairloch was now
dominated by a flagstone kitchen with an oak table, which almost spanned the
room and seated thirty people. It was to be during long evening dinners here
that Danny believed his little community would be cemented. These soirees would
be overlooked by his mother’s portrait, which took pride of place on the back
wall, directly opposite as you entered from outside. Fortunately, this painting
had avoided the apartment fire, having been moved to Katy’s house just after
Mrs. White’s death, because it had been upsetting her son too much.
As for the byre,
well, its wooden walls had been replaced with red brick and white stucco, its
tin roof with terracotta tiles. Inside, either side of a long corridor stood
six small rooms, just large enough for a bed, wardrobe and a writing desk with
a computer on top. Meanwhile, the ablutions were situated at the far end,
beneath a loft conversion which served as a recreation suite, featuring a TV,
pool table and library.
On a blazing day at
the end of August, Fin drove six lads and six girls up to this new Highland
home, in a custard yellow, Ford Transit Minibus. The journey was a silent
affair where suspicious, sideways glances were the only communication. But, as
they pulled up outside the cottage, the sight of eight local students lounging
about on the grass seemed to bring the Glaswegians together at last, against a
common foe. Throughout the next hour, the two groups remained stand-offish
until they were called in for their welcome dinner, cooked by Judith and Angie
who, along with Hamish and Danny, had already been in residence for a
fortnight.
Townies and
Highlanders were alternated around the table so that they had no choice but to
mix, with the five adults making up the numbers. At first it was uncomfortably
quiet, but as soon as everyone had finished their aperitifs a pleasant murmur
was developing. The townies were a tad cautious about their food, though. “Urrs”
and “yuks” accompanied the smoked salmon starter, much to the amusement of the
locals, who scoffed theirs enthusiastically. Each student was allowed one glass
of wine during the main dish — grouse in black cherry sauce — helping to create
a more boisterous atmosphere by the time desert arrived at the table. By now
there was something of a first night on vacation mood about the newcomers, so
much that the locals reluctantly boarded Fin’s minibus back to their villages,
many wanting to stay behind with their exciting new friends instead.
That night, raucous
laughter bellowed from the student accommodation until dawn. At one point
Judith was woken by cheering and, as she looked out of her dormer window she
caught the pink flash of a teenager’s backside, streaking across the meadow. For
the next hour she lay in darkness, sharing the kid’s amusement as the young
naturist pleaded to be readmitted to the byre, its door and windows having been
so cruelly locked in his wake. Judith entertained Angie with this recollection
next morning, while they prepared a massive picnic in the kitchen.
The local students
arrived at around eleven and everyone walked to Big Sand Beach. While a mass
game of water volleyball ensued in a turquoise and cobalt sea, Judith sat on a
dune admiring the Torridon Mountains, situated across the bay. There, the
students would run wild for the next month, hiking, canoeing, learning to fish
and generally bonding. All except Danny’s scar faced friend, Ryan Kearney, who
chose to disassociate himself and write a book in his room, where he’d work day
and night. Whenever Judith went out the back for a cigarette in the early
hours, his light was the only hint of life in an otherwise sleepy byre. His
curtains were never shut and she’d often stand in the darkness, just feet from
the window, marvelling at the boy’s stamina and commitment. Usually, he’d be
bent over his desk scribbling so frantically that four sides of A4 were filled
before her cigarette was spent. On others, he’d have his baseball capped head
in his hands or be pacing about the room in search of inspiration, looking
haunted. Danny had tried coaxing Ryan to join in with the others, but he said
he’d sooner leave than waste valuable time playing “kiddies’ games”. Out of
everybody, Belinda took particular exception to this isolationism and, whenever
he left the dinner table — having rushed his food to get writing again — she’d
start her daily moan about what she considered rude behaviour.
“Why did he come
here if he just wants to be on his own? He’s treating the rest of us like
idiots…someone should sort him out!”
This was said loud
enough for Danny to hear, and was interpreted as a challenge to do something
about the situation; but he left Ryan in creative peace all the same.
October arrived and
it was time to start lessons, held in two mobile classrooms, situated behind
the cottage, at the foot of the mountain. Each morning, Judith taught art
history, followed by Danny’s painting classes, where he wore the blue, paint
dappled overalls which would become his second skin. Meanwhile, Hamish and
Angie took turns with their eight literature pupils, seven of whom were girls,
including the patron’s dear young friend, Katy, and Ryan’s nemesis, Belinda. Ryan
didn’t attend either class, much to the chagrin of the raven haired beauty. Inevitably,
one night at dinner, things came to a head. Ryan had arrived slightly late, as
usual, and as he squeezed past fellow diners on route to his seat he
inadvertently nudged Belinda’s arm, just as she was about to sip from her wine
glass. The spilt claret soaked into her white tracksuit top like ink on
blotting paper, causing her to leap up from her seat.
“You stupid friggin’
idiot!” Ryan, oblivious to his crime, looked bewildered as he turned to face
her. “You’ve got no social skills what-so-ever have you! You friggin’ retard!”
Belinda stormed off,
before the loner even had chance to reply.
Uncharacteristically,
Ryan ended up being last to leave the table, obviously upset by Belinda’s
remarks. Judith and Hamish were actually clearing plates around him when he got
up, but Danny told him to stay put and laid down an ultimatum: either he
started attending classes with the rest of the group or he’d have to go.
Ryan wore the
expression of a man who’d been betrayed and reproached his benefactor.
“I was starting to
think you were alright…that you were a fellow traveller. But you’re just
another out of touch asshole aren’t you?”
Danny tensed up,
clenching his right fist as if on the verge of striking the irreverent
teenager. Judith, who’d never seen him like that before, intervened before
something happened which everybody would regret.
“Ryan? If you’re
going to be staying here, then I think Danny should at least be able to monitor
your progress, see where you might need help. You are here to learn after all.”
“I know how to
analyse literature, alright…you can’t teach people how to write!”
At this point Hamish,
who was now sat opposite, interjected:
“Even the best writers
relied on quality editors. You know, the objective, academic eye.”
“If you want me to
go, then fine. I’ll leave in the morning,” Ryan said stubbornly and got up to
leave, but Judith headed him off at the door.
“Ryan? Just let
Hamish see your work and then we’ll take things from there.”
Ryan looked
petrified at the prospect of people seeing his writing, so much that Judith had
to spend half an hour alone with him in the lounge before he agreed to fetch a
sample from the byre. When he returned carrying a thick sheaf of A4, he refused
to share it with anyone but her. Indiscriminately, she selected a page of
spidery handwriting and found herself enjoying his first recollection of
snowfall on the Easterhouse housing scheme, while he paced around the couch
anxiously. In truth, she’d been expecting a pile of drivel, but not only was
his work poignant and poetic, it was well structured too. She was instantly
gripped and only stopped reading when he asked her opinion, some seven pages
later.
“Ryan, I’m
astounded. It’s absolutely beautiful.” He wandered over to the window and
stared out at the night, biting his nails as if unable to deal with the
compliment. “Why haven’t you word processed your work?”
He turned to face
her. “I don’t know anything about computers.”
“See! There are
always new things we can learn, aren’t there?” Judith declared with great
enthusiasm, causing Ryan to shrug his shoulders diffidently. “I tell you what: I’ll
teach you how to get round a computer if you let me read the rest of your
book…you’ve got me intrigued.”
Judith winked at
Ryan and he couldn’t help but return a lovely, wide smile. It was the first
time she’d ever seen him anything other than sullen.
As they re-entered the
candlelit kitchen, Danny pulled a chair out from between himself and Angie, so
that Ryan could join them for a dram of whisky. “If you’re as well read as you
reckon, then there’s no reason why you can’t sit in and help teach. We’re
promoting a philosophy of co-operation here. There’s no place for elitists,” he
told the youngster.
“But I spend every
minute of my day working on the book,” Ryan protested. “When I’m not actually
writing I’m thinking about what I’m going to write. It’s a torment, like having
an eternal itch. The only way to find relief is to scratch. So I have to keep
writing all the time. You should know this as an artist. Did the renaissance
masters have time to waste?”
Danny laughed and
grabbed Ryan in an affectionate headlock, full of admiration at his passion.
“Two days a week you
can help Angie here with her seminars — that gives you five days undisturbed to
work on the book. Ok?” He pulled his captives head back, playfully. “Ok?”
“Ok.”
On being released,
Ryan struggled to repress only his second smile since they’d known him. He even
removed the checked baseball cap — hitherto welded to his head — revealing a
sandy crew cut, which made him instantly more amenable. As more whisky flowed
the mood became so relaxed that Ryan announced he had a confession to make to
Danny. All went silent.
“You know that first
meeting you had? Up in the old textiles mill?”
“Aha.”
“There were about
twelve of us, right?”
“Yes.”
“There should have
been more — a lot more.” Ryan placed his cap back on, holding the peak and
rubbing it against his scalp, nervously. “There were a good fifty from all over
the city waiting outside in small groups, but our little crew chased them away
with potato peelers. If you’d got us to fill the applications in there and then
you’d have seen that nine of the thirteen people present where all from my
scheme. They only turned up coz I told them to. That’s why there were just
three the following week.”
“Why would you want
to scare the others away?” Angie interrupted.
“Get rid of the
competition of course. I knew places would be scarce and that you’d never pick
some volatile loser with a second prize. In my experience most people are out
to disadvantage you, so you have to make your own luck.” Unable to look at
anyone he stared past Hamish sat opposite and focused on Danny’s mother’s
portrait. “I’m sorry…not just for you, but for the people I scared off too.” He
let go of his cap and emptied his glass in one. “So, if you want nothing more
to do with me, I totally understand.”
Danny stood up and
raised his glass of water in a toast: “Everybody! To Ryan! And may all the
students in this college be as worthy as him!”
“To Ryan!” the
others concurred, chinking their tumblers together.
Ryan looked like he
was on the verge of tears and left before betraying any more emotion.
