Born Free

by Laura Hird

  ‘Aw c’mon. I go babysitting with you. We don’t need to go to pubs, just a pizza, please, Rosie.’

  ‘Please stop going on about it. It makes me feel really slaggy. If I ever see that guy again, I’ll die.’

  ‘Aw Rosie, I think mines really liked me.’

  ‘Come off it, Jo, y’ken what Tallies are like. They’ll try it on with all the young lassies that go in there. They were really greasy anyway.’

  How dare she say my beautiful Antonio was greasy.

  ‘Please, pal, I’ll give you a tenner, I’ll get you that Catatonia CD. Please, just this one thing.’

  ‘Oh stop acting so desperate. You’ll never get a man if you act desperate like that.’

  The fucking nerve.

  ‘I’m desperate? I’m no the one shagging my uncle. I’m no the one that sucks off strangers for money. Just ’cause Antonio respects me and nobody respects you.’

  There’s a silence. Fuck, what did I say that for? Even if it is true.

  ‘So that’s what you really think of me, eh?’ Her voice is shaky.

  ‘Ocht no, Rosie, y’know what I mean, but. Why should I no be able to see him,’ cause of something you did? It’s no fair.’

  ‘OK then Jo, tell you what. Go and fucking see him. Dinnae waste your time on a slag like me. Go an’ get AIDS off some whoory Iti and stop buggin me.’

  Brrrrrrrr.

  Throwing the phone across the room, I kick it against the wall. It’s still working when I pick it up. I’m so useless I can’t even break the poxy thing. See Rosie? She can fucking poke it, I don’t need her. I’m going to get Antonio on my own.

  Jan comes sniffing through to find out what the commotion is. I hate that fucking dog. She makes the house smell, and everything’s covered in about an inch of her hairs. Rolling up the dish towel, I smack her across the nose so she’ll piss off but she just sits there, whining, wanting out for a shit. I briefly consider crapping on the carpet myself and blaming it on her, but that’s too gross even for me. Dad’s left a note reminding me to feed her. Opening the tin, I scrape its contents into the bottom of the bucket as she wails at my side. It makes me feel slightly better. Locking her in the kitchen, I go and switch the telly on.

  The East Enders omnibus has just started. I’ve stopped watching it because every time I start to fancy one of the characters they leave – mad Joe, the black guy Michelle used to go out with, nice Alan … Nick Cotton was my first love, though. I used to X2 about sitting on his lap and us peeing on each other. I’ve no idea how I knew sex was sort of like that, when I was just a bairn. Maybe something happened when I was wee that I can’t remember. That would be typical. Actually having lost my virginity years before Rosie, but not being able to mind.

  Fuck, I’m so bored. I retune all the channels on the telly so each one is a crackly mess and it looks broken. If they can’t watch telly, they’ll all be as miserable as me. Serves them right for not getting cable.

  I’m so desperate for something to do, I go through to Jake’s room for a neb. He’s such a boring little twat I won’t find anything remotely interesting but the fact he’ll be annoyed I was looking at his stuff is enough. There’s Rangers posters all over the wall. Studying the team shots, I pick the three players I’d most like to do it with and end up X2ing about Jorg Albertz getting sent off and shagging me in the dug-out. Maybe I should go to the football with Dad. I’d probably be the only woman there. Surely I’d be able to get off with someone. How is it always Jake gets to go to things like that? Dad’s such a sexist.

  Getting up, I spy a giant whisky bottle full of coins over by the window. Emptying it onto the carpet, I take all the pounds and 50-pence pieces. Not that I need them, but I just want to piss Jake off. As I’m putting the other coins back in the bottle, I notice a pile of magazines under his bed. Marie Claire, Cosmopolitan, New Woman. What a wee poof. I hide them in my room. He’ll be too embarrassed to admit he had them in the first place and it’ll really do his head in.

  Jan is howling away in the kitchen. I go through and give her another slap with the dish towel, then put my All Saints CD on loud to drown her out. As I lie on my bed, thumbing through the magazines, my mind keeps returning to Antonio. Maybe we could run away to Italy together. Mind you, I’d have to chory some decent clothes first. They all wear designer stuff over there. He’d pack me in if I looked scruffy.

  Euch, fucking hell. Loads of the magazine pages are stuck together and Jake – sad, perverted little bastard that he is – has drawn hairy fannies over the models’ knickers. And I thought I was desperate. Tearing one out, I put it face-up on his bed and the rest of the spunky magazines back where I found them. When I go to wash my hands, the burn on my face looks worse. How could I even think of going to see Antonio with a puss like this?

  There’s a bang from up the hall, then silence. Mum’s not back till tomorrow. Dad’s note said they wouldn’t be back till after six. Maybe we’re being burgled. You read all the time about burglars being disturbed while they’re burgling and ending up raping someone. I check my scabby face in the mirror, put on some eyeliner and go out to investigate.

  The flat is dead silent as I tiptoe up the hall, check the bedrooms, then creep into the living room. Fuck, it’s just Mum. I’m so disappointed I feel like punching her. She jumps about a mile when I tap her on the shoulder, though, which is quite amusing.

  ‘Christ, Jo, it’s you. I didn’t think anyone was in.’ She’s standing in the kitchen, chopping onions, drinking Diet Coke with her coat on.

  ‘Why have you come back?’

  She puts down the knife and looks hurt. ‘Oh, thanks a lot. I’ve really missed you too.’

  ‘Y’know what I mean. I thought you were away till th’morrow.’

  ‘Caroline hadnae been taking her medication. I feel really sorry for her and that, but it was too gruelling to handle two days of. I tried to …’

  ‘Aye, OK, Mum. I get the idea.’ I go back to my room in disgust. Her pal Caroline’s not sick-ill, it’s just in her head, like Emma. Mum’s making out like she’s such a martyr for going to see her, but I bet she’s about a hundred times easier to get on with than Mum is.

  Putting on my Pulp CD, I lie on the bed, and pretend I’m all the women Jarvis is singing about. Their songs are nearly as depressing as my life and I’m soon sniffling into my pillow. Why is life so awful? I can’t believe someone finally likes me and I can’t see them. It’s like Romeo and Juliet. By the time the CD finishes, I’m on such a downer that when I hear Jake’s voice in the hall I actually feel glad.

  When I go through, Mum’s ladling soup into bowls and bragging about how quickly she can drum up a pot of home-made tattie and leek, trying to imply that this means she’s a good mother. She’s acting a bit weird, pretending to be friendlier than she actually is. It’s like she’s been abducted by aliens and replaced by a replicant. I wish. Much as I want to K. B. the soup, after her going on about it so much, I have a bowl as I’m absolutely starving. When Mum asks what I think, I say it’s so-so.

  She starts boring Dad about her pal. I think she only went to see the poor woman so she could go on about what a kind, caring person she is. If I was mentally ill, the last thing I’d want is for her to turn up and start nipping my head.

  ‘… a shame … blah, blah, blah … really felt sorry for her … blah, blah, blah … too gruelling … blah blah blah.’ Oh, give it a rest, for God’s sake. Someone give her a Blue Peter badge and be done with it.

  Dad’s sitting supping his soup, nodding away mindlessly with one eye on the Italian football. Bastards, they’ve re-tuned the telly again. They’re not even going to give me the satisfaction of them blaming me. I suddenly get a bit gristle in my soup, which makes me go breenjy and I have to throw the rest away. Jake follows me through and puts the remainder of his in front of the dog. Jan and me lunge for it simultaneously, but I get there first.

  ‘I just fed her a wee while ago. She’ll be sick,’ I lie, scraping it into the bin as the st
upid mutt starts crying again. If I can’t get what I want, why should the fucking dog?

  I follow Jake through to his room. As he opens the door, he pounces onto the Kate picture and crumples it into his pocket.

  ‘What’s that? What did you hide?’

  His face is beetroot as I try to get it out his pocket. He suddenly seems to have about ten times his normal strength and soon has me pinned to the floor. Grabbing a clump of my hair, he pulls really hard till I think it’s going to come out. I kick out wildly, trying to get him in the balls. Eventually he stands up with tears in his eyes.

  ‘Fucking stop it, Jo. I dinnae want to fight you. I wish you and your pals would just leave me alone.’ Picking up a PC World bag, he makes for the door.

  ‘What’re you on about? Where’re you going?’

  ‘Downstairs to see Sean. He doesnae beat me up.’

  ‘Who the fuck’s Sean?’

  ‘Ma pal downstairs. You better keep away from him. You deliberately turn folk against me.’

  The front door slams, and he’s gone. I’m in shock that he’s actually stood up to me for the first time. What did he mean about me turning people against him? Fuck, even he hates me now. And where did this fucking Sean suddenly spring from? My wanky wee brother’s got more friends than me, it’s pathetic.

  I go back through to my room, in tears again. This is the most I’ve cried since I was about two. Everyone hates me. Even Dad’s sick of me. He’s taken Jake out the last two days and not even asked me. Nobody even noticed my scabby moustache. I start to fantasise about my funeral and Mum, Dad, Jake, Rosie and everyone else that hates me standing round, crying, feeling really bad about how they treated me. The organist could maybe play something by Elton John. That always gets them going. Or maybe Antonio could sing ‘Nessun Dorma’. Thoughts of hanging myself in the stair, or swallowing all Mum’s pills or cutting my wrists in the bath, cheer me up slightly. It would be worth it just to get at them. I end up having to X2 again. I must be a pervert.

  Chapter Fourteen

  VIC

  ALTHOUGH MY ROSTERED back-shift’s three-thirty till one, I had to go in early today due to an epidemic of sickies. It’s always the same at this time of year. The racing at Cheltenham and Aintree seems to have a bizarre effect on bus drivers’ abilities to fight infection. Personally, I’ve never succumbed to the gambling bug myself. The thought of being served by someone like Angie is enough to put anyone off.

  Usually, I can see in my whole shift on three buses; however, today’s shortage of staff has me farting about all over the place. Splitting up the routes is supposed to offer us variety but, you know, if I wanted variety I’d be MC at a comedy club, not driving a bloody bus. Give me the same faces at the same stops at the same times every day. It’s mindless and, this being Edinburgh, I’m well aware that no amount of familiarity will ever get the conversation beyond the ‘sixty-five, please’ stage but there’s a strange sort of comfort in the predictability of it. Christ, listen to me. What sort of dull bastard have I become?

  When I get to Haymarket, I see the crowlike figure of Brutal, the Inspector, perched outside Ryrie’s. Please make him wave me past. If he gets one whiff inside here, he’ll be straight onto the depot, reporting me. A gang of laddies got on at Wester Hailes Centre to Gorgie and it’s still reeking from their exotic fags. You’re supposed to radio in the police for stuff like that but I never bother. What bloody harm are they doing?

  Bollocks, I’ve just caught Brutal’s eye. If ever a man’s read too much into his job title, Inspector, it’s that ugly bastard. If he gets on, he won’t let me go till he’s found something to give me a hard time about. Y’know, he’s only supposed to check we’re on time, but it’s generally him makes you late in the first place with all his petty crap. Yes, you beauty. A tanned, blonde lassie with a back-pack the size of a fridge-freezer accosts him for directions as I pull away from the last stop in Dalry. The lights change and I escape onto West Maitland Street. He’ll probably report me for insolence now.

  Oof, I just got one of my pains. It’s the strain of avoiding that bastard. As a blind man manoeuvres himself onto the bus, I take the opportunity to have a good cough. My phlegm is semi-solid and all the colours of autumn. I’m obviously riddled with infection. Maybe the doctor can’t see the point in telling me because, since I’m a smoker, they won’t treat me anyway. I wipe the slime under my seat beside the rest of today’s specimens.

  A bairn starts screaming up the back and I hear the mother effing away, smacking it. Where do they get the idea that hitting children stops them crying? The hardest part of this job is not intervening when I see the way some of these young lassies treat their kids. If that’s what they do in public, God knows what they’re like in private. The bairns, invariably, have suspiciously scabby faces, but what can you do? This one carries on greeting, in between smacks, all the way through the South Side, right up Gilmerton. By the time mother and child finally get off, three stops before Gorebridge, I feel like my nerve endings are on the surface of my skin and if someone touches me, I might explode. They should introduce it as a new kind of punishment therapy for repeat offenders. Manacle them in a bus with screaming kids and drive them round in horrendous traffic. A few days of that would be far more effective than nine months in an open nick, doped out their skulls. Jack Straw’s such a wanker, he’d probably think it was a good idea.

  When I get to the terminus, I shut the doors and sit up the back with my flask and the Herald crossword. My record for completing it is 22 minutes, which I’m sure is pretty shit-hot. I’m wasted in this job. I wanted to be an architect when I was at school, then, having passed all my exams and got an unconditional for St Andrews, I got baw-heid up the duff. I’d be quids in as well. Edinburgh’s like a massive bloody building site at the moment. When I was a kid, I used to take games and books on bus journeys because I got bored. Now I’m just bored by nature.

  I’ve three clues left by the end of my break. It pisses me off when I don’t do it in a oner. I actually prefer the Scotsman crossword but it’s so anti-Scottish I’m going to stop buying it. The Herald’s a bit more positive but, then, most of the journalists are English. And as for the Record, it’s not fit to wipe your arse with – racist, destructive bullshit that it is.

  I start back again at 5.17. The serious congestion doesn’t start until Clerk Street, where I spend 25 minutes staring at the Queen’s Hall. Several people ask to be let off between stops. I wish I could go with them and just leave the bloody thing here. Once we finally move, it takes a full hour to get back to Haymarket. If the roads were clear, I’d do it in about seven minutes.

  Then back to dear old Gorgie for 35 minutes. Where do cable TV companies get the idea that the rush hour is the most prudent time to dig up the roads? There’s temporary lights and only three cars are getting through at a time. For every three that go through, another four come out of McDonald’s car park and jump in front.

  By the time I get past Luckies, it’s started pissing down. An army of drenched, angry people scowl at me as I pull in at the stop.

  ‘Is there a fucking strike on or what?’

  ‘Call yourself a public service.’

  ‘Cunt!’

  ‘Is this a Sunday service?’

  ‘I’ve just watched five 65s go past. Why is that?’

  How am I supposed to know? If they’ve all been standing here as long as they’re making out, then surely the reason for the delay must be obvious to them. How is it my fault? Thank God I’ve just got to go to the depot.

  I crash out during my dinner break. It’s horrible waking up and realising I’ve still got half my shift to do, but it’s seven by the time I go out again, so the roads are marginally quieter. I do my next two runs almost to the minute. Does anyone appreciate this? Does anyone congratulate me on my Christ-like avoidance of red lights? Do they hell.

  It rains for the rest of my shift. I love the rain. It gives all the buildings really amazing definition and reminds me
of Christmas when I was a kid. Every year we’d pray for snow, and every year, without fail, it’d either be pissing down or subtropical on Christmas Day. It also seems to soak up some of the pollution. This is probably my imagination, but I almost feel like I can smell the air when it’s raining.

  The bus, as usual, is empty by the time I get back to Westfield at quarter to one. I generally sprint up to the depot at this point as there’s rarely anyone waiting. As I drive past McDonald’s for the sixth time today, though, there’s a woman in the shelter with her thumb out. I’m only going a few more stops but she gets on anyway and sits next to me.

  I give her a smile in the mirror, but she looks so nervous, I regret it. You have to be so careful how you deal with women these days. And there’s something about this one that starts to put me on edge. She has a disturbed look about her. Each time I glance at her reflection, she’s staring at me intensely. Thankfully, it only takes a couple of minutes to get to the last stop before the depot.

  ‘This is it, love. I dinnae go any further.’

  Still, she just stares.

  ‘… you OK? You’ll have to get off here, I’m afraid.’

  She wants to go to the garage with me, though. She must live round here. Rather than see her walk up there on her own, at this time of night, I shrug and head back to base.

  When I next check the mirror, having parked and cut the engine, she’s hiked up her skirt and has her legs open. I just gawp at her. I’m no longer equipped to deal with things like this but I just can’t stop staring at the unfamiliar minge in front of me.

  ‘D’you want some?’ she whispers.

  Jesus Christ. As I frantically check the windows, I half expect Brutal to suddenly swoop towards us. There’s only a few guys just finished their shift at the far side of the garage. Switching all the lights off, I get out my little box.