Scabby Queen

by Kirstin Innes

  ‘And now, let’s keep that spirit going, my friends! I’m delighted to announce a very special guest indeed, a surprise addition to the bill. We can’t quite believe we’ve got her, so let’s have some music. People got to rise up! Put your hands together for Clio Campbell!’

  She couldn’t have inherited a more receptive crowd. Clio stood centre stage, silent and half-smiling as the stage hand plugged her guitar to the amp. She was wearing purple-toned leather cowboy boots and a dress too thin for the weather, shivered visibly as she reached for the mic stand.

  ‘Afternoon, Edinburgh.’

  A few well-mannered helloes.

  ‘Yeah, that seems about right. Let me tell you something. I was there, when we marched in London. Over a million people in the streets. It wasn’t anything like this. People were there because they were angry. Now, I know it’s raining today, but I was in that march earlier, and I wasn’t really picking up on that much anger from you.’

  Stick to the songs, Neil was thinking, trying to push the words through the air to her. Just sing. You’re not so good at this.

  ‘And do you know what, Edinburgh, you should be angry. Not just about a warmongering oil baron who happens to be the most powerful man in the world getting a fancy tea with the Queen on your taxes, but because you’re all being taken for fools. Every day. And you just don’t seem to care, do you? Even those of you here today, you’re not doing much about it. You’re really not making very much noise. Can you make some noise, Edinburgh?’

  ‘Fuck off!’ shouted a young male voice. Laughter.

  ‘No I will not. I will not fuck off. Don’t you – I’ve been actually doing something with my time to make a difference, not just tiptoeing along a wee march on the local high street. Don’t you talk to me like that. You don’t get to—’

  She stopped, pulled back for a second, her lips moving and nothing coming out.

  ‘Anyway, here’s a song. You probably know it. It’s called “Rise Up”.’

  A few people clapped, a couple of whistles, but she’d lost them. A clamour of conversation rose above the noise of the PA, and people at the back started peeling back off up the hill. Her voice was ragged over the first verse and she didn’t manage to reach the high note of the chorus, ended it a verse early. Downbeat applause, a muttered thanks, and she scuttled off the stage, across the other side.

  The pub they ended up in was supposed to be spooky. Bell jars covering plastic specimens, coated in sprayed-on dust, cluttered up nooks and tables; skeletons hung from the ceiling and a tape played the ‘Monster Mash’ on repeat in the toilets, which were accessed through a door covered in fake books.

  ‘Do you think those are real skeletons?’ Neil asked, as he brought the drinks back to the table where she was hunched, hadn’t even taken off her coat. It was something to say. ‘I mean, actual people. That was once a living person. Maybe.’

  He shunted the pint across to her. ‘Right, get that down you, and tell me what you’ve been doing for ten years. I ordered us some chips and onion rings and that. Don’t know about you, but I always work up a hunger after a day’s marching!’

  He’d said that too loudly, and they both winced in the silence that followed. Slowly, though, she began to uncurl. She bent towards him, stretching her purple cowboy boots out along the leather bench she was perched on, her dress rucked up over her thighs.

  ‘I like the boots. A wee nod to the Texas President?’

  She grinned. ‘Yeah. Bit on the nose, you reckon? Much like my set.’

  ‘You were fine. You were great. Come on now.’

  ‘I lost it up there. I’m – ach, Neil, I don’t see what the point is sometimes. I mean, back in the day, when we were taking direct action – our protests counted for something. You know? We could form a human shield around a house. We could show up in our hundreds of thousands to George Square or mob the buses down to London and feel like we were making a difference. We got the fucking poll tax binned! That, today. I just didn’t feel like there was any energy. And why would there be? Nobody cared about what we did there. It was just a group of people getting together to murmur their displeasure. Ach. Ach ach ach. When did protest become a hobby for rich people? Did you see some of those fuckers out there? I mean, it’s like mass gatherings have become marketable or something.’

  ‘There’s still a place for anger,’ he said, gently. ‘Maybe even more so now.’

  ‘But how? How does it get out? It’s maybe the age I am, but I’m sitting here with my guitar after a failed gig and a failed march, wondering what the hell I’m doing with my life. I can’t go on like I have been doing. I can’t. It just doesn’t work. Nobody wants my music and nobody wants my voice. I’ve never not been helping before. You know?’

  She gulped lager, stared down at her legs, began talking again before he’d worked out quite what to say.

  ‘They were a present, the boots. Just got given them yesterday. I’m maybe not convinced they work.’

  ‘I like them.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have chosen them. Just trying something. Ach, sorry you had to see that, Neil. I’m not really doing much with the music any more. It’s been a long time since I performed anything, and I’ve forgotten how to interact with a crowd.’

  ‘Well, that’s a shame. You should always be singing, Clio.’

  She looked straight at him and he felt that pilot light go on. It would take them four more pints and an untouched bowl of onion rings, but when he bent across to kiss her, after steadying her when she’d almost fallen off the seat, he did it with confidence, knowing she was going to kiss right back. Cold beery mouth on his and her hands intense, the shock of contact for both of them. He pulled away and cupped her flushed face in a hand, rubbed the lipstick off her chin with his thumb.

  ‘So. What are we going to do about this, then? Have you got – did they give you – offer to put you up anywhere?’

  She shook her head, and he tried to slosh through a mental calculation. It would take time to get her on the train to Glasgow and back to his flat, and he didn’t think he could risk her sobering up along the way, under harsh ScotRail lighting, crowds of football fans and the wait to buy a ticket. Fuck it. Time for a grand gesture.

  ‘Would you like to crash at mine?’

  A nod, as if she didn’t want to put words out there. Perhaps she needed him to take charge, just for today. He picked up her coat and helped her into it, one arm, two, steered a hand at the small of her back, and stepped her out into the street. The click, click of her boots on concrete. She was muttering something. He pulled her close so he could hear.

  ‘Lot of disappointments, Neil. Lot of disappointments in the last couple of days.’

  He didn’t know what to say to that. Fortunately his eye caught the welcome orange light, and he flagged it down, and it stopped.

  ‘Thanks, mate. Big trip for you, this one. How much to get us to Glasgow, the West End.’

  ‘Ooh, that’s a steep one, pal. Flat fare is eighty pounds.’

  ‘No bother.’

  ‘Neil, you – we’re going to Glasgow? What?’

  ‘Don’t worry about it. It’s on the paper,’ he said, and pressed his mouth to her neck.

  They snogged for the whole taxi ride, almost an hour. He didn’t want her to come up for air, didn’t want to give her time to think, remember who he was and what he wasn’t, change her mind. Slow. Pace yourself. His fingers found the low neckline of her dress, danced gently at the warm skin under there with increasing pressure; by the time they passed Falkirk he had his whole hand inside her bra, was rubbing her nipple between finger and thumb. There was heat coming off her, from between her legs, and his other hand needed to be up there. He guided her hand down and felt dizzy when, after a couple of seconds, she fumbled obediently at his belt buckle, slipped in there, held him in her fist, not stroking but pulsing faintly with her hand, slowing to a halt as his fingers reached her knickers and she breathed in-in-in. Out of the window, Glasgow approached, just as
he was considering whether he could in fact be the sort of person who could fuck in a taxi with the driver right there, through a half-open pane of Plexiglas. He drummed his fingers lightly over the cotton, the softness beneath it, pulsed again against her hand just at the idea of slipping under the elastic edge, pulled back as he felt the cab slowing, heard the driver clear his throat.

  ‘All right, pal, thanks very much. Here you go, keep the change.’

  ‘You not wanting a receipt?’

  She was slumped forward slightly, staring at her boots.

  ‘Nope, nope, all good. Night, pal. Night.’

  She was stepping out, the cold night air hitting her face.

  ‘Aye well. Have a good night. Thanks for the show.’

  ‘What did he say?’ Clio asked, waking up, wheeling about on the pavement.

  ‘Arsehole. Don’t listen to him.’

  He steered her through the gate, pushed her up against the door with one hand and kept kissing her while he groped in each pocket of his jacket. Got them. Got them. Door unlocked, he held her hand and practically pulled her up the stairs, three flights, her arms feeling thin and her body swaying dangerously over the concrete drop behind.

  ‘Christ, Neil, that’s some workout.’

  ‘Uh-huh. Come in.’

  He could offer to get her a drink or something, but leaving her alone in his drab wee hallway would probably be counterproductive right now, so he steered her straight to the bed, walking behind her, holding her hip and her breast, pressing his erection into her arse.

  ‘You seem to be a bit overdressed, my lady. Shall we get you out of this?’

  Again, she said nothing, and he pulled her dress over her head. She wasn’t looking at him, reached around behind herself to undo her bra, and he brought his face down to her breasts, appreciating them close up. They had always been small; she looked much younger than she was there, in the half-dark, in nothing but her knickers and a pair of cowboy boots.

  ‘God, you’re beautiful, you’re so fucking beautiful.’

  No response, so he pushed her down flat onto the mattress, positioned himself on top of her, held her legs open and scooped her knickers to the side. Red hair, bright even in the gloom. He breathed her in, put his face right there, his mouth.

  ‘Let me worship you tonight,’ he told her, just trying to alleviate the sadness. Tonight, he thought, she needed to feel wanted. And he could provide. When he finally got inside her, he groaned, loud. How long since he’d had sex? His last relationship – if you could call those three months of awkwardness with Louise a relationship – had ended well over a year ago.

  ‘Fifteen years in the making!’ he said, smiling down at her.

  ‘Sssh,’ she told him.

  Afterwards he brought her wine and crisps from the kitchen, and they consumed them together under the sheets, in companionable silence. He stroked her arm.

  ‘Dunno about you, but I’ve wanted to do that for a long time.’

  She sipped. ‘It was nice.’

  ‘How would you feel if I held you tonight?’

  ‘Yeah, OK.’

  He kept the warmth of her close to him, skin on skin, lining her. She was angular, bony even, and he was aware that the slump of his beer belly was pushing at her back, tried sucking it in till he was sure she was asleep.

  Clio Campbell, in his bed.

  He woke first, spent a little bit of time just looking at her, thankful for once that his cheap curtains let in too much daylight. Freckles on her cheekbones, delicate blue veins under that thin milky skin, wrinkles at her eyes and deep lines pulling her mouth into a frown. Well, she was still younger than him, he reminded himself, and definitely in better shape. Her eyes opened.

  ‘Hello there, sleepy.’ He smiled at her.

  ‘Hi, Neil. Morning. Time is it?’ She didn’t take even a second to come to; he wondered briefly if she’d maybe been awake for a while.

  ‘Almost eight. Go back to sleep if you want. I could make you some breakfast? Seeing as I worked later yesterday I can take a bit of TOIL this morning.’

  ‘No, I should go. Need to – shit, we’re in Glasgow, aren’t we? I’m going to have to go. My bus leaves from Edinburgh. Where’s your bathroom?’

  He heard her run down the hall, a hurried splashing in there; pulled on boxers and T-shirt to cover himself. The cowboy boots stood to attention at the foot of the bed, waiting. She came back in buttoning her dress up. Her feet, he noticed, were red and covered in scabs and blisters.

  ‘Can’t I even make you a fried egg sandwich? For old times?’

  ‘Eh? Sorry, but I can’t afford to miss this bus. I have to be back home today – need to sign on first thing tomorrow. Sorry to run off on you. Sorry.’

  He stood, picked up his dressing gown from the floor.

  ‘Do you know where you are? Need directions?’

  ‘We’re not far from the Subway, are we? Look, Neil, I hate to do this, but I don’t suppose I could borrow a tenner for the train? I’m sort of broke right now, and I didn’t really intend to wake up in Glasgow, if you know what I mean.’

  His leather jacket was hanging off the doorknob. He reached in for his wallet and realized he’d given the driver a hundred pounds last night.

  ‘Shit. I’ve got about seven quid in shrapnel – that do you? Sorry. Sorry about this.’

  She gave him a brief hug at the door, seemed to relent from something at the last minute and relax herself back into his body.

  ‘It was good to see you again. Thank you, thanks for the drinks and the crash space. Listen, if – if I come across a story, anything you might be interested in, could I give you a call? Just get you at the paper? In your office?’

  ‘Of course. Any time,’ he said, trying to sound grown up, disinterested. Trying to stop the screaming he could hear in his head.

  The door closed and she was gone. He didn’t want to go back into the bedroom and see the sheets, smell last night. He made himself a coffee, stirring the granules in with the milk while the kettle boiled. A few years ago he’d gone out with a woman who had hated that he drank instant coffee, had taken him shopping for a cafetière and tried to get him accustomed to it, and when they’d broken up he’d gone back to his jar of Nescafé as an act of rebellion, a point of working-class pride. This morning he realized that it really did just taste like shit.

  He sat there at the kitchen worktop, staring at nothing, whipping himself with every humiliation he’d endured since stepping out the morning before – the tape recorder, the writer’s disdain, Clio’s silence and sadness, her leaving him. Gradually the warm, shitty coffee began to do its job, and he began to feel himself awake, getting angry. Had she done this just to get somewhere to crash? Where the hell had she been intending to stay, as she clearly didn’t have money for a hotel?

  Right. He’d go into the office, type up his transcription, make a start on the puff piece, maybe get a pie or something on the way in. At least he’d had a shag. At least he’d shagged her.

  It was only once he’d dressed and showered and was ready to leave that he realized that the bloody fucking tape recorder had fallen out of his bag.

  BBC Radio Scotland, 24 January 2018

  It’s two thirty-five, and you’re listening to the Afternoon Show on BBC Radio Scotland with me, Janice Forsyth. Now, in the wake of the tragic and too-soon death of the musician Clio Campbell, aged only fifty-one, this week, I dug into the archives and found a session and interview our very own Jim Arbuthnott did with her on his folk show back in 2007, when her superlative album, The Northern Lass, a reimagining of the songs of Robert Burns, came out. Here’s Clio Campbell in her own, very distinctive, style.

  JA:So, Clio, welcome to the show.

  CC:Thanks for having me.

  JA:Now, it’s been a while since we’ve heard from you round these parts.

  CC:Well, yes. I’ve been living in London for a while now.

  JA:And very nice it is to have you back up here! But I meant it’s bee
n a while since the single most of our listeners will know you from – ‘Rise Up’ – which charted in, what was it, 1991?

  CC:Well, I’ve been doing a lot since then.

  JA:Of course, of course. But sixteen years between releases – there are some people who’d call that a bit of a block.

  CC:I don’t feel as though it’s been a block, Jim. People do different things with their lives. Music isn’t the only part of me.

  JA:Of course not. But it’s something you’ve come back to recently, would that be fair to say?

  CC:Yes. I came up with the idea a few years ago now to do sort of radical reinventions of the songs of Robert Burns. It’s something I’d done on tour for a while, back in the day: my band and I would do these gigs up in tiny villages in the Highlands and we’d always try and bring them something they knew, but in a new way, you know? So we’d do new takes on ‘A Man’s a Man’, that sort of thing.

  JA:Because you grew up with these songs, didn’t you?

  CC:I did. I was raised in Ayrshire, where he’s basically a local god. So of course we sung those songs at school throughout the year, not just on Burns Night. It’s the sort of thing that’ll get you drummed out of town – um. Well. Not knowing those songs. In Ayrshire. Yeah. So. On top of that, my father was a folk musician—

  JA:That’s right, Malcolm Campbell. He passed away a few years ago, didn’t he. Was he with you in spirit while you were making this?

  CC:Not really.

  JA:Was it perhaps your way of paying tribute to him?

  CC:No.

  JA:But he sang these songs?

  CC:Yes, he sang these songs.

  JA:So. Anyway. You mentioned that you would do slightly different versions of them on tour – was this back in the Nineties?

  CC:It was. Yes. And I thought about just recording an album in that style, but then I realized that the most important work I could do would be to find what Robert Burns had to say about today. Because, you know, he was a deeply political artist—

  JA:He was, and—

  CC:And the messages he was preaching – egalitarianism, equality – they’re messages that we need to hear today. But he was also working class, so I thought, well, where are the artists of today who are doing what he did. And it occurred to me to look at what the younger rappers and grime artists coming out of South London were making, and to involve some of them on some of the tracks, both rapping Burns’s lines and laying down some of their own thoughts.