2007 - A tale etched in blood and hard black pencel

by Christopher Brookmyre

  “You must be kiddin. Colin treated women like meat. I don’t think he had a steady relationship his whole life. He thought that hotel of his was like a giant bachelor-pad for a never-ending adolescence. Spent all his time just gettin pished and shaggin daft wee lassies who thought he was the life and soul. That’s why the Bleachfield went downhill so fast. He tried to hire me to manage the place at one point, but I told him to sling his hook.”

  “Was it unsalvageable even then?”

  “No idea. I just wouldnae work for or with the man. Never knew how Eleanor could do it, but I suppose he was seldom there when she was workin.”

  “Eleanor cleaned the hotel?”

  “No, he owned some lodges up the Brae.”

  “Yeah, I heard they were more of a successful venture than the Bleachfield.”

  “Aye, well, small wonder. More picturesque location than the dual carriageway out of Paisley, and they’re meant to be very nice. Wouldnae have been tempted myself, right enough.”

  “Not exactly a great escape if it’s five minutes up the road?”

  “Naw, it wasnae that. Eleanor put me off.”

  “How?”

  Jojo pauses and her eyes scan from side to side, almost involuntarily, as though reluctant to break Eleanor’s confidence, concerned that what she is about to impart might fall into the wrong hands. It is the moment when she seems most removed from Fat Joanne, who so relished telling tales; more so than in her slim figure, more so than in her matured features, more so than when they were naked together.

  “Just something she once said. I mentioned that I heard Colin would sometimes offer lodges to folk he knew at cut-price rates or even free for a bit of you-scratch-my-back. Eleanor said she wouldnae stay there if she was paid to. I asked her what she meant, but she clammed up. I got the impression she was feart she’d given somethin away that she didnae want gettin back to Colin.”

  “What do you think she meant?”

  “No idea, but when it’s comin from the person whose business is keepin the place clean, it’s not exactly a ringin endorsement.”

  “Cannae see the place gettin a great write-up from VisitScotland either, after what happened.”

  “No. Course, I’m forgetting: you’re up here on a mission to crack the case before the polis so you can free Noodsy an be the hero of the hour.” Jojo smiles as she says it, but there’s a mocking sourness to it, much the same as last night but without the sexual sparring. The old Jojo is back in the house, so Professor Brainbox had better watch his step.

  “The polis are everybody’s best bet for cracking the case,” Martin says. “I’m just trying to help.”

  “Aye,” she says, nodding sincerely. “Because that’s what you’re really doin here tonight, isn’t it? Fishin for information. Shouldnae blame you, really. I did say I was the one to ask. I’d just have preferred if you were more up-front about it, instead of kiddin on it was somethin else. I’d have preferred it also if you’d actually asked me what I thought, but you’re not interested in that. Fat Joanne might accidentally shed some light but she’s not got the brains to put two and two together herself.”

  “That’s bollocks,” he says, keeping his voice low. He considered a more ameliorative reply, but that tone only seems to irritate her. “I came here because I didn’t like the way I’d left things.”

  “You came here because you like the idea of yourself as a nice guy and you wanted some kinda absolution for what happened. You never quite got that, so you’re makin it worth your while by tappin me for background knowledge.”

  Fuck this, he thinks.

  “Well, you’ve never exactly been reluctant to show off what you know, Jojo, have you?”

  “Look who’s talking.”

  “Great comeback. Why don’t you call me Professor Brainbox and have done with it.”

  “Why don’t you call me Fat Joanne and have done with it? You’re no more interested in what I’ve got to say now than—”

  “Wait a minute,” he interrupts. “First I’m tapping you for information and then I’m not listening? Which is it, make up your mind.”

  “It’s both. You want to know what I can tell you, but you’re not interested in hearing what I might have to say.”

  “No, this is binary, Jojo, do you understand? One or other, off or on. Can’t be both.”

  She sneered as he said the word ‘binary’, and he felt like an utter prick for doing so, but he’s struggling to fight his corner here. Now they really are Professor Brainbox and Fat Joanne. He recalls one of the more nauseatingly precocious acts of his schooldays, and it’s safe to assume she does, too. It was in Primary Seven, when O’Connor was introducing this particular subject. He told the teacher he’d once read a sentence that would illustrate it, and was invited to write it on the blackboard. “There are 10 types of people in this world,” he’d written. “Those who understand binary and those who don’t.” He’d been so proud of himself. If somebody had kicked his balls for it, it would have been both just and a mercy.

  “It isn’t both,” Jojo states precisely. “There’s a difference. Why haven’t you asked me what I think?” she demands.

  “We’d barely strayed on to the subject when you started getting all—”

  “Two days you’ve been here, Martin. Why haven’t you asked me what I think about the very subject that brought you back to Braeside?”

  He says nothing. He could deflect, deny, come up with something, but what’s the point? They both know she’s right.

  “Must be murder for you, just now,” she says, breaking a grim silence.

  “What must?”

  “Nobody’s allowed to be as clever as you. You resent the success of these numpties you talked aboot because you think they’re not as clever as you; and you resented playing second fiddle to folk like me and Colin at school for the exact same reason. So it must be murder bein back in this town and knowin less than everybody else, that big brain of yours unable tae come up with all the right answers.”

  There is another silence, even bleaker than the last. He decides he’ll be the one to fill it. She’s just taken him apart so she shouldn’t complain if he responds in kind.

  “You ought to be careful, there, Jojo,” he says coldly. “I think your insecurities might be showing. Same as they were the time you ritually slaughtered me in front of everyone way back when.”

  This, he knows, will bring the old Jojo fully to the fore. If it’s going to end as bitterly as it began, then so be it. At least she won’t be able to tell herself all that shite about folk not being who they once were.

  Jojo bows her head so he can’t see her face. When she raises it again, he’ll take both barrels, and then he’ll be out of here. She runs a hand through her hair. Here it comes.

  But when Jojo sits up straight again, there are tears forming in her eyes, as well as anger that he’s seeing this.

  “And what if my insecurities are showing, Martin?” she asks, just about managing to steady her voice. “Am I not allowed to feel undervalued as well? Am I not allowed to be pissed off because you’re not remotely interested in me for who I am?”

  “I’m about as interested as you’ve ever been in me.”

  She wipes at her eyes and smears her make-up a little. “Aye, well,” she says. “I guess you’re no as smart as I thought. Nobody at our school was immune to feeling overlooked, Martin. Nobody gets spared the feeling that they’re worthless in somebody else’s eyes.” She stands up. “The last train to Glasgow leaves in aboot five minutes,” she informs him, then walks away.

  Martin stands up too, in that moment remembering something not quite too late. “I did ask you what you thought,” he says.

  For a moment, he is sure she’s going to ignore it and keep walking, but she turns.

  “Excuse me?” she asks, folded arms accentuating a defensive hostility.

  “I did ask what you thought and you dodged it. I asked what you thought Eleanor meant and you said you didn’t know.”
/>   “I didn’t know. I don’t know.”

  “You deduced that she was scared she’d given something away, and yet you’re claiming you never speculated what that was?”

  “Oh, Christ, of course I speculated, but what’s that worth to anybody?”

  “It’s worth something to me. That’s why I asked. That’s why I’m asking now.”

  They stare at each other from a few feet away, a real gun-slinger duel of a stare. She’s weighing up many things: face, spite, anger, and the best way to serve all three.

  She licks her lips, her tongue just the slightest protrusion between them. “I think the sleazy bastard had a peep-hole,” she says, then glances at the clock. “You’re gaunny miss your train.”

  Third Year

  XI Bootis 2

  Solvent Abuse

  Thank fuck it’s Friday afternoon. Just one double period to go and then home for tea, before the school disco tonight. Should be a laugh. Plus he’ll get to see all the lassies dressed up, though seeing is about as much as Robbie will have a chance of. Doesn’t matter. The lassies in his year are all fucking cows and snobs anyway. Not like the ones he’s heard Boma and Joe talking about. Sounds like the lassies in their years were less tight. Course, Boma and Joe could be talking shite. It wouldn’t be the first time.

  It’s been a long week: the first week back since, you know. First week back after holidays is always slow. This week was like that but worse. After holidays, everybody’s trying to get their act together again, not just you. And making it more awkward is the awareness that every cunt must know. A long week, sure, but the two before it were a sight longer, were they not? Aye, and they could have been longer still, could have been shorter, in extreme ways he doesn’t like to think about.

  The doctors said he was lucky. Didn’t feel very fucking lucky. Thousands of cunts sniffing glue every day and this never fucking happens to them, does it? So what’s fucking lucky about it? But he knows fine what’s fucking lucky about it. He could have ended up like one of those poor bastards on the news. One of the real stories, he means, on the telly news. Not the papers, the Daily Record and all that shite, whose take on glue is to keep coming out with pish about some daft cunt attacking somebody because they’re on a trip and think he’s a fucking werewolf or something. He means the nae-kidding glue stories: pan breid, or a fucking vegetable or something. And all for what? Sniffing solvent out a fucking crisp poke to get a buzz. Fucking pathetic, now he’s looking back at it. Probably wouldn’t have got into it if he’d been able to get hold of some Woodpecker or Merrydown that first time, but who the fuck’s going to serve him? Even the bigger guys, like Tempo and Panda, get big brothers or pay somebody older to buy them their carry-outs.

  He remembers the day he first did the glue. He was fed up hearing all the stories from other cunts about getting a carry-out and getting steamboats. He had gone round collecting ginger bottles for the deposits; did it every night of the week until he had enough for a bottle of cider. He gave the money to Boma to buy it for him, but the bastard fucked off with the bottle himself and scudded Robbie in the dish when he complained about it. Not as if he could tell his maw, was it? “Mammy, your sixteen-year-old has just knocked your fourteen-year-old’s kerry-out.” So that was him fucked. No drink and no money. And it’s not as if you can knock booze, either, because it’s all kept behind the counter at the Paki’s, with fucking bars and wire, like a cage. You can knock glue, but. No danger. They’re talking about making the shopkeepers demand proof of age before they can buy it, sixteen minimum, same as fags. You don’t need proof of age to fucking thieve it, but, do you?

  So that was him sorted out for a Friday night: tube of Bostik and a packet of fucking Space Raiders. He remembers the room birling, remembers liking it. Remembers the fucking headache he had the next day as well, but it’s amazing how quick you can forget something like that when you’re bored out your tits the next night and there’s still glue left. He must have done it four or five times before he got ‘lucky’ and ended up in the Alexandra Infirmary with a fucking tube down his throat. In and out of consciousness for three days. He remembers opening his eyes and it being night-time, blinking and it was day. Remembers folk round the bed before he was sharp enough to make them out properly. Maw and Da arguing, though he couldn’t always hear what they were saying. Maw was upset, Da just angry. That was usually the script at home, right enough.

  He remembers her having a right go at Da for something he said, but doesn’t recall what it was. “You never treated Joe and Brian like that,” she says.

  “Aye well,” Da says back. “I wonder how no.”

  Then she was greeting again, and Robbie fell asleep. Or maybe he just pretended to be asleep.

  He got a get-well card from the school. Nurses brought it in to him once he had the tube out and he was sitting upright. They were all busy at somebody else’s bed when he opened it, which was just as well, because he wouldn’t have wanted anybody to see him. He was greeting, for fuck’s sake. Him. He doesn’t greet about anything, not even when Boma or his da really stoat him one. But this, fuck. Just kind of snuck up on him, greeting before he even knew it. All the names, man, and wee messages. They must have passed it round the social area, off their own backs, as opposed to something a teacher organised and made every cunt in the class sign. He can tell because it’s mostly boys, and it’s boys from all the classes, not just 3S6. They’ve had a whip-round as well: got him a fiver record token.

  He doesn’t know why it made him greet, but he was pure bubbling like a wee wean. Then he got kind of angry about it. He resented the thought of folk feeling sorry for him, thinking of him as weak or like a fucking spastic or something. Well, he wouldn’t be having that. It was nice to get the card, but that didn’t mean anybody could take the pish. He would panel the first cunt to say anything out of order, no matter who it was.

  But there was no escaping what the card told him about how it looked from the outside: he’s been a stupid cunt, and everybody knows he’s been a stupid cunt. That was the hardest thing about going back to school this week: embarrassment. Knowing every bastard’s looking at you and thinking about what happened to you. He’s felt it before, back in First Year when Big Tempo broke his nose and burst his mouth. This is far worse, because they’re not picturing a fight or all that blood spraying about; they’re picturing him splayed out on his bedroom floor with his neb stuck in a crisp poke.

  Christ, looking back on it, the fight with Tempo’s almost something to be proud of by comparison, considering his stature now. Folk looking at the pair of them these days would think Robbie must have been pretty brave to have a go at all, never mind the outcome. Tempo’s mother must have been feeding him Popeye’s fucking spinach or something, because he just shot up in height and beefed out in build, too. And like his hammering of Robbie, it didn’t go unnoticed. Once folk were talking about it, it was only a matter of time before some hard cunt decided they wanted their go, and the smart money was always going to be on Jai Burns. Jai saw it as a day wasted if he never punched somebody, and he was the one that most wanted the reputation as the hardest in the year, especially with the likes of Kenny, Chick and Richie more interested in the fitba team or winching or whatever. It was a fucking miracle it took him as long as it did to start a fight with Tempo. It happened about halfway through Second Year. He’d had a few attempts, right enough, but Temps never rose to the bait. When it finally happened, it was because Temps was mouthing off, not the other way around. Temps is a mouthy bastard to everybody now, but he’d been careful around Jai up to that point. Robbie reckons Temps knew this was unavoidable and decided just to get it over with when he was feeling up for it. Mr Sullivan and Mr Blake broke it up, but Tempo was knocking fuck out of Jai when they did. Jai tried to make out otherwise to any cunt that would listen, but if Jai believed it himself, he’d have made sure it got finished properly after school, whereas he did fuck-all.

  Tempo hasn’t fought anybody since. Nobody’s fancied
noising him up, for one thing, but it’s mainly because Temps isn’t interested in fighting. He’s interested in fanny.

  Robbie’s got on fine with him since their fight in First Year, which is even more surprising considering they never liked each other before that. It was a bit awkward for a while, as you’d expect, but fair play to Tempo: he could have been a pure cunt about it and he wasn’t. Takes the pish a bit, but he does that to everybody. It was Temps who came up with Robbie’s new nickname: Turbo. Turbo Turner. Sounds gallus, doesn’t it? A proper nickname, like Boma’s got. Just as well, too, because Christ knows what some bastard might have saddled him with over the glue-sniffing.

  This last period is science, which is usually all right, sometimes a laugh. He’s sitting with Noodsy, who he hangs about with a lot these days since Noodsy moved house to just up the back from Robbie’s bit. Next to Noodsy is George Sanford, who used to be called George Spamford because he was in the remedial group. General George, they call him now, because he isn’t in any O-Grade classes, not even arithmetic—just general science, general maths, general English…

  They get Mr Boyd for science. He’s a dozy bastard—literally on a Friday afternoon, because that’s the day the teachers hit the pub at lunchtime, and he’s the one who gets the most bewied. He must be pretty puggled first class back in the afternoon, but by the final double period he’s ready for sleeping it off, especially if the room’s warm and there are no windows open. Even if he doesn’t actually nod off, he’s not at his most observant, so it’s usually an easy shift to wind down the week.

  It’s raining outside, which is a bugger, because it puts the knackers on their favourite Friday afternoon game of taking it in turns to go out the window. Noodsy started it a few weeks back. Just climbed out because he was bored, went for a walk about and then came back in. Didn’t even need anybody to keep the edgy—just keeked in to see what Boyd was up to and then chose his moment to return. What was dead funny was that Boyd must have noticed something was different but couldn’t suss out what it was. You could see it in his face after Noodsy came back in. He was like, “Was that seat not empty a wee minute ago?” Fucking funny as fuck.