However, the more he looks at her, the more he wants to dance with her, and the more he thinks it’s worth the risk. But at the same time, the more he looks at her, the prettier she gets; and the prettier she gets, the less he fancies his chances. Nah. Leave it. Scotty is right. Probably.
§
Karen, AH and Helen are having a seat at the side and sharing round a can of juice when Karen sees Jojo and Margaret-Anne heading in their direction. They’re probably on their way to the toilets, but they’ve chosen this route for a reason. She knows they’re about to get some lip, but takes it as a compliment, because, at other discos and parties, in Karen’s experience, that crowd normally make a point of acting like you’re not even there. So serve it up, Jojo. Let us know we’ve pissed you off.
“Hi, Karen, hi, Alison, hello Helen,” says Jojo, her voice all fake nicey-nicey, she and Margaret-Anne sharing a smirk that is drippingly patronising.
“Hi,” she and Ali both mumble disinterestedly. Helen says, “Hello,” and smiles, because that’s Helen.
“Like your gear,” Jojo says, with a grin that is intended to convey her delight at seeing them kitted out in such a supposedly embarrassing get-up. “It’s really…different.”
And yours is really, really the same, she doesn’t reply. “Thanks,” she says instead, in a tone that means “Fuck you.”
“You enjoying yourself?” Margaret-Anne asks Helen, in that foghorn rasp of hers that makes everything she says sound like a threat.
“Yes,” says Helen.
“Saw you up askin for music,” Margaret-Anne adds.
“What kind of music do you like, Helen?” asks Jojo.
Karen can feel her hackles rise, her mouth turning to acid. Leave her alone, she’s thinking. Pick on someone your own size. Bitches. They’re not asking because they’re interested. They’re asking because they want to shoot her down and they like it best if you give them the ammunition yourself. Karen clocked them a few times on the dance floor, looking her, Ali and Helen up and down: the two freakshows being bad enough, but compounding their status by dancing with their square wee-lassie pal. That’s why they’re picking on Helen now: anything they can laugh at Helen for is a slagging for this pair who still hang about with her.
“Echo and the Bunnymen,” says Helen.
“Bunnyman? Is that him oot The Magic Roundabout?” Margaret-Anne barks.
“What else?” presses Jojo.
“Bauhaus,” Helen replies, biting her lip a little. Helen’s sweet, but she’s not fucking stupid, and she knows what’s going on here.
“Bow-wows?” says Margaret-Anne. “Bunnies and Bowwows!” This is at the sophisticated end of what passes for Margaret-Anne’s sense of humour.
“Bauhaus,” Helen restates, more firmly.
“Never heard of them,” says Jojo dismissively. “What do they sing, then?”
“She’s in Parties, Beta Lugosi’s Dead, Ziggy Stardust, ” Helen suggests, emphasising this last song by way of implying it ought to ring a few bells.
“Bunny, Bow-wow and Ziggy,” says Margaret-Anne, laughing.
“Never heard of that, either,” sniffs Jojo.
“Oh, yeah, that’s right,” says Karen. “You’re Bowie fans. Big Bowie fans, obviously.”
“Aye, what aboot it?” demands Jojo.
“Nothing,” Karen replies; she, Ali and Helen sharing a smile, which Jojo doesn’t like one bit. Knowing she’s being got at but being too daft to work out precisely how has probably been a major source of frustration throughout her life.
“Bela Lugosi’s dead, did you say?” Jojo asks. “That’s a shame, isn’t it? Cause if he was here wi Boris Karloff, it would be the only chance yous had of gettin asked up for a dance.”
“Aye,” affirms Margaret-Anne as they walk off. “Fuckin lez-beans.”
§
A little later, the three of them are up dancing again, but nobody has said much for a while. After Jojo and Margaret left, Ali finished off the can and suggested they get back on the floor, to which Karen and Helen instantly agreed. Normally it would take a decent record starting up for them to make their move, but on this occasion they’d have got up even if it was The Birdy Song. They needed to get away from the silence that was growing in the wake of the wee visit they had just endured. Sure, they swapped a few ‘cow’s and ‘just ignore them’s, but it had left a sour taste, being so blatantly got at, especially the nasty way they’d singled out Helen.
Helen’s acting like she’s all caught up in the dancing, pretending it didn’t bother her, but Karen knows otherwise. She’s innocent but she’s not naive. Helen knows about the game, same as everyone else, and knows she just took a hit. It’ll pass, though. Just keep dancing. The sting will wear off. Don’t let those cows ruin your fun.
Karen sees Scot Connolly up talking to the DJ. She sits in front of him in O-Grade maths. She’s seen his books and jotters, the names of bands lovingly etched on every spare inch of their wallpaper coverings. Karen isn’t familiar with half of them, but a lot of the names are ones she’s heard Nicola mention. Helen and Nicola don’t have a lot of pocket money for buying records, but they listen to Janice Long and then John Peel on the radio all night in their room, and make tapes off it, too.
The DJ puts on one she does know, a song by Stiff Little Fingers. She sees Scot dancing with Martin Jackson and Sean Cassidy, just jumping around having a good time together like her and her pals. She also sees Jojo and that lot at the side, not dancing but making a point of watching. Part of her wishes she and Ali and Helen could just turn around and start dancing with Scot, Martin and Scan, all in a group, giving their own stiff little fingers to the sneering in-crowd at the side. It’s not going to happen, though. Jojo and that lot would just love it too much anyway: them dancing with three wee guys still in trainers, Scan in his tracky bottoms, too.
She smiles at them, though, and they smile back, apart from Martin. He is smiling, but she doesn’t catch his eye because he keeps looking at Helen. Karen wonders if he fancies her. The thought tickles her a bit, but she knows she can’t say anything to Helen, because the girl would be mortified.
They dance another couple of numbers and then decide to take a seat. It’s mostly guys on the floor just now, because another Madness song has started. Scot, Martin and Sean are sitting this one out, too. They’re over against the far wall, laughing about something, but Martin is still stealing looks at Helen, who seemingly remains oblivious.
The Madness number finishes, replaced by Tears for Fears, then Wah!, which gets Scot and Sean up, but not Martin. He stays seated for a minute, still taking frequent gawps over at Helen. Karen smiles to herself and looks away, notices Christine Morton from Fourth Year dancing with Kenny Langton. It’s unusual for girls to be with younger guys, but Kenny is taller than half the staff, and, she’d have to admit, quite good looking, as well as extremely charming when he’s not acting the clown. When she loofepr across again, Martin has gone. Then two dancers unblock her view and reveal, to her great discomfort, that he is heading across the floor towards Helen.
Oh, God. Oh, no.
He stands in front of where Helen is seated. Karen can see his right hand tremble as it hangs by his side, his face all but drained of colour, poor bastard. He tries to smile, but his nervousness just makes him look temporarily palsied.
He asks Helen to dance. It takes two attempts because his voice sort of dries up halfway through the first. Helen becomes instantly as pale as Martin. Her eyes bulge and she physically shrinks in her chair. She looks panicked. She shakes her head then suddenly gets up and walks—almost runs—towards the exit. Karen and Ali exchange a look across the empty seat and get up to follow her. Karen tries to offer Martin a wee look of…she doesn’t know what, just something, but he’s staring at the floor, probably wishing it would open up and swallow him.
Poor bastard. He didn’t know what he was walking into. He put Helen on the spot and gave her no choice. He shouldn’t take it personally. It’s just
the dictates of the game. Down on the hockey pitch, when Karen whacks it as hard as she can away from her goal, it’s not because she has anything against the ball.
Bonds and Confederacies
It’s a less polished Pete McGeechy who sits across from them in the interview room, and not just because he’s meeting them on their turf. The fact that it’s not long after four in the morning plays a part. Soon as they found the right DVD in Temple’s house, she had somebody go pick him up. She figured as she was going to be up all night anyway, she might as well make it work for her; guys like that are far less composed when you haul them out of bed in the wee small hours. He really wouldn’t be looking forward to the missus asking him what it was all about, either.
It was quite a collection Temple had amassed, though fortunately she hadn’t needed to cue through any great quantity of other people’s violated intimacies in order to find what she was looking for. Something as crucial as the McGeechy disc was never going to be just lined up on the shelf next to the rest, and nor was there likely to be only the one copy. Tom found one hidden in the ice compartment of the fridge at almost the same time as Spiers located another taped to the underside of a drawer in Temple’s bedside cabinet. No sign of the removable hard drive, but this was plenty for now.
He’s slumped on the other side of the table from Karen and Tom, looking tired, beaten, angry and bewildered, which is pretty much how they want him. The DVD sits between them in a transparent case. McGeechy’s eyes seldom leave it for long.
“So, Peter,” Karen says. “Are you ‘at liberty to reveal’ a wee bit more now? Because it certainly looks like Colin Temple was.”
He closes his bloodshot eyes and sighs deeply, putting both hands to his head, revealing two large sweat-rings under his arms despite his shirt being on him for less than half an hour. Karen keeps herself from smiling as she recognises all the signs. Stick a fork in him: he’s ready.
“When did he hit you with this?” she asks.
“Later than you’d think,” McGeechy says. He laughs bitterly. “I thought we were friends. Not big pals, but still in touch, the odd pint, you know? So I never thought much about it when he offered me the lodge.”
“For free?” Karen asks pointedly.
“Aye. Christ, I knew he’d want a favour back at some point, but I was fine with that. There’s a difference between doing somebody a favour and doing something corrupt. He said the place wasnae booked the now, would be empty anyway. Perfect for a fly wee night away.”
“From the wife,” Tom adds.
McGeechy says nothing, just gives another small sigh, shakes his head a little. It must all look so foolish now. It always does after you’re caught. “This was before he submitted the application.”
“We know.”
“Once he had, in the back of my mind I thought…but no. He even said to me, something along the lines of: “Look, that wee favour with the lodge, I hope you don’t think this is what I’m lookin for back, hope it doesnae put you in an awkward spot,” that kinna thing. I’m like: “No, it’s fine, I’ve declared it, it’s all above board.” Things looked like leaning in the application’s favour anyway. There’s always a few rumbles from folk, sometimes just to remind you they’re there or to let you know that if they back this, they’ll expect your cooperation on something else. That’s politics. But as these things go, it looked like plain sailing.”
“Until another party declared an interest,” Karen suggests.
“Aye,” he confirms grimly, “Johnny Turner. Although I didnae know right away it was Johnny Turner. Folk were getting leaned on in various ways. I won’t name names, but I’m pretty sure money changed hands in some cases. In others the incentive was staying out of the Royal Alexandra. Johnny Turner knows some bad, bad people. Jimmy Meechan’s mob. But then, you know all that.”
“All too well. Were you intimidated personally?”
McGeechy looks involuntarily around himself, like he’s scared of being overheard. That’s a yes before he even speaks. “I’m just a fuckin town planner. I didn’t want my fuckin legs broken.”
“Why didn’t you tell the police?”
“See above.”
“Fair enough.”
“Anyway, it was when word started getting about that the application would be rejected that Colin played his ace. He let me know the footage would be freely copied and passed around if I didnae swing the application back his way. The phrase he used, which I have no difficulty in recollecting, was that ‘half of Renfrewshire is gaunny be wankin themselves or pishin themselves’.”
“Charming. But you’re only one guy. Turner had nobbled a few people on the committee, you just said.”
“That’s what I tried to tell Colin. That was my problem, he told me right back. He knew how these things work. If you make one person desperate enough, they can prevail upon the rest. Obviously the rest were reluctant to cross Johnny Turner, but Colin said he could guarantee Turner would be oot the equation if permission was granted.”
“What did he mean?”
“He wouldn’t say.”
“Didn’t you want a bit more assurance before you put yourself on a collision course with Johnny Turner?”
“I considered that the lesser of two evils. I’d have taken the broken legs before I let that fuckin video get out.”
“Sure. Can’t envisage it enhancing your political career very much.”
“Not unless you’re Cicciolina,” Tom suggests.
“And I guess your wife wouldnae be too pleased, either.”
“Well, for Christ’s sake, that’s who I was trying to protect. I don’t even like to think what this would do to her.”
“Maybe you should have thought about it a bit more back then,” says Karen.
“Who thinks about stuff like this, for fuck’s sake?” McGeechy volubly protests, more resembling the volcanically indignant boy she remembers. “Christ, have you actually watched the fuckin thing?”
“I did you the courtesy of looking only at as much as was necessary to know we had the right DVD. We’ll only watch more if there’s any information you don’t give us. Such as who was the girl?”
“Who was the…? Christ, don’t you fuckin eejits get it? There was no girl. It was my wife.”
There is a reeling silence for a moment as Karen and Tom take this one in. Fortunately, the more familiarly fired-up McGeechy is determined to fill it.
“Do you think if I was havin it away with somebody, I’d do it five miles up the road in a place belongin tae somebody as lewd and sleazy as Colin fuckin Temple? It was just meant tae be a quiet wee night away at a time we were both feelin a bit snowed-under with the January blues.”
“But if that’s the case, then Temple’s the one who would be liable to prosecution if this video emerged.”
“It was his zero option,” McGeechy says. “You know the situation he was in financially. So basically he was saying that if he ended up fucked, he was fucking us too, so I’d better make sure it never came to that.”
“But if you were the ones who were violated by this,” Karen begins, but does not get any further before McGeechy blusters over her.
“Look, being the victim doesnae save you in politics. Embarrassment is poison, no matter how little it’s your fault. But I couldn’t care less aboot that. It was my wife. She’s a primary-school teacher, for fuck’s sake. School boards are even less forgiving than voters. “Yes, tough break, Mrs McGeechy, not your fault, but…” And Christ, if you knew what the job meant to her. She didn’t do that well in school, didn’t make the most of herself. Ended up with a bad crowd. But by the time I started going out with her, she had become determined to clean up her act. She went to night school and got her Highers, then after we got married six years back, I paid the way so she could give up work and go to teacher-training college. Her job means everything,” he implores. “Do you understand?”
Karen nods, saying nothing for a moment to let the temperature cool. “What’s her name?”
she asks softly, having let the silence grow long enough.
“Anna,” he replies, clearing his throat before he speaks, attempting to regain his composure. Despite pulling himself together, and despite the pause Karen granted him, he looks less certain of himself than ever.
“Anna what?”
“McGeechy. She took my name.”
“I meant what was her maiden name? Did she go to our school?”
“She was a couple of years below. You wouldn’t have known her.”
“What was her name anyway?”
“Logue.”
Karen casts her mind back. He’s right. She didn’t know the girl, but she does remember the name. More importantly, she also remembers why. “So what happened next?” she asks. “What did you do?”
“I moved mountains,” he says. “I lobbied, I hustled, I threatened, I sweated blood. Short version: I turned the committee around. Unfortunately, this didnae take long in gettin back to Johnny Turner, who was, it would be fair to say, somewhat disappointed.”
“I’ll bet. What did he do in response?”
“Had me bundled into a car one night and dragged oot to the middle of nowhere for a wee chat. Tea and crumpets, you know the kind of thing,” he says bitterly, his mouth trembling slightly as he speaks. Not a favourite memory. “Prior to that, I had no idea how much pain can be inflicted on parts of the human body withoot leavin a mark. Turner guessed Temple had something on me, some leverage, and he made me tell him what it was. I could tell he understood that Colin’s threat was greater than his, because it affected more than just me. I said if he could guarantee that the video disappeared, I’d make sure the application sank.”
“When exactly was this?” Tom asks.
“Couple of weeks ago. I never heard anythin for a few days and started to get really worried, because I realised there was a big hole in my deal. If he got hold of just one copy of the DVD and released it to the right people, he could have torpedoed the rezoning application in one blow. I’d be fatally compromised as head of the committee, and Colin would be facin prosecution. But I was wrong. Guys like Turner always see a bigger picture. He also saw a bigger flaw.”
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