2007 - A tale etched in blood and hard black pencel

by Christopher Brookmyre

  But then, maybe it’s not about vindictiveness. He just admitted to himself that he doesn’t know Jojo any better than he knows Helen. He wouldn’t expect either of them to fancy him, but perhaps he was wrong in assuming which one would have the decency to give him a dance and the maturity to understand that it didn’t mean anything in some giggly Primary Five kind of way. Jojo and her pals all dance with boys they’re not going with. If Jojo’s got a point she wants to score over Helen, perhaps it’s to show the supposedly nice girl that the reputedly bitchy one can still teach her a lesson on how to behave.

  Martin glances across, sees Jojo standing at the side next to Caroline and some boys from Fourth Year. He fancies her about as much as he can imagine is reciprocated, but she’s still a very different creature from the Fat Joanne he used to know. Anyway, it’s not about fancying anybody, that’s the point, and surprisingly she’s one of the few who gets it. Plus, once he’s danced with her, it should open a few doors, break down some barriers. At the very least it will erase the shame of Helen’s knock-back, and if he’s really lucky, he could end up dancing with her yet. It’s a new beginning, really. They’ll all be sitting their O Grades next year, some of them even leaving school shortly after that. They’re not daft wee boys and stupit wee lassies any more, but on the cusp of becoming young men and women. So maybe it’s about time they all started acting more grown up.

  “Aye, okay,” he says.

  Linda beams. “There she’s there,” she says redundantly. “On you go.”

  “Now?”

  “She’s waitin. That’s how she’s no up dancin just now.”

  “Okay then.”

  He feels nervous, but not anything like as much as when he approached Helen. There seems nothing to lose this time. He passes Helen, dancing with Karen and AH, and must confess he hopes she is looking as he walks up to where Jojo is standing with her back to him. He taps her on the shoulder and she turns around. Up this close he sees that she is not that much taller than him, maybe only an inch or two, and that could be down to her footwear. He smiles, feeling himself get a bit of a riddie because it’s all contrived. Her expression is feigned surprise mixed with impatient expectation.

  “Eh, Jojo, would you like to dance?” he asks.

  Jojo’s eyes widen with delight. Martin feels his smile get involuntarily broader and his riddie involuntarily redder.

  Then she bursts out laughing and so do all her pals. “Ah-haaaa! He fell for it. Whit a slaggin! As if I’d dance with Professor Brainbox! Ah-ha-ha-ha!”

  And so on.

  Martin says nothing. He swallows, stands his ground for a moment. He knows they want him to run off at this point, and not doing so is about the only counter-measure he can manage.

  It doesn’t sting as much as the knock-back from Helen. It’s as though the humiliation is tempered by his disdain for those laughing at him. It’s also tempered by there being something familiar and thoroughly unsurprising about it. In his head he briefly pictures Lucy swiping the football away, yet again, just as Charlie Brown is about to kick it.

  §

  She’s standing in the St Grace’s dining hall, mere feet away from where she humiliated him on that horrible, bitter night. Just like then, there is music playing and teenagers dancing all across the floor, the non-participants lining the walls alongside the same blue plastic chairs. Just as then, Jojo is standing among a group of her female peers, though in this instance they are fellow mothers, here to observe or perhaps assist at their daughters’ Sunday afternoon dance class.

  She sees him approach and instinctively folds her arms.

  He stops, indicating he wants to speak to her away from the others’ hearing. This time, at least, he won’t be asking in front of everybody.

  Jojo says something to the woman next to her and briskly walks towards Martin.

  “I need your help,” he says.

  She makes to reply, but he presses on before she can say anything.

  “I’m lost here,” he goes on. “I’ve got umpteen jumbled pieces of a puzzle I can’t put together and a shitload of questions I’m not smart enough to answer. I’m not here because I’m desperate, Joanne. I’m here because I believe you’re the one person who can work it all out.”

  Her arms remain folded, her lips pursed in testy distrust. She looks him in the eye and he hopes she sees the very sincerity she’d have slaughtered him for two decades earlier. Then, finally, she sighs, the furrow in her brow softening just a little. “Okay, Professor,” she says. “Seeing as you asked nicely. But not here. Music’s too loud. Come with me.”

  So he follows her out of the dining hall; past where Karen incensed the priest with her reading about the plague of frogs; up the stairs leading into the main school building; past the spot where Colin burst Robbie’s nose; past the alcove where Colin and Eleanor were hit by a sheep’s lung dropped by a mystery assailant; to a long bench in the Third-to-Sixth-Year social area, where they sit down together.

  And with watery spring sunshine flooding through the windows and glass double doors, that’s where they talk.

  Fifth Year

  Delta Pavonis

  Dreams of Flight

  “I don’t know why we’re even botherin goin to this shite,” Martin says. They’re standing in Martin’s living room, eyes on the window as they await the mini cab that’s taking them to the Bleachfield Hotel for the Fifth and Sixth Year Dance. It’s also known as ‘the leaving dance’, though with very few exceptions that only refers to the Sixth Years. Hardly anybody will be leaving after Fifth Year; even fewer than left after Fourth. Robbie Turner’s still here, for fuck’s sake. Dreams of academe? Don’t fucking think so. Eleanor Fenwick’s still here, and staying on for Sixth Year, too, he’s been told.

  Martin’s even heard the teachers remark upon it: folk are clinging on, doing one Higher or resitting O Grades, when in the past they would have been off like a shot as soon as they were legally allowed. But that was when there was still such a concept as a job. This is 1985. You don’t even get apprenticeships: you get YOP schemes, which in more civilised ages used to be known less euphemistically as serfdom. Nobody wants to leave school, it seems. Nobody except Martin. For him it really is a leaving dance, or maybe it should be a leaving-a-vapour-trail dance. He’s counting the minutes, never mind the days.

  For the others, Christ, it must seem like a ringing endorsement of St Grace’s as an educational establishment, despite their exam results tending to suggest otherwise. But it’s not just the fear of unemployment that’s keeping a lot of them in the classrooms. Folk like Tempo, Tico, Jojo, Margaret-Anne: they would never admit it, but deep down they all know this will be the last time they get to be kings and queens of the castle. Bunch of fucking nonentities who have been allowed to feel like big shots in this tiny wee world just because they were that bit taller, matured that bit faster, or had big brothers and sisters who let them hang on their coat-tails.

  “Aye, get yoursel into the party mood,” Scotty says, laughing.

  “I mean it. We should go somewhere else. Get the taxi to take us up the West End, Byres Road or somewhere instead.”

  “Don’t be a tube. We’ve paid for oor tickets, and just cause we’re all dressed up doesnae mean we’d get served in a real pub.”

  Served. The magic word, the defining rite of status in the Fifth Year tribe and the second-most compelling factor in deciding where the leaving dance would be held. The most compelling factor was that Temps all but hijacked the student council with the sole agenda of securing the gig for his dad’s dump of a hotel. His guarantee that a blind eye would be turned by bar staff to the Fifth Year contingent being seventeen at the oldest (and many not even that) was, naturally, a key plank in his argument, but only if you overlooked the fact that the two other hotels in contention—both of which had hosted the dance previously—could be relied upon for the same profit-boosting laxity. And as it happened, most people did overlook that fact, because Tempo was going to get what he wanted
one way or another. He pressured, cajoled and outright bullied any dissent out of the way, with Martin having his own contribution to the debate effectively invalidated at one particularly mortifying student council meeting.

  “Nae offence, Martin, but you’re no really very qualified to comment on this. We’re talkin aboot organisin a party with a real bar, an that’s no exactly your area of expertise, is it? You’ve never been at anythin like that, have ye? See, most of us have. We were all at K-9’s eighteenth. Do you think you’d have got past the door? Naw. So leave this tae the folk that know what they’re talkin aboot.”

  Ah, yes: Matt Cannon’s eighteenth, at Toledo Junction in Paisley. That was the highest currency these days, the true badge of honour. If you’d been at that, if you’d been past the door, and if you’d been served at the bar, you were a man, my son.

  What was most galling about Tempo’s railroading of his single agenda was that he’d had nothing to do with the student council or anything of the sort before. The teachers always landed anything ‘voluntary’ on the same reliably dutiful and responsible individuals, such as himself, Scotty, Helen Dunn, Karen Gillespie and Pete McGeechy. Come Fifth Year, however, not only had Colin decided to take an interest in the student council, but so had several of his mates and their female counterparts. Their attitude was like: “Okay, kiddies, the big boys and girls are taking over. There’s a party to organise, and we can’t leave something as important as that to dweebs like you. Run along, now.”

  They weren’t remotely interested in any other aspect of the council: just making sure the big night was on their terms (choice of DJ, dress code, no meal, just dancing), and in Tempo’s case principally that the venue was the Bleachfield.

  Thus Martin and Scot were standing there in suits, awaiting transport to a place where you’d normally look overdressed if you weren’t covered in sick.

  “Dressed up, aye,” Martin says. “That’s hackin me aff as well. We’re dressed like them: two more fuckin Bowie clones. Where’s your tie, by the way?”

  “In my pocket. I’ll put it on in a minute.”

  “Don’t see why we all have to wear suits and ties anyway.”

  “Cause it’s no a fuckin school disco, Marty. I’d have thought you of all folk would be grateful for that.”

  “Oh, cheers. Give me a few digs while I’m on the floor, why don’t ye?”

  Scotty’s laughing again. Martin feels he’s got serious points to make, but he might as well tell them to the wall. Once Scotty’s decided he’s not taking you seriously, it’s hopeless.

  “It’s so we’re all glammed up,” Scot suggests. “See each other in a different light, something like that, I don’t know. Fun, Martin, remember?”

  “Aye. Fun’s what I’m gaunny have when I get out of here and go to university. Proper discos, proper music, proper style.”

  “Whit, you’re saying you’ve got style now?”

  “Naw, but there’ll be folk there who have. And I mean their own style. As opposed to folk that think a visit to Chelsea Girl or Concept Man of a Saturday puts them up on a fuckin catwalk.”

  “Aye, fair enough. But don’t start on Simple Minds again right now, I cannae handle it.”

  Martin has to laugh. His catwalk remark had indeed triggered his next intended rant—about the music they’d be stuck with tonight—and Scotty read it like a telegram. Up on the Catwalk: Simple Minds. The appositely named band of no-choice for those who preferred their ‘taste’ dictated by what so-and-so’s big brother said was ‘dead cool the noo, by the way’.

  “Okay,” Martin says. “But you do know that’s what we’re in for: three hours of—”

  “Marty, I warned you…”

  “Okay, okay.”

  “The music doesnae matter. Would you lighten up? It’s just gaunny be a laugh. A few bevvies, a few dances.”

  “A few dances? With who?”

  “With anybody and everybody. That’s whit these things are like. Heather was at two ay them, said they were really cool, mellow, like. As I says, it’s no a school disco.”

  “Aye, and it isnae the prom in a fuckin teen movie, either. They’re still the same up-themselves bitches and daft wee lassies they always were.”

  “Mince, Marty. It’s you that’s in the huff with everybody, not the other way round. Lighten up, for ruck’s sake. This could be a historic night. Might end up with the love of your life and you don’t even know it.”

  “I don’t think Phoebe Gates is going. And is that what you think: that you’re gaunny get aff wi somebody the night just cause it’s the big dance?”

  “I think…I’m gaunny enjoy mysel, Martin. That’s the purpose ay the fuckin exercise. Can you get thon big brain ay yours to process such a primitive concept?”

  Martin smiles and shrugs. “Just aboot.”

  “Good.”

  “You puttin that tie on yet? The taxi’ll be here any second.”

  “Aye, right enough,” Scot says. He reaches into his inside pocket, from which he produces a leather bootlace tie with a spread-eagle clip and spiralling metal loops at each end.

  “Ya fly bastard,” Martin says, with mild outrage and not a little envy.

  “Don’t worry,” Scot tells him, dipping into his pocket again. “I got you one as well. Get that deid kipper aff your chest. Come on.”

  §

  Karen’s frustration is growing by the second. She’s trying to raise the temperature without losing her temper, but it’s a delicate balance, and so far she’s succeeded only in making Noodsy lose his. Normally that would be an intended outcome of her calculated affectations, but right now it’s not yielding anything that supports her thesis.

  “I’ve got fuck-all tae dae wi Pete McGeechy,” Noodsy growls at her. “Or rather, Pete McGeechy makes damn sure he’s got fuck-all tae dae wi me. Aye, he married my cousin Anna. So fuck. I only see her at funerals. That’s the way they baith like it. I’m the crooked end ay the family, remember? Don’t want me in the picture, dae they?”

  This is hopeless. She’s tried to trip him up by seeing if she can get him to betray some knowledge of the video footage or the cameras, things that haven’t been mentioned to him by the police and that he only ought to know about if he was indeed in cahoots with McGeechy or even with Johnny Turner. Nothing. Not a glimmer. Either he’s a lot smarter than she ever gave him credit for or he really knows nothing about this stuff.

  Okay, Karen girl, Occam’s Razor time.

  Noodsy was never smart. He might be shrewder and more streetwise these days, but not smart. Armed with this much information, she’s wheedled plenty out of far brighter guys than him. If it yet turns out he did outwit her, she’s resigning forthwith, because it would mean she can’t do this job any more.

  She hears a knock at the interview-room door and turns around to see Tom peering through the narrow window. He beckons with his fingers. She stops the tape and excuses herself. Noodsy just glowers as she exits into the corridor.

  “Save me, Tom, I’m sinking here.”

  “Your wish is my command.”

  “What?”

  “Just got a call from the Southern General. Robbie Turner is awake and off his ventilator.”

  “Thank Christ. On every possible level, thank Christ.”

  “Got those CCTV captures I was waiting for as well; email came in about ten minutes ago.”

  “And?”

  Tom just nods.

  “How’s the quality?”

  “Good enough. Shall we?” he asks, gesticulating towards the exit.

  “One minute,” she says. “I’m going to pass on the good news first.”

  She opens the door. Noodsy has his head in his hands as she walks in. He does that any time he’s left alone; it’s like he’s scared it’ll fall off and roll away. He glances up and sighs. He looks knackered, but he’s mustering whatever he’s got left for repelling one more assault.

  She doesn’t turn on the tape just yet. It can’t record what he’s about to tell h
er anyway; it’s his expression that is going to say it all.

  “Robbie’s awake,” she says. “And talking.”

  Noodsy’s eyes brighten, the way she imagines they must have when Martin Jackson walked in.

  “Thank Christ,” he says.

  “Yeah, that’s what I said, too.”

  Written in Blood

  This is fuckin yes. Best time Robbie has had since he can remember. He was nervous as fuck about coming, wasn’t sure until right up to the last minute whether he’d even bother in case he ended up standing about like a tool, as welcome as diarrhoea in a bedpan, but no, it’s well worth it. The dance floor is kind of wee and the function suite’s a bit cramped for this many folk, but the atmosphere is brilliant. Folk are being really cool for a change. He’s been talking away to everybody, lassies as well, and he’s even dancing with them. He’s up on the floor right now, dancing with Zoe Lawson, and that’s as well as dancing with Alison Taylor, Karen Gillespie and even Samantha Gerrity. It’s not like that means he’s in with a shout of getting off with any of them, especially not a pure doll like Samantha, but that’s the whole point. That’s what’s brilliant about it. It’s dead friendly.

  He wishes it had always been more like this. Look at Zoe there, for instance. He can remember her from their very first day at primary, when she burst a carton of milk, but he can’t remember having a conversation with her in the whole twelve years since. That’s probably true of just about every lassie here for most of the guys, but it’s not the lassies that are making him feel kind of regretful. He’s had plenty of conversations with the guys here, but he’s starting to wish he’d been less of a cunt during most of them. Not be long until they all move on, and that’ll be that, all over. Then what chance has he of seeing half of them again? Martin Jackson’s leaving this year, away to uni. Not much odds of seeing him again, that’s for sure, and Martin’ll not give him the time of day if he ever does. Can’t blame him, right enough. Martin never did anything bad to any cunt, but he still got given a lot of shite.