by David Wood
I can handle it, always could…Anyway, I’ll have plenty of time to myself now…I’ll let him calm down and then go back and get my job back…I’ll just have another wee whiskey to keep me going.
Dave didn’t notice Tom leaving, it must have been sometime after ten o’clock but the bar was busy by that time and he had other things on his mind.
Jock Dickie was ensconced in his seat beside the fire, and nothing would get him to leave until he finished the drink in front of him…not the bell for drinking up time…not the fact that everyone else had gone, and definitely not that little snot of a barman. It wasn’t every day that your squirt of a kid stayed out all night after killing another brat. With any luck he wouldn’t be coming back.
“Good riddance,” he said out loud, bringing a quick glance from the barman. A glare from Jock was enough to send the man scurrying back to the dishwasher.
He took a long gulp of his whiskey and washed it down with a mouthful of beer before sitting back and belching loudly.
“Hey Dave. Gie’s another whiskey,” he shouted.
“Come on Jock. It’s past eleven...you’ll lose me my license.”
“Fuck your license. Just one more...then I’ll be off tae see to the wife.” Jock said, rising like a great bear and walking, a little unsteadily, to the bar.
He could see that the other man wasn’t going to disagree with him. When the whiskey was set on the bar, he didn’t offer any payment. Dave didn’t argue.
“Always knew you had no balls,” Jock said, laughing as he downed the drink in one smooth motion. “I’ll be back in tomorrow for more of the same.”
He knocked over two stools on his way out and hit the wall so heavily that the whole room shook. He heard the bolts being shot in the door behind him as he stepped out of the pub and into the cold night.
The night air was cold and his legs suddenly buckled as if a sledgehammer had hit him. He wobbled, but didn’t fall. He hadn’t fallen over through drink since he was fifteen, and he wasn’t about to start again now.
He raised his head and howled like a dog. It felt so good that he did it again. A window opened on the other side of the road, but closed again as soon as they recognized Jock’s stout frame.
“Ssshhh.” He said in a deafening stage whisper, putting a finger to his lips in a strangely theatrical gesture, and giggled. Unsteady still, he turned his head towards home.
The Fish and Chip shop was closed and refused to open, even for him. He contented himself with kicking at the door, only stopping when he felt satisfied with the size of the dents he had left.
“Bastards…Fucking Bastards,” he said, muttering under his breath. He knew that he had drunk even more than usual, and that very soon his body would demand sleep, but he felt confident of his autopilot getting him home...it had never failed him yet.
It seemed like ages before he turned the corner into his street, and by that time the drink had taken hold completely...so much so that he failed to notice that the front door was lying open and there were no lights in the house.
It was only when he got to the bedroom and found that there was no sign of life that he suddenly became angry.
“Fucking bitch,” he screamed. “Where the hell have you got to this time?”
He searched every room, banging doors and crashing into walls, but there was no one in the house.
“I’ll kill you this time. I will, I’ll teach you to fuck with me.”
He fell, fully clothed into his bed, still muttering under his breath, but in less than thirty seconds he was fast asleep, and two minutes later he started to snore.
He hadn’t looked in the garden...but if he had he would have found his wife. He would have had trouble recognizing her...her head had almost torn from her body, a body that was strangely deflated, a body that was white as the moon overhead...white and bloodless.
And if he had looked long enough he would have seen her eyes open, would have seen the fangs emerge from bleeding gums, would have seen her rise, unsteady at first, then more sure as she headed for the house.
But he was asleep, and saw nothing, not even the pale white figure that leaned over his bed.
And even as the fangs went in and came out he felt no pain.
The drive to the cinema was leisurely, taking the sea route round the coast on an almost deserted road.
The old cinema was equally deserted, the film being in its fifth week in residence and having lost its appeal with the local cinema public who had moved on to the new blockbuster from Spielberg in the adjoining building.
Brian was shocked at how dull James Bond had become since the last one he had seen. He had given up on Bond movies when the smooth suave Englishman had replaced the rough, tough Scotsman. He thought now, as yet another body was blasted into small pieces, that he was right to give up. The present Bond was just going through the motions. The whole thing looked to him like just one massive money making exercise with no heart.
Margaret love it, clapping at the audacity of the stunts, gasping at the perils of the hero and causing Brian’s heart to flutter by laying her hand on his thigh in the tasteful seduction scenes.
After the film Margaret was amused to discover that Brian was nervous. He’d started talking as soon as they left the cinema and was still going twenty minutes later as they walked through the town, reminiscing about his childhood.
As they passed the Bingo hall on the town cross he became even more animated.
“It’s a crying shame. When I was a lad that was a beautiful picture house. My mates and me spent every one of our Saturdays there, watching westerns or Tarzan films or crap science fiction. Great it was. We’d sit about four rows back with our legs over the chairs in front, those giant figures looming over us and filling our heads with nonsense. Formative…I think that’s what they call it these days. And to think that it only cost us two shillings to get in.”
She couldn’t resist it.
“Aye, them were the days. You could go out with ten bob, see a film, buy two stone o’monkey nuts, a couple of pints and still have enough money left for a bag of chips on the way home. Luxury.”
They burst out laughing almost simultaneously, drawing a disapproving tut from a sour faced old man with a similar dog who was passing. After he’d passed they looked at each other and started them off again.
“Aye, but you know what I mean Maggie..I can call you Maggie can’t I? When we were younger…”
He was going on but she’d turned him off. Her name was Margaret. That’s what her dad had always told her. All through school she’d fought off the shortening of her name, often with tears coursing down her cheeks.
There was one old man who had been convinced that she was deaf because she’d never responded when he asked how ‘His little Maggie was getting on’. Margaret had been good enough for her father and it was good enough for her.
She realized that Brian had asked her a question,
“Sorry Brian, I was miles away. And by the way, my name’s Margaret.”
His face became so sad so quickly that she took pity on him.
“Come on man, loosen up. Lead me to the food...I could eat a horse.”
“A horse?” Brian said, “You’ll take the dog and be thankful for it.”
The restaurant was Brian’s favorite in the area. He had a passion for curry stemming from the time when he lived only five minutes’ walk from Gibson Street in Glasgow, home of one of the first (and in Brian’s opinion the best) Indian restaurants in Britain.
One of the reasons he liked this one more than the others was the lack of Indian music. Once upon a time he had thought it ‘ethnic’ to have sitars twanging away over his curry. Until he talked to an Indian friend who informed him that the stuff played in restaurants was about as ethnic as the Muzak heard in lifts or played over the test card on BBC1.
He had enjoyed showing off his command of the menu to Margaret, it being her first time in an Indian restaurant. He had ordered vast amounts of food.
/> The dishes just kept on coming...two portions of pakora as starters, two main course curries and a large portion of yogurt with a couple of vegetable side dishes and some Nan bread. He was amused to see her pupils widen in amazement as plate after plate of food arrived at their table.
“I’ll never get through all that, Brian. I’m usually a small eater.”
“That’s all right,” he said through a mouthful of poppadom, “just eat what you can, I’ll polish off the rest. I’m a real glutton when it comes to curries.”
The meal passed in relative silence, conversation mainly limited to the food itself. However, by the time coffee had arrived, Brian had started probing into Margaret’s private life in his usual subtle manner.
“Okay, then, what’s going on between you and the pretty boy? Is there a chance I can prise you away from his clutches?”
Margaret smiled at this.
“Do I detect just a hint of jealousy?”
Brian felt the red flush on his cheeks and was grateful when she continued. He covered his embarrassment by hiding his lower face behind a palm-sized wedge of Nan bread.
“Pretty boy as you call him has given me up as a lost cause,” Margaret said. “He is far too concerned with pumping his weights and doing two hours training every night. He expected me to train with him all the time, to get into shape. I mean, I’m in good enough shape already, any more would just be going over the top.”
Mentally Brian agreed with her, but he never got time to comment as Margaret continued.
“So, he told me that I showed a lack commitment, that he was sorry but he couldn’t spend his time with a waster. Me…a waster.”
She stopped to chew a piece of bread before continuing.
“So I gave him a piece of my mind, called him a narcissistic egotist or something and stormed out. Since then he doesn’t speak to me apart from when work requires it. Anyway, I was never convinced that he didn’t prefer the schoolboys to me in the first place. Does that satisfy your curiosity?”
The last was accompanied by a sideways look, and a small grin that turned mischievous as she spoke.
“And what about you? I hear you’ve been having romantic encounters with that wee lab technician in the Physics Department.”
The incident with the technician had been Brian’s biggest embarrassment in recent months.
He had been in the large cupboard under the stairs searching for a light stage for a microscope when the technician had come in carrying a large bundle of test tubes.
The girl was seventeen, having left school the previous year. She was a tall willowy blonde with a very large bust, the subject of much discussion amongst the male staff.
Just as she entered the room, the door was slammed shut behind her and the light, which was controlled from the corridor outside, was switched off. She shrieked loudly and dropped the test tubes, which promptly smashed all over the floor.
She shrieked again as Brian touched her shoulder and passed out in a dead faint. When Jim Fletcher opened the door he found Brian with the girl in his arms.
Ever since then Brian was baited at every opportunity by the male staff that refused to believe that he hadn’t planned it all from the start.
Margaret had obviously noticed his discomfort and was taking some delight in teasing him about it.
“Why Brian, you’re blushing. Did you know that you’re cute when you blush?”
He knew he was going red. If his face got any hotter it would certainly explode.
“Cute? Cute, you say? I don’t think I’ve been called cute since my mother dressed me in a kilt for my sister’s christening when I was six. Do you know what being called cute does for a man’s ego? It makes him feel like a doll or a cuddly toy.”
He still couldn’t meet her eyes...the red flush seemed to spread over his body and his clothes suddenly felt hot and stifling. He started to change the subject when Margaret spoke.
“But, Brian, I take my cuddly toys to bed with me and give them a big hug before I go to sleep.”
He looked up into her eyes but could see only wide-eyed innocence and a big grin. A woman had not teased him for a long time, but he decided that the wait had been worth it. A cuddly toy indeed! Given half a chance he’d show her something that her teddy bear would never have done.
Tom sat up straight in bed, every nerve straining, the dream fading slowly, leaving only a vague sense of unease that was quickly dispersed by the nausea rising from his stomach to his throat.
Christ! What did I eat?
He had only a vague recollection of buying fish and chips on his way home.
I’ll wring that Italian’s neck if I’ve got food poisoning from his three-day-old fish.
He had meant to get some Alka Seltzer from the cabinet in the toilet, but by the time he reached the door he knew that if wouldn’t help.
The next five minutes were not very pleasant as Tom Duncan emptied his stomach completely. He knew from experience that once the ‘dry heaves’ began the worst would be over and, by having a couple of glasses of milk, he could get his system into nearly normal working action.
He was wrong though…the milk didn’t work…it didn’t quench the thirst. What he needed was a real drink. The trouble was, there wasn’t a single drop of alcohol in the house. He remembered that he’d finished off the last of the whiskey the night before…half a bottle… just enough to get him to sleep.
That didn’t stop him looking though, and in the space of the next five minutes he emptied every cupboard in the house, spilling the contents over floors, chairs and beds as his search got ever more frantic. It was to no avail, and Tom looked at the clock with dismay, confirming what he already knew…it was well after closing time. There was nowhere open in the town that would sell him alcohol.
He knew that he could ring up Brian, that the young teacher was bound to have booze in the house, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it…it would be too much like a last admission of defeat. There was nothing else for it…it would have to be black coffee and a sleepless night until the first supermarket opened in the morning.
At least his armchair was comfortable, and he almost managed to lose himself in the procedural language of the 87th Precinct, but the call of the booze was running wild through his body.
He had to put the book down. Every other page had a reference to bourbon or beer or some bar or other. He tried the radio and got ‘ Tonight the bottle let me down’. Ten minutes later he stood by the window, just staring out into the empty night, trying, but not succeeding, to make his mind a complete blank.
He’d been staring at his car for a good minute before he remembered the glove compartment…the snug little box that held his emergency supply…a half bottle of the golden nectar. He could almost hear it calling to him as he hurried out of the door and down the drive.
There was a bad moment when he thought he’d misplaced his keys, but after some fumbling around he found them nestled amongst the loose change in his left-hand pocket. His hands shook as he tried twice to get the key in the lock, and he had to take a deep breath and calm himself before he was successful. He slid into the driver’s seat and sighed deeply as he opened the glove compartment and took out the bottle.
The whiskey glowed redly in the streetlights, almost fluorescent in its depths, and his hands trembled again as his body twitched in anticipation of the soon-to-come hit. He lifted the bottle to his lips and readied himself for the first swallow.
The liquor had just touched his lips when a voice almost close enough to be inside his head caused him to start, a long remembered voice that drove all other thoughts from his mind. The whiskey bottle fell to his lap, its contents draining away forgotten now as Tom turned towards the sound.
You don’t need that Tom, the voice said, loud again, seeming to come from inside his ear itself. And when he turned, he saw what he already knew, his wife, his dead wife, Jessie, was standing beside the car door, her arms open in welcome.
Come on. You know how we
used to keep the old pain away.
Tom pushed himself out of the car and into her arms, not needing a second chance.
Somewhere down at the back of his mind he knew that this could not be happening, that there was something very wrong, but the voice was seductive and, when he reached her, her body was soft.
She grabbed him, tight, and held him firm. There were hot tears in Tom’s eyes as he returned the embrace.
“Oh, Jessie. Oh Jessie. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” he said, crying into her shoulder.
She held him tighter, stroking his hair with soft hands, then tighter still as she buried her head in his neck. Tom could smell her hair, clean and freshly washed. Her perfume intoxicated him, that heady musk that she had always loved and he had always forgotten to buy for her. He was almost frightened to return her embrace for fear that his hands would meet only thin, lifeless air.
But her grip on him felt strong, it felt warm…it felt like redemption.
Her head buried further into his neck and there was a sharp stab of pain, but Tom barely noticed it as he held her tight and felt all his worries flow away.
They waltzed across the pavement, each held tight in the grip of the other, and Tom felt relaxed, as he had not done for long years. He tried to speak, to tell her his feelings, but the effort was too much. He sunk further into the embrace and let the warm feeling take him away.
The night was clear and crisp, a cool sea breeze wafting over the large flat blocks of red sandstone on which Brian and Margaret were sitting. From their position just inches away from the water line, the sea looked like a flat plate of glass with a thin layer of water laid over the top of it.
The waves lapped at the shore, the surface of the water being ruffled only slightly by the light wind.
Out over the water the moon, almost full, illuminated the islands of the Firth of Clyde, Cumbrae in the foreground, the blue peaks of Arran in the background, each showing only a handful of the yellow lights denoting habitation.