by Helen Walsh
I lower my head to the broth and inhale its warmth. Steam rises, gently burning my lips.
‘I brought yer this as well,’ he says, producing a Mars bar. ‘I know, doesn’t really go with Bovril does it?’
‘What are you – a travelling tuck shop or something?’
His eyes twinkle and flirt with me. I take one sip, then another, then I give in to my gnawing hunger and drain the mug in a few greedy slurps.
‘Where am I anyway?’ I ask, handing back the mug. ‘I sort of know it round here.’
‘A small quaint square, situated within walking distance of the city centre,’ he offers in Queen’s English. ‘Stan, by the way,’ he says, producing a slim firm hand. ‘I’m staying at the Embassy there. I saw yer staggering round the park before, screaming obscenities at pigeons.’ He pauses, awaiting some kind of reaction but my face remains expressionless.
‘I went into town, came back and yed collapsed on the bench. I’ve been trying to wake yer fer ages. Didn’t want yer getting pneumonia, like – not here on me doorstep.’
I manage a smile. He hands over a bar of chocolate, warm and squishy from his pocket. I tear the wrapper off and cram as much of the sticky parcel into my mouth as possible. The sugar hits me immediately, sobering me, sharpening my vision.
‘Yer must have one stinking hangover. The park smells like a fucken brewery.’
I ignore him and continue chomping on the chocolate.
‘I was tempted to go and hire a camcorder when I found yer cavorting about before. Funniest thing I seen in ages. What, did yer just go on one or something?’
‘Do you have a cigarette?’.
He dips in his pocket, pulls out a packet of Regal and a box of matches and tries to produce a light. After the fifth damp match is snuffed by the wind, he disappears with the cigarette into his hood and reappears with two lit cigs.
‘So, what was it? Bad exam or something?’
I raise an eyebrow and take a deep long drag.
‘Do I look like a student?’
‘Ah suppose not really, but then yer don’t look like the type of bird yed expect to find paralytic on a park bench.’
‘I wasn’t paralytic – I was sleeping. And I wasn’t drowning my sorrows, either. I was celebrating.’
‘Celebrating, eh? And in solitary, too. I like yer style. And what was yer celebrating, might I ask?’
I shrug my shoulders.
‘A new life.’
He throws his head back and roars with laughter as though this is the funniest thing he’s ever heard. I throw him a bemused expression, but I can’t help laughing with him. I like him. I take his hand and pull up his sleeve. His watch has fallen asleep at midday.
‘It’s late’ he says, wiping away a solitary tear of mirth. ‘And yer snore like a trooper.’
‘I’ve got a cold,’ I snap defensively.
‘Yerl have more than a cold if yer don’t come inside and dry off.’
‘Where’s inside?’
He nods over to The Embassy, the hostel across the road.
‘Friendly little gaff. Cheap enough, too.’
He stands and helps me to my feet.
‘Coming then?’
I give him a noncommittal shrug, which he takes as yes. We trudge through the park in silence. At the gates, he pauses and points to one of the white terraces. A crescent of a moon pours down on his head. He looks gorgeous, angelic almost, and I know right there and then that I can recover from this sickness.
‘There,’ he says childishly, as though it were his own home. ‘That’s the Embassy.’
The white stone façade, the big red door and the sign emblazoned above it are all etched in some distant memory I can’t quite possess. The adjoining houses are grand enough for dons or barristers, but the Embassy looks folksy and inviting and conjures up images of weary travellers huddling a table, exchanging tales late into the night. A moment ago I might have wallowed in the shelter and warmth that such a place might offer but suddenly I feel strong again. I know what I need to do.
‘Look – I’m gonna do one,’ I say, conscious of the guilt inflecting my voice. ‘Thanks for rescuing me and that, but I should really be getting home.’
‘Suit yerself,’ he says. A glimmer of disappointment flickers across his face. ‘Would yer like me to walk yer to a bus stop or something?’
‘Nah – safe as houses round here.’
‘Yer know where yer are then, now?’
‘Yeah-yeah. Red light central, borderline Toxteth. Another hour and these streets will be swamped with hookers, pimps and crack dealers.’
He stifles a gasp. I laugh at his wide-eyed face.
‘Well, thanks for the local info.’
‘And just so you know, the going rate round here is between fifteen and twenty.’
‘Oh really? I got it fer ten last night with an Indian head massage thrown in fer free.’
I raise a playful eyebrow and we both sway into self-conscious laughter.
‘Well take care of yerself Millie. It was lovely meeting yer.’
‘You too. And thanks. For the drink.’
I give him a stiff hug of sorts and depart with vague sensations of fear and strength and resolution. I walk in the direction of the Cathedral which, like the moon, stands as a permanence within the mercurial passage of the night. How ironic that a place which radiates such beauty and sanctity should fester such vice and corruption. How many of the tourists that flock here en masse would return if they knew it served as a beacon for whores and their punters? If they knew that its very graveyard was a makeshift bordello in which the most precious of all human interactions are exploited and capitalised – reduced to a meaningless exchange of fluids and cash.
I walk no more than a few yards when an isolated thought crashes in on me.
‘Hey,’ I shout, swinging round. ‘I didn’t tell you my name.’
His face blisters into a huge grin.
He pats the left pocket of his coat and then gestures at mine. I swoop down and pull out my bank cards and keys. I stare at them, then back at him, bemused.
‘Yer looked too beautiful to rob,’ he says.
I flash him a huge smile, and mean it.
‘Well, thanks once again. For not robbing me – or raping me. You’re a real gentleman.’
‘Pleasure’s all mine.’
He salutes and turns on his heel and I watch him disappear up the path and into the hostel. For a second, no more, I wonder what life holds for Stan. And then I think of me.
I walk quickly along Canning Street; teeth chattering loudly, clothes clinging to my skin, the wind whipping swatches of hair across my face. My head is banging, now. I need food, I need to wash, I need to speak with Dad.
I head for Jamakalicious, the Jamaican on the front line. It’s always busy and the queue spills out onto the pavement bringing with it the sweet smell of goat curry and the hiss and sizzle of sweet cakes. The queue moves forward and I’m inside, out of the bitter wind and into a warm smog of bubbling pans. I order a tray of curry and black-eye rice. I buy some fags from the offie next door, then squat under a flickering street lamp and wolf down the food. I eat quickly, barely chewing. I lick the gravy-streaked tray, cast it aside for tomorrow’s pigeons and reach in my pocket for fags. I realise I’m without a light so I haul myself up and trudge back towards brassland in search of smoking strangers. I approach a tall bloke with a punter’s face. He grimaces but produces a flame anyway and as I stoop to embrace it, he sniffs the air and recoils. I back away with an embarrassed ‘thank you’ then as soon as I’m out of sight, I drop my chin to my chest and take a long hard draft of myself. Even with a stuffy beak nose, the smell is vicious. I fucking stink – booze and sweat and drugs and all the filth of the city.
I pad along Hope Street with my head hung low, shielding my face from the gnawing wind and onslaught of prowling headlights. The need for food satiated now, I need to press ahead. The possibility of a hot bath, a warm bed and fresh underw
ear hurls me headlong to a bus stop on Catherine Street.
I’ve been walking for hours.
My limbs are hot and heavy, my calves tight and painful. And my head aches with emptiness. He wasn’t there. The one time I needed him to be in, to hold me, to tell me his story, Dad wasn’t there. I took his money and left him a note.
The sky is boiling blue black, dragging a storm across the horizon and I can feel it, sucking me into the hinterlands of it’s madness as my body buckles and revolts against me. I’m so, so tired now, I’m losing it. Irregular thoughts and strange flashing lights hammering my head. The cold demented night air clinging to me like unwanted skin. And my eyes, so sore – so heavy and sore. I need to sleep. Need to lie down. Got to rest before this madness consumes me.
Walking quickly now.Across the park and past my bench where two paraffins cackle like fairground ghouls, their faces thrown up to the rain.
Out of the gates and across the road.
Almost there now. The sound of drunken laughter bubbling beyond the red door. Humans. Warmth. Comfort.
Stan.
All fear and anxiety slowly ebbing away.
Through that door and into the warmth and everything will be just fine.
Jamie
I’ve been sat here on the dock for hours now, watching the lightening leap across the Mersey. Six years ago it all began. This exact fucken spot. And there was a storm brewing that fucken morning, too. The river was off its head, la – howling and screaming like a mad dog. We was sat on a bench, me and her, just over there, right by the water’s edge.
Her face was all raw and pink from the rain. She was coming down badly, eyes all dreamy, proper done in. Me, I was fucken ruthless la – dog tired and hungover. Been on the ale all night with our Billy, hadn’t I? Didn’t get home ’til after daybreak and no sooner has I drifted off than I’m getting woke up by this little waif at my door. Just turned up out of the blue she did, after disappearing out of my life for over a year. No explanation or nothing, man – it was like she’d only been gone five minutes. Tell you what though la, she fucken took my breath away. In that year she’d gone from being a kid to an absolute stunner. My stomach somersaulted when I opened that door. I did – I fucken swooned, la. Her hair, her lips, her little slender waist but more than anything her eyes. Them eyes, man – I was gone. She give us this look and I was thirteen all over again, head over fucken heels.
She dragged us down the docks, right here where I’m sat now. This is where it all began. This is where I knew I was in love with her.
Should’ve told her there and then. Should’ve just followed my heart. But I never. I done what I thought was the right thing to do, didn’t I? And doing the right thing become the blueprint for me and her. It is what it is and it’s all down to me.
I watch the storm brewing and I think back on this moment, this second when our eyes collided, just before the storm split the sky in two, and I knew what her eyes was telling us. She was aching to be kissed and held, and how I fucken wanted so badly to wrap my arms around her frail little body and suck her, eat her, kiss her so much. But I never. I took a deep breath and let it go. Couldn’t do it, la – would not have been right. The girl was coming down, weren’t she? Her mind and her body is out of control. It would’ve been like getting into someone that’s been sedated, la – it would’ve been wrong. It would’ve been theft. I wanted her to look at me like that when she was straight – when her mind wasn’t spangled by eckie love. But that moment never come back again, and if the truth be known, I don’t really regret letting it slip by. I wouldn’t change a thing about me and her – not a single chink of our history. I love it just the way it’s worked out. I would have failed miserably as her fella. I’d never met anyone quite like her and I wouldn’t have known how to handle her. She saw life in the purest terms, la – that you don’t put nothing off, you do it now. In Millie’s world, any fucken thing was possible. I would’ve only turned them possibilities into problems. I would’ve held her back. No, I don’t regret how it all turned out. But if I lose her, that’ll be us, fucked. Done for. And it looks like I’ve lost her.
I won’t say I’m not arsed about Anne Marie – but I’ll get over her. Being honest, I’m half over her already. But lil’ Millie – how could I?
It all happened so sudden. I’m sat in The Globe, recovering from my showdown with Millie and our Billy bursts in, wired to fuck. News has got back to him about me and Anne Marie and he’s been looking for us all over town. I’ve told him I don’t want to talk about it, but once the bevvy’s worked a few knots loose in my chest, it’s all come gushing out. Everything, la. Millie, Anne Marie, Sean, the wedding – all this stuff that’d just been festering inside us just come pouring out all at once. I don’t know what I was expecting, but I never bargained on what come next. He’s got his head in his hands.
‘Fuck kidder, I’m sorry. I’m so fucken sorry.’
He’s crying, la – crying bad, he is. And when he comes round he just looks us in the eye and tells us it was him that sent the photies. It was him – my own flesh and blood. Started off he was just beaked up on Bommie Night, got into a stay behind, ends up going the Tezzy 24 for a big mad breakfast at 5 in the morning. He’s got Millie’s bag and he’s half caned and the next thing he’s getting her pictures done for her. This is what he tells us – he wants to do something mad for her, for lil’ Millie, one of them. He’s going to get a Joe Baxi round to hers, slip em through the door and sit back while she’s trying to work out how come these photies that she’s only took a few hours ago are now sat there on her kitchen table. That was his plan, yeah – but then he sees the fucken pictures and an altogether different idea comes into his head.
Now our Billy has known about Anne Marie’s involvement with Sean right from the start – the business arrangement and what have you. He’s known that she was much much more than a fucken beautician. He’s known that that was all a front. He’s known how she’s fond of the beak and all, too. And he’s known that I know fuck all. The long and short of it is he knows she’s gonna break my heart, but he don’t think it’s down to him to run snitching to me. He’s in bits, la. He don’t know what to do. So when these photies drops into his lap he sees an easy way out, don’t he? He don’t give it a second thought – he’s full of ale and beak and he just does it.
Things I said to Millie, la. I’m tearing the fucken flesh off my hands just thinking on it. That’s us done, now. That’ll be me and her finished. Can’t stand it, man. I pure can not stand it.
Millie
Fuck, but I’ve slept! I can feel it deep in my bones when I waken – I’ve slept long and true. The other beds are empty. I stare up at the peeling ceiling and sniff the smells of cooking from below. From another room, three voices chatter in Spanish. I find the little bathroom down the corridor and steam myself sensible under the jet of the shower.
I’m momentarily unnerved to find them all in the kitchen. A tall redhead offers me some Scouse from a big pan. Eva Cassidy purrs from a lone speaker which sits on a bookshelf bursting with ravaged books. In the corner, an ochre-skinned girl with waist-length braids sits cross-legged on a rocking chair smoking roll ups whilst a gang of student types sprawl round a big oak table strewn with Guinness cans and spliff paraphernalia. One of them crumbles resin evenly along a rizla. An intense-faced girl is pouring her soul into a journal, her fingers scribbling quickly in a graceful blur. Stan has already moved on. The girl in the rocking chair introduces herself, prompting an onslaught of friendly exchanges. Most of them are travellers or graduates on gap years. I reveal as little as possible about myself without appearing deliberately enigmatic and all of them seem happy not to probe any further. I feel bad about just coming and sleeping and taking and going, but I need to get moving. I’d expected to be up and half way there by now.
Outside the street is littered with storm debris and deep puddles of ink. Yesterday, last night; it all seems so far away. Almost as though it didn’t happen. Head down,
I make it to Lime Street in fifteen minutes. I purchase a one-way ticket to Glasgow Central then join the queue for the payphone on the platform. I slot in fifty pence and punch in his number, feeling my heart sink as it runs straight onto answer machine.
‘Hi,’ I say. ‘It’s me. I really wanted to talk to you. I’m going away for a while. I didn’t do any of that stuff. You got me all wrong. I miss you already.’
Jamie
My mobie goes. A local number that I don’t recognise so I lets it run onto answer and carries on driving. Feel fucken wretched I do. Haven’t slept a fucken wink. Stomach’s pure been in knots, it has – hardly ate nothing since yesterday and anything that passes my lips, just rips right through us. All’s I’ve done is drive la, just drive around in circles, hoping against hope that I might see her.
The mobie goes again and this time it’s Millie’s aul’ fella. I feel a bit thingio about picking up, but I takes a deep breath and goes for it. He might know something.
He doesn’t. He’s in bits himself. Never heard him like this, la – the fella is pure battered. Tell you what kidder, I can sort my own thing out in good time. Aul’ Jerry sounds fucken mental, there. I’m going round.
The ansaphone claxon blurts out. I play back the message straight away. It’s her. Oh, baby! It’s her and she’s sad but her voice, la – her voice is fucken radiating with something that not even soft-arse here can mistake. She’s mellow and tender and I swear to you man, there’s love in that voice. I mean it. There’s love. I don’t know what to do with myself. Anyone driving past would think I’ve just had a baby boy or something, just won on the Lottery. I’m just fucken ecstatic, la – and this time I ain’t fucking it up. I drive on to her Dad’s and whatever it is, I’ll try and make it right for him.
Millie
The train hits Glasgow Central just after seven. The station’s heaving with drunken Celtic fans – a belligerent blur of glazed eyes and red faces etched in defeat. I weave my way through a mob of green and white shirts, too weary to respond to the groping hands and leery comments, dribbling from upside-down smiles. I spot a guard up by the Left Luggage and ask if there’s another train to Inverchlogan this evening. There isn’t, and there’s only one Sunday bus service tomorrow, leaving at 6.55 a.m. I can’t miss that. I ask him if there’s a hotel nearby. He screws up his face, drags a weary hand across his brow and directs me to Lola’s.