Farewell Tour of a Terminal Optimist

by John Young

  “Well, think of something and do it quickly, because they’ll be gone in no time. Right now they’ll be counting out their takings in that park and off to have a jolly night out at your mate’s expense.”

  That riles me – we need that money.

  “If you want to see your dad on Thursday, come up with a plan or let me do what I’m good at.”

  I look at my feet.

  “Well?” he says. “The clock is ticking.”

  I know I have no choice.

  ***

  I’m hiding in the bushes just behind the three hoods that robbed the shop. The small one seems to be in charge, the tallest is gormless and I think that he may be on some non-script drugs as he’s all over the place. I can see their stash in a bag on the bench and I’m waiting for Skeates to arrive and stir things up so I can grab the stash and leg it. I wish he would hurry up, and I almost regret winning the coin toss. His plan was to chib one of them and leg it with the dosh. After he lost the toss he actually liked my plan better.

  They crank open a bottle of stolen vodka and pass it between them, retching every now and then from the strong spirit. My leg starts to cramp and I have to risk being noticed by shifting my uncomfortable squatting position. Come on, Skeates.

  Gormless walks towards me and I fret that he’s heard me moving about in the bushes. He stands in front of my shrub – only a few leaves and branches between us – unzips his jeans and starts having a slash.

  Shite. I can’t move without being noticed and a river of pish runs towards my feet.

  Come on, Skeates, I think, before I drown in pee or chib the bastart after all.

  Ah, here we go, Skeates saunters along the path, just in time to save my boots from a golden shower. I hear him walking down the hill in the park, singing some childish tune. I wonder what he’s up to.

  Robin Hood, Robin Hood, riding through the glen,

  Robin Hood, Robin Hood with his Merry Men,

  He robs from the stupid…

  Skeates stops as the gormless one stands in his way.

  “Ah ha, speak of the devil…” Skeates says.

  “Look at this roaster,” Gormless says to the others.

  This is exactly how Skeates thought it would pan out, the plan being to hit the gubby one first and let the sidekicks scarper. He told me, ‘It’s like mountain biking, Connor. Go for the big roots.’ I didn’t understand his analogy, having never been on a bike and all.

  “Hey losers, give us swig of that,” says Skeates. He’s smiling and relaxed, on the outside anyway.

  They look at each other, dithering over whether Skeates is for real or not. I know he’s just winding them up. It works every time for him. I can’t help laughing, what with the nerves of the situation. Then it all kicks off and immediately the adrenaline is hammering round my body like it’s in a high-pressure hose. Skeates plugs Gormless, kicks one of the others and then whips out Soapy’s knife. I jump up, grab the stash and a bottle of something and start my speedy limp across the park. Skeates catches up with me a few minutes later.

  “I told you they were losers,” he says and starts singing, “Robbing hoods, robbing hoods, riding through the park…”

  “Yeah!” I shout like a big kid. I feel shaken up and the intensity of the emotion is making me laugh. Maybe that’s why Skeates is the way he is – he’s addicted to the buzz from the fear and excitement. On the other hand, he takes it too much in his stride for that, like he has to do it.

  “Once the first one went down the others ran off like clockwork.” He smiles like it’s been a good day at the office.

  “You going to give the money back to the shop?” I ask, half-serious.

  “Get lost, no-brain. Drinks and food for us and a bus south the morrow.”

  Chapter 20

  Nowhere to Run

  We carry on across the park like two eejits, chuffed that it was so easy to rob a gang of local hoods in a city we’ve never been to before. We chat, laugh and sing, oblivious and happy in our little fragile bubble.

  “Did you see his face?” Skeates laughs.

  “‘Robin Hood?’ where did that come from?” I burst into giggles again.

  “I can’t believe that they legged it without so much as a boo,” he says. “Almost a shame, I was looking for a bit of action.” He’s all ballsy, talking fast because of the excess adrenaline. Like he’s indestructible.

  We sing again between giggles:

  Robbing hoods, robbing hoods,

  Running through the park.

  Robbing hoods, robbing hoods,

  Just as well it’s dark.

  We rob from the clots…

  On our way to Shotts…

  Robbin—

  Footsteps come fast behind us. I stop singing and turn sharpish.

  “Shit.”

  “What?”

  “Look.”

  “What?”

  “Shit.”

  A group of seven, including the three we knocked off, run towards us out of the darkness of the trees. We shouldn’t have counted our chickens.

  “Run for it,” shouts Skeates.

  “Yeah, like I can run?”

  We leg it, but thanks to me we go at the speed of a three-legged race again. They’ll be on top of us in no time. Skeates looks for an alternative to running. I see what’s on his mind.

  “I’m not scrapping, Skeates. There are seven of them. We’re stuffed if we do that.”

  “Ya blouse.”

  “Look, down there.” I point to a narrow close across the road, between two rows of tall Georgian houses. “Maybe we can lose them.”

  We ignore the cars hooting their protests at us tatty youths running out in front of them. As we enter the alley we hear the seven neds yelling as they make their way through the honking gauntlet of busy traffic.

  Skeates hauls me along and I stumble all over the place, blind to where the alley leads, secretly hoping it’s somewhere busy – preferably near a police station. Right now I would rather give up than brawl. I doubt Skeates would agree. He would fight his shadow rather than give in.

  We run round a tight corner, straight into a dead end. We’re finished. The alley is a cul-de-sac with high walls and locked wooden doors that must lead into backyards. Skeates runs about, trying the door handles and swearing as they hold fast.

  “Shite!” he shouts.

  “We must be able to clamber somewhere,” I say.

  We both look about. The walls are too high; there’s nothing remotely climbable.

  “We’re goners, Connor.” Skeates runs round the circle of doors trying each one again. He stops suddenly at the sound of a deep growl behind one of the gates. The growl is followed by fierce barks. “Shite, dogs!”

  Behind the door the hound goes mental. It barks and roars and jumps against the wood, which rattles so much I think it’s about to come off its hinges. Another crash is followed by a series of thrashing bangs and barks.

  “There must be a whole pack in there!” he shouts.

  The door beats on its loose hinges, the crashing mixes with the howling in a terrifying cocktail of noise. The hoodies are nearly here, their footsteps sounding slightly less ominous than the snarling maelstrom behind the door.

  The seven lads skid round the corner and stop. There’s nowhere for us to go. Even Skeates looks terrified. He knows the gang won’t show mercy on two strangers who have just robbed them. He looks at me, whips out his knife and rolls his shoulders. He looks down at the stolen package I gave him, takes out the bottle and smashes it, then hands it to me. As if I know how to bottle someone. The dogs crash about behind us.

  “Nadie deja este mundo vivo,” he says.

  This sudden statement of the facts by Skeates shocks me into a brainwave. I shout as manically as I can: “If you lot don’t piss off I’ll set my dogs on ya, ya bastarts!”

  Sounds aggressive enough.

  Skeates stares at me in query, then grins in admiration. He almost laughs before reinforcing the con by kick
ing the door behind us. The dogs go mental and the hoodies back off at the sudden uproar, unsure what to do.

  “Go on mate, let them out!” Skeates shouts to me.

  “Not if they go, I don’t want another one of my dogs put down by the polis.”

  Skeates kicks the door again. The hoodies are backing off.

  “I’m getting the boabies,” one of them says.

  Skeates laughs and rattles the gate again. It’s like The Hound of the Baskervilles in there.

  The gang turns. One of them looks like he might catch on to us.

  Skeates rattles the gate, louder this time. The dogs go apeshit and the gang leg it out of the alley.

  Skeates follows them. I don’t move, thinking they’ll figure out what happened. Skeates soon returns and brings me out of my trance.

  “Come on, before they realise they’ve been had.”

  I follow him tentatively out of the alley, looking each way for signs of dodgy neds. By the time we exit the passage they’ve almost disappeared down the road. We head the other way and turn the first corner we see.

  “‘I’ll set my dogs on you.’ What are you like, ye wally?”

  We both laugh like a ten-year laughter ban has just been lifted.

  ***

  “There isn’t much here,” says Skeates as he counts the stolen booty. “Barely enough for a meal and a few beers, maybe the bus tomorrow.” He sighs. “Useless wasters.” He looks at me and shrugs apologetically, with a large portion of sarcasm thrown in. “What do you fancy?”

  “Anything.” The whole day has taken its toll and I need to stop. I long for the relative luxury of our tent and sleeping bags. “Can we just grab a carryout and go to the car?”

  He looks at me like he’s about to mock me, but he falters when he sees my face. I guess I look as bad as I feel.

  We grab a Chinese pork-and-chicken-ball package with fried rice and wander back towards the hidden car. My head’s in a blur, so I don’t talk much. I answer his questions in monosyllables and even that’s hard graft. It’s a mix of things: no meds, hunger, too much action and no sleep. I pin my hopes on catching up on rest in the car, and with a bit of luck I’ll keep things lit until Thursday when I see Dad.

  “You alright, Connor?” Skeates asks after a while. He hasn’t even teased me for being slow as we walk along. “We could grab a cab, but I don’t think our address would go down well. ‘Could you drop us at the stolen Vauxhall, hidden in the bushes, on the road out of town?’”

  He laughs at his own joke and I want to join in, but I’m really too whacked. He’s being more than amusing – he’s being encouraging, really trying to help me, and he doesn’t stop the whole way back. My former mortal enemy actually cares how I’m feeling, he wants me to be well and I’m touched by his efforts. Not that I would say that, he would call me a wuss.

  It takes an hour or so to walk to the car. The packages of Chinese food are cold when we finally arrive, but we eat it anyway and – you know – cold Chinese is pretty good at the right time. I know Skeates is thinking that it’s a waste of a holiday to sit in a stinking stolen car chatting to a vegetable like me, but he doesn’t complain. I don’t contribute much to the conversation except the odd laugh, so he sees making me laugh as a challenge and keeps at it until midnight.

  I’ll probably look back on these few hours as the time when we really became friends. For now though, I feel like a wee boy being entertained by his dad at bedtime, except the boy doesn’t want to sleep, even though he’s wasted.

  “What about your sister, what was her name, Erica?”

  I nod. I wasn’t expecting the conversation to turn to Erica, and he catches me off guard. He’s sitting in the driver’s seat with his legs across the handbrake and his feet on the passenger’s side, supping the dregs from his last can of lager. I’m in the rear, lying down, wrapped up in my jacket and Gumbo’s big jumper. I’m hiding behind the orange sunglasses, using them as some kind of shield to keep the world out and the fear in.

  “What happened to her?” he asks.

  I tell him, even though I find it difficult.

  “We’d gone to the park for an ice cream. The van used to go there on a Friday. She dropped some coins, which rolled under the van. I heard the car, it was really moving. She didn’t hear anything, she was too distracted by chasing the change. She ran round the van and that was that. I heard a thud. The end.”

  “Shit, and what next?”

  “Dunno.”

  Skeates sighs. “Aw, Connor man, I’m sorry.”

  I hope he can’t see the tears in my eyes through the Ray-Bans. I keep it together and squeeze my eyes shut until it hurts.

  We sit quietly for a minute. He changes the subject. “What about your dad? Will you recognise him after nine years?”

  I hadn’t thought of that. “He’s my dad,” I say, like it will be obvious.

  “People change – and prison changes them for the worse.”

  “It isn’t like they’ll make me sit in an ID parade and pick him out from twelve dodgy-looking cons.”

  Skeates laughs. “Have you a photo?”

  “Nope, not with me.” I think about the few photos I have of my dad at home. There are none of all of us together: me, my sister, Mum and him. My thoughts pull at a memory. I yelp out, “Can we go to Edinburgh?”

  “Edinburgh?” He nods. “Yeah, sure? But why?”

  “So we can go to my old house.”

  “What for?”

  “I’ll tell you when we get there. A surprise.”

  “I’m not going unless you tell me.”

  “I’ll go myself then.”

  “You numpty. You don’t know the address.”

  “I do: Gorebridge Close, number ten. I remember it so well. My mum used to go on about, ‘This wouldn’t have happened if we’d stayed at Gorebridge Close’ or, ‘If only we’d stayed at number ten things would’ve been alright’. I’ll know the house when I see it.”

  “How?”

  “My dad painted a Scottish flag on the side.”

  “Alright, we’ll go if there’s time.” He sighs and we sit in silence for a while.

  “You’ve had a time of it, Connor. And you had to put up with me at school, too. I feel bad now, I tell you.” He actually looks guilty.

  “Don’t worry mate,” I say. “I must have been a pain too.”

  “Naw Connor, I was out of order and I’ll make it up to you. You are going to see your dad in a couple of days. And I’ll get you to your old house beforehand, OK?”

  He holds up his fist to seal the deal and I try not to wince as I bump mine against his.

  I turn over with my face into the corner of the rear seats and pass out without another word.

  Chapter 21

  Our House

  “Wake up, Connor.”

  The words are so distant and indistinct, I can’t tell whether or not they’re real.

  “Connor, come on.”

  I wake slowly to see Skeates looming over me. He isn’t angry or jesting for once. He’s calm, concerned and empathetic. So different from the character I thought I knew, that I believe for a moment I must be dreaming.

  “Connor, are you OK?”

  “Yeeeahh,” I say as a croak.

  “Eight thirty, you ready to go?”

  “Do I look ready?” I say, thinking that 8.30 a.m. isn’t much of a lie in. “What day is it?”

  “Tuesday morning, and what a beautiful day it is too!” he says in an over-the-top cheery way.

  “Do you have to be so happy?” I ask and he grins in reply. I struggle up and moan about nothing in particular, which to Skeates means I moaned about everything.

  He tells me to man up and get with it because we’re heading south and I should be excited. “I had enough money for a bun each and two bus tickets to Edinburgh.” He hands me a bun.

  “You been shopping already?” I say and yawn.

  “Clearly you’re Mr Perceptive. I let you sleep on, you looked like you neede
d it.”

  “I hate happy morning people, have you never heard that the early worm gets eaten?” I turn over.

  He pokes me out of the car, and we wander into town towards the bus terminal.

  “Is there a toilet in the station?” I ask.

  “Yep.” Skeates grins. “Don’t say I don’t spoil you.”

  I think I prefer Grumpy Skeates to Smiley Skeates. I nod and smirk.

  We arrive at the bus terminus and I rush to use the toilets. I look at my reflection and shiver. Even if the dirt and grime of sleeping rough for a few days are put aside, I still look shocking: pale and weak. I forget the appalling image in front of me and join Skeates in the waiting area.

  While we wait, we re-live the day before at least twenty times, each version more exaggerated. If anyone were to hear us they’d think we’d been attacked by a Roman legion and saved by the hounds of hell. As our bus draws into Perth terminal we feel indestructible. The driver changes the signage to Edinburgh and we board. Instead of our usual place at the back, Skeates sits behind the driver, and I shuffle in beside him without questioning his motive. I feel really pasty today, although buoyed by the thought of my old house. I can’t wait because there’s something I want to show Skeates. Something I really need to find.

  As if reading my thoughts, Skeates asks, “What’s so important about this old house?”

  “I want to pick something up.”

  “You haven’t lived there for what, ten years? Nothing will be there.”

  “You’ll see.” It’s fun having something to hold over him for once.

  “What’s the address?”

  “Gorebridge Close.”

  “Postcode?”

  “Are you kidding?”

  The driver comes round for tickets, we show ours and Skeates starts a chat. “Have you a map of Edinburgh?”

  “Sure, where are you after?”

  Skeates tells him the address and he shrugs and hands Skeates an A–Z. Skeates flicks through the index and finds Gorebridge Close.

  “Yo, what way do you go into the city?”