by Tony Black
‘So what now, Gus?’
Quite a question. I wondered myself. I didn’t buy it that Billy had been working to the same set of principles as myself and Hod. I sure as hell knew that Col didn’t have a good word to say for his son. Billy had planned to take off; he wasn’t thinking about blowing the whistle, shutting the operation down. He wanted to make his pile and shove off, probably take some new skills to another manor and put them to good use. I felt sick to my stomach with everything I had seen: with Nadja, Billy, Zalinskas and all his outfit. But more than any of them Cardownie sickened me.
‘Do you remember how I lost my job, Hod?’
‘Which one?’
‘The last one. Only one I’d ever had worth shit.’
‘The sauce, wasn’t it?’
‘Okay, well you could say that. But the actual incident which caused me to get the boot.’
‘Oh yeah. The night you were on the news, you nutted a politician.’
‘Not hard enough.’
Hod turned from the view, put his elbows on the rail. ‘It wasn’t him, was it?’
‘The very same.’
‘Gus, I’d say you have a score to settle.’
‘Fuck that. It’s in the past now. I wouldn’t want that job back as a gift.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, really. Are you trying to say something, Hod?’
‘Me? No, never. So what are you going to do?’
I pointed out towards the city. ‘Look out there, so much going on. So many people, all trying to screw each other over. Do you think it’s possible to plan anything?’
‘Hannibal thought it was.’
I looked at Hod, it was the first time I’d ever heard him even approach something approximating sense, learning.
‘Crossing the Alps?’
‘Must have missed that one.’
‘What one?’
‘When they were in the Alps — The A-Team.’
‘Christ, you’re talking about that Hannibal.’
‘Yeah. “I love it when a plan comes together!” Who did you think I was talking about?’
I shook my head at him, wanted to say ‘I pity the fool’, but went for ‘Never mind.’
I turned to go inside.
Hod followed and put his beer bottle down on the table. He left the room, came back carrying a container about the size of a shoebox.
‘Eh, Gus, I don’t suppose there’s a good time to do this, so I’ll just let you have it now.’
I looked at the box he was holding out to me. ‘What is it?’
‘It’s from the funeral… your friend’s ashes.’
My breathing slowed, then quickened. ‘Milo.’
‘I, eh, don’t know… should I say something?’
‘It’s okay.’ I reached out, shook his hand. ‘Thanks for doing that, Hod.’
He turned away again, sat.
‘Was it a good… do?’
‘We did what you said, gave him a proper send off.’
‘Was there any… family?’ It was a stupid question. I realised at once I wouldn’t be holding Milo’s ashes if his family had shown up.
Hod shook his head. ‘Just myself and Amy… a chick from social work.’
It sounded a sombre affair. Not something to circle on your calendar. But, God, the guilt. I’d been the only person this man knew at the end of his life and I hadn’t even made his funeral.
‘You all right, Gus?’
‘Yeah, oh yeah — just a bit, you know, gutted.’
‘Amy was in floods. She said she never even met the guy but, well, it was a funeral, wasn’t it?’
‘She’s got a sensitive soul.’
‘You’re right there.’
Hod had an eye on me for a reaction.
‘I know. I know. I’ll have to let her down gently.’
59
I couldn’t sleep, spent the night reading The Legend of the Holy Drinker. Its author, Joseph Roth, a chronic alcoholic who drank himself to death in Paris at the age of forty-four.
I’d always loved this book, even before I was a drinker, never a holy one. It’s about a jakey called Andreas who hits on, the worst of things for any drinker, a run of luck.
In the translator’s note at the back of my edition it reads: ‘It is clear that Roth for some time had been running out of reasons to remain alive.’
When a line like this strikes a chord, you know you’re in trouble.
I read on: ‘He advanced a sophisticated argument that while drink shortened his life in the medium term, in the short term it kept him alive — and he worked hard at testing its logic.’
Lately, I’d been crippled by hangovers. Time was, when I could wake up the next day, shake off the night before and start again. Now, only one word described the way I felt: deteriorated.
Heard John Lennon doing ‘Living on borrowed time… without a thought to tomorrow.’
Phone went.
I sat up in bed, answered before checking the caller ID.
‘Hello, Gus.’
Shocked.
‘Mam… hello.’
Her voice sounded weaker than ever, she sounded frail. ‘I know you’re very busy, son, but I had to call. I’m sorry to disturb you again.’
Her words sent my heart into spasm. ‘No, Mam, don’t apologise, I’ve been meaning to call, I have.’ It was a lie, but I’d got used to those recently.
‘I know Catherine told you about-’
‘Is he no better, Mam?’
‘Oh, Gus…’
‘Mam?’
A groan, actual pain. ‘Gus, he won’t last another day, the doctor says it’s a miracle he’s still with us. Oh, son, he’s holding on for you, he’s holding on for your visit. If you would only… Oh, Gus. Oh son…’
‘Mam, please.’
‘I know, I’ve no right to ask. I’m sorry.’
‘Mam.’
‘No. I shouldn’t have called. You have your reasons. I’m sorry, son. I’ll leave you be.’
‘Mam, I’ll come. Tell him I’ll come.’ Had I said this? Had I ever. Where was my head at?
I dressed in black cords, nearing on grey at the knees. I looked for a white shirt, had to settle for a white T-shirt. Topped the look off with a navy lambswool V-neck. I’d been reckless with the washing instructions and the jumper had tightened round the shoulders. I pulled at the neck, heard a tear.
‘Och, Christ on a crutch!’
The neckband came away in my hand. I tossed it, put on a red Pringle instead. It fitted like a dream, no substitute for quality.
I pulled on my Docs, checked myself in the mirror. ‘Bit like a schemie golfer, Gus.’
Still, would have to do. Clothes supply running low.
In the kitchen I tried to make some coffee but my hands shook out of control. I clanged the spoon in the sink and went to the fridge. Hod kept some Grolsch in reserve, the heavy bottles made fashionable by soccer casuals. Along with sharpened umbrella points, the bottles once made for a perfect concealed weapon. The Grolsch hit the spot. I shotgunned two bottles. The shakes subsided, but I felt a long way from medicated.
Hod looked out for the count as I left. I tucked the Glock in my waistband, Milo’s ashes under my arm.
I strolled along Portobello beach, hoping inspiration would strike. My head throbbed with troubles or was that just the sauce calling? Talking to my old man after all this time wouldn’t be easy. I knew I was prepared to do it for my mother. She’d borne the brunt of his torture over the years, after all that, how could I refuse her?
‘Jesus, Mam — why didn’t you get out?’ I muttered.
If only she’d taken the steps to free herself from him, she might have found a life. For her though, it just wasn’t the done thing. I never understood it; was it a generational thing? No woman would put up with it nowadays. Deborah certainly needed a lot less provocation to leave me.
‘Bollocks!’ I walked off a sand-bar, sank up to my ankles in sea water. ‘This is all I need.’
First newsagent’s I hit, I asked the shopkeeper for a carrier, placed the box of ashes carefully inside.
‘Twenty Regal as well, please,’ I said.
I lit up — one after the other — until I found myself two streets from my family home. As I reached it, the place that held so much hurt for every one of us, I drew deep on my cigarette, then crushed it soundly underfoot.
My sister stood at the window, tucked behind the twitching net curtains.
‘Hello, Gus,’ she said as I walked through the door.
My soul screamed as I went in. Every fibre of my being begged for alcohol.
‘Can I take your coat?’ said Cathy.
‘Yes. Oh, and can you put this away?’ I handed over Milo’s ashes.
‘What is it?’
‘An old friend. Take care with it, please.’
She placed the carrier on the top shelf of the hallstand, waved me into the living room. I stood in the doorway for a moment, my palms gathering sweat.
‘Angus,’ called out my mother. She stood up, held out her arms.
‘Hello, Mam… How are you?’
She held my face in her hands, placed a kiss on my cheek. ‘You’re as white as a maggot!’
‘I’m fine, really.’
‘When did you last have a square meal, son?’
‘I’m okay, Mam. There’s no need to fuss.’
‘Sit yourself down. I’ll make you something to eat. What would you like?’
‘Nothing, I’m not hungry.’
‘Nonsense, you’ll take a sandwich.’
I shook my head. ‘Mam, I’m here to see… Dad.’ The word caught in my throat like a razorblade.
My mother sat back down. ‘Of course. You’ll want to see him as soon as you can.’
What I really wanted was to turn around and walk out. Wait for the funeral, dance on his grave. Said, ‘Sure.’
She stood up again, smoothed down the sides of her skirt, then patted at her hair. ‘I’ll see if he’s ready. The doctor’s given him something to make him sleep, but he may be awake again now.’
‘All right.’
She left the room. On the stairs, she turned. ‘He’s been asking for you day and night, son — you know that, don’t you?’
I looked up. ‘Yes, Mam, I know.’
60
‘ I think he’s fit for visitors now,’ said my mother.
I stood up. My knees felt weak as I tried to walk. Why was I here? Nothing he could say would change how I felt.
I didn’t want to feel like this. I knew my bitterness had hurt me just as much as any of his blows. But here I was, turning the handle on his bedroom door.
‘Gus… is it you?’ said my father.
He looked pale and old now, his skin grey from the weeks spent indoors. There was none of the terror left in his eyes at all.
I stared at him and found the image hard to take in. Had this pathetic man blighted my childhood and continued to blight my life to this day?
As I stared, I couldn’t feel any hatred for him. Any hatred I felt was for someone else entirely.
‘Gus, come away in,’ he gasped.
My father held out a hand to me, motioned to his bedside.
The hand looked feeble, bony and withered, the fingertips purple where his weak heart failed to pump enough blood to keep the circulation going.
I stared at his hand and wondered if it really was the same hand that had made me tremble in fear. As I stared I wanted to find the words to say how I felt. How I felt as a boy, and how I felt right now. But I couldn’t find any words at all.
‘I’m glad you came,’ said my father, his voice trembling over his grey lips. ‘I’d hoped you would.’ He coughed, spluttered, grasped for breath. ‘I’d hoped you’d give me a chance to explain.’
I nodded. I still couldn’t find any words. My voice was somewhere else, hidden in the depths of me, to sound a breath felt beyond me.
My father reached out and took my hand, spoke for us both. ‘I know why you came, son. It wasn’t for me. I don’t deserve any visitors. Your sister and brother came, but you stayed away, I don’t fault you for that — you were a different case, but I hoped you would come.’
Why was I different? Why was it me sat there and not Cathy or Michael? He’d fathered three children. The idea that he had singled me out hit like a bolt in the belly.
‘Why?’ I said. The word burned my heart, nearly choked me on the way out.
‘You were the firstborn, son, and I was hard on you.’ He spluttered when he spoke, his dark eyes looked blood red and circled in black. ‘I learnt to be a mite gentler on the others, but the habit with you was hard to break.’
‘Why?’ There it was again. It had always come down to the same question.
‘I had such high hopes for you; my first boy. I wanted you to be my boy, but you were always your own man. I thought I could win you round by being hard on you — it was all I knew. I got what I wanted by being hard, a hard player I was… I thought you needed the same.’
‘You were wrong.’
‘I know it. I know it now, son. I see it now, I do, I see what I did was wrong.’
‘Why didn’t you see it then?’ I spoke through my teeth, jaw clamped tight. ‘That was when I needed you to see it.’
‘I saw what was in you, and it wasn’t the same as was in me, Angus. I wanted to change it. I wanted to make you more like me.’
‘I could never be like you.’ I spat out the words. I wanted to look at him when I said them, but I couldn’t face him.
‘You are better off being nothing like me,’ he said, ‘my flower bloomed only briefly.’
‘I never missed it… and neither did Mam.’
‘I know it. But now the Lord’s close to his harvesting it feels like I finally understand.’ My father brought his hands up to his face, tried to cover the tears in his eyes. ‘You are a very different man to me, different entirely, I tried to shape you the only way I knew how, but I was wrong. You cannot mould a child, it’s wrong to try. The best you can do is live your own life well and hope the child follows your example.’
For the first time in my life I thought I understood something of him. I saw he felt sorry, I didn’t need to hear the word.
‘Angus, son, you have a good head on them shoulders. I always knew that. It only confused me though. I never knew what to do with you. Me a muck savage, how could I?’
I looked at him. ‘It’s all right,’ I said.
‘No, son, you don’t understand. I know I’ve ruined you. All these years though, it’s been too much, too much to think of what could have been.’
‘Stop now.’
‘I was a coward. It was hurt pride that sent you away, pushed you away like I always did. And why? Jesus, son, I’m sorry. I was a fool then, but we’re always learning right to the end so we are. That’s why it’s never too late, it can’t ever be too late to change, to say you’re sorry, can it?’
I looked at my father, wasted away in the bed before me. He looked exhausted now, the effort shown in his face shocked me.
‘No,’ I said.
Wasted. Wasn’t that what he had done with most of his life? Wasted it away. Playing for his country, the adulation, it all meant nothing to him now he was dying.
‘It’s all right,’ I said, something in me felt sorry for him, the old man dying before me needed comfort, ‘we all make mistakes.’
‘Don’t make mine, please.’ As he closed his eyes it was like watching a light go out inside him.
I gripped my father’s hand tight, then left his bedside.
I closed the door and went back downstairs, where my
mother sat waiting for me. She rose as I entered the room.
‘What is it?’ she said.
‘I think he’s gone, Mam.’
61
On the day of the funeral my mother hung a black crepe scarf on the door of the family home. A white card told when the remains would be taken to the kirkyard.
I tried to straighten my tie in the mirror, not easy when you find it hard to look at yourself.
I didn’t know how to feel about my father’s passing. He felt sorry, yeah, but the memories were still there. Every time I felt sympathy sneaking up on me I had to ask was it really myself I felt sorry for?
All I did know, the person I was wasn’t the person I wanted to be any more. My father had tried to shape me with lashings and harsh words, but look what he’d done. Look what I was. A waster, basically. An alkie loser.
Deep down though, I knew I couldn’t blame him. I’d been over it a million times. If I’d had it better, who’s to say I would be any different? Kids who are showered with affection develop their own problems. They go into the wider world looking for a kind of love they’ll never attain. My problems felt like mine alone. For years I’d been nurturing them. Perhaps now it was time to let them go. I knew that was what my father had tried to show me.
The coffin was balanced on the dining-room table, my mother sat beside it, dabbing her eyes with a handkerchief. Cathy stood beside her, a hand placed delicately on her back.
‘The others… are they coming to the house?’ I asked.
‘In a while. Michael’s talking to the television people.’
‘The telly?’ I wondered why Michael had been asked to do this, I was the eldest, and Christ, I had the media experience.
‘They’re doing a slot for the news.’
My mother spoke up: ‘Do you think anyone will remember him?’
‘Mam, he was a big name in his day,’ I said. ‘There’ll be loads of interest.’
I knew this wasn’t the case. Football had moved on. To the fans of today, he was a relic. A strange remnant of a bygone era when men were men.
‘Och, I don’t know, it’s all that David whatsisname these days. One married to the skinny girl off that Spice group.’