Scottish Widows

by Grae Cleugh

  I hope Jean isnae up there lookin doon on me. She’ll be dead embarrassed. (To JEAN.) I’m so sorry, love. Forgive a stupid old man aw his shortcomin’s. (Back to us.) She’s no here noo. Never will be. I’m gettin used tae that. Slowly. For now, I need tae buy my ane cream sponges an keep my wee man firmly zipped up. For now, anyway. My Jean deserves no less.

  Blackout.

  Music.

  4. ‘you are my sunshine, my ONLY SUNSHINE’

  Music off. Lights up. ALEX, a man of 63, is lounging on a ship’s deckchair. The sun is beating down and he is wearing light clothes and sunglasses. Behind him and attached to a back wall is a lifebuoy with the name ‘CLUB APOLLO CRUISES’ on it. Beside him is a small table with a ridiculously camp-looking cocktail on it, umbrellas, straws etc. ALEX has short hair or a shaved head and a good-size moustache. He is gay.

  ALEX: Until I met Jack, I had never had it up me. I was what you’d call a sexual novice. Relatively speaking. I’d had it off once or twice at the bars, right enough, and there’d been a few late night jaunts up to Queens Park. Who says nothing exciting ever happens on the south side? But for the most part, I was an innocent. I was young then, of course. Scared too. This is when it was still illegal. Just. Which made it dangerous. And exciting. Sometimes I wonder if it was more fun when you were still breaking the law. Once you could just go out and pull like everybody else, it definitely took some of the thrill out of it. I can say that, I suppose. I never spent a night in the jail. Dreamed about it, oh aye, but never did.

  I always liked the older men. They were my fantasy. Don’t know why, they just were. I think I liked the idea of being taken in hand, as it were. Anyway, there were plenty of them around. Even in those days. In the parks. In the bars. Most were married, of course. You’d notice the white mark where they’d taken off their wedding ring for the night. You could have a kiss and a quick fumble with them, aye, but it was never going anywhere. None of them were ever, ever going to leave their wives.

  Jack was different. Not married, for a start. Didn’t need to be. He had something about him. A confidence. A self-confidence which meant he didn’t feel the need to hide behind a wife or a girlfriend. I first saw him in the Duke of Wellington. In Argyle Street, it was. Might still be there. Unless they knocked it down. Not the most salubrious of pubs. Spit and sawdust. But full of older men. This one Friday, I go in and as was always the case there, soon as you walk inside, everybody turns to see who it is and check you out. Some weeks you’d go in and there’d be some quite handsome types. Other times it was like walking into the bar scene in Star Wars. When I go in there that night, I take a good look around and there’s this one chap catches my eye. Never seen him before. Place had a lot of regulars so whenever anyone new was there – fresh meat they used to call it – they’d stand out a mile. Jack certainly did. Tall and well-built, about mid-forties then, tanned, and rugged-looking. Handsome for sure, though probably more Robert Mitchum than Cary Grant. He sees me soon as I walk in. Looks at me. I look back. Nervously. I always got nervous going in to these places by myself. Still do. Don’t get me wrong. I wanted to be there. I wanted to meet someone. But I never ever quite got used to gay bars. This bluff tough Shirley Basseyesque exterior I’ve cultivated is about as authentic as Jordan’s tits, I assure you. I go over to the bar and get myself a drink. I like the look of Jack of course but I’ve never in my life been able to go and chat somebody up. I don’t think Jack ever had that problem.

  ‘Hi, I’m Jack’ he says. No more than two minutes after I get inside, there he is in front of me with his hand stretched out.

  ‘Alex’ I say, rather demurely. We shake hands. He’s got the grip of John Wayne. Mine’s more like Audrey Hepburn. He’s even more handsome up close. Mind you, I’m no hunchback of Notre Dame. I was twenty and very pretty then. Hard to believe now, maybe, but true.

  ‘You here with anyone?’ he says. Jack never wasted any time.

  ‘Just myself’ I say. ‘You?’

  ‘With a friend’ he says and points out this chap across the other side of the pub, who waves at us.

  ‘Is he a friend friend’ I say, ‘or just a friend?’

  I was never a fan of threesomes. Too bloody complicated.

  ‘Just a friend’ he says, smiling.

  ‘Not seen you in here before’ I say to him. Lame and clichéd I know, but as I say, I was never very good at this sort of thing.

  ‘I’ve been away for a while’ he says. ‘Working in Saudi.’ Turns out he’s an engineer and been working out in the oil fields. Very macho. I’m excited.

  ‘I did wonder about your tan’ I say.

  ‘Weather’s glorious out there’ he says, ‘It’s the thing I’m missing most now I’m home.’

  ‘So why come back?’ I say to him.

  ‘To meet someone’ he says. Now out of the mouths of other men, me included, this would sound a bit desperate. With Jack, it just sounded direct and sincere – which I came to realise was his style, and one of the things I loved about him. He tells me how he’s been in Saudi for five years, where there’s no booze and even fewer boys – unless you want to pay for it. Says he’s spent most of his life going to different places doing one job or another. ‘I’ve come home to settle down’ he says to me. ‘I’m going to start my own company, make some real money and meet a man I can spend my life with.’ Actually Jack was pretty well off even then. As far as I was concerned, he’d already made real money. Not that I was looking for that. Me liking older men was never about finding a sugar-daddy. Far from it. I always worked. Even after Jack made his millions. Always. Sure, he gave me the up-front money when I wanted to open my own salon, but I paid him back. I did. Insisted on it. Every penny. I was working right up until he died. No, my attraction to older men was simply the way I was hard-wired. Like Jack, but in reverse. He liked young men as much as I liked the older ones. In many ways, we were the perfect match for each other.

  We talk a lot that first night. Not just about him. Of the two of us, he’s clearly had the more interesting life. There’s twenty-five years between us so maybe that’s to be expected. But he wants to hear as much about me as I do about him. He’s genuinely interested.

  ‘What do you do?’ he says.

  ‘I’m a hairdresser’ I tell him, almost apologetically. A lot of men, even gay men, would dismiss that at the time – hairdressing’s just a job for queers. Not Jack. He was really quite impressed. Or seemed to be. ‘You’re doing something really smart with your life’ he says to me. ‘You can go anywhere with that and make money. You stick in with that, sunshine.’ He always used to call me sunshine. He liked the fact I was self-sufficient. Don’t think he was looking to be a sugar-daddy either. He wanted an equal in his life. Not some stupid wee queen.

  We spend that first night, all of it, together. Jack’s wavy friend pulls too, aye, gets himself a lumber and heads off early. Which leaves the two of us. We get a table and sit and talk for ages. I listen to his stories about his travels to all manner of exotic places I’ve only dreamed about. Furthest away I’ve ever been from home at that time’s a week in Rothesay wi my auntie Betty. Jack’s a great storyteller too. All these amazing things he’s done. When he asks me to go home with him, I say yes. No doubts. No hesitations. Normally, I don’t. Not on the first night. Then again, Jack’s no ordinary man.

  ‘You’ll laugh’ I say to him. We’re lying in his big bed in his very beautiful flat just off the Byres Road. We’ve been kissing and so on for a while. I stop for a minute and say this to him.

  ‘Why will I laugh?’ he says, ‘Have you got two dicks or something?’

  ‘I’ve been saving myself’ I say.

  ‘Are you a virgin?’ he says.

  ‘Do I seem like a virgin?’ I say.

  ‘Far from it’ he says. Always was a cheeky bugger.

  ‘What I mean is’ I say to him, ‘I’ve never had anyone inside me. I’ve been saving that for somebody special.’

  He smiles at me. Then he kisses me g
ently on the lips.

  ‘Maybe we should wait’ he says.

  ‘For what?’ I say.

  ‘This is only the first night’ he says, ‘I hope.’

  ‘First of many’ I say.

  ‘Then we’ve got all the time in the world’ he says.

  ‘I know’ I say.

  ‘You should be sure about me’ he says.

  ‘I am sure’ I say to him, ‘Very sure. I want you in me.’

  ‘Okay’ he says, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll be gentle with you.’

  ‘Don’t be too gentle’ I say to him. We laugh.

  It’s nice. Oh aye. Soon enough that night, I realise why he’s chosen drilling for oil as a career.

  It is the first of many, many nights we have. I move in with him not too long after this – why waste time – and so begins our forty-three and a third years together. Which surely must be some sort of record. What I mean to say is, we had gay friends who got shot of their boyfriends quicker than I could get through a box of Kleenex watching Terms of Endearment. Quite a lot had open relationships too. We never did that. Never even came up. I loved that about Jack. So many couples we knew fell apart. We stayed together. We even got married. Few years back. Civil partnership. We didn’t have to do that. Nothing to prove to each other after forty-odd years. We wanted to. That’s all. I wanted to wear white to our ceremony of course but Jack said no. Said we’d look like Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased). But let me tell you, it was the most beautiful day of my life.

  We have a rather amazing time together over the years. y know what to do at this poSee things, do things lots of people never ever get to. Many happy times. Course, you always want more, don’t you? He’s eighty-eight when it happens. I suppose I mustn’t grumble. He’s incredibly fit and hearty right up to the end. No problems with his health at all. We all thought he was going to live forever. One morning, he just doesn’t wake up. I lie with him, in my arms, in bed, for an hour, before I call the doctor. Just talking to him. Saying good-bye.

  Few weeks after the funeral, our lawyer Simon Murray calls. Can I come in and go through some paperwork with him? There’s lots to sort out. I never asked Jack about his finances. No need. He knew what he was doing. Jack had retired but still had a half-share in his company. First thing is do I want to let them buy me out? Then there’s his stocks and shares. His investments. Some property issues. I’m not really in the frame of mind for this but it has to be done, so I go in to see him. We spend nearly the whole morning going through it all. There’s a helluva lot. The last thing’s the property. We’ve the apartments in Paris and Barcelona as well as the house. ‘Oh I want to keep those’ I tell him. ‘For now anyway, Simon.’

  ‘And the flat in Sauchiehall Street?’ he says, ‘What do you want to do about that, Alex?’

  I look at him for a second. In the midst of all the chaos I’ve had to deal with over the past few weeks, Jack, the funeral, everything, I’ve obviously forgotten we have the flat in Sauchiehall Street. I must’ve, mustn’t I?

  ‘You okay, Alex?’ he says.

  ‘What flat’s this?’ I say.

  ‘Sauchiehall Street’ he says. I think he picks up I’ve no idea what the hell he’s talking about. He pulls out this document and puts it in front of me. ‘It’s down a little way past the Mitchell Library’ he says. I’m looking at this map he’s showing me trying to make sense of it.

  ‘When did he buy it?’ I say.

  ‘About five years ago’ he says. He checks. ‘2008’ he says.

  ‘What did he buy it for?’ I ask him.

  ‘I honestly don’t know, Alex. He never said’ he says.

  ‘Do you have keys for it?’ I say to him.

  ‘No’ he says. ‘I presume Jack had the keys.’

  ‘I tell you what, I’ll get back to you, Simon, thanks’ I say, then I get him to write down the address on a bit of paper and I leave.

  I don’t know what I thought. It’s one thing me not knowing every detail of Jack’s financial arrangements. If he’d had a flat in town, I would’ve known about it. He never stayed in town anyway. We hadn’t spent a night apart for years. Certainly not since he retired. I go home and look through all the places I can think of. For keys. I find some, but I don’t know what they’re for. I stick them in an envelope and take them with me the next day.

  I get there and it’s a buzzer door entry thing. I don’t even think to buzz. I try some of the keys but they don’t work. I don’t really know what to do at this point. I’m about to walk away when I see a woman coming out of the building, leaving. I take the initiative, breeze past her, head inside and up to the first floor. When I get there, sure enough it says J. Rennie on the nameplate. I try one of the mortice keys. I just get it in when I hear barking from inside. Then I hear someone’s voice. Next thing, the door opens.

  ‘Can I help you?’ it says. I stand there. Mute. Not quite knowing how to answer that question. He’s 22, 23 years old. Pretty as a peach.

  ‘I said, can I help you?’ he says.

  ‘Who are you?’ I say to him.

  ‘Who are you?’ he says.

  ‘I’m Jack’s partner’ I say to him.

  He now looks as bloody shattered as I’m sure I do.

  ‘You better come in’ he says. I try to but his dogs, these two funny wee Pekinese things, are snapping round my ankles. ‘Hamish! Ivy! Get away!’ he says. They scuttle off like two wee cartoon dogs on wheels. I go in.

  It’s a smart apartment. That much I see straight away. Very much Jack’s taste. We go into the living-room. Two of us are standing there. Opposite each other. Handbags at dawn. Except it isn’t funny.

  ‘Does Jack know you’re here?’ he says.

  When you think it can’t get any worse. I have to tell him. Me.

  ‘Jack died three and a half weeks ago’ I say to him.

  He says nothing. But he sits down. I know exactly how he feels.

  He asks me what happened and I tell him. He tells me sometimes Jack wouldn’t visit him for a few weeks at a time, so him not seeing him for a while wasn’t completely out of the ordinary.

  ‘I was getting worried that he hadn’t phoned or e-mailed’ he says.

  He asks me how long I’ve known.

  ‘I didn’t know’ I say, ‘Not until now.’

  Then I explain about the lawyer.

  ‘How long was it going on for?’ I finally get to ask him.

  ‘Nearly seven years’ he says.

  Then he starts crying. I almost feel sorry for him. But I don’t.

  He pulls himself together, asks me if I want a cup of tea or something.

  ‘No’ I say.

  ‘What do we do now?’ he says.

  ‘I’ll give you three months to move’ I say to him, ‘I think that’s generous.’

  ‘Very’ he says.

  I write Simon Murray’s number down for him to phone when he leaves.

  ‘I’ll only take what’s mine’ he says.

  ‘That’s fine’ I say.

  Then we just seem to stand there.

  ‘I better be going’ I say and head for the door.

  He says to me, ‘Alex, it’s Alex isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, it’s Alex’ I say.

  ‘I’m –’ he says.

  I think he’s going to introduce himself. I put my hand up to stop him. ‘I don’t want to know your name’ I say to him, ‘I don’t want to know who you are, what you do, where you come from. I don’t want to know anything about you.’

  ‘No’ he says, ‘No. I just want to say I’m sorry.’

  I go. I go before I cuff him one.

  For days, weeks after this, what I am, all I am, is angry. Furious like I’ve never ever been in my life. Alongside this of course, making it worse, are questions. Questions that’ll never be answered cos the bugger’s off and died. Was he, this boy, was he the only one? Were there others? Many others? Was this all happening from the beginning? How far back? How could I be so fucking daft? How could I not know? More than
anything, why? Well, I suppose I know why. Why is obvious. It’s how. Isn’t it? How could he do it to me? I’m angry for a long time. I’m still angry. But at the same time, what I feel is, now, I feel so incredibly bitter. Because it’s been like losing him twice. When he died, there was still our life together, the memories, my idea of him and us. Those forty-three years are gone. Fucked away. My idea of him is gone. Our whole life together’s finished. What’s left? He’s left me nothing but his fucking money, which I didn’t want in the first place.

  Was it real? Really real? Any of it?

  Beat.

  I couldn’t stand sitting in that house any more, so I decided to take a trip. Spend some of his money. More of it than I know what to do with. Gay Mediterranean cruise, I thought. Why not? Get myself a toy-boy of my own. Aye. Revenge. That was the idea. I get here and of course I don’t fancy any of them. They’re all too young. Don’t think there’s one over thirty. Nothing here I want. Not a bite. Saw more action on a trip I took on the Waverley forty years ago. I did. Had a blow-job off a sixty-year old insurance man from Springburn on a day-trip to Arran. Only one I fancy here’s the Chief Engineer. He’s a dish. Looks like Captain Birdseye. Just my type.

  Spend most of my time perched up here. On my private deck. No expense spared. Sit and watch them all down there having the time of their lives, while I drink myself into a bloody stupor.

  I haven’t even thought about meeting someone else. Not really. Probably, it’s too late. Even if there was still somebody out there for me, it’d have to be the real thing. I haven’t got time left to waste it on liars. I just don’t know how you tell the difference. Even if I find it, real true honest to goodness love, how will I know? Tell me that.

  How will I bloody well know?

  Blackout.

  Music.

  5. ‘LIFE’S TOO SHORT’

  Music off. Lights up. KAREN, a dishevelled woman of 38, sitting in a chair. She only has one leg. Crutches are leaning against her chair. The place around her is dirty and a mess. Overall, the picture is one of utter squalor.