by Limmy
He would see something not that interesting, like a rusty lamp post. He’d take a picture of it. He’d focus on the lamp post, and then move the camera to the side a bit so the lamp post was to the right of the shot and the street was in the background to the left. He’d press the button to take a picture, then look at the screen to see how it turned out. There would be this one piece of rust on the lamp post, in focus, with the rest of the lamp post starting to go slightly blurry as it curved away from the camera. He thought about how it looked good on the camera, yet how it didn’t look so good in reality. But if you thought about it, that was how it looked in reality, it just depended on how it was seen, either through the camera or through the eyes.
He took some more pictures of lamp posts, until they all began to look the same. He started to think of what else he could take pictures of.
There were people walking around, and he’d like to stop them and ask if he could take their picture, but he hadn’t reached that stage yet. He wasn’t at that level of photography yet, like some of the people he’d seen online. He wouldn’t feel right doing that. He didn’t even feel right being seen with the camera around his neck. People would see this guy taking pictures of the lamp posts and bottles and flowers, and they’d stare.
He thought it was best to get away from them. He looked down a street that led away from where the people were, away from the tenements and over towards the big business centre and the retail park. There weren’t many people down that way, except for the ones in their motors. He began walking that way, until he was away from the passers-by.
He came to a stop at traffic lights, and took another picture. There were no people here, only wide roads and a motorway overhead. He pressed the button on the lights, and took a picture of the lit-up sign that said ‘Wait’. He looked at the picture on the screen and it looked good. There was maybe some kind of meaning to seeing the word ‘Wait’. Maybe not. He’d seen people online talking about certain pictures telling a story. There was a photo of a door handle that people had talked about, and they discussed the story it told. But maybe it was just a picture of a door handle.
He lifted his camera to take a picture of the red man across the road, but something else caught his attention, something to the left, something dark. He looked, and saw an underpass. It was an underpass that would take him under the street he was waiting to cross. It looked like it wasn’t used often. It was manky, with holes in the wall and peeling paint. It looked like people used to go that way before the traffic lights were put up, and now it was easier to just press the button and wait.
The underpass took his interest. He lifted his camera to take a picture. He aimed it at the bottom of the stairs, where the underpass turned right to go under the street. He pressed the button then looked at the screen, expecting the picture to look as interesting as it was in his mind. But it wasn’t. It looked like something he could have just taken on his phone.
He leaned to the side, next to the wall at the top of the stairs. He pointed the camera so that the wall at the side was out of focus, and the stairs leading down to the underpass were in focus, then he pressed the button. He looked at the screen, but it just looked like a picture of an underpass, except now it had a wall at the side. It just looked like how it looked.
He began to feel glum. He wanted this to work out. He breathed in through his nose and held his breath as he looked at the picture. He was aware that he was clenching his jaws, so he relaxed them and breathed out through his nose. He looked at the pole next to him, the one that held up the traffic lights, to see if there was any rust.
‘Are you taking pictures?’ came a guy’s voice.
The guy was thin with cropped dark hair. He was wearing a thick Adidas jacket that looked too thick to be wearing here in June. His pupils were tiny, and there was some foam at the corner of his mouth.
Eric was about to answer, until a motorbike roared past on the road behind the guy. If Eric was the guy, the sound would have been enough to make him spin, but the guy turned slowly. He didn’t react until a good two seconds after the bike had passed. ‘Fuck was that?’ said the guy to himself. He turned back towards Eric and smiled. Eric noticed that the guy’s eyes didn’t move in their sockets. ‘You better not take my picture.’
The guy walked down the stairs towards the underpass. He reached the bottom and looked back at Eric, before turning right and walking through the tunnel under the road.
Eric took another deep breath and tried to relax his shoulders. He looked across the road at the red man, then looked down at the underpass again. He held up his camera to look at the screen, at the pictures he took before the guy had turned up. He looked at the last one he took of the underpass, the one with the wall to the side, and he deleted it. Then he deleted the one before.
He looked at the red man across the street, and lifted his camera to take a picture of it. He pressed the button, then had a look at the screen to see how it turned out, but he couldn’t tell if it was good or bad. He didn’t have an opinion. He lifted his camera to take another picture of the red man, but he didn’t press the button. He lowered the camera and let it hang from his neck by the strap. He took a deep breath through his nose.
‘Here,’ said a voice. Eric looked towards it, towards the underpass, and breathed out. It was the guy again. He had reappeared at the bottom of the stairs. ‘C’mere,’ said the guy. ‘There’s something here. Look.’
Eric thought about it. He tried telling himself to not even consider it. He pushed the button on the traffic lights again.
‘Look,’ said the guy, pointing into the underpass. ‘C’mon, I’m not going to hurt you.’
Eric walked down the stairs.
The guy smiled and waited for him. When Eric reached the last few steps, the guy walked into the underpass and said ‘Over here’, and Eric followed him in.
It was dark. There must have been lights in there before, but now they were either switched off or smashed, with the only light now being the daylight at either end of the tunnel. The guy pointed towards the middle of the tunnel, somewhere where there was nothing to see. ‘It’s just over here,’ said the guy, as he walked that way. Eric followed behind.
He walked closer to the guy, then took his camera off from around his neck and wrapped the strap around the guy’s throat. Eric expected more of a struggle, but the guy was lighter than he thought. The guy kicked Eric’s shin with the back of his foot, but it didn’t hurt. Eric swept the guy’s feet from under him and swung him to the side. He pulled the strap tight with both his hands until his fists met at the back of the guy’s neck. His arms began to shake.
Eric held him there for a minute. Then a minute more. Another bike roared past outside, but it sounded far away. He felt like he was underwater down here. It was because everything else felt far away, and it was cold and dark. And it was the way the guy was moving his hands about. He was barely moving, but his hands were moving slowly, reaching for the ground to try and support himself. It made him look like he was swimming.
Funny Face
Laura was with a lassie called Helen, who she hadn’t seen for years. Over 20 years. Not since they were teenagers.
They’d arranged to meet up and have dinner in a restaurant, then the plan was to go somewhere afterwards to have some drinks, then maybe go to a club.
Laura was regretting it. She was regretting meeting up with Helen, because Helen was dull.
She wasn’t the person that Laura remembered. Mind you, Helen was never that memorable to begin with. There was a crowd of them when she was younger, and Helen was a part of that crowd. But she was way in the background. Way, way in the background.
They’d bumped into each other last week. Laura had just left work and was heading for the train, when she heard somebody calling her name. ‘Laura?’ asked the voice. ‘Laura McGilvray?’
When Laura looked, she saw a vaguely familiar face. A face from ages ago. The lassie pointed to herself. ‘Helen,’ she said. ‘We used to hang
about in Pollokshaws, remember?’
‘Ah, that’s right,’ said Laura. ‘Helen.’
Laura pretended that all these brilliant memories of Helen were coming back to her, when they weren’t. All that Laura could remember was that Helen was one of the quiet ones, hardly saying anything at all. She was never much of a talker, she was never full of the patter, but Laura had a faint memory of how Helen would always get everybody laughing.
It was that face that she pulled. A funny face, with a funny voice.
Laura loved it. It wasn’t an impersonation or anything pisstakey, it was just this funny face and this thing she used to say. They’d all get drunk, and then Laura would ask Helen to do that face she did, the face and the voice. She’d ask her to do it again and again. Helen would do it until she said that was enough. She was the type to leave you hungry, so that you never got fed up with it.
It was just a wee thing, just a funny face and voice, but it was so funny. That’s why Laura had come out. A night out with somebody like Helen would be just what the doctor ordered.
But Helen wasn’t funny. Not anymore.
‘How was your meal?’ asked Laura.
They’d finished eating a while ago, and Laura had already asked that question. She remembered she’d already asked, but she didn’t care, because Helen wasn’t saying much, and one of them had to say something.
‘Yeah, nice,’ said Helen.
Laura remembered that Helen had already said that as well.
Laura really regretted coming out tonight. She’d asked Helen lots of stuff about what she’d been up to since the old days, and Helen had answered with answers that were no longer than ten or twenty words. Laura would ask her about her family and where she stayed and what her job was, all the things like that, and Helen would answer. Then Helen would ask the same thing back. She’d never ask anything by herself, she’d never ask a question that she herself had come up with, it was always a question that Laura had asked first.
Another thing that Laura didn’t like about being there was that Helen would look at her without speaking. When neither of them were speaking, she’d just look at Laura. It wasn’t in a moody way or a flirty way, there was nothing behind it. But she’d just look at Laura, not saying anything, and Laura would have to fill in the silence with questions or by rabbiting away herself. A monologue. She didn’t like talking about herself constantly, because that’s normally something you criticise somebody for ‒ she’d criticised people in the past for talking about themselves the whole night. But Laura had no choice. Helen was as dull as they came.
But she wasn’t always.
Laura had to force herself to remember that. She reminded herself of why she said yes to meeting up. The face. The funny face. The face and the voice. It was so funny. Was that still there? Was that still there inside Helen? Laura looked at her and she couldn’t imagine it. She couldn’t imagine that dull, saggy face springing to life and making Laura laugh.
‘Here,’ said Laura, before gulping her wine. ‘What was that face you used to do?’
‘Face?’ said Helen.
‘Remember?’ asked Laura. ‘You used to do this face and put on a voice, I can’t remember what it was.’
Helen frowned and looked off to think about it. She shook her head and said ‘Nope’.
‘Oh come on,’ said Laura. ‘You remember.’ Then she remembered something herself. ‘Wait, wait. Right, listen. Remember that time we were all in Callum’s house?’
‘Aye,’ said Helen. ‘When, though?’
‘The time he had an empty,’ said Laura. ‘That time his maw and da were away on holiday and we all hung about there for the week. Remember that night somebody had a bottle of poppers?’
‘I think so,’ said Helen. ‘I never liked poppers.’
‘Right, but remember everybody was buzzing poppers, and then you’d do that face and the voice and everybody was howling?’
Helen thought about it again. She started to nod. ‘Ah,’ she said. ‘I know what you’re talking about now.’
‘Thank God,’ said Laura. ‘I thought I was going mental there. You remember it?’
‘Yeah,’ said Helen. ‘But that wasn’t me.’
Laura, who was about to reach for the bottle of wine to pour herself another glass, stopped. ‘What?’ she asked.
‘That’s wasn’t me,’ said Helen. ‘The face. That was Tracey.’
‘Tracey?’ asked Laura. She tried to remember who Tracey was, then it came to her. ‘Tracey Elliott?’
‘Yeah.’
Laura thought back to Tracey Elliott. It was hard. Long time ago. And Laura had had a drink. She couldn’t picture the funny face on Tracey right away, so first she thought of Tracey’s normal face. When it came to her, she then saw Tracey pulling the funny face and doing the voice.
And there it was.
It was Tracey. It was Tracey Elliott she’d been thinking about.
‘Oh,’ said Laura. ‘I thought it was you.’
‘No,’ said Helen.
Laura smiled at her, waiting for her to say something. She waited for Helen to perhaps say something about the mix-up and the face. Perhaps she would say how it was funny that Laura thought it was Helen that did the face, because Helen and Tracey didn’t look the same. They were both kind of quiet, but they weren’t two people you’d normally get mixed up.
Laura was going to talk about the mix-up, but instead she waited for Helen to do it. But Helen didn’t. Instead, Helen just had a sip of her drink and looked out the window. Then she looked back at Laura, without saying anything. That thing again of just sitting there looking without saying anything. Back to that.
Laura thought about the funny face again. If Helen wouldn’t talk about it, Laura would. There was nothing else to talk about.
‘It was funny that,’ said Laura. ‘That face. Plus the voice she did as well.’
‘Yeah,’ said Helen.
‘What was it again?’ asked Laura. ‘Can you remember?’
‘What was what?’
‘The face. What was it she did again? What was it she said?’
‘I can’t remember,’ said Helen.
‘But …’ said Laura.
She was ready to ask how Helen could remember that it was Tracey who used to do the funny face yet not be able to remember what the face was, or what was said. But it was fair enough. It was like trying to remember the faces that Phil Cool used to do, him that was on the telly when they were younger. All he did was funny faces, but if you tried to remember or actually pull the faces he did, you probably couldn’t do it. So it was fair enough.
Laura was going to drop it. But then she remembered that she’d just said ‘But …’ and Helen hadn’t then asked her ‘But what?’
Normally if somebody said ‘But’ and then didn’t finish, you’d be wanting to know what they were going to say, but Helen wasn’t. She just sipped her drink and looked out the window, and then looked at Laura.
Back to looking at Laura again without saying anything.
They had arranged to go somewhere for drinks and then head to a club. This would be how it was for the rest of the night. Laura had thought it was Helen who did the funny face, but it wasn’t.
‘Can you not remember?’ asked Laura.
‘Remember what?’ asked Helen.
‘The face, the face. The face, or the voice. Or what she said?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Helen. ‘I can’t remember’
‘See if you can do it,’ said Laura, sitting back in her seat. ‘Let’s see if we can remember.’ She clapped her hands and rubbed them together.
Helen humoured Laura with a smile, then looked out the window.
‘Helen,’ said Laura.
Helen turned back to look at her.
‘Let’s see if we can remember,’ said Laura. ‘See if you can do it. Go.’
Helen smiled and shook her head, then sipped her drink.
‘Oh, come on,’ said Laura. ‘Go, give it a try. C’mon, do it.�
��
Helen looked out the window. This time, she didn’t even reply with either a word or a smile. This person who had invited Laura out to catch up, who had sat there for over an hour without barely speaking a word unless spoken to, just looked out the window.
‘Helen,’ said Laura, making Helen look at her again.
‘What?’ asked Helen.
‘Do it.’
Helen smiled again and spoke quietly, like she was speaking to a child. ‘Nooooo,’ she said, and went to pick up her drink again.
‘Then do something,’ said Laura. ‘For fuck sake, do something.’
The Bike
Tony was talking to his wife Barbara. She was still in bed, but he’d got up early and was putting on his jacket in front of her.
He told her that he’d make her a nice breakfast, a nice Sunday morning breakfast. Bacon, eggs, black pudding, baked beans, anything she wanted. She normally made it, but this time he felt like doing it himself. A treat.
‘We don’t have any bacon,’ she said. ‘Plus we’re out of butter.’
‘Do we not?’ he asked. ‘I knew we never had any black pudding, but I thought we had the rest.’ Then he shrugged and said, ‘Ah well, I was going over to the shops anyway. For the black pudding.’
Barbara said, ‘Well, if you go and get that, I’ll make it.’ And she began to sit up.
‘No, no,’ said Tony, putting his hands up. ‘I’ll make it. I’ll make it.’ Then he said, all proud of himself, ‘Breakfast in bed.’
She wasn’t sure. She was grateful of the gesture, but he’d made fry-ups before and they weren’t good. The toast would be cold, the eggs would be too runny or overdone. You name it. It was nice of him to offer, but he wasn’t very good. She remembered the one he made her earlier that month, and she’d prefer it if he’d just brought her a bowl of cereal.