No, I didn’t understand. Not yet. But I would.
Chapter 37
‘Women!’ Ever since I’d arrived at his place that Friday night my dad had been pacing the kitchen, muttering to himself while Malky and I discussed the size of the five-a-side blister I’d acquired that evening and wondered whether to alert the Guinness Book of Records.
‘Can’t live with them...,’ Malky said to him. ‘Murder them and you end up with someone like Robbie getting you the jail.’ It was the standard of humour I’d come to expect from my brother.
‘Ha, bloody, ha.’ The old man turned on me. ‘Have you got that book signed for Diane, yet?’
‘You gave it to me yesterday.’
‘It was the day before.’
‘Well, you never said it was urgent.’
‘Well it is now.’ He waited to be asked why. I knew better than to start him off on another rant.
‘Get what signed?’ Malky asked.
‘Robbie knows this famous author; she’s Diane Prentice’s favourite. Things between Diane and me are a wee bit... you know, and I thought that if I, well...’
‘Fallen out with the foxy doctor and looking for a peace offering, is that it?’ For once, Malky was quicker than me on the uptake.
My dad shoved my blistered foot from the kitchen chair on which it was delicately propped and sat down. ‘I was up at the Hospice this afternoon, telling her about my idea for a quiz-night. All I did was ask her out for dinner and she got all bolshy with me.’
I’d met Diane Prentice on a number of occasions. Bolshy I couldn’t imagine.
Malky winced. ‘Knock-back? Happened to me once. Actually it never, I’m just saying that to make you feel better, but, Dad, I don’t know how to say this. Dr Prentice...’ My brother rubbed the brow that had headed a million footballs. ‘If for argument’s sake we say that she’s playing in the Champions League. You’re probably more—’
‘The East of Scotland Shield?’ I suggested.
Malky was more charitable. ‘I’d say Europa League.’
‘Are you two quite finished? I wasn’t knocked back.’ My dad folded his arms. ‘It was bad enough when she told me I didn’t have to keep opening doors for her. Now Diane’s insisting on paying the next time we go out for a meal,’ he said, to his sons’ looks of bemusement.
‘And?’ we asked in unison.
‘And, she’s a woman. I’m a man,’ he added, as though we might have somehow failed to spot the gender difference.
‘Come off it Dad, you’re a man, not a caveman,’ I said. ‘It’s not like she can’t afford to pick up the occasional tab. She’ll be earning a lot more than you, even on your police pension.’
But it appeared I hadn’t quite grasped his point. ‘Do you expect me to go out for dinner, maybe a nice bottle of wine, perhaps a wee whisky afterwards...’ Who was he kidding? There would be no perhaps about it. ‘And then sit there when the waiter comes with the bill and let my date dig into her purse? Why don’t I let her open the door for me on the way out, walk me home and send me flowers in the morning?’
‘Wouldn’t bother me,’ Malky said.
‘A lot of things don’t bother you, Malky. But I have certain standards. And taste. If Diane is Champions League, your mother was World Cup material.’ He snorted. ‘I mean, look at that thing I saw you with the other night.’
‘Janie?’ Malky said, after giving it some thought.
‘That her name? What a sight. Earrings everywhere and more tattoos than the Edinburgh Festival.’
‘I think he means, Babs,’ I said.
Malky rummaged around in his memory some more. ‘Babs. Shit. I was supposed to phone her and I don’t even know what I did with her number.’
‘Don’t worry, you should find her quite easily with a magnet,’ my dad muttered.
‘What are you getting on at me for?’ Malky asked. ‘Have a go at Robbie, for a change. You’ve seen some of the hing-oots he’s had over the years.’
‘Well, he’s getting married and settling down. What’s wrong with you?’
Malky snorted. ‘I’ve already got one of those new TESCO carriers. That’s the only bag-for-life I want.’
My dad wasn’t having my fiancée spoken about in that way. ‘Jill’s not like the slappers you dodge about with. She’s a proper lady. You’ll not see her paying for dinner any time soon. Am I right Robbie?’
I mustered a sickly grin. How right he was.
‘So you’re saying Diane Prentice isn’t a proper lady?’ Malky said. ‘Just because she wants to be treated like an equal and allowed to pay her own way?’
My dad had to think about that one. ‘Diane’s definitely a lady, she’s just... a little misguided and confused. That’s why I want to patch things up with her. As for being equal, that’s nonsense of course.’
‘Don’t you think women are as intelligent as men, then?’ Malky sneered.
Clearly pre-Dr Diane, the women in my dad’s past had been intelligent enough to let him shell-out for dinner, but, instead of saying so, I thought it best to try and wrap things up by suggesting a drink. I was parched after football and mention of beer was pretty much guaranteed to end most of my brother’s conversations. That and the introduction of logic. ‘I’m gasping for a—’
Malky cut me off. ‘Diane Prentice is a doctor, what were you, Dad? Oh, yeah. Thirty-five years in the Force and you ended up a uniform-sergeant.’
I was getting worried for my brother; he had the mouth for an argument, just not the brains.
My dad’s face flushed, his moustache trembled. ‘I’ll tell you what I am, sonny. I’m homo sapien, that’s a human being to you Malky. And what is homo sapien? It’s a species of animal. Evolution has made male and female animals different, physically and mentally. The male is supposed to be dominant. The male elephant-seal goes bashing other elephant-seals about the place, there’s tusks and blubber flying everywhere. What does the female elephant seal do? She sits on an ice-berg and watches or maybe goes for a dip in the Arctic Ocean. I mean, you don’t see a stag taking off his antlers and saying to his doe, how about you go rutting for a change, dear? I’m knackered, I think I’ll stay home and watch the fawns today.’
It would be giving the old man too much credit to think he’d intended the ‘dear’ pun.
‘So you’re saying that women are the weaker sex?’ Malky said.
‘Physically, it’s obvious. You’ve seen women’s sports. Has there ever been a woman centre-half who was your equal? There’s nothing to stop a woman playing football for the Scotland team if she’s good enough.’
‘Okay,’ Malky said, ‘what about intelligence?’
‘They’d need to be pretty stupid to be less intelligent than you, Malky,’ I said.
Malky ignored the jibe, intent on continuing the debate with his father. ‘Are you going to start spouting off about how all the famous scientists have been men? Do I have to mention doctor Diane again?’ He was really going for it. I could only assume he felt aggrieved at his recent, if temporary, demotion from favoured-son status and in that brain of his, softened as it was by a thousand penalty box clearances, had formed the idea that he could wreak some kind of revenge by mocking my dad’s views on sexual equality. I sat back to watch the mis-match of the year.
My dad glowered at him. ‘If you’d keep your trap shut for two seconds you might learn something. Men and women are different. We’re not equal physically and, intelligence-wise, we’re wired differently. Women were blessed with a different intelligence to men,’ my dad explained. ‘They’re smarter. It more than makes up for muscles and inventing rocket-surgery. You don’t think it’s called Mother Nature by mistake do you? It’s a rigged game. Women live longer than men, for one thing, and look at Wimbledon. The female tennis players get the same money for playing worse tennis and only three sets instead of five. How did that happen? Can you see a man coming along to the All England Club and saying, I’m not as good at tennis as those other chaps, and I like to finish
work early, but is it all right if I get paid the same money?’
‘So what are women better at?’ Malky asked.
‘Lots of things. Looking after kids is the big one, raising the next generation of homo sapien, securing the survival of the species despite all those clever men with the biceps trying to blow everyone up. If more women were in places of power there wouldn’t be so many wars.’
‘Just a lot of jealous countries not talking to each other,’ I said, but my dad was not to put off.
‘And then there’s lap-dancing,’ he said. Where was he going with this? It was descending more into a stream of consciousness than a reasoned argument; however, if I told him that it would only get worse. ‘Two women were debating lap-dancing on telly last night. One woman says that men who try to stop independent women working as sex professionals are prudish and domineering, the other says, no, those same independent sex-professionals are being exploited by men. Face it, boys, we live in a man bad, woman good world. What’s the opposite of feminism? There isn’t one. You’re either a feminist or you’re a male chauvinist pig. Woman are either right or men are wrong.’
‘I take it you’ve never been to Afghanistan?’ I said. ‘I think you’ll find there are some women there who might want to argue the toss on that.’
My dad grunted. ‘Well, I don’t live in Afghanistan. I live in Scotland, and if there ever was a war of the sexes in this country, then we lost it a while back, it’s just that the women thought it best not to break the news to us.’ My dad turned to my brother again. ‘ Malky, I’m not so stupid that I don’t know Diane is a lot more intelligent than me. I know it, she knows it, but that doesn’t stop me being a man.’
‘I still don’t see the big problem in letting a woman pick up the bill now and again,’ Malky said. ‘A night out with foxy Dr Di and your dinner for free? If you ask me it would be a smart move on your part to accept.’
‘Well, no-one is asking you. Like, I’ve already told you, I’m a man...’ He paused, I thought for a moment it might be to beat his chest, but it was only to catch his breath. ‘And if the only self-respect I can cling onto is exercising good manners when a woman is leaving or entering a building and forking out for the occasional steak and ale pie then that’s how it’s going to be. Got it?’ He thumped the table, climbed to his feet and trod on my sore foot in the process. ‘And you. Put some socks on, this is a kitchen you’re in.’
‘I’m sorry I asked now,’ Malky said, after the old man had stomped out of the room and we heard the front door slam. ‘Where’s he gone, do you think?’
‘Probably off to find another elephant-seal to bash into,’ I said, rubbing my sore foot.
Malky got up and went to the cupboard under the sink. After a rummage around he came out with the bottle of Ardbeg, nearly empty, or if you were an optimist, not nearly full.
‘You’re driving,’ I reminded him.
Malky put the whisky back under the sink and settled for what he called a soft drink, and other people called beer. He took a couple of bottles out of the fridge and popped them. He handed one to me. ‘So, Dad’s okay about the mix-up over that rare malt you accidentally got him for Fathers’ Day?’
‘Yeah, you breaking your promise not to say anything worked out quite well as it happened.’ I took a drink of beer. ‘Dad’s happy that I sell it and put it towards a new house for me and...’ No way could I go down this avenue of conversation. If my brother caught onto the fact that my relationship with Jill had stalled, my dad would hear about it shortly afterwards and it would make the whole whisky-gate affair seem like nothing. I took another swig of beer.
‘How’s Jill doing?’ Malky asked, polishing off his bottle of beer in two long pulls and one loud burp. ‘Dad was talking about grand-kids the other day. I think I should tell you there was mention of biological clocks.’
I took another rapid swig of beer. I had to find Suzie. Only she could sort this out. ‘You ever thought of writing a book, Malky?’ I asked.
‘Me? What about?’
‘About yourself.’
‘You mean a biography?’
‘Yeah, well, an autobiography. A lot of ex-footballers do it. You don’t have to write it yourself, though, you pay a ghost-writer to do it.’
‘If I don’t write it myself, how’s it an autobiography, smarty?’
‘It’s like you are writing it, but really you just tell someone your life story, they write it and you wait for the royalties to roll in.’
At that point my dad arrived back carrying a stack of kindling wood. He dropped it on the hearth and came through to the kitchen again, perfectly calm now. He was like his old coal fire, heating up in no time and cooling down just as quickly. ‘What are you two talking about?’
‘I was saying to Malky how he should write a book about his football career,’ I said, stepping onto safe ground. Football and the Golden Boy’s career were two of my dad’s favourite topics.
He grunted his interest. ‘I’ve just read Billy Bremner’s biography.’ He went over to the fridge and helped himself to a beer. ‘Keep Fighting, it’s called. A fitting title. Billy was a right wee battler. Did I ever tell you that I met him once?’
He had. My dad’s story about meeting the Leeds United and Scotland legend in a London pub after a Wembley encounter with the Auld Enemy was dragged out and given an airing on a regular basis.
He raised his bottle in salute. ‘Billy Bremner: one of the immortals.’ He drank some beer and licked the foam from his moustache. ‘Of course, he’s dead now.’
‘So what do you think, Malky?’ I asked.
Malky was definitely up for it.
‘Good, then I’ll need to find you an agent. Now let me see...’
‘Someone will need to write the book first,’ my dad said.
I put him right on that score. ‘That’s only for real writers, Dad. If you’re a celebrity, even a clapped-out centre-half like Malky, there are agents and publishers fighting over you before pen’s hit paper.’
‘What about your friend the author?’ my dad said. ‘Has she not got an agent?’
But I was way ahead of him.
Chapter 38
‘You want me to pretend to be your brother’s private secretary?’
I gathered my Monday morning case files and stuffed them into my briefcase. ‘If you don’t mind,’ I said, jotting down the name and number of Suzie’s literary agent on a Post-it and handing it to Grace-Mary. ‘Say you’d like an appointment with Mr—’
‘Travers?’
‘No, better make it one of the others. Tell them the Malky Munro is looking for a publisher and seeking representation for his forthcoming autobiography entitled... Just make something up.’ I grabbed my briefcase and headed for the door. ‘My phone will be on silent, so leave a message.’
The message came through around noon, after I’d finished the cited court and was waiting with bated breath to see if any of my clients who’d been lifted and held in custody over the weekend would be prosecuted.
I dialled my answering service. I had two new messages; both from Grace-Mary.
‘I phoned the agency. Mr Thomson died fighting for his country in World War two,’ she intoned in message one. ‘Mr Cowgill is Miss Cowgill and she’s never heard of your brother. Bye.’
The Grace-Mary of message two was more upbeat. ‘Miss Cowgill phoned back. She’s heard of Malky now and is free at four today. I said you’d be there. You’ve no appointments this afternoon and I can sign your mail for you. Bye.’
More good news: two of my custody clients were the lucky recipients of summary complaints. Well, maybe it wasn’t such good news for them, but I had a business to run.
The custody court was late in starting, as Sheriffs vied for the privilege not to do it, and Malky, who I’d phoned at lunch-time, was pacing up and down on Rutland Square when I parked my car outside the offices of Travers, Cowgill + Thomson at the back of four that afternoon.
‘What’s the plan?’ he asked.
The plan was to blag my way in again and find out how I could contact Suzie.
‘Leave it to me,’ I said. I led him across the road, up the three large stone steps and in through the big front door. If the receptionist remembered me, she didn’t say. There was no waiting room and no pan-drops. We were shown straight through to an office twice the size of mop-head Travers’s, where I was not so much met as engulfed by a large, plump woman with a shaggy perm, dangly-earrings and dressed in an enormous floral frock that billowed about her. Somewhere there was a set of curtains with a very big hole in them.
‘The famous Malky Munro, great to see you,’ she enthused, releasing me from her hug.
‘I’m Robbie, Malky’s brother,’ I said. With a thumb over my shoulder I gestured to Malky who was standing behind me in the doorway. ‘This is Malky.’
Unfazed, the big woman put her hands on my shoulders, studied me at arm’s length and pushed me aside. ‘Of course it is.’ Arms out wide, she closed in on my brother. ‘ Malky, how the hell are you? I’m Eleanor. Big fan.’
Malky, who’d always been quick on his feet, side-stepped, putting me between himself and the oncoming swathes of floral material, and there was an awkward moment or two before the agent invited us to park ourselves on a brutally soft settee, while she sat cross-legged on a multi-coloured rug on the floor and looked up at us.
‘Not sure I like the title,’ she said, ‘but we can change that.’
‘I was thinking,’ Malky said. Never a good idea. ‘Robbie says I should hire someone to write the book, but wouldn’t I make more money if I wrote it myself? Everyone’s got a book in them, haven’t they?’
Eleanor gave him a patronising pat on the knee. ‘They have, love, and I usually find it’s best left right where it is. Don’t worry,’ as I’d suspected, she was sanguine about such trivialities as there being no actual book, ‘ghost-writers are ten-a-penny. I’ll set up a meet. All you need do, Malky, is regurgitate your life story - all the good stuff about rising through the amateur ranks, your time with Rangers, Scotland, the brilliant cup final goal...’ Someone had been doing their homework. ‘The booze, the birds...’ The agent frowned and lowered her voice. ‘The tragic death of your partner, mirroring the death of your mother when you were just a...’ She noticed the concerned look on my brother’s face. ‘I’m sorry to have to bring up these events, Malky, but—’
Crime Fiction (Best Defence series Book 5) Page 18