by Gordon Brown
Enjoy.
Giles Taylor
Gordon Brown
59 Minutes
Tuesday January 1 ^st 2008
I don’t know why I’m using this thing. It has taken me a week just to work out how it operates. It’s a digital recorder and I’ve never used one before but, after fourteen years in prison, the world is a scary place and I need some order in my life.
It’s a tiny object and I’ve already discovered that I can keep it in my top pocket and record conversations without anybody knowing. I’m intending to keep an ‘aural’ record of the next few months — if I can work the bloody thing.
I was given it on Christmas day by the hostel and told it might help if I use it to note down my thoughts. It had been left by a well wisher and, as the new boy, I was trusted to use it and not hock it for drink money. I think the idea is a pile of crap but in a world of iPods, broadband, HD TV and SEO I’m like a polar bear in the Sahara — wrong place and lost.
I have a hangover — my first New Year hangover in nearly a decade and a half. A couple of the lads at the hostel managed to blag a few bottles of Buckfast and a half bottle of Glen’s, and we celebrated the birth of 2008.
I’m stunned at how little I have in the world. That bastard Dupree took everything. He owns my homes; he raided my bank accounts and even emptied my offshore account. When I stepped out of the prison gates I had the clothes I stood in and one hundred and eight quid in my pocket (the money I had on me when I was arrested).
I was given a bed in a hostel near Hammersmith for two weeks. Two weeks that I spent trying to get back on the ladder that I had fallen from — but it would seem that Dupree has ensured that the first rung is so out of sight that I may as well try and climb Mount Everest in a pair of slippers.
I door-stepped those of the gang who were still around and got blanked. I tried those who had retired but was told my name was bad news. I received eight kickings in as many days and the writing was on the wall. London was not for me. I was so skint I had to hold up a local corner store to get enough cash for a ticket back home.
Glasgow was little better. Everyone is drawing me a blank but the kicking ratio has fallen — only three so far.
I’m sitting on the edge of a single bed in a room that sleeps four. My room mates are all out looking for booze. It’s what they do every night. I’m not there yet but a few more weeks and I might take to the slippery slope with gusto.
Rachel’s letter is stuffed into my holdall. I’ve read it so often I can tell you the spacing between letters in millimetres and could, if asked, forge it to the point where a handwriting expert would struggle to tell original from copy.
I’m planning a trip to the pub tomorrow. I’ve no idea if it is still there or if Stevie is to be found. Not that I have a blind clue as to who Stevie is.
My head hurts and I’m off to the front desk for some painkillers.
Chapter 22
Wednesday January 2 ^nd 2008
The trip to the pub was a washout. The Lame Duck is no more. A concrete shell with a faded wooden sign that some local wit has changed to The Lame Fuck. There was no sign of life and no indication of who owns it and how you could contact them. I tried a few of the nearby pubs but it was early and the bar staff were clueless — mostly telling me to come back later when the owner or manager was around.
I took myself up to the West End for a memory trip but I wasn’t in the mood. Everything reminds me of what I used to have. If it wasn’t the New Year break I would have ended up sitting in Victoria Park mixing with the retired, unemployed and scum — sad to say that today I was probably the only one that could lay claim to all three categories. The whole world was out taking the air — trying to shake off the excesses of the New Year and it made me feel crap.
I ate a Kit Kat but I wasn’t in need of the break — my life is one big break. Maybe tomorrow I’ll try the council and find out who used to hold the license at The Lame Duck.
Chapter 23
Friday January 4 th 2008
I spent yesterday in the hostel. It might have been a Thursday, a work day, and the other side of the traditional two day New Year break in Scotland but that didn’t mean that the people I needed to see in the council were back to work. Monday I was told on the phone. It cost me twenty pence to find that out. I don’t have twenty pence to spare — how bad are things when you can’t afford to make a 20p phone call.
One of my roommates — Charles — or ‘the Stink’ as he is affectionately known — and I use the term ‘affectionately’ in the loosest possible sense — told me to try the web.
I blanked this idea. I’m ashamed to say I must be the least web literate person in the UK. For most of my time in prison there was no internet access — the web revolution passed us all by. When they did install it, we were restricted in where we could surf and I just couldn’t be arsed. I did try to Google Dupree once but to no avail and never went back.
There is an internet terminal in the hostel and I’ve asked one of the kids if they can find out who the owner of The Lame Duck is but he wants a packet of fags for his trouble so I told him to piss off.
I’ll wait until Monday and do the physical thing and visit the council.
Chapter 24
Saturday January 5 th 2008
A bad night last night. I went for a walk about eight o’clock to clear my head. I met a few of my inmates on the steps of the hostel and they were off to get slammed up in the Necroplolis — the soon to be dead drinking with the long dead. I declined. Things are bad but not that bad — ‘the Stink’ offered me a bottle of meths two nights ago and the smell alone made me gag. I’m determined to avoid that path but something in the back of my head tells me that all paths lead that way.
The hostel sits just off High St in a run down part of the city. Back in the eighteenth century this was the centre of Glasgow and the area just across the road from where I sleep is known as Merchant City — harking back to a day when the city was king of the trading towns. I’m not a kick in the arse away from where I first met Mr Read. They say what goes around comes around.
On the other side of the hostel is the ‘Barras’ — Glasgow ’s perennial market — ‘If you can’t get it there — you can’t get it anywhere’ — a direct quote from my old man. I decided to wander through the ramshackle maze of buildings that make up the market — all closed up for the night. On the edges a few pubs ply their trade but last night it was hard to imagine the buzz that the area creates when it is in full flow.
As a kid I loved coming here. The men on the stalls selling crockery at prices that seemed unreal. The smell of cooked sausage smothered in tomato sauce. The sound of music through tinny speakers hung to an outside wall by a length of clothes line.
There was a magic in the place that seemed to vanish as I got older. Did the place just get seedier or did the cynicism that comes with old age just see the place for what it really was?
I had stopped for a fag, one I had been saving since tea time, next to one of the buildings that hosts the stalls. The shutters were down all around and the street outside was deserted save for the rubbish that the wind was playing football with.
I heard them before I saw them. The thumping bass beat of dance music echoing from the windows and walls around me. There were six of them. All hooded up and all on a mission. I was clearly the target from the get go. They had no fear — music racked up — inviting attention. I’d been that boy and knew what was coming, so I dropped the cigarette and moved away.
Three more appeared at the other end of the street and I was caught in a classic pincer. I looked around for a way to escape but there was nowhere to go.
Twenty five years ago I would have known these boys and they would have known me. Now I was no more than a jakey ripe for a beating. I tried to talk to them but the hoody with the beat box simply racked up the volume. This wasn’t a time for a chat — it was a time to get down and dirty on the tramp.
I didn’t take the beating lying
down. I can still handle myself when the need is on but sheer numbers were against me. Even so I surprised the first three by decking them and decking them hard. It caused the others to pause and reassess their strategy but numbers and booze-filled bloodstreams gave them brave pills, and they laid into me.
I curled into a ball and tried to focus on when it would be over.
The three I had laid out came to, joined in and, if it hadn’t been for the distant wail of a police siren, I suspect I might have been joining my mates in the Necropolis as a more permanent member of the area.
I lay for ten minutes after the assault squad ran off and assessed the damage. I’d had enough kickings in my time to realise that a few bones had been broken. My ribs hurt and my left hand was limp — one of the bastards had dropped from a full six feet and crushed my wrist between his knee and the ground. I staggered to my feet and headed for the Royal Infirmary. It was less than a mile away but it still took me an hour to get there. Mostly because I needed to stop to hack up blood.
They kept me in overnight, strapped my ribs and put a plaster on my wrist. I had a restless night but it was free of the smell of ‘the Stink’ and breakfast in the morning was hot and free.
The hospital wanted me to report the attack to the police but I declined. I might have been gone for a couple of decades but there will still be some police who remember me from days gone by and I want to stay out of their way until I figure the Lame Duck/Stevie thing out.
I was discharged with a supply of painkillers and an appointment to come back in a week.
The strange thing about the whole affair was not the beating. I’m more intrigued by the fact they knew my name.
Chapter 25
Monday January 7 th 2008
Stevie is in sight. I worked my way through the black hole that is local authority bureaucracy and discovered that the licensee for The Lame Duck was one Stephen Mailer. He may or may not be the owner but there was an address for him and I scraped enough to jump a bus and pay a visit.
He lives in Bishopbriggs on the north of the City. It is a real two day camel ride by bus and when I got there he wasn’t in. His home is a terraced house that doesn’t suggest he is a pub entrepreneur of note. I hung around for an hour or so but to no avail.
I decided to try again in the early evening in case he was working — so I duly stretched a cup of coffee to breaking point in the nearby ASDA and went for a walk — in the main to take my mind off the fact that I had no money for food.
Around seven I headed back to Stevie’s house but it still showed no signs of life. I thought about leaving a note but decided against it. The beating has sparked up my warning radar.
I headed back to the hostel and got the young internet geek to find me Stevie’s phone number on the web. This was done for free — no cigarettes — just the threat of bodily violence.
Gordon Brown
59 Minutes
Thursday January 10 ^th 2008
So Stevie exists, is alive and well and running a pub in the nether regions of Easterhouse. I phoned him two days ago and he agreed to meet in town. I suggested the Mitchell Library — to avoid the embarrassment of meeting in a pub or cafe and not having the cash to buy a drink.
I’m not big on libraries. My reading tends to be The Sun and the Daily Record and if I’m in the mood for intelligent debate I dip into the Herald. I’ve probably read six books in my entire life and most of them were forced down my throat at school. As such the ‘Mitchell’ was a bit of a wonder to me.
I waited for Stevie in the old section — a grand Victorian affair that was built when libraries were almost places of worship. High vaulted ceilings, grandiose frontage and an entrance to grace a palace.
Stevie arrived bang on time. A tall slim man with hair that looked like it had gone by the time he was thirty. He wore a pair of battered jeans and a sweat top with the words Strathclyde University emblazoned across the front. It looked old. A university degree and he was a career puller of pints. That doesn’t make him a bad person but university was a whole world away from my upbringing and I always envisaged it churning out the future leaders of the free world — people who rarely say — ‘Will that be all?’ after each sentence.
We found a table and slumped into two hard back chairs. His eyes were red. Drugs or lack of sleep — take your pick?
I opened up by handing him Martin’s letter. He looked at it suspiciously. As would I given its state after all these years. He read it with care and then handed it back to me.
‘I haven’t seen Martin since Christ left Govan.’
I nodded, waiting for him to open up a little but he stayed quiet.
I asked if he knew why I’d been left a pint. It sounded dumb.
‘It’s got fuck all to do with a pint. I wanted nothing to do with it back then. But they threatened to do some damage to my mum. Can you believe that — MY MUM. So I agreed. Take this and I’m off.’
‘Who are they?’
He blanked the question and reached into his pocket, pulled out a key, dropped it on the table and was up and off before I could speak. I grabbed the key and chased him out of the building but he broke into a run, sprinted to the roadside, leapt into an old VW Beetle, locked the doors and blanked me as he pulled away.
I watched the car merge into the traffic and when I lost sight of it I opened my hand to look at the key. It was a small brass Yale type with a few serial numbers on one side. Other than that it had nothing to indicate what it was a key for.
One mystery after another but on this occasion I know someone else that might be able to help.
Chapter 26
Friday January 11 th 2008
Back to the old haunts is the order of the day. I hardly recognised the Gorbals. New flats, leisure centre and a distinct lack of many of the pubs I had frequented. I doubted that the person I wanted would still be in the same house. I doubted they would still be alive. But they were both.
The man who answered the door was bald (where he had once had a shock of ginger hair), wrinkled (where he had once had a face so smooth he had been nicknamed ‘baby’) and a stoop (where once he had stood tall and proud — five years in Her Majesties Armed Forces would do that to a man). Recognition flickered in his eyes and he stepped back to let me in. There was no fear — once there would have been — but my story was well kent and I was no longer a threat.
The flat was minimalist and dominated by a wretched stained coffee table that had the Mount Etna of fag ash and doots as its centre-piece. The heating was all the way up to eleven and the place smelled like nothing I had ever encountered.
There was no offer of a seat. My host collapsed in the only chair in the room. It sat square in front of the TV, next to the fag mountain and, before his backside hit the fake leather, he lit up.
‘How you doing Ron?’ I asked.
‘Better than you from what I hear.’
That hurt. The house was a shit-hole and yet I was the one on my uppers. Go figure.
‘I need a favour?’
‘It will cost.’
I knew it would. I had cleaned out the geek kid for everything he had and bought forty fags. I dropped them next to the mountain.
‘Small favour,’ he said looking at the two packets with contempt.
I dropped the key on the table.
‘What’s it for?’
In the good old days Ron had been a locksmith and a bloody good one at that. In my house breaking phase Ron had been a saviour on many an occasion. It was easier to get into a house with a key and it was often surprisingly easy to snatch a key, copy it and return it to the owner. Ron did the copying for a fee at odds with the going rate on the High St, but the stiff cost paid for his silence.
He looked at the key and picked up one of the packets of cigarettes, muttering something about the wrong brand before pulling a stick from the pack and lighting up. The one in his mouth wasn’t even half dead.
‘Well?’
He inhaled and held up the key, twir
ling it over a couple of times before dropping it back on the table. He said nothing and exhaled.
‘Well?’
‘Safety deposit.’
‘What bank?’
He inhaled again and I was seconds from landing one on him. It was like drawing teeth from a crocodile.
I waited.
‘Can’t be sure.’
He drew on the cigarette again and I changed tack. Stepping behind him I wrapped my arm round his neck and pulled upward. He spat out the fag and began to struggle but he was old and I had a fourteen year stretch of using the prison gym in my arms.
‘Be sure,’ I said.
His choking was getting in the way of his ability to talk and I loosened off a little.
‘Ok, ok, no need for the heavy stuff.’
I let go but stayed behind him, ready to grab him if he made a move that looked out of place. I was staring down on his bald pate. The collection of liver spots and scabs made for an unpleasant vista.
‘It ain’t a bank key. This is either a Credit Union or a private box.’
‘Go on.’
‘There are very few private box places left. No money in them anymore. I’d put money on a Credit Union but not a new one. The key’s old. Twenty years, maybe more. They don’t make these anymore. Is the key local?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Assume it is. If we don’t you’re screwed. I only know three Credit Unions that might, and I mean might, still have old safety deposit boxes.’
‘What’s a Credit Union?’
I felt stupid asking but it was a hole in my education.
‘A kind of community bank. It’s run by locals and lends small amounts of money at decent rates and allows local people to save money without having to go to the bank. They also do stuff like pay your bills for you, arrange insurance and so on. There used to be lots of them when times were bad. They seem to be coming back into fashion in some areas. I’m surprised you’ve never heard of them given your career.’