by Unknown
Is this doing anybody any good?
I look at the fanny and recall bitterly a few weeks ago when I took Ben (the name was her idea) to Madame Tussaud’s. All I could do was think of her all full of herself cause she’s getting fucked by the selfish yuppie cunt of her dreams, saying it was great for them that I had Ben, they could just ennnjoooyyy being alone together for a bit. Paying forty quid a week and taking him out soas that she can fucking well bang in peace. I should have a tattoo on my forehead: M-U-G.
When I get him home, I have to admit that Mand’s looking a lot better. This last year is the first time I’d seen her in shape since Ben was born. I thought she’d just sprint to gross fatness, like other members of her fuckin family, but no, she looks well tidy. If she’d worked out and dieted like that when we were an item, I might not have found it necessary to humiliate her. I’m an ambitious man and no chappie with any self-esteem likes to be seen with a fat cunt on his arm.
But fat cunts do have their uses: as aunties. As kind, plump aunties. Aunt Paula was always my favourite auntie. Granted, there was little opposition. Poor old Paula, she inherited a pub, but she was daft enough to marry a wideo who almost drank her out of house and home before she kicked him into touch. It’s almost reassuring that even such strong, wilful cows as Paula can have their blind spots. Keeps the likes of me in business. Now she was offering me the pub for twenty grand.
The first major problem was that I didn’t have that kind of money. The second was that the pub was back in Leith.
6
‘. . . naughty secrets . . .’
You see the flint in Rab’s eyes, a quality that hints at something else. He measures his words like the old boys measure nips in those tight-arsed local pubs. Rab’s mentally circling Lauren, cause she’s tensed up like an alley cat, ready to spit or hiss, so he’s playing it carefully. She’s wanting to justify the anxiety she feels about him being here when she thinks it should be just us, girls together, or maybe even just them. But I live with her so I know that Rab’s getting the brunt of her PMT. As true sisters do, we’ve synchronised our menstruation, and she’s waiting to find a reason to turn her anxiety into dislike.
Poor Rab, he’s got two mad cows in tow. I’m feeling that heady, heavy way and I’ve a spot coming through on my chin. Lauren and I are a bit uptight because there’s a new girl moving into the flat tomorrow. Her name’s Dianne and she seems okay, a master’s student in psychology. Just as long as she doesn’t try to get into our heads. We had half agreed to get home and tidy the place up for her arrival, but two drinks tell me it’s not going to happen. The union’s getting crowded but there’s not a lot of serious drinking going on, we’re all nursing our tipples. Roger behind the bar is smoking a fag in a leisurely manner. Two guys playing pool look at me, one nudges the other and he smiles over. Ten-a-penny, but I actively consider flirting a little with them, if only because I don’t like the way our conversation’s heading.
— I suppose if I was a lassie, I’d be a feminist n aw, Rab concedes, defusing one of Lauren’s shrill, wilting attacks. There are quite a few carpet-munchers in the union tonight, and their presence seems to bring out the worst in Lauren, encouraging her to be more right-on. The fact is that most of them won’t even be out when they return to their home towns for the break. The chest-beating goes on here, in this safe environment, this lab for the real world.
Lamenting the lack of atmosphere, we decide to move on to a Cowgate pub. It’s a mild evening outside, although when we head down into the dark bowels of the city, the sun’s almost completely blocked out and only the sliver of clear blue sky above testifies to the beauty of the day. We head into a bar which was considered the place, although that may have been a couple of weeks ago now. This is a mistake, as my lover, or my ex-lover, Colin Addison, MA (Hons), MPhil, PhD, is in.
Colin’s wearing a fleece, which makes him look like one of his students and I’m feeling quite powerful about that because it’s the kind of thing he never wore before he was with me. Of course, it looks a bit silly on him. We’ve just got our drinks and sat down when he comes over to me. — We need to talk, he says.
— I disagree, I tell him, looking at the stain of lipstick on my glass.
— We can’t leave it like this. I want an explanation. I deserve at least that.
I shake my head and screw up my face. I deserve at least that. What a tosser. This is both boring and mildly embarrassing, two states of emotion which should surely be distinct. — Go away, will you?
Colin’s all puffed up and he’s pointing the finger at me, jabbing it in the air to punctuate his outraged words. — You’ve got a lot of growing up to do, you fucking little bitch, if you think you can just tre . . .
— Look, you’d better just go, mate, Rab stands up. You can see Colin’s eyes flash in brief recognition, thinking that it’s just a student and he has the university senate and expulsion as a threat if Rab tries to get rough. Mind you, he should be more worried as to what the senate would do to him: screwing, or trying to screw, a student. It seems that, since I chucked him, Colin’s stuck on this theme of me needing to grow up. Whatever happened to that mature relationship we used to enjoy back in those halcyon days of, well, last week?
I’m about to let fly with this, when Lauren decides to intervene as well. Her face is pinched and harsh and I see a tougher side to her that she undermines slightly by saying: — We’re having a private drink, which causes me to giggle a little, drunkenly and stupidly, as I think of a private drink in a public house.
I don’t need their help though. When it comes to slapping Colin down, I’m in a league of my own — Look, I’m really heartily sick of you, Colin. I’m sick of your soft, alcoholic middle-aged dick. I’m sick of taking the blame cause you can’t get it up. I’m sick of your self-pity because life’s passed you by. I’ve sucked out all I can from you. Now I choose to discard the sapless shell that’s left. I’m in company at the moment, so do us all a favour and just fuck off out my face. Please?
— You fucking bitch . . . he says again, his face crimson like a stain as he looks round self-consciously.
— Yeeww fucking bitch . . . I imitate his whine. — Can you not do a bit better than that?
Rab starts to say something, but I speak over him, addressing Colin directly again. — You’re simply not elevating the standard of debate? Even at this table? Just go, please.
— Nikki . . . I . . . he begins placatingly, again looking to see if there are any of his students present, — . . . all I want to do is talk. If it’s over, fine. It’s just that I don’t see the point of leaving things like this.
— Don’t fucking bleat, replace me with someone else, someone naive enough to be impressed. If you can last through to next freshers’ week. I’m afraid I just don’t hate myself enough to go out with you.
— Cow, he snaps, then: — Fucking cunt! And he exits with haste. As the door slams heavily behind him, I’m flushing a bit for a second or two, but it soon passes and we’re all having a bit of laugh. The barmaid looks over at me and I shrug.
— You’re shameless, Nikki, Lauren gasps.
— You’re right, Lauren, I say looking straight at Rab, — having an affair with lecturers . . . it’s not fun. It’s the second one I’ve had. The first time was with an English literature professor when I was in London. He was a funny sort alright, what might be termed exceptionally weird.
— Oh, don’t . . . Lauren starts. She’s heard this before.
But no, I’m telling the Miles story and embarrasing the fuck out of her. — He was a real literary man. Like Bloom in Ulysses, he liked the tang of urine in the kidney. He used to buy fresh kidneys and have me pee into a little bowl. He would then put the kidneys in this bowl of my piss, leaving them to soak overnight in it before cooking them in the morning for his breakfast. He was a very civilised pervert. He used to take me shopping in boutiques. Loved to pick my clothes for me. Especially if there was a young, trendy, female assistant attending to
me. He said he liked the idea of one young woman dressing another, but in a commercial environment. His erection was always visible and sometimes he used to come in his pants.
Lauren looks lovely when she’s angry, rising to a marvellous incandescence, which adds to her. Her face grows slightly ruddy, her eyes glaze. That’s probably why people like to see her angry, it’s the closest they get to seeing what she’d look like getting fucked.
Rab’s laughing, raising his eyebrows and Lauren’s face is furrowed. — Don’t you think Lauren’s beautiful, Rab? I ask him.
Lauren is not happy with that. Her face colours a little more and her eyes water slightly. — Fuck off, Nikki, stop messing aboot, she says. — You’re making a fool of yourself. Stop trying to embarrass me and embarrass Rab.
But Rab isn’t bothered at all, because he then freaks us both out a bit, Lauren evidently so, but me much more than I let on. Putting one arm round Lauren and one round me, he in turn kisses us gently on the side of our faces. I see Lauren stiffen and blush fully-fledged, and I feel a randy flush and an intrusive bracing all at once. — You’re both beautiful, he says with diplomacy, or is it feeling? Whatever it is, it’s unerring, showing me a coolness, depth and power of expression in him I simply hadn’t bargained for. Then it’s gone. As his arms slide away, he adds coolly: — See, if I didnae have the likes of youse here, I’d’ve jacked in this course. We’re talking about fuckin analysing films like bastard critics when we’ve never held a camera in our hands. Nor have any of the cunts that teach us. All we’re being taught is how to whinge at or arselick people who’ve got the bottle to get off their holes and do things. That’s all arts degrees do, turn out another clutch of parasitic drones.
I feel despondency setting in. Intentionally or not, this boy is a fucking tease. He gave us a glimpse of something beautiful, and now he’s sent us right back to studentland.
— If you say that, Lauren’s retorting testily, though relieved that Rab’s affectionate display has gone no further, — that means you agree with that whole Thatcherite paradigm of running down the arts and just making everything vocational. If you kill off the idea of knowledge for its own sake, then that just kills off any critical analysis of what’s happening in soci . . .
— Naw . . . naw . . . Rab protests, — what I mean is . . .
And so they go on, battling away like this, sparring and telling themselves that they don’t fundamentally disagree when there’s a chasm between their positions, or alternatively, arguing savagely over minor, pedantic differences in emphasis. In other words, they’re being total fucking students.
I hate those kind of arguments, especially between a man and woman, particularly when one of them has just upped the stakes in that way. I feel like screaming in their faces: STOP LOOKING FOR REASONS NOT TO FUCK EACH OTHER.
The bar starts to become that more acceptable soft-focus way after a few drinks, where things seem to slow down and people are happy enough just to be in each other’s company and it’s good to talk shit. And now I decide that I quite fancy Rab. It’s not been an instant thing, it’s been a kind of slow build-up. There’s something clean and Caledonian about him, noble and Celtic. An almost puritanical stoicism that you don’t really find with men his age in England, certainly not in Reading. But they do go on, those Scots: arguing, discussing and debating in a way that only the leisured and metropolitan media classes in England tend to do. — Fuck all these silly arguments, I tell them grandly. — I told you both a naughty secret earlier. Don’t you have any naughty secrets, Lauren?
— No, she says, her face colouring again, her head bowing. And I see Rab raise his eyebrows as if urging me to leave it and it’s like he has some kind of empathy with Lauren’s pain which I wish I had.
— What about you then, Rab?
He grins and shakes his head. You see mischief in his eyes for the first time. — Naw, my mate Terry, he’s the man for them.
— Terry, eh. I’d like to meet him. Have you met him, Lauren?
— No, she says curtly, still tense but thawing a little.
Rab raises his eyebrows again, as if to suggest that it might not be a good idea, which sort of intrigues me a little bit. Yes, I think it might be nice to meet this Terry and I like the way that Rab thinks that it might not. — So what does he get up to? I quiz.
— Well, Rab begins cautiously, — he’s got this shag club. They make stag videos and all that kind of thing. I mean, it’s no my scene, but that’s Terry.
— Tell me more!
— Well, Terry used to go back tae this pub for a lock-in. There would be some lassies he knew and maybe a tourist or two. One night they all got a wee bit drunk and frisky and started going for it, you know. It became a regular thing. One time it got recorded on the security camera, he said it was an accident, Rab spins his eyes doubtfully, — but it got them started in the amateur-video thing. They make their fuck films and show clips of them on the Net, then send them off on mail order or swap them with other people who do the same. They put on a show, usually for the old boys in the pub for a fiver a head. Eh . . . every Thursday night.
Lauren’s looking pretty disgusted with this, and you can tell Rab is going down in her estimation, which is something he’s very much aware of. However, I’m finding it all very inspiring. And it’s Thursday tomorrow. — Will they be screening tomorrow? I enquire.
— Aye, probably.
— Can we come along?
Rab isn’t too sure about this. — Well, eh . . . I’d have to vouch for youse. It’s a private sort ay do. Terry’s eh . . . he might try tae get yis tae take part, so if we do go, just ignore everything he says. He’s full of shite.
I sweep my hair back, exclaiming grandly: — I might be up for that! Lauren as well, I add. — Fucking is a good way of getting to know people.
Lauren gives me a look that could down a charging bull. — I’m not going to watch pornographic films in a grotty pub with dirty old men, far less take part in them.
— C’mon. It’ll be fun.
— No, it won’t. It’ll be filthy, disgusting and sad. Obviously, we’ve got differing concepts of fun, she ripostes vehemently.
I know she’s edgy and I don’t want to fall out with her, but I’ve a point to make here. I shake my head. — We’re supposed to be studying film? Studying culture? Rab’s telling us that there’s a whole underground film-making culture happening under our very noses. We have to go for it. For educational reasons. And, we have a chance of getting laid as well!
— Keep yir voice doon! You’re drunk! She squeals at me, looking furtively around the pub.
Rab’s laughing at Lauren’s discomfort, or maybe it’s a way to hide his own. — You like tae shock, don’t you, he says to me.
— Only myself, I tell him. — What about you, do you ever take part?
— Eh, naw, it’s no really my thing, he stresses again, but in an almost guilty way.
Now I’m thinking about this Terry guy who does like to take part, wondering what he’s like. Wishing Rab and Lauren were a little bit more adventurous and considering what great fun a threesome might be.
7
Scam # 18,735
I’m back (finally) in my home city. A journey by rail, which once took four and a half hours, now takes seven. Progress my arse. Modernisation my hole. And the prices get higher in direct correlation with the journey time getting fucking longer. I stick my package addressed to Begbie into the postbox at the station. Chug on that one, head boy. I taxi down to the foot of the Walk, that grand old thoroughfare looking much the same as ever. The Walk’s like a very expensive old Axminster carpet. It might be a bit dark and faded, but it’s still got enough quality about it to absorb society’s inevitable crumbs. Alighting at Paula’s gaff, I pay the comedian of a taxi driver his rip-off fee and meander past the burst entryphone, up the pish-smelling stair.
Paula gives me a hug, lets me into the gaff and sits me down in her cosy front room with tea and digestives. She’s on good form,
I’ll say that for her, although she still looks like a road traffic accident on pianny legs. We’re not stopping here long though, nor are we going to Paula’s bar, the famous Port Sunshine Tavern. Too much of a busman’s holiday for her. No, we head into the Spey Lounge for one and I’m at once elated and disappointed to note the absence of kent faces.
Paula toys with her drink, and can’t help letting a self-satisfied smile mould her big slack face. — Aye, ah’ve spent too much time in thon place. Ah’ve goat ma ain life now, son, she tells me. — Ye see, ah’ve met this felly.
I’m staring into Paula’s eyes, and I know that my eyebrow is involuntarily arching, Leslie Phillips-style, but I’m powerless to stop it. However, I scarcely need to provide her with even the flimsiest cue to cut to the chase. Paula always was a bit of a man-eater. One of my most harrowing teenage memories was slow-dancing with her at my sister’s wedding, her hand clasped over my arse, as Bryan Ferry sang ‘Slave to Love’.
— Eh’s Spanish, a lovely felly, his ain place oot in Alicante. Ah’ve been oot tae see it. Eh wants ays oot thaire wi him. Gittin oot intae the sun, gittin this auld lum swept properly, she squeezes her thighs together and unrolls her bottom lip like a red carpet, — that’s whit it’s aw aboot, Simon. They say tae ays, aw thum aroond here, she snorts, including at least the entire port of Leith in her derision, — ‘Paula, yir livin in fool’s paradise, it’ll never last.’ Dinnae git me wrong, ah’ve nae illusions, if it doesnae last it doesnae last. What dis last? Any paradise seems awright tae me right now, she says, knocking back the last of her drink and taking the slice of lemon in her mouth, chomping it between those false gnashers and sucking out every last drop from it, before spitting it, mangled, back into the empty glass.
It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see that sorry shaving of lemon as a terrified Spaniard’s cock.