In spite of all his professed liberal sentiments, some small part of Matt – possibly an artificial part, like where the rest of a shattered tooth used to be – had always resented how the guy’s life worked out. Today, though, outside that school, things were looking a little different. Previously, he thought he’d never believed in redemption; now he was wondering whether he’d just never needed to.
Besides, Davie Murdoch might have banjoed him, but it had only been the once. There were those at St Michael’s who’d blighted Matt for months at a time, and he hadn’t borne them a grudge. However, this was mainly because they’d been utterly oblivious of the havoc they were wreaking through their thoughtless and irresponsible acts, such as walking along a corridor, asking what you’d put for question four, or sitting within perfume-breathing range.
Simone Draper. Lisa McKenzie. Eileen Stewart. He was surprised at the ease with which he could recall their names and faces, given that they’d lain buried in some disused memory repository for a decade and a half. Presumably his current location had a lot to do with that, compensating for the rust of time and the ravages of dedicated substance abuse. Looking through the windows into the unlit and empty rows of desks, he could still see them in their school uniforms; or Christ, worse, the gear they wore at exam time when the dress code was relaxed. He remembered Eileen Stewart in a Simple Minds t-shirt outside O-grade English Paper One,a sight enough to make him consider reassessing the band’s worth (the effect lasting until he gave his borrowed copy of New Gold Dream another spin that night and concluded that they were, in fact, still pish). Lisa McKenzie’s flat-but-nonetheless-beguiling chest advertising Combat Rock, thus rendering her even more impossibly perfect. Simone Draper wearing, well, anything at all.
Matt never tortured himself by fixating upon the truly unattainable class (and classic) knock-outs, the ones everybody else was fantasising about night after night. Not for him the Catherine O’Rourkes, the Annette Strachans. He suffered the far more excruciating affliction of precipitous, unheralded infatuation with girls no-one seemed to have previously paid much attention to (including himself), his eyes suddenly opened to traits and beauties he’d apparently been too blind to see before.
Simone was the absolute worst. She must have been in various of his classes for years without drawing his notice, then one Sunday evening he and some pals watched Fast Times At Ridgemont High on video in Allan Crossland’s bedroom, less attracted by the prospect of digesting the young Cameron Crowe’s insightful observation of American teen mores than the chance that there might be some tits in it. Matt fell asleep that night utterly captivated by thoughts and images of Jennifer Jason Leigh, and by Monday morning she had turned into Simone Draper. The two of them were never going to confuse anyone in a line-up, but this wasn’t a rational matter. Something about one clearly reminded him of the other, and within a day or so he couldn’t be sure which way it swung: whether he’d actually gone gaga over JJL in the first place because subconsciously he had already fallen for Simone.
And, of course, the worst of it was that there was no chance whatsoever of him doing anything about it. He was still a good few years away from the review that would describe him as ‘instilling the room with a presence that wavers precariously between hit-man cool and psycho-killer chilling’. At that age, he had all the physical presence and coordination of a baby giraffe; and besides, Auchenlea was hardly the environment for teen dreams to come true. It was far easier in the movies. For a start, the kids all seemed to be born with fucking driving licences, and their puppy love could flourish amid ice-cream parlours, soda-fountains and drive-ins. Somehow the thought of the corporation bus, the Napoli chippy and a sticky seat in the Paisley Kelburne didn’t seem a prospect likely to cement a tentative, fledgling amour.
So he’d just suffered instead, seeking consoling distraction in records, Betamax pirate videos and ZX Spectrums. You couldn’t have the girl of your dreams, but you could always go round to your mate’s house and play Manic Miner, Lunar Jetman or Attic-Attac to the constant accompaniment of The Jam, The Skids and The Clash, in between arguing whose turn it was to go downstairs and make toast. It was a travesty that women thought men naturally obsessed with such trivia: taking football too seriously, playing video games, building record collections. They weren’t. It was what they did because they couldn’t get a girlfriend, and unfortunately they got addicted to it like a crocked footballer gets hooked on painkillers, then keeps taking them once the injury’s cleared up.
‘So, ladies,’ as Matt had been fond of saying on stage, ‘it’s your own sorry fault. If your man seems more excited about the prospect of finding a limited-edition 10-inch remix of a fuckin’ Thompson Twins single than he is about the prospect of going to bed with you, then I’m afraid you’re just reaping the whirlwind for the time you knocked back one of his worldwide brethren for a dance at the 1982 Halloween disco.
‘Sure, like I wouldn’t have swapped any of those memorable nights sitting in a cramped bedroom with my emotionally retarded and hormone-addled school friends, watching each other’s boils gradually reach critical mass as we huddled round a portable TV set, endlessly rearranging our newly hairy tackle through the pockets of our jeans … Like I wouldn’t have swapped all that every night to be in the company of some sweet teenage girl, just talking, enjoying the sound of her voice, listening to her laughter, watching her smile … Long as there was a shag at the end of it, anyway.’
Yeah, that money-shot punchline. Got them every time. Everybody thought the gag was the ‘real’ Matt Black coming bursting through, but maybe its genuine purpose was to protect the nasty, dark comedian’s secret true identity. Maybe the purpose of the whole fucking thing had been to protect that: a sensitive wee guy with a fragile romanticism and an imprudent tendency to give a shit.
What was he doing standing here outside this building otherwise, if not hopefully seeking to discover whether that individual still existed? If not to discover whether, buried under the crumbled detritus of a besieging ego’s rampage – beneath the empty bottles, the powder-flecked shards, the headlines, the vicious lies, the worse truths, the friends alienated, the women used, the spotlights, the veneration, the notoriety (hurts so good), the indulgence, the decadence, the waste, the self-disgust and the self-obsession (honey) – there were still fragments of someone he’d once been?
And why else could he be even contemplating putting himself through the unspeakable horror of a school reunion – an invitation he’d have ceremonially incinerated less than a fortnight ago – if not to sift for traces of that person in the memories of the people he’d meet?
Matt completed his circuit and walked back to the hire car. He flipped open the glove compartment and reached for the road map, then fished the invite out of his bag. ‘Pick-up point: Kilbokie Bay, Cromarty Firth’, it stated on the topological diagram. He figured five hours would be plenty, even allowing for the caravan-convoys you’d inevitably hit on the A9 this time of year. A few patient moments disabled the philistine randomiser function before he popped in London Calling, ruling that such an otherwise despicable indulgence in nostalgia was excused by the context.
Pulling away from the row of parked cars, it occurred to him that there were two other constructive reasons for attending this absurd off-shore bash. One was that Simone Draper might not turn out to be married. The other was that he was bound to run into someone who’d fucked their life up worse than him.
11:04 fipr charter coach
road to (inver)nowhere
‘But it cannae be a fuckin’ oil rig. Naebody’s gaunny go their holidays tae a fuckin’ oil rig. Be worse than Blackpool.’
‘It’s no’ actually an oil rig, Charlie. It’s aw built on an oil-rig platform.’
‘An oil rig is a platform, Eddie. Oil rig, oil platform. Same thing.’
‘Aye, but I mean, they’ve stripped it doon tae just the platform, then built everythin’ up again fae there. I read somethin’ aboot it in the paper.’
> ‘But whit’s the point? Buildin’ a hotel or whatever on a big hunk o’ metal? Whit’s wrang wi’ dry land?’
‘It’s so it’s exclusive, big man. So’s scrotes like you an’ maself cannae get near the fuckin’ thing. Like wan o’ thae wee islands, whit dae ye cry them? There’s hunners o’ them. The Endives.’
‘Maldives, ya fuckin’ eejit. Endives are in salad.’
‘So that would be thousands of islands then?’
‘Aye, very fuckin’ funny, Eddie.’
‘Anyway, in the Maldives, ye’ve tae get a boat oot tae your hotel, an’ your hotel is aw that’s on the island. You’re isolated, away fae it aw. So they’ve used this oil-platform affair instead of an island. It’s like buildin’ an island.’
‘Be fuckin’ freezin’, but, will it no’? The Cromarty Firth’s no’ exactly the South Pacific. Cannae see many folk lyin’ oot in their bikinis in May. Have tae wipe the snaw aff the sunloungers first.’
‘Have you been listenin’ tae a word I’ve said? It’s no’ stayin’ in the Cromarty Firth. That’s just where they’ve been rebuildin’ it. Fittin’ it oot, an’ that. When that’s aw done, they’re towin’ the whole shebang aff tae somewhere it’s warm aw year roon. Coast of Africa, I think.’
‘Oh, I get you noo. Wee bit hotter than Rosstown, then. Still, whit’s the point o’ gaun aw that way, tae Africa like, an’ then coopin’ yoursel’ up in this wan wee place the whole time? Seems a bit ay a waste, to me.’
‘Well, Charlie, that’s how we’ve no’ made millions oot the tourist business and Gavin Hutchison has. I mean, personally, I think it’s the stupitest fuckin’ idea I’ve ever heard in my life, but that just proves I know fuck-all.’
‘It doesnae take an oil-platform holiday resort to prove you know fuck-all, Eddie.’
‘Aye, very good.’
‘But I take your point. I wouldnae be seen deid in the place if it wasnae aw bein’ laid on.’
‘You couldnae afford it if it wasnae aw bein’ laid on.’
‘Good shout, aye. But you know what I mean, Eddie. It sounds hellish.’
‘Some place for a party, mind you. I think this could be a rerr terr, the night. Nae neighbours tae tell you tae keep it doon, nae polis, free drink.’
‘Aye, but if it turns oot it’s shite, it’ll be a cunt tryin’ tae get a taxi hame. Be a good laugh phonin’ for wan, right enough. Givin’ them directions: “Aye, you just take a right at the lights, then first left, then hauf a mile across the water. It’s the second oil rig efter the kebab shop.”’
‘Aye. “Name on the door’s Hutchison.”’
‘I have to say, though, Eddie, I still don’t mind o’ the cunt at aw.’
‘Who, Gavin?’
‘Aye. Drawin’ a total blank here.’
‘Come on, Charlie, fuck’s sake. You must remember him. Mind, the guy that got a knock-back aff Hound Henderson in first year at the Christmas party when everybody was up dancin’ tae the fuckin’ “Hucklebuck” or some shite.’
‘I mind o’ her. Fuckin’ horrible beast, so she was. Christ, I hope she’s no sittin’ two seats in front. Did I say that loud?’
‘Naw, you’re awright. But d’you mind him noo?’
‘Naw. ’Cause it wasnae him, it was Paddy Grieg that got knocked back aff Hound Henderson that time.’
‘Fuck, so it was. Right enough. An’ he cannae be on this bus, cause we’d’ve smelled him by noo. Fuckin’ hell, man. Paddy Grieg. I mean, gettin’ knocked back affa Hound Henderson – it doesnae get any lower than that, does it? Seriously, you’d have tae stick your heid in the oven efter that wan, wouldn’t ye?’
‘Aye, Eddie, says you that shagged Linda Clark thon time.’
‘That’s different. At least I got a result.’
‘Some result. She’d a face like a melted welly.’
‘Well, you don’t look at the mantelpiece when you’re pokin’ the fire.’
‘Poor, Eddie, poor. And does your Margaret know you shagged Linda Clark?’
‘It was afore we were merried. I was eighteen.’
‘Aye, but does she know? ’Cause the two o’ them werenae exactly pals, like, were they?’
‘Fuck’s sake, keep your voice doon. Margaret’s got ears like fuckin’ radar, even if your Tina’s burnin’ them aff doon the front the noo.’
‘You leave ma Tina oot this. Answer the question: does she know?’
‘Am I still alive? Is Linda Clark still alive?’
‘I’ll take that as a No, then.’
‘You, me and Linda are the only folk that know. I’d everybody else that knew professionally murdered a few years back.’
‘So, is Linda Clark on the bus?’
‘You’re fuckin’ hopeless, Charlie. Linda Clark went tae Auchenlea High. She wasnae at oor school. Heidin’ fitbas must have knackered your memory.’
‘Ach, pish. I can mind as much as you. Wait a minute. I know who Gavin Hutchison is noo. Wasnae he the guy that knocked himsel’ oot playin’ tig wance, when he ran intae thon big pillar?’
‘Naw. That was me, ya daft cunt.’
‘Well, was he the wan that got stung wi’ a deid wasp in the art class, pickin’ it up?’
‘Naw. That was me as well. You’re takin’ the piss, ya fuckin’ prick.’
‘Hing on. I’ve got it. Was he the wan that got a doin’ aff Davie Murdoch?’
‘Noo you’re really takin’ the piss. Every cunt got a doin’ aff Davie Murdoch. I ’hink the Pope probably got his baws booted aff Davie when he came tae Bellahouston Park.’
‘Well, in that case, as I says, I don’t mind him at aw.’
‘Actually, noo I come tae think of it, I’m no’ sure I mind him masel’. I thought that was him wi’ the Hound Henderson cairry-on but it wasnae. An’ I thought mibbe it was him that spewed his ring in RE, mind, like the fuckin’ Exorcist, but that was Ally McQuade. Fuck. Total blank.’
‘Tell’t you you were as bad as me.’
‘What the fuck, but. Free pairty. We’ll mibbe recognise him when we see him.’
‘Either that or we’ll just have tae kid on. “Awright, Gavin? Howzitgaun? No seen you for dunkey’s. Whit? You don’t remember us? Whit kinna pal are you, ya cunt?”’
‘You’ve some brass neck, Charlie my man. You don’t remember anybody. I’m surprised you remember me.’
‘Come aff it. I remembered Davie Murdoch, didn’t I?’
‘Everybody remembers Davie Murdoch. Same as Matt Black. Hard tae forget when they’re in the newspapers aw the time.’
‘D’you reckon it’s true aboot aul’ Dilithium, then, Eddie?’
‘Whit?’
‘Aboot him turnin’ ower a new leaf? Renouncin’ violence, becomin’ a painter an’ aw that?’
‘Fuck knows. Everybody changes, I suppose. I mean look, there’ Ally McQuade five seats doon, bein’ dead pally wi’ auld Mrs Laurence. He was a cheeky wee shite, used tae make her life a misery.’
‘He’s still a cheeky wee shite.’
‘Aye, but you know whit I mean. Davie was awright sometimes. I sat next tae him in Geography in second year. We’d a laugh noo and again.’
‘Whit are you talkin’ aboot, Eddie? Davie leathered you in Geography in second year. Dished you wi’ that big atlas.’
‘Aye, right enough. But still. He must have reformed or they’d never have let him oot, would they? An’ sure there’s that story aboot when he was released. Deek Patterson’s brother, Panda, attacked him ootside the jile an’ he never fought back. Just stood there an’ took it until the polis pulled Panda aff.’
‘Aye, I remember hearin’ aboot that masel’, Ed. Still, if Davie turns up tonight, I don’t see anybody puttin’ it tae the test by tryin’ tae settle any scores, do you?’
‘Well, I never cried him Dilithium Davie tae his face back then, so I’m no startin’ noo. He might have a flashback. A fuckin’ “regression”, know?’
‘Naw, I wouldnae worry, Eddie. On the off-chance that he’s act
ually there, if Davie went mental again, it’s odds-on it would be Kenny Collins that got the doin’. His mooth was aye writin’ cheques his arse couldnae cash.’
‘Him or Ally McQuade.’
‘Naw, at least Ally was funny. Kenny was just ignorant. Horrible wee bastard, so he was. Sneaky as well. No redeemin’ features. Face you could punch aw night.’
‘Shoosh. Keep your voice doon or he’ll come back up here again. I thought he was gaunny sit doon beside us earlier. I couldnae have handled him aw the way up the road.’
‘Aye, you’re right there, Eddie. My heart sank when I saw him gettin’ on the bus. I suppose that’s whit you’re signin’ up for, though, goin’ tae a thing like this. The drink might be free, but you’re still payin’ a high price puttin’ up wi’ some of the company.’
‘Still, it’s gaunny be mental seein’ some o’ thae folk again.’
‘That’s if anybody else turns up. The pairty could be just us that’s on this bus, plus this Gavin Hutchison bugger that we cannae remember anyway. I cannae picture Matt Black comin’ back fae America just tae see us arseholes again, eh? An’ Davie Murdoch – he lives in fuckin’ New York or somewhere. He’s no gaunny be there either. No tae mention aw the wans that are in the jile.’
‘Ach, never mind. Free pairty, innit? Overnight stay an’ everythin’.’
‘Aye. Overnight stay on an oil rig.’
‘It’ll be fine, big man. It’ll be better than that, in fact. Forget the oil rig: it’s a resort. This guy obviously knows what he’s doin’, knows how tae make folk feel comfortable. That’s how he’s rakin’ in the millions, an’ I’m fittin’ fuckin’ wardrobes.’
11:08 fipr charter coach five seats doon
‘Good guys get shot in the shoulder,’ Ally was explaining. ‘It’s the first rule of engagement for action movies. Allows that aw-naw-he’s-been-hit fright moment, renders the hero apparently vulnerable, gives everybody a quality wince, but crucially does no real harm. Headshot is obviously oot, as is the chest; leg wound limits mobility, stomach puts you on a dead-withoot-medical-attention timelock, and forearm is just too wimpy. Thus, the upper-arm-to-shoulder area gets it every time, and doesnae affect either the aiming or the punching ability of the aforementioned good guy. Bruce Willis in Die Hard – bullet in the shoulder courtesy of Alexander Godunov. Michael Beihn in Terminator, courtesy of Arnie. Linda Hamilton in T2.’
One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night Page 6