by Irvine Welsh
It was strange that punk was portrayed in the media as violent, but it was going to punk gigs that got me away from the street violence of the Edinburgh gang scene at the time. Through punk I fell in love with this girl, I met her a Clash gig. Her name was Beverly; she was a true punk rocker. She had green hair and she often wore a safety pin through her nose. A really wild lassie, though she had her softer side as well. She stood out just by being a girl as, to be honest, there weren’t many who were lookers that were into punk. Compared to her I suppose I was just pretending: I was a punk on Friday and then got togged up in disco gear to go to Busters or Annabel’s on Saturday, in order to meet girls.
But I never met a girl like her at those places.
Beverly hated that; she was always calling me a plastic. She worked as a waitress in the Archangel Tavern, where she became famous for her green hair. They said it was a bohemian crowd that hung around there. I didn’t like them though; they were too posh for the likes of me.
Not that I cared about them. For the first time in my life, I was in love.
Beverly was friendly with some of the chefs there. They were restaurant chefs and they looked down on a railway skivvy like me. That De Fretais boy was one of them, only he wasn’t called De Fretais back then. He was in my class at Telford.
There was always a problem with my drinking. Put that together with Beverly’s temper and we were a volatile mix. She did her own thing and was seeing this other guy at the same time as me. He was a chef as well, in the Northern Hotel. I didn’t know him but I knew of him. Hotel and restaurant workers tended to socialise together because of the working hours.
Beverly fell pregnant right after we got together, wouldn’t say whether it was mine or the other guy’s. He was a drummer as well; he played with the Old Boys. I didn’t know this guy but I hated him. Why not? He was a chef in a better place than me, a real punk who played in a band, and Bev, whom I was crazy about, she loved him more than she did me. I couldn’t accept that.
One night, things just came to a head. I was drunk and I was really angry about the situation, and I did the most stupid thing I’ve ever done in my life. I went to see the other boy to try and sort things out. It was horrible. I went to where he was working and argued with the guy in his kitchen. Nobody else was around at the time. He didn’t take me seriously, gave me the brush-off. As I went away, shouting at him, he flicked the V-sign at me and said, ‘Fuck off, arsehole.’ He said it so dismissively. Now when I think about it, fair play to the boy; a drunkard comes into his work shouting the odds, how else would he react? But in drink and crippled with jealousy, I was totally enraged and lost my head.
The boy had turned away from me and I ran back towards him, grabbed the back of his head and pushed it into what I thought through my alcohol haze was this pot of soup. It wasn’t. It turned out that it was deep-fried fat. He screamed: I’ve never heard anything like that scream, but I suppose I screamed too, as it burned my hands. The pot cowped over and I ran out the kitchen without looking back. A porter saw me and I pushed past him and mumbled something about there having been an accident. I never even knew the boy’s proper name at the time. Since then I found out it was Donnie Alexander. I went home and when I woke up it seemed like a dream. But my scorched hands told me that it wasn’t. The boy had such terrible burns to his face, and was badly disfigured. For some reason he never shopped me, said it was an accident. I couldn’t go to the doctor’s with my hands. I was in pain for weeks; God knows what it was like for poor Donnie.
He didn’t say anything, but Bev knew that I had done it. It didn’t take a genius to figure it out. She wouldn’t see me, even when the baby was due. Threatened to tell the police what I’d done if I went anywhere near her. She wasn’t joking either. Beverly was a very headstrong lassie. I loved her but she really did love Donnie. Who could blame her? I was a drunk and the thing about drunks is that you always tire of them at some point. She was with him before me; it was just that they’d had a bad fallout. Sometimes I think she was just using me to get at him. I would have done anything for her.
Then the kid came along. A boy. I know that he was my son, I just do.
The worst thing, though, was when I heard about Donnie Alexander’s death. I had disfigured him. He went away to work down in Newcastle, in a small hotel. Then I heard that he was dead. He’d committed suicide in his bedsit. It was all my fault; I as good as murdered the man.
It’s important for me to write this down as honestly as I can.
I went to AA and straightened myself out and from there I got into going to church. I had never been religious, in fact I was anything but and to be honest I’m still sceptical, but it gave me the strength to continue life sober. I let go of politics, although I remained a union man. I stopped seeing all my old pals. I retrained with British Rail, first as a signalman, then as a driver. I loved the job, the solitude, and particularly the beauty of the West Highland line.
Through the church I met my Joyce and built a new life with her. We had two great kids. I only ever touched alcohol on a few occasions after that. In those relapses I could see the old me: bitter, sarcastic, aggressive and violent. I was a psychopath in drink.
I felt terrible about Bev’s boy but I reasoned that he was better off without me. She had started a hairdressing business, which seemed to be successful. I went to see her at her shop once, a few years later. I wanted to see if I could do right by the kid. But Bev told me that she wanted nothing to do with me and that I was never to go anywhere near the boy; Daniel, she called him.
I had to respect her wishes. I did watch him play football sometimes, making sure that she didn’t see me. It used to break my heart, watching the other fathers making a fuss of their laddies. Maybe I was just projecting my own hurt, but he often seemed such a lost, lonely wee guy. I mind of him scoring a goal in a game once, when she wasn’t there, and I went up to him afterwards and said, ‘Good game there, son.’ A big lump stuck in my throat when his eyes met mine, I was choking back my tears. I had to turn and leave. It was the only words I ever spoke to him, although I’ve said thousands of them in my own head. But in the end I had to let go as I had my Brian and Caroline to consider, and, of course, Joyce. I had to try and look after them as best I could.
I told Joyce everything. I think that it was a mistake. They say that the truth sets you free, but now I know that it’s just self-indulgent nonsense. It may set you free, but it can decimate those around you. It hurt Joyce so much that she had a nervous breakdown and I don’t think she’s ever been quite the same since.
Now, I suppose, I’m doing the same thing. Spouting self-indulgent truths to make myself feel better, when I know that it might hurt those I love the most. I feel that you should be strong enough to suck it up, keep it in. But when I do, I feel the burn in me, the need to go out and drink. I can’t do that, and only writing it down helps. I only hope that when you all see this, it’ll be at a time in your lives when you can understand it. The only thing I can say is that there are some kinds of mistakes you make that you never stop paying for, nor do those closest to you.
Now, Brian, Caroline, the chances are that you’re reading this. Danny, you might even be too. If so, I missed having you around, believe me. There hasn’t been a day that’s passed in my life when I haven’t thought about you. I sincerely hope that not having me around made absolutely no difference to you.
Joyce, I love you and could never apologise in a million years for all the hurt I’ve caused. I love you all and hope that you can find it within yourselves to forgive my stupidity and weakness.
God bless you all.
43
Leith Calling
THE RAIN WAS now falling in cold sheets against the dark sky, rapping threateningly on the windows outside. Caroline ghosted into the room, which was lit only by the glow of the television set. She could barely make out the form of her mother, crushed into the big easy chair.
On the mantelpiece, through the flickering light, she could i
ntermittently see the image of her father as a young man. She walked up to the framed black-and-white portrait picture and studied it as never before. There was something different about him; the eyes had a hitherto unnoted manic restlessness, the mouth was cast in an intemperate pout. Now it seemed to reveal him not as the quiet man who sat in the armchair, the upright, sober, churchy man, but as someone driven by great and sometimes terrible urges he struggled daily to repress.
She moved into the chair next to her mother’s; the innocuous-looking John Menzies notebook, which contained those amazing confessions, pressed hard against her thigh. — Mum, what was Dad like when you met him?
Joyce looked up, interrupted from the steady anaesthetic drip-feed of the cathode-ray tube. The charge of the alcohol was running down, leaving her bleary and disorientated. In maudlin guilt she was now thinking that she had desecrated Keith’s memory by drinking. And now there was something in her daughter’s tone, something threatening . . . — I don’t know what you mean, he was just your dad, he was –
— No! He was an alcoholic! He had a child by another woman! She stood up and dropped the journal into her mother’s lap.
With wide, pained eyes Joyce looked from notebook to daughter, and then broke down, weeping uncontrollably as the journal fell to the floor. To Caroline she now seemed more of a dark, shapeless mass than ever. — He never loved her . . . he loved me! He loved us! Joyce said, her desperate timbre somewhere between a plea and a declaration. — He was a Christian man . . . a good man . . .
Caroline’s stomach churned nervously, heavy with the food and drink. She exited to the hallway where a phone was mounted on the wall and a phone book and Yellow Pages sat on a shelf below it. She found Beverly’s business phone number quickly enough, and just hoped that Bev Skinner kept her name in the residential phone directory.
There were quite a few B. Skinners, but only one listed for the Leith postal area of EH6: Skinner, B. F. She dialled the number with trembling care, and a woman’s voice came on the other end. — Hello?
— Is that Beverly Skinner?
— Aye it is, came the aggressive reply. — Whae wants tae ken?
— Are you Danny Skinner’s mother? Caroline asked, the woman’s anger fuelling her own sense of indignation and giving her strength.
There was a sharp exhalation of breath down the phone. — What’s he been up tae now then?
— Mrs Skinner, I think that I might be Danny’s half-sister. My name’s Caroline, Caroline Kibby. I’m Keith Kibby’s daughter. I need to see you, to talk to you.
There followed a silence so long and deafening that Caroline wanted to scream in rage against it. Just when she suspected that Beverly Skinner might have put the phone down in shock, she heard the voice again, as pugnacious as ever. — How did ye get this number?
— The phone book. I need to see you, Caroline repeated.
There followed another silence, before a more resigned voice said, — Well, if it’s in the phone book, you ken where I live.
Caroline Kibby did not even go back in to say goodbye to her mother. Joyce sat in a daze with the John Menzies notebook at her feet. As the front door slammed shut, she flinched only slightly.
Beverly Skinner put the phone on its cradle and sat back in her armchair. Cous-Cous the cat jumped up on her lap and Beverly found herself stroking the animal, which began to purr, a loud snoring noise, and then salivate over her.
For so long she’d been waiting for this day with a strange, gnawing dread. She had expected that when it came along it would be extreme: traumatic or even cathartic in some way. But in the event it was a total anticlimax. Beverly felt disappointed. She’d wanted to keep Keith Kibby’s malign influence from her Danny for as long as possible. But Danny had managed to mess things up for himself, without that prick’s help. The drinking, the fighting . . . well, she’d done her best with him.
That girl on the phone was the Prick’s daughter. Him, that violent, drunken psycho! Him who’d dunked her beautiful Donnie’s head into the chip fat. Disfigured him. That had finished him; he’d left the band, left his home, left her . . . and they found him dead. And now the Prick’s daughter was coming down here to see her, no less! And it struck Beverly that the lassie sounded well spoken, not like the Prick, although he could be quite plausible sober. Mind you, such occasions were few and far between.
He’d probably given some other woman a life of hell as well. Perhaps we’ll be able to compare notes. But it would be so bad for Danny if he knew about his father, if he knew he was . . .
Beverly heard a car pull up outside her house. By the heavy, tumbling sound the engine made, she knew immediately that it was a hackney cab. Knew who would be inside it.
She got up and opened the door to see a young blonde girl heading up the stair, looking up at her from the landing.
From Caroline’s vantage she could see Danny in Beverly straight away, across the eyes and around the nose. — Mrs Skinner?
— Aye . . . come in, Beverly said. Her first impression of Caroline was that she was a very good-looking girl. But then the Prick was handsome too, it had to be said, when they first met. Even then, though, it was evident that the drink was beginning to destroy his appearance.
— So you’re Keith Kibby’s lassie? Beverly said, unable to prevent herself from making it sound like a challenge.
— Yes I am, Caroline said evenly.
— How is he? Beverly attempted to force a genuine equanimity into her tone. Once again she suspected that she had failed.
— Dead, Caroline said steadily. — He died just after Christmas.
For reasons she couldn’t immediately ascertain, this information made Beverly feel oddly raw inside. After all, for years she had thought, albeit in the abstract, about dancing on Keith Kibby’s grave. Yet in reality, she’d never actually thought of him as being dead.
But his daughter seemed genuinely sad at this state of affairs. And Beverly Skinner suddenly saw what was really upsetting to her; it was the idea that this terrible man might have somehow been able to redeem himself. That she had spent all those years hating someone who, in a real sense, had long since ceased to exist.
And as she talked with this young stranger, Beverly Skinner saw the evidence of that redemption with her own eyes, in the beautiful, poised and graceful young woman who sat opposite her.
It was the guest who eventually summed things up. — It seems like he was two men, Mrs Skinner, the one you knew and the one I knew. He never drank at all, he was a very gentle and loving man. But I read stuff in his journal . . . stuff I couldn’t believe . . . he was never like that with . . . me . . .
Caroline was about to say ‘us’ but something stopped her. Brian. Did he ever have it different, ever see another side of their father?
Beverly let the words sink in. Tried to comb her memory to find another Keith Kibby, and just about succeeded. — Aye, we did have some good times at first. The Clash concert at the Odeon; that was where we met. A bunch of us were jumping around together, all out of it. I bumped intae him and spilled his cider. He laughed and chucked some at me. Then we were snogging each other’s faces off . . .
Beverly stopped, noting that Caroline gulped at the thought. Then the older woman reddened at having inadvertently paraded a younger, unrestrained self.
— Aye . . . but Keith was that jealous, so possessive . . .
Caroline flinched again, aware that her father had never demonstrated this sort of passion towards her mother. It was a quiet love, between a strong, stern and sober man and a nervous homemaker, and it was based on shared values like duty and a commitment to family life. But passion, no . . .
Then Beverly was talking about how they used to go swimming together and it was bringing so much back for Caroline. How sometimes at the pool her father would lift her up and look at her and say with a ferocious intensity that almost scared her, like it wasn’t him: You’re gaunny dae great things, lassie.
There was almost a phantom ‘or else’
tacked on at the end, the idea that failure was not an option. Did Brian feel this more than her? Was he made to feel this by their father?
— Who was Danny’s father, Mrs Skinner?
Beverly sat back in her chair and looked at this young woman. A stranger, asking that question of such impertinence, in her own home. Like many people who were overtly outlandish in their outward behaviour and appearance, Beverly Skinner was in constant flight from the part of her soul that was mind-numbingly conventional. Now there was no escape from it. She felt offended. Not angry, but simply offended.
— Was it the man with the burned face, or was it my dad?
Now the anger was present. In a rush it almost overwhelmed Beverly, forcing her to turn away. Not to do so would have meant her flying at Caroline Kibby with her fists. Instead she gripped the armchair.
The man with the burned face. That’s my Donnie they’re talking about. We had just got back together, patched things up properly, when that fuckin vermin Keith Kibby . . .
— Please, Mrs Skinner. Danny’s with my brother Brian. They don’t like each other and they’ve both been drinking heavily. I think that they might be planning to hurt each other in some way.
Beverly took in a sharp breath and panic rose in her chest as she thought about Keith Kibby’s anger.
What that Kibby had done to ma Donnie in drink . . .
. . . and ma Danny. My wee boy. He’s always had a temper.
As for that other one, the Kibby laddie, God knows what he’s capable of!
Beverly grabbed the phone on the table beside her, called her son on his mobile number. It was switched off. She left a message on his answering service. — Danny, it’s Mum. I’m with Caroline, Caroline Kibby; and we need to talk to you. It’s very important. Call me when you get this message, she said, then added in breathless urgency, — I love you, darlin. In some anxiety she turned to Caroline. — Go and find them, hen. Tell Danny to call me.