Skagboys Read online

  Dismayed to see a pile of filthy dishes soaking in the sink’s cold, stagnant water, Davie moved over, busying himself on them, his Brillo pad rasping against the stubborn waste encrusted onto china and aluminium. Then he felt something he hadn’t for a long time: his wife’s arms as they wrapped themselves around his expanding waist. — Sorry, she breathed softly into his shoulder. — Ah’ll sort maself oot.

  — It takes time, Cathy. I know that, he said, his finger tracing a vein on the back of her hand, which he pressed as if to urge her to continue talking.

  — It’s just … she hesitated, — wi Billy getting intae bother n Mark bein away in London …

  Davie turned round, breaking her grip, but only to take Cathy in his own arms. He stared into her big, haunted eyes. The light from the window revealed some new lines in her face, and some of the older ones cutting a little deeper. He pulled her head into his chest, not just to comfort her, but because this sudden confrontation with her mortality was too much for him to endure. — What’s wrong, love?

  — When ah wis doon at the church, the other day, lighting a candle for Wee Davie …

  David Renton senior forced himself not to roll his eyes or unleash an exasperated breath, his habitual responses when he learned that his wife had been at St Mary’s.

  Cathy raised her head, digging her sharp chin into his collarbone. Her body felt so slight against him. — Ah saw the laddie Murphy thaire, she coughed, wriggling free from his embrace, moving over to the ashtray on the table and crushing out the last of her cigarette. She briefly hesitated, and then promptly lit another, with a semi-apologetic shrug. — Ye should’ve seen the mess ay um, Davie, he looked terrible; skin and bone. He’s been taking that heroin – Colleen telt me when ah saw her in the Canasta. She flung him oot, Davie, he wis stealin fae her. Her rent money, her club money wi the Provi …

  — That’s terrible, Davie said sadly, thinking of his own mother alone, in that house in Cardonald, then Mark, on a couch in some dismal squat in a far-off city which briefly flared with menace in his imagination, before he converted that vision into a swish flat full of swinging metropolitan professionals. — It just makes me gled that Mark’s in London wi Simon, away fae that waster!

  — But … but … Cathy’s face creased into a self-caricature that unnerved him. — … Colleen said thit Mark wis the same wey!

  — No way! He’s no that stupid!

  Cathy’s eyes and mouth stretched, pulling the skin on her face taut. — It sort ay explains a lot, Davie.

  Davie Renton couldn’t bear to hear this. It just couldn’t be true. — No, he shook his head in grave finality, — no oor Mark. Colleen’s just upset at whit’s happened tae Spud, she wahnts tae make oor Mark a scapegoat!

  The lid grumbled, farted and rattled against the pot, and Cathy was over to the cooker, reducing the heat and giving the stovies a stir. — That wis what ah thoat, Davie, but still … ah mean, ye ken how secretive he is. She looked at him. — It took him ages tae tell us aboot packin in the university … n then thaire was that girl he was seein …

  Davie gripped the windowsill. Leaned forward, felt the pressure in his tense shoulders as he looked wistfully outside. — You know, he spoke to his ghostly reflection, — ah used tae think that if he brought shame on this hoose it would be through getting a lassie pregnant or something, ah never thoat it wid be drugs.

  — Ah know, ah know … sometimes he jist seems awfay weird … sometimes … Cathy pushed out some smoke from her lungs, — … ah mean that thing wi Wee Davie … that wis twisted. Ah ken it’s an awfay thing tae say aboot yir ain flesh n blood, n ah love him tae bits, ah wis that proud when he went tae the university … but …

  Davie rested his forehead against the cool glass pane. He recalled his last conversation with Mark, his tones high and distressed, telling his son they were planning to shut the door on the working classes in education. How it was the last chance for people like him to get a degree without being in hock to the banks for the rest of their lives.

  Mark had just kept repeating ‘aye … aye … aye …’ as he crudely stuffed clothes into his holdall, then came out with his usual nonsense about starting a band in London, just like the last time he went down there. — That punk rock shite’s tae blame, it’s that rubbish that turned his heid, Davie Renton mused, turning from the window, recounting the proposition he’d put to his son, — Tear everything doon; aye, fair enough, but what are ye gaunny pit in its place?

  — Drugs, Cathy cried, — that’s aw thir pittin in its place!

  Davie shook his head, — Ah cannae see it but, Cath. He’s in London wi Simon. Thir baith gaunny be startin oan the boats soon. They’ll no let junkies on a boat, Cath. Dae ye want somebody whae’s hallucinatin on heroin, shootin up that LSD or whatever they call it, talkin tae pink elephants aw day when thir tryin tae sail a boat? No way. This is the sea. Thi’ll no tolerate that sort ay thing at sea, Cathy. They have tests for that sort ay thing. Naw, it’s just that daft bloody hash. It makes him dopey. Wi his bloody brains n aw.

  — Ye think so?

  — Aye, course ah do. He’s no that stupid!

  — Cause ah couldnae take it, Davie, Cathy gasped, stabbing out one fag and lighting another. — No eftir Wee Davie. No wi oor Billy up in coort!

  — Simon’s doon thaire, he’ll steer him awright, n thaire’s Stephen Hutchison fae that band n aw, he’s a nice laddie, they widnae git mixed up in anything –

  The phone’s shrill ring from the lobby halted Davie. Cathy ran to pick it up. It was her sister. They would talk for ages, Davie considered, comparing misfortunes. Feeling redundant, he left the house to walk down by the docks.

  The port, swathed in an omnipresent drizzle, had become a home from home, reminding Davie of his native Govan. He recalled how he’d come east to be with Cathy, moving all those years ago from tenement to tenement and shipyard to shipyard, getting work at Henry Robb’s. The old yard was now deserted; it had shut down a couple of years ago, bringing to an end over six hundred years of shipbuilding in Leith. He was one of the very last men to be paid off.

  Wandering around old Leith’s complex maze of streets, kicking through the thaw’s debris, Davie marvelled at the disparate buildings constructed by the merchants who’d brought the wealth into Edinburgh city, when it owed its good fortune to maritime trade. Great stone contructions with gilded domes and pillared, pseudo-Athenian temples proliferated. They were once churches or railway terminals like the Citadel Station Davie trudged past, but now temporarily designated shops or community centres, covered in tawdry, incongruous fluorescent-coloured posters advertising bargains or activities. Many were in disrepair, succumbing to vandalism and neglect, now augmented by rashes of public housing; cheerless sixties utilitarian designs. Consequently, there was nowhere else in the world that looked quite like Leith. But the place was a ghost town. Davie looked down a set of old railtracks leading into the defunct docks, recalling the swarms of men toing and froing from the shipyards, docks and factories. Now, a pregnant girl rocking a pram on a street corner argued with a flat-topped youth in a shell suit. A lonely baker’s shop in a rash of TO LET retail outlets had one window smashed in and boarded up. A woman in brown overalls and stiff lacquered hair looked warily out at him as if he were responsible. A stray black dog sniffed at some discarded wrappers, displacing two seagulls, who screeched in protest as they glided above him. Where had all the people gone? he wondered. Indoors or hiding, or down in England.

  As the urban gravity of central Scotland seemed to inevitably dictate, Davie Renton found himself in a pub. It wasn’t one that he frequented. A vague, distressing odour lingered about the place, detectable through a fug of cigarette smoke. However, it was a tidy shop in other ways, the bar and tables gleaming with polish. The barmaid was a pretty young girl, whose bashful and awkward demeanour suggested that her looks were a recent acquisition she’d yet to fully grow into. He felt for her, working in a pub like this, and forced up a cheery front as he ordere
d a pint of Special and a whisky, surprising himself by his actions, as he seldom drank with gusto these days. It was a young man’s game, best done when you were free from nagging thoughts of your own mortality. But he finished it quickly, and requested the same again, staying at the comforting bar. It was good. Davie felt warm and numb. It was slipping down easily.

  As the barmaid refurnished him with drinks, he saw his oldest son, Billy, in the corner with his mates, Lenny, Granty and Peasbo. He nodded and they gestured him over, but he waved them away, content to let them do their own thing, as he picked up a discarded copy of the Evening News, which lay on the bar. The young men emanated power and confidence, but unemployment had shrunk their horizons to their locality, while making them angry and restless. The devil did indeed make work for idle hands, as his Wee Free grandmother from Lewis had been fond of saying.

  A man had emerged from the office to take up pole position behind the bar. From the corner of his eye, Davie realised he was staring at him. He looked up and saw the ex-copper who ran the pub. — Miners, eh? he smiled mirthlessly at Davie, pointing at the NUM badge on his lapel, the one he’d been given at Orgreave. — Maggie got those lazy bastards sorted right oot!

  His words stung Davie Renton at the core of his soul. He felt another version of himself, long discarded fifty miles back on the M8 motorway, rising to the surface of his skin. His features stiffened and grew coarser. He witnessed a hint of trepidation on Dickson’s face, which combusted into anger when Davie coldly mentioned an incident where a policeman had been hacked to death in a London riot. — Heard one ay your boys lost the heid doon south.

  Dickson stood hyperventilating on the spot for two seconds. — Ah’ll show ye losin the heid, ya Weedgie bastard, he snapped. — Get the fuck oot ay here!

  — Dinnae worry, Davie smiled stiffly, – this place stinks ay scabby bacon, and he stared evenly at Dickson, before slowly finishing his drink, then turning and walking outside, leaving the landlord seething.

  As he headed back towards the deserted shipyard, distress gnawed at Davie Renton, now almost in tears when he thought of the decapitated policeman, his family and widow. How, in a moment of rage, he’d shamefully used this man’s horrific death at the hands of a demented, hateful mob as a way of hitting back at that creep in the pub. What had happened to this country? He thought of his father’s generation, where men of all classes had stood together against the greatest tyranny known to the human race. (Though one class, as always, had borne disproportionate casualties.) The esprit de corps engendered by two world wars and an expansive empire now seemed a long way away. We were slowly, but irrevocably, coming apart.

  When the boys in the corner had seen Davie come into the pub, Lenny had run a narcissistic hand through his crop of sandy hair. He’d turned a crimson, high-blood-pressure face to Billy. — Yir auld man no comin ower?

  — Naw, ah think he’s jist in tae git oot the hoose, Billy had said, a bit miffed, as he loved his dad’s companionship in a pub. The old man was never an imposition; far from it, he was the life and soul, always with a good tale to tell, but never hogging the floor, a great listener and full of banter. It distressed him to think his dad might assume that he bored the younger men. — The auld girl’s been crackin up since Wee Davie died, n oor Mark fuckin oaf tae London husnae helped.

  — How’s he gittin oan doon thaire? Peasbo, angular-faced and flinty-eyed, had enquired, casting a shifty glance to the door as a cloth-capped pensioner entered and creaked his way slowly to the bar.

  — Fuck knows.

  — Saw his mate Begbie in the Tam O’Shanter the other day, gaun oan about some cunts fae Drylaw that did his Uncle Dickie, Lenny smiled slyly, fixing Billy in his gaze, — Jambos seemingly, he half jokingly accused. — Spat on Joe Baker’s picture, so Dickie got stroppy n pilled them up. The boys gied him a real leatherin. Broad daylight n aw.

  Though sensing his buttons were being pushed, Billy reacted anyway. — Ah’ll check that oot next week at the Merchy Herts Club before the game. See if ah kin git some names fir Franco. Ah hate youse Hibby bastards, he only partly jested in retort, — but it’s no right daein that tae an auld man, especially faimlay …

  Lenny nodded in approval, locking his hands together and cracking his knuckles, displaying sinewy, cord-like muscles in his long arms. — Well, Franco Begbie isnae the kind ay cunt anybody wants tae git oan the wrong side ay.

  They’d acknowledged this point and sipped at their drinks. Billy had looked across to his dad again, thought about trying one more time to entice the stubborn auld cunt over for a peeve. He couldn’t get Davie’s eye though, engrossed as he was in the paper. Then the next time Billy Renton saw his father, he was exiting from the bar. Distracted and angry, he hadn’t even acknowledged them as he’d went. There had been some sort of exchange with Dickson, the landlord, which Billy had half witnessed, putting it down to pub banter. Maybe no, he thought, as he watched the still swinging pub doors.

  Billy turned his gaze back to the bar. He knew Dickson from the Lodge. He’d always been okay with him, but he was a funny cunt and a known liberty-taker. Springing up from his seat, Billy hastily headed across the floor, towards the counter. Noting his swift movements, his friends looked to each other in confirmation that the weather had gotten stormier.

  — What was up wi the boy there, Dicko? Billy asked, nodding back to the door.

  — Jist some fuckin mingin jakey. Dirty commie Weegie bastard. Telt him tae fuck off oot ay here.

  — Right, Billy nodded thoughtfully, then headed for the toilet. He took a long piss, looking at his face in the mirror above the latrine. He’d had a big row with Sharon over money last night. She didn’t want him back in the army, but there was fuck all for him here. She wanted a hoose. A ring. A bairn. Billy himself was as keen to move on to the next phase of his life as she was. He was tiring of things as they stood; drinking, talking shite, punching radges, watching his jeans size go from a 32 to a 34 and tightening still. A house and a kid would be good. But that took money. She didn’t seem to get that. Unless you wanted to live like a fuckin tramp on the state with no self-respect, it all took money. And when you had no money, everybody, every single cunt, seemed to be takin the fuckin pish. Sharon, Mark, the mouthy twat at the Elm and now this fuckin ex-bizzy prick at the bar.

  Billy finished, zipped up, washed his hands and returned to the bar. He flashed an insurance man’s smile at the landlord. — Hi, Dicko, you’ll never guess what, that auld jakey ye flung oot, he’s gone roond the back n he’s sittin on one ay the beer barrels, rat-arsed. Ah think he’s done a pish oot there.

  Dickson sprung to alertness. — Is he now? he waxed in anticipation. — Ah’ll show that cunt! Doesnae ken ah’ve got him just where ah fuckin well want him! And he hurried towards the side exit to the yard, followed by Billy.

  In the small, paved quadrangle, Dickson glared around in confusion. Looked behind the stacked empty barrels. The place was otherwise deserted. His eyes registered that the back brown door to the side street was bolted from the inside. Where was that auld cunt? He turned round to face Billy Renton. — Where is that mingin bastard?

  — He’s away, Billy said quietly, — but his son’s here.

  — Aw … Dickson’s mouth fell open. — … Ah didnae ken it wis your dad, Billy, it was a mistake –

  — Fuckin right it wis, Billy Renton noted as he booted Dickson full force in the balls, watching the publican turn red and gasp, holding his testicles and collapsing to his knees on the cold stone floor. Billy’s second kick knocked Dickson’s two front teeth clean out, and loosened a few more.

  Lenny and Peasbo had followed Billy out and, quickly surveying the situation, weighed in with a couple of hefty boots each on the prone figure, to show solidarity with their friend. Big Chris Moncur came out to investigate and looked on, lips twisting in a grin. Alec Knox, an old drunkard who’d experienced Dickson’s manhandling on several occasions, took cold revenge with two vicious kicks to the head of the insenti
ent landlord’s spreadeagled body.

  Peasbo strode back through to the bar, nodded at Granty, and brushing the barely protesting barmaid aside, opened the cash register, snaffling notes and pound coins, while Lenny, following behind, grabbed a bottle of whisky from the gantry and hurled it through a mounted television screen. Three old boys playing dominoes close by shuddered as they looked up briefly to the source of the impact, then went back to their hand, as Granty shot them a fire-starting glare. The group of assailants quickly departed, with instructions to staff and regulars of what to tell the police. The consensus was that three Jambos from Drylaw perpetuated the damage to the landlord and his property.

  The Chute

  THE BRIGHTER MORNINGS don’t make this place look any better, and it’s whiffy as a wrestler’s jockstrap. Every cunt just throws the rubbish in the corner; there’s a poxy little plastic bucket under that pile of crap somewhere, and it’s been a bleedin war of attrition ta see who’s gonna crack first and tidy up. And all those farking beer bottles.

  The phone rings. I pick it up.

  — Is Simon there? Another posh bird’s voice.

  — Not at the moment. Can I take a message?

  — Can you tell him that Emily Johnson from South Ken tube station was trying to get in touch? And she gives me a number, which I scribbles down on the notepad beside the rest.

  I goes ta the kitchen and I can’t stand it any longer. I get a couple of bin liners and start filling them up.

  — Did you get your Hackney giro, Nicksy? Rents asks, the farking div, wandering around in his underpants and T-shirt with his skinny legs, like a milk-bottle ginger Jock Biafran.

  — Nah, it ain’t farking well come yet, I tell him as I’m heading out with the rubbish to the chute, cause those fuckers won’t shift their arses from neither couch nor mattress. All these cunts been doing is farking gear; stupid fuckers seem ta think smoking skag don’t count, and we gotta start work on Monday. I’m putting myself on the farking line here, with that Marriott geezer. If they fack it up …