2007 - A tale etched in blood and hard black pencel (36 page)

Keep the heid, though. There was no point in asking Ali or Karen to dance with him. For one thing, they were both about six inches taller than Martin, which just looked and felt wrong. Even if they had the decency to say yes, it would still be mutually embarrassing: they’d look silly and he’d look like he was being patronised. And more pertinently, he’d never have the nerve, because the pair of them look a class above tonight; not just above him, but above everybody, as far as he’s concerned. They’re wearing ankle-length, long-sleeved black dresses that look like costumes from some Gothic vampire movie. Ali’s is velvet with black frilly cuffs, and Karen’s is made from two layers of material—like a doily tablecloth draped over shiny silk—that reminds him of Auntie Mhairi’s living-room curtains. They’ve both got their hair sticking up like Sylvester the Cat after jamming his fingers in the mains, and they have heavy black make-up around their eyes.

Martin noticed the looks they were getting when they made their entrance, the traded smirks and pointed fingers, but thinks jealousy played a part. And if the others weren’t jealous, they ought to have been. The pair of them were about the sexiest thing he had ever seen in the flesh, like two magnificent visitors from a more interesting world whom it was a rare and fleeting treasure to behold. Scotty had made a gag about them—“She’s alive.
Alive!
”—but that was because Scotty made a gag about everything. It wasn’t that he didn’t think they looked amazing; though, to be frank, Martin didn’t care. If Auld Nick had walked in right then and offered the exchange of getting off with either of them, then the cloven-hoofed bastard would have left very shortly afterwards, one soul to the good.

No, Karen and Ali were only marginally less of a non-starter than bloody Jojo or Samantha Gerrity. But what about Helen? There was definitely eye-contact a couple of times during that last song. Helen is a lot like him, when he thinks about it: condemned as a ‘brainy wan’, overlooked for being behind in the physical-development stakes, and just too bloody friendly and affable to be anything but scorned by the in-crowd. He’d always thought she was quite pretty, but she doesn’t give the impression she sees herself as hot stuff like some he could mention. Certainly not a clothes horse. In fact, if he is being strictly honest, her clothes are arguably even less cool than his. And, okay, he knows he is hardly the pick of what is on offer tonight, but nor is he the worst. Helen Dunih. It’s a thought, isn’t it? He used to walk home with her when he was wee, and they got on fine then, didn’t they? And wouldn’t it be great? All those things he wanted: a girl to dance with, talk to, share a smile. They already had one out of three.

Or is he kidding himself, and cruising for the humiliation of another knock-back that would just ruin the rest of what is otherwise shaping up to be a fun night? Aye, Scotty is probably right. Stop torturing yourself, pal. Accept it.

However, the more he looks at her, the more he wants to dance with her, and the more he thinks it’s worth the risk. But at the same time, the more he looks at her, the prettier she gets; and the prettier she gets, the less he fancies his chances. Nah. Leave it. Scotty is right. Probably.

§

Karen, AH and Helen are having a seat at the side and sharing round a can of juice when Karen sees Jojo and Margaret-Anne heading in their direction. They’re probably on their way to the toilets, but they’ve chosen this route for a reason. She knows they’re about to get some lip, but takes it as a compliment, because, at other discos and parties, in Karen’s experience, that crowd normally make a point of acting like you’re not even there. So serve it up, Jojo. Let us know we’ve pissed you off.

“Hi, Karen, hi, Alison, hello Helen,” says Jojo, her voice all fake nicey-nicey, she and Margaret-Anne sharing a smirk that is drippingly patronising.

“Hi,” she and Ali both mumble disinterestedly. Helen says, “Hello,” and smiles, because that’s Helen.

“Like your gear,” Jojo says, with a grin that is intended to convey her delight at seeing them kitted out in such a supposedly embarrassing get-up. “It’s really…different.”

And yours is really, really
the same
, she doesn’t reply. “Thanks,” she says instead, in a tone that means “Fuck you.”

“You enjoying yourself?” Margaret-Anne asks Helen, in that foghorn rasp of hers that makes everything she says sound like a threat.

“Yes,” says Helen.

“Saw you up askin for music,” Margaret-Anne adds.

“What kind of music do you like, Helen?” asks Jojo.

Karen can feel her hackles rise, her mouth turning to acid. Leave her alone, she’s thinking. Pick on someone your own size. Bitches. They’re not asking because they’re interested. They’re asking because they want to shoot her down and they like it best if you give them the ammunition yourself. Karen clocked them a few times on the dance floor, looking her, Ali and Helen up and down: the two freakshows being bad enough, but compounding their status by dancing with their square wee-lassie pal. That’s why they’re picking on Helen now: anything they can laugh at Helen for is a slagging for this pair who still hang about with her.

“Echo and the Bunnymen,” says Helen.

“Bunnyman? Is that him oot
The Magic Roundabout?
” Margaret-Anne barks.

“What else?” presses Jojo.

“Bauhaus,” Helen replies, biting her lip a little. Helen’s sweet, but she’s not fucking stupid, and she knows what’s going on here.

“Bow-wows?” says Margaret-Anne. “Bunnies and Bowwows!” This is at the sophisticated end of what passes for Margaret-Anne’s sense of humour.

“Bauhaus,” Helen restates, more firmly.

“Never heard of them,” says Jojo dismissively. “What do they sing, then?”

“
She’s in Parties, Beta Lugosi’s Dead, Ziggy Stardust
, ” Helen suggests, emphasising this last song by way of implying it ought to ring a few bells.

“Bunny, Bow-wow and Ziggy,” says Margaret-Anne, laughing.

“Never heard of that, either,” sniffs Jojo.

“Oh, yeah, that’s right,” says Karen. “You’re Bowie fans.
Big
Bowie fans, obviously.”

“Aye, what aboot it?” demands Jojo.

“Nothing,” Karen replies; she, Ali and Helen sharing a smile, which Jojo doesn’t like one bit. Knowing she’s being got at but being too daft to work out precisely how has probably been a major source of frustration throughout her life.

“Bela Lugosi’s dead, did you say?” Jojo asks. “That’s a shame, isn’t it? Cause if he was here wi Boris Karloff, it would be the only chance yous had of gettin asked up for a dance.”

“Aye,” affirms Margaret-Anne as they walk off. “Fuckin lez-beans.”

§

A little later, the three of them are up dancing again, but nobody has said much for a while. After Jojo and Margaret left, Ali finished off the can and suggested they get back on the floor, to which Karen and Helen instantly agreed. Normally it would take a decent record starting up for them to make their move, but on this occasion they’d have got up even if it was
The Birdy Song
. They needed to get away from the silence that was growing in the wake of the wee visit they had just endured. Sure, they swapped a few ‘cow’s and ‘just ignore them’s, but it had left a sour taste, being so blatantly got at, especially the nasty way they’d singled out Helen.

Helen’s acting like she’s all caught up in the dancing, pretending it didn’t bother her, but Karen knows otherwise. She’s innocent but she’s not naive. Helen knows about the game, same as everyone else, and knows she just took a hit. It’ll pass, though. Just keep dancing. The sting will wear off. Don’t let those cows ruin your fun.

Karen sees Scot Connolly up talking to the DJ. She sits in front of him in O-Grade maths. She’s seen his books and jotters, the names of bands lovingly etched on every spare inch of their wallpaper coverings. Karen isn’t familiar with half of them, but a lot of the names are ones she’s heard Nicola mention. Helen and Nicola don’t have a lot of pocket money for buying records, but they listen to Janice Long and then John Peel on the radio all night in their room, and make tapes off it, too.

The DJ puts on one she does know, a song by Stiff Little Fingers. She sees Scot dancing with Martin Jackson and Sean Cassidy, just jumping around having a good time together like her and her pals. She also sees Jojo and that lot at the side, not dancing but making a point of watching. Part of her wishes she and Ali and Helen could just turn around and start dancing with Scot, Martin and Scan, all in a group, giving their own stiff little fingers to the sneering in-crowd at the side. It’s not going to happen, though. Jojo and that lot would just love it too much anyway: them dancing with three wee guys still in trainers, Scan in his tracky bottoms, too.

She smiles at them, though, and they smile back, apart from Martin. He is smiling, but she doesn’t catch his eye because he keeps looking at Helen. Karen wonders if he fancies her. The thought tickles her a bit, but she knows she can’t say anything to Helen, because the girl would be mortified.

They dance another couple of numbers and then decide to take a seat. It’s mostly guys on the floor just now, because another Madness song has started. Scot, Martin and Sean are sitting this one out, too. They’re over against the far wall, laughing about something, but Martin is still stealing looks at Helen, who seemingly remains oblivious.

The Madness number finishes, replaced by Tears for Fears, then Wah!, which gets Scot and Sean up, but not Martin. He stays seated for a minute, still taking frequent gawps over at Helen. Karen smiles to herself and looks away, notices Christine Morton from Fourth Year dancing with Kenny Langton. It’s unusual for girls to be with younger guys, but Kenny is taller than half the staff, and, she’d have to admit, quite good looking, as well as extremely charming when he’s not acting the clown. When she loofepr across again, Martin has gone. Then two dancers unblock her view and reveal, to her great discomfort, that he is heading across the floor towards Helen.

Oh, God. Oh, no.

He stands in front of where Helen is seated. Karen can see his right hand tremble as it hangs by his side, his face all but drained of colour, poor bastard. He tries to smile, but his nervousness just makes him look temporarily palsied.

He asks Helen to dance. It takes two attempts because his voice sort of dries up halfway through the first. Helen becomes instantly as pale as Martin. Her eyes bulge and she physically shrinks in her chair. She looks panicked. She shakes her head then suddenly gets up and walks—almost runs—towards the exit. Karen and Ali exchange a look across the empty seat and get up to follow her. Karen tries to offer Martin a wee look of…she doesn’t know what, just
something
, but he’s staring at the floor, probably wishing it would open up and swallow him.

Poor bastard. He didn’t know what he was walking into. He put Helen on the spot and gave her no choice. He shouldn’t take it personally. It’s just the dictates of the game. Down on the hockey pitch, when Karen whacks it as hard as she can away from her goal, it’s not because she has anything against the ball.

I
t’s a less polished Pete McGeechy who sits across from them in the interview room, and not just because he’s meeting them on their turf. The fact that it’s not long after four in the morning plays a part. Soon as they found the right DVD in Temple’s house, she had somebody go pick him up. She figured as she was going to be up all night anyway, she might as well make it work for her; guys like that are far less composed when you haul them out of bed in the wee small hours. He really wouldn’t be looking forward to the missus asking him what it was all about, either.

It was quite a collection Temple had amassed, though fortunately she hadn’t needed to cue through any great quantity of other people’s violated intimacies in order to find what she was looking for. Something as crucial as the McGeechy disc was never going to be just lined up on the shelf next to the rest, and nor was there likely to be only the one copy. Tom found one hidden in the ice compartment of the fridge at almost the same time as Spiers located another taped to the underside of a drawer in Temple’s bedside cabinet. No sign of the removable hard drive, but this was plenty for now.

He’s slumped on the other side of the table from Karen and Tom, looking tired, beaten, angry and bewildered, which is pretty much how they want him. The DVD sits between them in a transparent case. McGeechy’s eyes seldom leave it for long.

“So, Peter,” Karen says. “Are you ‘at liberty to reveal’ a wee bit more now? Because it certainly looks like Colin Temple was.”

He closes his bloodshot eyes and sighs deeply, putting both hands to his head, revealing two large sweat-rings under his arms despite his shirt being on him for less than half an hour. Karen keeps herself from smiling as she recognises all the signs. Stick a fork in him: he’s ready.

“When did he hit you with this?” she asks.

“Later than you’d think,” McGeechy says. He laughs bitterly. “I thought we were friends. Not big pals, but still in touch, the odd pint, you know? So I never thought much about it when he offered me the lodge.”

“For free?” Karen asks pointedly.

“Aye. Christ, I knew he’d want a favour back at some point, but I was fine with that. There’s a difference between doing somebody a favour and doing something corrupt. He said the place wasnae booked the now, would be empty anyway. Perfect for a fly wee night away.”

“From the wife,” Tom adds.

McGeechy says nothing, just gives another small sigh, shakes his head a little. It must all look so foolish now. It always does after you’re caught. “This was before he submitted the application.”

“We know.”

“Once he had, in the back of my mind I thought…but no. He even said to me, something along the lines of: “Look, that wee favour with the lodge, I hope you don’t think this is what I’m lookin for back, hope it doesnae put you in an awkward spot,” that kinna thing. I’m like: “No, it’s fine, I’ve declared it, it’s all above board.” Things looked like leaning in the application’s favour anyway. There’s always a few rumbles from folk, sometimes just to remind you they’re there or to let you know that if they back this, they’ll expect your cooperation on something else. That’s politics. But as these things go, it looked like plain sailing.”