A Decent Ride (22 page)

— Aye . . . good game, the treacherous creature in the Pringle sweater reluctantly wheezes, as I turn to find Terry.

I see him, bunched against the clubhouse with his hands in his pockets, his brow furrowed and his eyes vapid and empty. He doesn’t even react when this woman in the parking lot is bending into the back seat of her car to get something, displaying a fine ass to the world. Worse, he bristles all indignantly when Renwick, looking like a sex offender, makes some lascivious comment. That ain’t like Terry! To look at his face you’d think the world was coming to a goddamn end!

JONTY KNOWS THAT
it will now be impossible for him to take Jinty down to The Pub With No Name. Or even Campbell’s. No, not with the way she smells. He is moved to lament on the unfairness of it all, because Jinty was usually so clean. She was always showering, and not just in the morning, but also when she got home from work, from those dirty and dusty offices; it was the first thing she did. And the way she washed, that stuff she put on, not soap but this lotion from a tube that had gritty bits in it. Jonty sometimes tried it, but they always scraped him. All those creams and perfumes though, they made Jinty smell so nice and her skin so soft. Not like now: it is cold to the touch, and a fetid odour is rising from her.

And she isn’t waking up; just lying there on that bed. Jonty has tried to take most of the blood off her mouth and chin with the sponge. But she is starting to smell bad. They would be complaining in this stair soon, like people did. He worries about what they might say:
That Jonty, eh shouldnae even be in the toon, eh’s jist a simple country lad fae Penicuik, he cannae take care ay himself.

But he still loves her so much, even after the terrible argument. It is so cold and damp, and wee Jinty has drastically changed, he can see that, but when he looks at her he finds that he is as stiff as ever. Yes, he still loves her. But he would have to put something on for them both. There is gel in the bedside cabinet. And then he is looking at her and touching his hardness and greasing it.

The flat is a mess. The bedclothes stink of Jinty; not how she was really, but how she is now. Jonty pulls the duvet aside, and looks at her lying there, all cold and different. He shuffles on to the bed beside her and fixes her fringe so that it falls into her eyes, like it sometimes did.

It’s easy to slide off her jeans, then remove her blouse and silky underpants. He keeps her bra on, not wanting to reach round her cold back to fiddle with the catch, not until he warms her up. — Aw, Jinty, it’s awright, Jinty, dinnae worry, Jinty, you’ll no be alone, ah’m comin, ah’ll be wi ye, aye sur, aye sur, aye sur . . .

As Jonty’s weight falls on her, gas suddenly belches out from Jinty’s mouth. The rank air reeked even more. — Aw, Jinty . . .

Jonty pushes and pokes at her opening with his greasy cock. Why did she do this to them? Why did she go to The Pub With No Name?

— Aw, Jinty . . .

It seems like she is closed to him, but suddenly, a stinging, icy rush grips his dick as he slides into her. It is not an altogether unfamiliar sensation. When Jinty came in and her hands were cold (she always used to say ‘Cold hands, warm heart’) and she grabbed his cock, it was like a game they played: it was like that. She would say ‘Sorry, Jonty, my hands are really cauld’ and he would tell her ‘It doesnae matter cause ma cock’s still hot!’ But she is cold
down there.
— The wey ye like it but, Jinty, the wey ye like it, but ye huv tae wake up now. Ye huv tae wake up n move, Jonty grunts, as he thrusts. This will wake her up, it was like Sleeping Beauty . . . if somebody could wake up through a kiss, how much more likely were they to do it with a ride? And Sting had done that. Sting had. Yes, he had. Jonty had seen it once in a play on the telly, which he’d only watched cause Sting was in it. Sting had rode a lassie into life.

WAKE UP, JINTY . . .

WAKE UP . . .

He almost stops when a fly pops out of her open mouth. It spins around in the air slowly, then lands on her face, crawling over it, before vanishing from his sight. They were like helicopters, flies, when they got tired. So Jonty grits his teeth and pumps. He will pump her back into life. But nothing is happening. He keeps thrusting. — Ah did it wi Karen, Jinty, ah ken it wisnae right, but ah wis feart, Jinty, ah wis feart ye’d nivir talk tae ays again . . . talk tae ays, well!

For a spell it even looks like Jinty is enjoying it, like she used to. The hair falls back, and her face almost has a twisted smirk. Jonty’s fingers go up and he has to push his mouth hard on her frozen lips to be able to stand her cold, glassy eyes. That’s better. The way he could batter into her and she would always want more. But it isn’t the same, not now that she’s so cold and stiff, her lips all hard and blue, not the soft way she used to be. It is hardly like Jinty at all. But he loves her still and at least he can still make love to his beloved Jinty, not like that Barksie down The Pub With No Name. He wouldn’t look at Jinty now, he would turn his nose up, because people like that know nothing about love, and Jonty will never let his Jinty go because he loves her so.

But it isn’t the same.

And he knows: it isn’t right.

He keeps pushing, but it isn’t right as she’s that cold and it is all sore and tight, but he inches further in but it’s so cold, and her weight shifts under him, and her mouth, it hangs open again and that smell comes up like sulphur from deep inside of her and Jonty thrusts in further to try to bring her back, but that smell from her mouth . . .
shut yir mooth . . . shut yir mooth
. . .

TERRY HAS BEEN
thrust into a new universe, a gelid, brutish space, where the hostile incursions of others are laid bare. He drives around Edinburgh’s rain-blackened streets, wilfully distracting himself from everything bar the automated movements of driving the taxi. The road signs, the brake lights of the car in front, the lane changers, he gives them all the novice driver’s grinding attention. He tries not to think of sex, nor of his condition, but those two contradictory topics surface intermittently in his fevered mind. He fights their intrusion, driving around town, ignoring instructions from Control, sex texts from Big Liz, and blind to threats of being taken off satellite, as he carries on past the outstretched hands of fares he can normally smell streets away. And when Connor calls him up to do business, he is lukewarm.

Sometimes he forgets when the cab is occupied. Only a glance at her small figure in the rear-view mirror, sitting back in the seat, reminds Terry that he’s dropping Alice off at the hospital again. He sadly laments how women like his mother were always hoodwinked by wasters like Henry. At the Royal Infirmary he waits downstairs in the coffee bar, a call purring in on his mobile. The number is a long one, conjuring up exotic images of foreign women bagged at Edinburgh Festivals past. Despite his medical issues and the pills that he’s started taking, Terry instinctively hits the green. To his chagrin, it’s The Poof. — Vic . . . didnae recognise yir number thaire, mate.

— Aye, ah got a Spanish mobby cause ah might be here a wee while longer. Nae bizzies been hingin aboot the sauna?

— No that ah kin tell, Vic. Terry rises and moves towards the exit doors. — But ah ken that some ay them use the place. Ah’ll ask the lassies . . . subtly, likes.

— Good man, Terry, The Poof says gruffly, then his voice dips. — Ah cannae say this tae Kelvin, cause the lassies tell him nowt. They dinnae like him.

Terry remains silent, but thinks:
they dinnae like you either, ya cunt
.

The Poof asks Terry about the sauna. Terry informs him that it’s all good, but that Jinty is still missing. — It’s like she’s vanished oaf the face ay the Earth.

— Fuckin hoors. The Poof’s tones briefly fracture, before he adds in more measured timbre, — She wis a good earner. She better no huv went ower tae Power’s place. Track her doon, Terry.

— Ah’ve been oan the lookout, ay, Terry says, glancing out at the rain-lashed car park. He moves one step sideways, opening the automatic doors. Another step back closes them.

— Track her doon, The Poof repeats, adding the ingredient of exasperation. — She’s goat tae learn that ye dinnae jist walk oot on me wi nae fuckin explanation. Ah dinnae dae business that wey.

Maybe it really was time, Terry considers, to stop thinking of Vic as ‘The Poof’. — Okay, Vic, ah’ll dae ma best.

— That’s aw ah kin ask, mate, but if ah ken you that’ll be mair than enough. Loads ay faith in ye, The Poof says ominously, then hangs up.

Terry isn’t easily intimidated by nature. He’s faced down many jealous husbands and boyfriends in his time, crossing men whose destructive passions had driven them to the point of madness. But The Poof, this one-time figure of abject contempt, now places a chill in him, and he allows himself a guilty shiver.

As he lets his foot move to the side, the door opens again. Then, from the corner of his eye, he sees that somebody is watching him. It is a small, thin man, his hair sparse on top, but sticking out prominently at the sides. It is Jinty’s boyfriend, the wee half-brother he’d seen in The Pub With No Name. He is probably in to see the auld cunt upstairs, Terry considers.

Jonty moves over to Terry. He places his foot forward, making the sliding doors open. Then close. Then open. Then he looks up at Terry. — Ye pit yir fit one wey, they open. Ye pit it the other wey, they shut. Aye sur.

— Sound, Terry nods.

Jonty makes the doors open and shut again. From a distance down the hall, a man in a security guard uniform frowns. He moves towards them.

— Open. Shut, Jonty says.

— Better stoap, mate, ay. Here comes the boy.

— Aw, Jonty says. — Will ah leave thum open or shut?

— Shut, says Terry, taking Jonty by the arm and pulling him closer. The security guard stops a few feet away, his thumbs resting in the belted waistband of his flannel trousers. He contemplates them for a second, then turns and heads back to his desk. Terry breaks a sparse smile. — You’re Hank’s wee brar, ay?

— Aye sur, Jonty MacKay! That’s me. Aye sur. Aye. Aye.

— I’m Terry. Terry Lawson. I’m Hank’s big brother, well, big half-brother.

Jonty looks agog at Terry. — Does that mean you’re ma brother n aw?

— Half-brother, aye. But dinnae git too excited, it’s no exactly an exclusive club, ay.

Jonty seems to grow downcast at this consideration. — They ey sais thaire wis others, aye they did. Muh ma n that. Aye sur, aye, aye. Others.

— Plenty, mate. So ye git called MacKay?

— Aye, cause ah changed it, like Hank n Karen, ma brar n sister, whin muh ma went wi Billy MacKay. Aye sur, Billy MacKay. Penicuik. Aye sur. But ah’m really John Lawson.

— Sound, says Terry. — So you’re up tae see him then?

— Aye sur, ah am. Ye gaunny see um?

— Mibbe later, pal, ay.

Jonty nods at this, and prepares to take his leave. — See ye, Terry! See ye, pal!

— Awright, mate, Terry smiles, watching him go.

So Terry waits for Alice, lighting a cigarette from the pack he’d taken from the golf club bar last night, after Ronnie had defeated that sweaty golf pro on the final hole. He’d stopped eight years ago. Thank fuck the doctor said nothing about tobacco and drugs, though it’s probably reasonable to assume that with a serious heart condition, ching, in particular, isn’t a great idea. In the event, realising his weakness, and noting the raptorial gaze of the security guard, he crushes out the cigarette halfway through and, thinking of Jonty, opens the doors, flicking it outside. He makes eyes at the vending machine for the best part of ten minutes, resisting a bar of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk, before his mother appears. Alice looks frail; it is as if Terry is seeing her for the first time, and he feels impelled to take her arm, which she brushes off.

The doors swish open as two girls walk into the hospital. Even through the erection-crushing bromide pills they’ve given him, Terry can feel a root insinuating. To Alice’s surprise, he turns away to face the wall.

— There was this funny wee guy up there, Alice says, her mouth puckering in distaste, — he kept peeking in through the window, but he wouldnae come in.

Terry nods as they walk across the car park in a dull drizzle of rain. — Aye, ah saw him earlier. Wee Jonty’s his name. Another yin ay they bastards that auld cunt knocked oot eftir eh ditched you!

Alice cringes visibly as Terry opens the cab door for her. She climbs in and he gets into his seat, starting up the engine and pulling away. He is lost in a single thought: I WILL NEVER HAVE A DECENT RIDE AGAIN. It is some time before he even hears his mother’s voice. — Terry! Ah’m talking to you! Ye no even gaunny ask how eh is?

— Ye telt ays that the cunt’s dyin, so ah’m assuming still shite.

This has the desired effect of stopping Alice in her tracks, but the way she wilts into the unforgiving cab upholstery induces a spasm of guilt in Terry. His mother sadly ponders, — It disnae look like it’ll be long now.

Terry can’t spare a single beat of empathy or regret for Henry. The extent of his hatred for the man, even now, shocks him. He is more than happy to drop Alice back at Sighthill. As she gets out the cab, the rain now stopped but the sky still overcast with black cloud, Alice says sheepishly, — Donna wants tae go in and see him. Tae show him Kasey Linn.

— What? Terry’s head cranes round. — She doesnae even ken the bastard! Now she’s takin her bairn in tae see him?

— She barely kens her faither, so ye cannae blame her wantin tae know her grandfaither, Alice says quietly, her tone crestfallen rather than confrontational, so Terry sucks down a breath and starts the cab, pulling off without saying goodbye and driving right back into town.

The rain’s come on again, now falling in whipping sheets as Terry sets the wiper to work, cheerlessly negotiating the tired city-centre traffic. Having juggled multiple relationships for years, enduring all the myriad hassles, he believed that life without sexual encounters would at least become more straightforward. However, if anything, it seems to be getting more complex than ever, but without the telling pay-off. He decides to head back down to Leith and the sauna.