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Changes may have to be made. Alex McLeish?

That’s the process, Alex.

Morag specialises in the catering side of the enterprise. We do meals here, three-course fuckers for something like ninety-nine pence a head for the pensioners. It irks me at what this is
not
doing to the profit margins: if I’d wanted to serve socialised food I’d have gone into meals on wheels. Aye, those bar lunches are fucking scandalously cheap: I’m subbing those auld parasites to stay alive.

One auld bear shuffles up tae me, somewhat menacing blue eyes set in yellow and red crystalline skin, so jaunty for such an ancient bastard. The cunt smells so badly of pish you’d think he’d been in a golden showers video. Maybe those auld fuckers are into the water sports at that centre they go to. — Fish or shepherd’s pie, fish or shepherd’s pie . . . he rasps, — did ye batter yir fish the day?

— Naw, ah jist gie’d it a slap and telt it tae behave itself, I quip with a smile and a wink.

My attempts at playing jocular mine host are obviously doomed to failure in this fucking sad arcade of rancid old losers. He looks at me, his auld wee Scots terrier face aw screwed up in belligerence. — Is that breadcrumbs or batter?

— Batter, I inform the vexatious auld fuck in tired resignation.

— Ah like it best done wi breadcrumbs, he goes, that mumpy face twisted into a circusy girn as he looks over intae the corner. — N Tam n Alec n Mabel n Ginty’ll tell ye same, right? Eh shouts across, soliciting some enthusiastic nods from similar human remains.

— I humbly apologise, I say, biting my tongue, trying to retain a mood of superficial bonhomie.

— The batter, is it crispy? Ah mean, it’s no that mushy wey, is it?

I am making a supreme fucking effort here, the wide auld cunt. — As crisp as a new twenty-pound note, I tell him.

— Huh, it’s been a long time since
ah
hud a new twenty-pound note, the old ratbag moans. — The peas, ur they mushy or gairden?

— Nae peas if thir no gairdin peas! this famine-victim wifie called Mabel shouts over.

Mushy or gairdin. Now there’s a consideration for a man of enterprise. If Matt Colville could see me now, for him to witness this humiliation would be worth about five fucks at his wife. The burning issues of the day, right enough. Mushy or gairdin. I don’t know. I don’t care. I feel like shouting back: the only stale pees in here are in your fuckin scabby auld knickers, hen.

I turn to Morag the Toerag and let her sort it all out. A queue of sorts is building at the bar.
Oh fuck
. There’s one recognisable figure standing there, shaking and shivering, and I’m resolutely cleaning the glasses, trying to avoid his big, lamplight eyes, but those searchlights of need are trained relentlessly on me. I know how lassies feel when they say ‘he was undressing me with his eyes’ because in this case I can say ‘he was debiting my bank account with his eyes’.

Eventually, I can’t
not
look. — Spud, I smile. — Long time no see. How goes it? It’s been a few year.

— Fine, eh . . . awright, he stammers. Mr Murphy is a more wizened, depleted version of how I remember him, if that’s possible. In fact, he looks like a recently deceased scrawny tomcat which has been dug up from its back-garden resting place by an urban fox. His eyes have that doolally mix of a man who’s done too many uppers and downers for the different constituent parts of his brain to ever agree again as to what time of the day it is. He’s a fucking ragged, rancid shell of a human being, propelled by drugs from one scabby flat or grotty pub to a subsequent similar den of corruption in search of his next toxic ingestion.

— Excellent. And how’s Ali? I ask, wondering if she’s still shacked up with him. I occasionally think about her. In a strange way I felt that we’d somehow end up together, once we’d got all our fucking-up out the way. She was always my woman, but I suppose I feel like that about all of them. But her and him being together; it isn’t right, not right at all.

If she’s any sense she’ll have kicked him into touch years ago, not that I’m to be granted the courtesy of an answer. It’s not even ‘So what are you doing up here working behind a bar in Leith, Simon?’ His crooked, selfish frame can’t even impart that rudimentary level of curiosity, far less a genuine fucking greeting. — Look, ye ken what ah’m gaunnae ask ye, catboy, he coughs out.

— Not until you do, I smile, as patronisingly and frostily as I can manage, which I think, particularly in this case, is quite a fucking bit.

Murphy has the cheek to shoot
me
back an expression of hurt betrayal: a so-this-is-how-it’s-gaunnae-be look. Then he inhales deeply, a strange, slow sound as the air struggles to push out his puny, scrawny lungs rendered so inefficient by what? bronchitis, pneumonia, tuberculosis, cigarettes, crack cocaine, Aids? — Ah widnae ask ye but ah’m really sick. Ah’m sick like nowt oan earth.

I look him over, and decide that he’s not wrong. Then I hold the cleaned glass up to the light. I curtly inform him, while checking it for stains: — Half a mile up the road there. On the other side of the street.

— What? he goes, open-mouthed, fairground-goldfish style, framed as he is in the yellow lights of the pub.

— Edinburgh Council Department of Social Work, I inform him. — This, on the other hand, is a public house. I think you may have come to the wrong place. Here we’re only licensed to sell intoxicating liquor. I convey him this information with all due officiousness, picking up another glass.

I almost regretted my words as Spud looked incredulously at me for a second, let the hurt sink in and then skulked out in a broken silence. Fortunately, the rush of shame was instantly replaced by a surge of pride and relief as yet another lame duck hobbled out of my life.

Aye, we went back a long way, but those were different times.

A wee crowd come in, then to my horror I see some Scottish Office suits poke their heads round the door and wrinkle their noses before beating a hasty retreat. Potential newcomers with wallets driven out by dogged old scumbags with pennies and young cunts who seem to be consuming every drug to great excess – except, that is, the alcohol I try to make my living from by selling in this bar. It’s going to be a long first shift. I get on with it in mounting despondency, thinking of old Paula’s warm fools’ paradise.

At long last, I spy a friendly face coming into the pub, under a rash of curly hair cut shorter than I’m used to, and belonging on a much slimmer model than I could have believed. The last time I saw this man, I was convinced that he was heading for Fat Hell. It’s like he saw the signs and found the slip road for the bypass in time, and is now back on the Svelte Heaven motorway. It’s none other than the best-known former aerated waters’ salesman this fine city has ever produced, ‘Juice’ Terry Lawson, from Saughton’s Chosen Few. Terry’s a bit off his manor down here, but he’s a welcome face nonetheless. He greets me heartily and I note that his clothes have also changed for the better; expensive-looking leather jacket, Queen’s Park FC-style black-and-white hooped Lacoste top, although the effect is somewhat spoiled by what looks like Calvin Klein jeans and Timberland shoes. I make a mental note to have a word. I buy him a drink and we chat about days gone by. Terry’s telling me what he’s been up to and I have to say it sounds interesting . . . — as game as fuck, the lassies. Ye widnae believe it; viddy the scenes n pit oan a show. We’ve started tae shift some through mail order in the grotmags. At first they wir rough, but wir gittin better, takin it forward like, cause a mate’s aw pally wi this community group in Niddrie that huv goat this proper editin suite for digital vid. That’s jist the start; one ay the boys wants tae design a website, then get the credit-card details and let the cunts download what they want ontae it. Fuck aw that business shite, it’s porn that made the Internet.

— Sounds excellent, I nod, refreshing his glass. — You’re way up with play here, Terry mate.

— Aye, and ah star in thum masel. You ken me, ah eywis liked a bird, n ah wis ey intae makin a bob or two withoot daein too much graft. Plenty new young talent up for it n aw, it’s the spice ay life, he grins with great enthusiasm.

— It’s ideal for ye, Terry, I consider, thinking it was probably only a matter or time before Terry, even in his own cruddy way, got into the industry.

Terry gets in another and then I decide that Mo can manage and so move to the more comfortable side of the bar, securing two large brandy and Cokes for us first. Terry’s soon giving it the big one about it being great that I’m back up here, and with my connections in the industry we should try to start up something together. Of course, I can feel the bite coming in from about fifty yards away. — Ye see but, mate, his eyes widen, — the thing is, ah think we might be gittin bombed oot the other gaff, so ah could be lookin for a wee stay-back here.

This could prove interesting. I’m thinking about that big room upstairs. It has a bar, but now it’s put to no use at all. — No harm in sucking it and seeing, eh, Terry, I smile.

— Eh, what aboot a wee trial run the night? he asks tentatively.

I consider this for a heartbeat, then nod slowly. — No time like the present, I smile.

Terry slaps my shoulder. — Sick Boy, it’s fuckin well barry tae huv you up here. You’re a welcome burst ay positive energy, mate. Thir’s too many mumpy cunts in this city whae bring ye doon, thi’ll dae nowt, then thi’ll fuckin turn roond n moan when some other cunt hus a go. No you but, mate, you’re up fir it! And he dances with a little twist out onto the floor of the bar and snaps on his mobile and starts calling.

Come closing time, I’m trying very hard to get the wee cunts who gather round the jukey out the door. — WILL YOU FINISH YOUR DRINKS PLEASE, LADIES AND GENTS! I screech across the bar, sending some old fuckers shuffling into the night. Terry’s still gassing on the mobby. It’s those young cunts but. That nosy wee cackbag, Philip they call him, a bad little bastard that, a fistful of sovies on him, he’s clocked on that we’re up to something. And that boy Curtis, his stammering, gormless-looking mate, I saw Murphy talking to him as he went out. Birds of a feather, right enough.

I open the side door and nod to them. As they make to leave, the Philip laddie asks me: — Is thir no a stey-back, Sick Boy, his narrow, slitty wee eyes burning and gold tooth glinting. — It’s jist thit ah heard ye talkin tae that Juice Terry boy aboot it, he grins, aw cocky and pushy.

— Naw, it’s a fuckin Freemasons’ meeting, mate, I tell him, pushing his skinny frame out into the street, as his daft pal shuffles out behind him, the rest following suit.

— Thoat we’d git a stey-back, another insolent young pup smiles.

I ignore the tube but wink at a cute wee bird who follows him. She looks blankly in response before smiling slightly as she heads out. A bit too young for me though. I nod back in to Mo, who switches off the jukey, as I shut the door and repair to the bar to pour another couple of brandies for Terry and myself. A few minutes later there’s a bang, which I ignore, then the fitba standard di-di, di-di-di, di-di-di-di, di-di.

Terry’s snapped the mobby shut. — That’s oor crew, he says.

I open the door and there’s a boy I vaguely recognise and the hackles rise slightly as I’m sure he’s an old Hibs boy, but, mind you, just about everybody from twenty-five tae thirty-five years old in Edinburgh is an old Hibs boy. There’s another couple ay faces I half know but can’t put a name to. Far more impressive are the lassies: three real dolls, a chunkier, dirty-looking bird, and a cute wee specky girl who looks really out of place here. One of the dolls is particularly enticing. Light-brown hair, almost oriental eyes with well-manicured, thinly plucked eyebrows, and a small mouth but with very full lips. Fuck me, her body ripples fitly under those expensive-looking clothes. Doll
Numero Duo
is a bit younger and though not quite so elegantly togged is a million light years from unshaggable. The third is a fuckable blonde. The two wee cunts, Philip and Curtis, are still there, hanging about, clocking the company, as do I, especially the spectacularly curved Doll
Numero Uno
with that long, brown hair and sultry, arrogant grace. That one in particular seems way past Terry’s class. — What sort ay Freemason is she then? that cheeky wee Philip toss goes.

— Lodge sixty-nine, I whisper back at them, shutting the door in their faces once again, as Terry welcomes everybody with great gusto.

I turn to face my new guests. — Right, folks, we need to go upstairs, so if you just go through the door on your left, I explain. — Mo, I’ll leave you to lock up behind ye, doll.

Morag raises her eyes briefly, trying to work out what’s going on, then goes to the office and grabs her coat. I follow the crowd upstairs. Aye, this could be interesting.

15

Whores of Amsterdam Pt 2

K
atrin was my girlfriend, a German lassie from Hanover. I met her one night in Luxury, my club, about five years ago. I don’t remember the details very well. My memory’s fucked, too many drugs. I stopped the smack when I settled in Amsterdam. But even Es and cocaine, over the years they blow holes in your brain, rob you of your memories, your past. Which is fair enough, convenient even.

I’d slowly learned to respect these drugs, using them more sparingly. You could be indiscriminate in your teens and twenties, as you had little conception of your own mortality. Of course, that wasn’t to say that you’d necessarily survive this period. But in your thirties it was another matter. Suddenly, you knew you were going to die at some point, and you could feel in the hangovers and comedowns the extent to which drugs assisted this process; depleting spiritual, mental and physical resources, fuelling ennui as often as excitement. It became a mathematical problem where you played with the variables: units of drugs consumed, age, constitution and desire to get fucked up. Some people just opted out. A few kept right on to the end of the road, settling for life as one big suicide-attempt-by-instalment. I decided to maintain the same kind of life, going out, having it, but under controlled conditions. Then after one bad week, I sacked the lot, joined a gym and took up karate.