I don’t know how long I’ve been soaking up dosser life. A year anyway, maybe longer. Most of my time’s been spent at the Holy Wall, listening to Col’s sermons, but never acting on them. He’s funny that way: deep in his religion. It’s like we’re both a world apart, which truth be told, is probably just what I need.
I know his heart’s in the right place. He wants to motivate me, get me back into the life. But I already know I don’t want it. I haven’t the stomach for it. All I want now is a few beers of an evening, plenty of whisky chasers. Some good books would be nice, and maybe a dog. Would have to be a mutt, a real mongrel. Mutts are definitely the most loyal.
‘You can keep the rest — possessions, people, respect,’ I thought as I strolled through the city.
Everywhere the old place was being torn down, brand new glass and chrome apartments going up in place of memories. I just didn’t buy into this new lifestyle thing. I aimed for an anti-lifestyle. Trendy magazines weren’t queuing up to feature my idea of happiness in their glossy pages.
I headed up Abbeyhill in the East End, on my way to Calton Hill. It’s the place they put on all the postcards. Edinburgh — the place to be, huh? City of spires and cobbled streets. Tartan and bagpipes. A culture capital, a gourmet’s delight… don’t get me started: I know the real story.
Now, with most days to myself, I like to take to the high ground and look down. Just watch the place. Think about the time I played a role in the mess, before I fell off the merry-go-round.
Seagulls squawked overhead, threatened to shit on me. I looked up, shouted, ‘Bugger off, would you?’
Bloody vermin. Rats with wings, that’s what they are. Birds and me don’t get on, just ask my soon to be ex-wife.
‘Piss off, vermin,’ I yelled.
An old woman stuck out her bobble-hatted head.
‘Sorry, missus,’ I said. A killer frown fired at me. ‘Sorry, again.’
I slunk off to a bench. Dipped into my mobile mini-bar. It’s very mini — I only carry the basics — quarter bottle of scoosh in a brown paper bag.
I know, I know. A real jakey look with the bag. But I like it. There’s an honesty about it. The first time I bought a quarter bottle and the bloke in Booze and News put it in a brown bag I thought, ‘No way.’ Simply too dero, even for me.
I carried it about, rustling inside my pocket for hours before I could touch it. But when I did, it felt like I’d put on a badge of honour that read: ‘I drink! Get over it!’
A few quick shots settled me down. Always does the trick. Nothing like it for cooling the blood.
I tucked away the scoosh and ferreted for a piece of paper with some details from Col. ‘What am I getting into now?’ I thought. I’d enough to deal with on my own without taking on someone else’s problems. But like they say, I could hardly say no.
The note was written on Basildon Bond. Col’s careful copperplate handwriting listed some of the people I should talk to about Billy. People who knew him before his very public demise.
I scanned the names. ‘Christ, Billy, you were a silly boy, weren’t you?’ I whispered.
The list read like a police round-up. I knew some of old. Mostly, they were small-time crims and hard men. Knuckle breakers and old pugs. I wouldn’t be too keen to drop in on any for a chat.
Some of the names made me think. Made me think I wanted to fire down some more whisky. It’s the drinker’s way: it burns, so you drink and it doesn’t. But this was Col’s gig. The holding-folding in my pocket was for finding his boy’s killer, not pissing up the wall.
I got moving.
Started to roll over what Col had told me.
There was a girl in the picture, her name was Nadja, and she gave Col what the Scots call the bowk. For a placid guy he’d got pretty steamed up at the mention of her. I reckoned her to be a long shot to begin with, but Col supplied a number for her, and I had to start somewhere.
I picked up my mobi. It stank of fags: Benson’s.
‘Hello? Hello there, my name’s Gus Dury.’
Silence.
I heard breathing on the other end of the line.
‘Hello,’ I said again, ‘I was wondering if… Look, is this Nadja? Billy’s father, Col, gave me your number.’
‘This is Nadja.’ The accent sounded thick, Eastern European. She reminded me of the Bond character Onatopp. I hoped she wasn’t going to be as much trouble.
I kept it brief. ‘I wondered if we could meet. I’d like to talk to you about Billy.’
I expected a few tears. Word shuffling at least, but got, ‘I have nothing to say.’
I moved the phone to my other hand. ‘Look, I knew Billy a bit, and I really think-’
She cut me off. ‘That means no-thing to me.’ The phone got shuffled, hand to hand. ‘You are finished, yes?’
I drew in the big guns, showed her I wasn’t messing here. ‘Look, lady, if I’m finished with you already, the filth’s my next stop.’
Silence, again.
I pitched my tone to a whisper, got that edge of menace in there. ‘You hearing me?’
She let that bounce about a bit, then the line fizzed from her end. ‘There is a place, the Shandwick, do you know it?’
A hotel in the New Town, the classier end, green and tweeds territory. ‘Yeah, George Street. Bit outta my league.’
‘Be there at three.’
I put the phone down, the screen misted over. My mind felt pretty cloudy too.
I had a few hours to play with so trailed the cobbles down to Leith Walk and on to the Bull’s Head. Inside I ordered a Jim Beam and chased it with another. Felt the fire of it settle my insides and raised the glass again. The heavy barman, gut like a wrecking ball, promptly filled up.
A danger sign flashed in my mind, ‘Steady, Gus.’ A siren wailed, but got howled out by a gale of cravings. In the mirror over the bar I caught sight of someone I half recognised. His skin looked white as a maggot, his eyes dipped in mustard. I took a drink and instantly felt just like when you’re in the station and the train next to yours starts to move.
I stared at myself some more. I looked rough as guts and only half as welcoming. I thought, ‘I wouldn’t like to bump into myself on a dark night.’
My hair looked too long and I had the bloated Jim Morrison, Paris ’71 look about me — the way he looked on four packs of Marlboro and a couple of bottles of brandy a day.
I kept hearing ‘The End’. Round and round in my head, ‘This is the e-e-end’. After a power of drink I passed out. Came to with bats swooping me. My hands shook so badly I missed with every swipe at them. But they soon left. They never last long. And anyway, it’s the buzzards you really need to worry about.
I glanced up at the barman; he polished a pint glass, arm rested on his gut. He’d missed my blackout and I didn’t want to stay for him to catch the next one. I got up to leave.
In the daylight outside, I squinted. The sun started to creep through the clouds. I stumbled into the touristy centre of the city. Kilted mannequins strayed from every shop front and cutesy Greyfriars Bobby dogs begged to be picked up and drop-kicked into touch.
‘Enough’s enough,’ I thought. ‘Get me back to the East End and some blue-collar bliss.’
The Scott Monument looked black against the skyline, casting a shadow toward the tightly packed tenements of the Old Town. A breeze brought up the city smog, blew it down Princes Street. Diesel fumes, strong enough to taste, swirled about. The only thing that knocks out those babies is the brewery fumes. I thanked Christ for their absence.
I felt no joy to be this deep in the heart of a chocolate box. A crippling embarrassment crept up on me, and I pulled up my collar. All very Mel Gibson in Conspiracy Theory — but who was I kidding?
‘The way you look, Dury, your own mother would be lucky to pick you,’ I told myself.
On the pavement an American tourist stopped me. He looked like he’d just walked from the pages of a Ralph Lauren catalogue. All veneered teeth and spray-on tan. Hitting fifty, but fighting it. He smarmed at me; I expected to be asked something as dumb and inane as all Americans ask when they stop you on Princes Street. Something like: ‘Can you tell me how to get to Rabbi Burns’ synagogue?’
I tried a side step. Tourist was light on his feet, obviously working out too. He jumped before me and produced a Groucho Marx style cigar. ‘Have you a match, buddy?’ he said.
I looked him in the eye and hit him with: ‘Not since Errol Flynn died!’
He stepped back to let me pass. As I walked off, I glanced round to catch him put his mouth into an O and remove the cigar, stupefied.
Some people are so easy to set straight. But something told me Nadja might not be such a pushover.