we want tae make it up . . .
we’re not like the scum they put in the prisons . . .
we want tae make it right . . .
. . . we don’t know where we’re going. We don’t know at all. This is Edinburgh. It’s winter but it’s hot and sticky under this plastic bag and we can’t fuckin well breathe here.
We’ve lost the handbag.
And their voices.
– Need a bag ower that cunt’s heid before ah’d fuck it, Gorman’s voice.
– Get away! It’s a fuckin guy ya poofy cunt! another is telling him.
– Ah’m no gonnae fuck it wi ma cock, ah’m ah ya daft cunt, bit we’ll see what we can find tae stick up this queer erse, see how much the cunt can take.
– Barry.
We’re bundled out of the car and pushed up a set of stairs. Stairs. We can see the steps under our feet. Pushed. The coon. They make us move too quick and we go over in our heels, stumbling, but they’re stopping us from falling and they are shouting obscenities at us.
– Move yir queer erse ya fuckin buftie!
– C’moan ya fuckin daft twat!
This place is derelict, we can see the broken glass under our feet. It’s abandoned, no noise but our own. We reach the top of the stairs and they throw us into a room. Then there’s more voices. A girl’s voice. I recognise it.
– Ah kent ah had seen him fae somewhaire.
Estelle.
– Did eh huv a plastic bag ower ehs heid at the time?
– Wide cunt!
I feel a sharp pain in my testicles. I cover them with my hands. My fingers knead the material of the skirt.
– Nice one Ocky!
Ocky. I’ve been kicked by Ocky.
– The thing is boys . . . and girls, it’s Lexo’s voice, – we have tae go aw the wey wi this pig. Ye ken what that means.
– Ye cannae waste a pig man, the other guy, I think his name’s Liddell, is saying.
There’s a nervous laugh from Estelle. She thinks those cunts are joking. – Ah’m no wantin nowt tae dae wi this, she says.
– Dinnae be daft Lexo, Liddell’s saying. – Ye cannae waste a pig. End of. That’s it fucked eftir that.
Another voice cuts in, gasping, frightened. – It’s nae fuckin joke . . . c’moan boys . . . ye cannae kill the boy . . . no a polisman . . . My assailant Ocky.
– You shut yir fuckin grassin wee mooth, Ghostie says, and I can sense Ocky trembling from here. – We’ll see tae you later. We ken aw aboot you pal.
– Ah’m no a grass . . . Ocky pleads.
Poor Ocky. Always between a rock and a hard place.
– Lexo’s right, Ghostie says. – This cunt kens the score. We did the boy.
– We dae him n aw, Lexo’s mocking voice continues, – Deid cunts tell nae tales. We can torch this place wi the cunt in it. Or what’s left ay the cunt in it.
One of them whips off the bag. There is a sharp light in our face and we blink. We look at them. Yes, there’s the four of them, the same four, plus Estelle and Ocky. Liddell is holding an old anglepoise lamp in my face.
The handbag is on the shelf. Setterington is mincing around with it.
But we are starting to get in control now. They shouldn’t have taken off the bag. Our face is throbbing and sore, our eyes still water, but we’re thinking again. We see them. The lamp does not bother us. They look at our unflinching gaze.
We see them.
– Look at him, what a fuckin tube, Ghostie Gorman the evil-looking little albino twat spits. He then smiles, and produces a wrap of charlie and starts rubbing it on his gums. – High grade mate, high grade. Took it oot ay yir bag thaire. Nab it fae D.S. duty, aye?
I say nothing.
– Should’ve joined the polis masel! he laughs, and the others chorus him.
I’m looking at Ocky, then at Estelle. Her face is pinched and angry. She looks at me with a raw hate as if she’s blaming me for putting her in this position. Ghostie sees me staring at her. – Like the bird here, dae ye? Sexy eh? No as sexy as you bit, eh no mate?
He pulls Estelle to him and kisses her, pushing his tongue into her mouth. She’s awkward and stiff, resisting slightly then complying. He stops and turns to me. Estelle rubs her lips. – French kissin, Ghostie explains. – That’s me gittin intae practice for the World Cup. The nosh as well. Ah went tae this French restaurant last summer there. Ye like French grub?
– No bothered, I tell him.
– The posh one off the Royal Mile, he urges. – A real French job. Ah like the garlic, me. Garlic snails.
He puckers his lips and makes a slurping sound.
– You ever go tae that place mate, Le Petit Jardin? Ghostie pronounces the restaurant name with an affected French accent.
– Naw. I never went there, I tell him.
Me and Carole never went there. I never liked French food. I always preferred going out for a curry. The Raj doon at the Shore in Leith. Tommy Miah’s place. That was always my favourite. A windae table if we could get yin. The Anarklia in Dalry Road. Carole liked the vegetarian options there.
– It wis durin the Festival, Ghostie tells me, tarrying leisurely. This cunt’s worse than Toal. – Ah goes in, in a resturant in ma ain city. The waiter comes up and sais: Do you have reservations? Ah just looks aroond . . . he twists his head haughtily around the derelict room, – and ah goes: Aye, ah do. The decor, then he looks contemptuously at me like I was the waiter, – the service, and probably the food. But I’d still like a fuckin table.
The others smirk and smile sycophantically as he goes through the pantomine. Ocky and Estelle’s grins conceal death-masks of terror, and only Lexo is unmoved, looking out the window.
Ghostie shakes his head grimly. – But naw. Nae table. No room at the inn, he shrugs. – But Le Petit Jardin shut doon for a month eftir that. Within a few hours ay us gittin bombed oot, some wee mob had steamed the place and turned it ower. Terrorised the clientele. Now ah nivir huv any bother findin a table. Treat ays like royalty, so they dae. Even wi this Edinburgh’s Hogmanay, wi aw they tourists, ah could walk in any time and they’d sort ays oot straight away.
There will be no pleading for forgiveness. They are rubbish, they are criminal scum. They are different from us. There is now no fear in us. They are weak.
– You think that impresses me, we laugh, shaking our head, – that you can get a mob ay daft wee bairns tae dae a stupid frog restaurant over? It doesnae, we shake our head mockingly, glaring into his dark eyes.
– Shut yir fuck . . . Liddell starts, putting the lamp down and moving forward.
Ghostie raises his hand. – Shut up. Let the cunt speak.
I look around at them all, then back at Ghostie. – Ah ken you mate. You hide in the mob. You are one shiting cunt. Me and you then . . . I’m staring at his cold, cold eyes. – Ah’d take you. We look round at them. – Ah’d take any one ay yis in a square go! Fuckin shitin cunts! we snarl at them.
We can see this pushes the right buttons in their spastic psychology. They are shocked. Laughing, incredulous, but taken aback. They know that they are going to have to work for what they thought would just be sport. To have to put themselves on the line in some way. We’ve cracked their fuckin code and we are challenging them to prove to us that they are what they think themselves to be. One of them, Ghostie Gorman, goes, – Right, this cunt dies. Ah’m takin um.
– Lit’s jist fuckin dae the cunt now n stoap fuckin aboot, Lexo says.
– Naw. Ah want him. Gorman looks at me and laughs loudly. – You die, he says softly.
He signals for the others to depart, and they file out tentatively. He has an old key, which he uses to lock us in this room. – The key to the house of love, he smiles, putting it on the mantelpiece.
It’s just him and us, the fuckin donkey. Without announcing our intentions, we fly at him, but he catches us with a punch to our face and it hurts and he’s all over us and we feel weak and broken under his raining blows and it shouldn’t have been like this and he’s laughing at us and the fear is here now and our despondency rises as we realise we’ve got nothing to give, we are just static. His head crashes into us and our nose explodes much worse than in the car because it’s crunched into our face and we’re choking on our own blood and we can’t breathe and there are more digging blows and our arms feel so heavy, we can’t even fuckin well lift them to hit back or block him.