CONTRETEMPS, noun, pl same, an unexpected and unfortunate occurrance, *a minor dispute or disagreement.
The coffee’s kick pushes against the drowsy effect ay the eftirnoon sun, cascading in through the window. The cashier closes the register with a ping. A fat ginger cat that reminds us ay Keezbo sprawls across a sunlit patch on the tiled floor, looking up indolently as it forces customers to either walk round or step over it.
Outside, through the half-clear, half-frosted windae, two young gadges, who were at the pinball machine earlier on, playfully jostle each other. One wears a Juve T-shirt, the team Antonio supports. A lot ay them seem tae around here, though that’s probably changed wi Napoli’s signing ay Maradona. Those poor wee fuckers; I predict loads ay pent-up sexual frustration ahead, fratellos. It’s weird the way those wee chappies hud hands here, like lassies ay that age back hame sometimes dae. And it goes right on through their teens! Imagine heading up the Walk, hudin hands with Renton, Spud, Tommy or Franco! Franco would probably enjoy it though, and I entertain the notion ay him in a cabin boy’s outfit, pulling the train up in toff class back on The Freedom of Choice. Thinking of home, my thoughts drift tae Mark and rehab, and ah pull oot the folded pages fae ma wallet. It’s the ones ah liberated from the waste-paper basket in his room, the diary and journal entries. It was all he deserved, and payment for his rudeness in dropping off when I was endeavouring to discuss key concepts. Such carelessness eywis invites a tax; you have to be on your guard in the modern world or ye get punished.
Day 21
Pulled out of a dream about Fiona, in the waking hours of the morning. I’m feeling her up against a wall, but she’s slipping through my hands as she assumes hideously demonic shapes. Even though she’s a monster, it still seems important to fuck her before I wake up … but in her ectoplasmic form it’s like trying to nail a jellyfish to a wall … I’m awake, wilting cock in hand, in a noisy twilight of birdsong.
After breakfast (porridge, toast and tea), it’s the now familiar ritual of weights on the patio with Seeker. When I get back to my room I’m buzzed but tired, normally optimum conditions for reading, but I can’t settle or concentrate. I’m beset by a terrible sensation of dread and loss, so strong it makes me shudder. Then I feel my breath catching. The room seems to swirl, and I’m aware that I’m having some kind of panic or anxiety attack and have to lie down, trying to get my breathing under control, until it subsides. It quickly passes and everything is as it was, except that I’m really shat up.
In my session with Tom, I get irritated at fuck all. He sees through it and asks what’s bugging me. I tell him that I’m feeling bad because I was a total cunt to somebody I loved, but I can’t talk about it. He suggests that I write it down in my journal. I almost have a fit again, this time in a burst of sardonic laughter, and the session ends.
I’m restless; I feel something eating at my insides. My breath catches again, even though my respiratory system is better than ever. With the weights and exercise, air’s been flooding into it like smack from a needle. Not now. I try and fight through it, recalling Kierkegaard saying ‘anxiety is the dizziness of freedom’. But maybe ah’m no meant tae be free.
I spend hours inside my own heid, thoughts bubbling with such velocity and force that I can envision my skull splitting open. Tom’s right: it seems my only option. The words need expelling before they burst out of their own accord. I go to the pages of the journal and I write.
Journal Entry: Betraying Fiona by fucking Joanne Dunsmuir
I was the one who instigated it; in the Talisman Bar at Waverley Station. Joanne and I had been drinking with Bisto and Fiona on the train up from London. It was like we couldn’t end it, couldn’t end this amazing adventure we’d just been on. We got off at Waverley, leaving Bisto Aberdeen-bound. They departed with a chaste kiss, in stark comparison to the intensity of Fiona and I’s separation at Newcastle.
We went to the station bar and had another few drinks. Joanne got distressed, saying she didn’t want anybody to know that her and Bisto were going out. The conversation developed that ferocity and profundity that can often signal trouble between genders. On some crazy impulse, I asked her for a kiss, and then we were snogging. We were both rampant.
‘What d’ye want tae dae?’ she asked, eyes fierce with purpose.
I whispered in her ear, ‘I really think we should fuck …’ I was almost creaming myself with excitement.
We left the bar and started walking wi our gear, her a backpack, me a scabby holdall, out the rear exit of the station, up the hill, to the entrance tae Calton Hill Park, where the bufties went at night. But it wisnae night, it was still late afternoon and daylight.
I’d just just left Fiona, a girl I’d fallen in love with. But this would just be sex. Fiona and I had never made any declarations, not negotiated terms as to what our life would be like. We never said we wouldn’t see other people. We weren’t pathetic and bourgeois. (I cringe as I write that word; only a student wanker uses it, but that’s how I felt.)
So Joanne and I climbed up the steps in silence, the round ornate pillars of the Dugald Stewart Monument towering above on our left. A youngish cunt in an auld gadge’s bunnet passed us as we saw the big, phallic Nelson Monument loom ahead; it reminded me why we were ascending this hill. I felt sick and giddy, but we kept walking, carrying our awkward luggage, matching each other’s stride. I watched Joanne’s red Doc Martens, her black tights, figure-hugging short skirt, jean jacket, her hair swishing to the side, sharp features in profile, backpack like it was trying to mount her. It was all unreal and dreamlike, and I almost considered running away, like a kid. But although there was something really cold and detached about it, I’d never been so fucking horny in my life. The snarls of the city traffic below us started to fade. The next symbol of how I felt, the Portuguese cannon, stood accusingly as we came up to the Nelson Monument.
Did that cunt really need another yin, here? It stands right on top of where people are keeping a round-the-clock vigil for democracy, at the site of the Scottish Parliament. And yes, they even had the words inscribed on a plaque outside:
ENGLAND EXPECTS EVERY MAN TO DO THEIR DUTY.
We stopped to look at it, both of us flabbergasted as to how blatantly and effortlessly fucked up Scotland could be. Joanne spat with venom, ‘Ah fuckin hate that! It’s like we’re nuthin! Here, in our own country! They get everything!’
I was swamped by an anger at everything; me, her, the world. The shagging moment seemed to have long passed. Then Joanne looked at me and kissed me harshly on the lips. I was instantly aroused again and we started necking. Joanne kissed well. ‘C’moan,’ I said tersely. For some reason, I thought she’d turn and walk away, but she was alongside me as we headed to the back of the park, looking over Salisbury Crags.
On the right, we saw the thick bracken, and knew it was the spot. There was a clearing in the clustered growth of ferns, trees and bushes. An oasis made for outdoor shagging. We threw our bags down and sat on the grass like a picnicking couple. In an oddly demure gesture, Joanne even smoothed out her skirt. She had a thin scar above her eye that I’d never noticed. I pulled her to me and kissed her. I licked it, the scar, and slobbered over her face like a dog. She kissed me, biting my top lip. My hand went tit-bound up her T-shirt, which she yanked off and unclipped her bra, letting me caress and fondle her small, firm breasts as she unbuttoned my jeans and pulled my prick out of my trousers, urgently saying, ‘We should fuck now … we should dae it now …’ Then she stopped, tae quickly unlace her Docs, as I pulled off my trainers.