Notes on an Epidemic 4
THE NEEDLE EXCHANGE in Bread Street, Tollcross, was shut down in the early 1980s by the police, after increasing concern about this facility had been mooted in the local press.
It meant that members of Edinburgh’s growing intravenous drug-using community no longer had easy recourse to clean injecting equipment. Consequently, people started to share syringes and needles, unaware of the threat of HIV transmission (then publicised almost exclusively as a gay man’s disease) from direct blood-to-blood contact.
Users began to get sick in hitherto unheard-of numbers, and soon some sections of the media were describing Edinburgh as ‘the Aids capital of Europe’.
The Light Hurt His Eyes
STEPPING INTO THE dusky room, his hand had instinctively reached for the light switch, before abruptly stopping. Tracing the hulking silhouette of his former brother-in-law and business associate sat in the chair, he remembered that the light hurt his eyes.
Following his exit interview at personnel, where they’d alternately humiliated and terrorised him, Russell Birch had spent most of the afternoon trying to get drunk. He’d hopped around several west Edinburgh bars, slowly fuelling his rage against the man who’d brought this nightmare down on him, who was silently ensconced in the wicker-basket chair, so still his bulk produced not even the faintest creak. Russell thought he’d been successful in his mission, but suddenly felt way too sober.
The awareness that he now faced a different ignominy, even starker and less compromising than this morning’s ordeal in that shabby office, gripped Russell and he found himself internally cursing his stupid fucking slut of a sister who had actually married this animal, in that tawdry biker ceremony in Perthshire. He burned at the memory of that wedding, with its procession of muscled-and-tattooed leather-clad freaks. But Kristen wasn’t that stupid, she soon extricated herself from the relationship. Russell hadn’t been able to do the same.
He’d come to accuse, but now recognised the inherent lunacy in such a course of action. His lot was to explain. And that was what he was trying to do, in a thin, whining reed of a voice that even offended his own ears. — They pulled me into the office, they’d caught me on these new cameras they’ve installed everywhere. Told me tae clear my desk, Russell shuddered, thinking briefly of the glacial expression on Marjory Crooks, the personnel manager. He knew the woman, they’d been colleagues. Eight years of service down the drain, and for nothing, save a couple of grand in a bank account.
Yet he found himself parroting Ms Crooks, almost verbatim, to the shadowy hulk in the chair. — They said the only reason they’d decided against criminal prosecution was due to my outstanding previous service and the adverse publicity the company would receive.
Po-faced security guards (he knew those men!) had been waiting to escort Russell on the short walk from office to street. As they prepared to embark on this humiliating hike, one of the directors had asked him, — Is there anybody else involved?
— Michael Taylor, he’d immediately said, anxious to cooperate, to try and ingratiate himself. That was his weakness; too hungry to be accepted.
— He’s a driver-stroke-storeman. Crooks had turned to the director, who had nodded twice, once in slow understanding, the second time to the sanction the security guards to continue ushering Russell Birch outside, onto the cold street.
He’d given them something, given them Michael, and received nothing in return. And now Michael would want some payback. He recalled the time his now former associate had threatened him. Russell had remained cool, countering by stating that he could easily have this conversation with his brother-in-law. Michael had gone silent, keen to keep it between them. That had been the time his tree-shagging yuppie brother had walked into Dickens in Dalry Road, of all places, with that young shag he’d then brought to their mother’s birthday party. Alexander had made a fool of himself that evening, but he’d gone home with that drunk, slutty, youthful piece of minge. But then Alexander always seemed to land on his feet. The injustice of it all torched Russell inside out.
And now he had this brooding force sitting opposite him. To think he’d got involved as a personal favour, to help him out. He was in pain, he’d said, since the crash; Russell had to help him. Then, as soon as he did, the former brother-in-law was putting the squeeze on him for more. He cut him in, of course, but Russell had been the one taking all the risks. Bags of it, stuffed inside his underpants, him waddling duck-like to the toilets like he’d had a non-industrial accident.
Now it had all come home to roost, as his mother was fond of saying. Now he was unemployed, and unlikely to get references for any job in this specialist field. The four-year BSc (Hons) in Industrial Chemistry at Strathclyde University was now a worthless piece of paper in a frame.
And as he told his former brother-in-law the story, restating the dangers of the security review he’d previously warned him about, with the new monitoring systems, a disembodied voice ripped out of the darkness, silencing him: — So what you’re saying is that yuv fucked things up, fucked things right up fir every cunt.
— But ah lost my job trying tae help you!
More silence. Russell could make out the man in the chair now. He was wearing sunglasses. His pain must be bad today; the weather had gotten colder. — You know what ye dae now?
— What?
— Ye shut the fuck up.
— But I tried tae help you … he pleaded. — Craig … The dark shape rose from the chair. He’d forgotten the gargantuan mass of his former brother-in-law. About six five, as if hewn from marble. He recalled a film he’d recently seen, featuring a bodybuilder turned actor; it was like the Terminator coming out of the mist. — I don’t think you get it. He shook his head at Russell, like a disappointed parent.
All Russell Birch could do was play out the craven, infantile role he’d been cast in. His arms extended, his head turned to the side, his shivering mouth pleading, — Craiiig …
One sharp blow to the stomach squeezed all the air out of his body. The pain was overwhelming; it couldn’t be fought down or thought away or negotiated. He doubled over, keeping a weak hand out in pathetic appeal. The immobilisation of his body didn’t surprise him, he’d no experience of violence in any form, but what got him was how feeble he was: his pulse urgent, like the keen heartbeat of a small, trapped animal.
The former brother-in-law looked down at him. — One thing has fuckin well happened. One thing only. You’ve cost me money, through yir fuckin stupidity.
He’d worked out an unsatisfying contingency plan for this moment. That the plant would eventually uncover their scam had been apparent to him for some time. But while this change in strategy would keep him in the game, it meant a decided demotion. Now he was no longer The Man. All the people he’d been supplying the quality stuff to, through in Glasgow, down in England, with their fucking useless Paki brown shite, stuff the junkies here wouldn’t look at or even know what the fuck it was, now he worked for them. And who was left working for him? Only the worthless wretch at his feet, the clown whose bitch of a sister he’d been poking a while back. He had a debt to pay off, and he needed reminding of this. — Ye still work for me. Ye fuckin drive. Anywhere ah say. London. Liverpool. Manchester. Hull. Ye pick up stuff. Ye bring it back. Goat that?