Lizzie versus Begbie. Could anything be less of a contest? At twenty-two he’s too old to be fighting boys from Aberdeen, or Lochend for that matter. It’s nonsense. You grow out of that shite. That Kevin McKinlay boy from Lochend’s sound. He met him recently, playing football. They crossed swords before and on seeing him in the changing rooms at the Gyle, Tommy was geared up for a confrontation or at least a hateful stare and a snub. But the McKinlay boy just nodded and smiled at him, as if to say: Water under the bridge. Silly boys’ stuff. All over now.
It’s different with bams. There’s never any water under the bridge. There are no bridges. One day they’ll be MALT: Middle Aged Leith Team, and still fighting the old battles of their youth. Not him. Now, for the first time, he’s seeing that there really is a way out of this, and it’s all so simple. You don’t have to run away. You just meet somebody special and step sideways into a parallel universe. Tommy has never been in love before. He’d wanted to with previous girls but he hadn’t felt it. Now it’s squeezing at every part of him; beautiful, silly, obsessive and taking up all his time and thoughts. He’s hungry to get back to Lizzie, with a desperation that completely unnerves him.
Alison, laying down a tray of toast and tea on the glass coffee table, now saw her family home as a hotchpotch of furniture from different eras. In the small front room a seventies teak fireplace jostled for space with a Victorian mahogany chest of drawers, a contemporary oak-framed suite, while the blobs of a sixties lava lamp grew fat before launching themselves north. Her father, Derrick, had never been able to give up on an old piece of furniture, simply shuffling it around the house. Now his mind seemed as full of unconnected clutter as she watched him attempt to interrogate her brother, Calum. — You think ah dunno what yir up tae? Think ah wis born yesterday?
Calum’s disdainful look seemed to say: If ye were born yesterday that would make ye a greetin-faced bairn. So, aye, it sortay fits.
— Eh? Answer us!
Calum remained mute, having barely spoken two words to anyone since their mother’s death. Alison knew this wasn’t good. Nonetheless, she sympathised with her brother, hating it when their father was like this. She’d always considered him a clever man, but grief and anger had rendered him stupid. Had he any idea what a spaz he looked with that retarded tache, crouched hung-over in front of the lecky bar fire, that tartan dressing gown hanging over his thin shoulders?
Derrick couldn’t hold back another dose of cliché. — It’s just that ah dinnae want ye tae make the same mistakes ah did.
— It’s only natural, Cal, Alison supportively intervened. — Dad widnae be human if he didnae care … right, Dad?
Derrick Lozinska chose to ignore his oldest daughter, remaining focused on his son. Calum’s eyes were on the soundless TV where Daffy Duck silently scammed a bemused Porky Pig. — Ye ken fine well what that crowd are. Trouble. Big trouble. Ah ken. Ah seen yis, mind!
This couldn’t be contested. Their father regularly bored Alison by recounting his unfortunate witnessing of the Baby Crew in action. That ambush at the Crawford Bridge at Bothwell Street; mob on mob, then in pursuit of an escaping group of Rangers fans. Calum had been to the fore, with a piece of broken stone cladding in his hand. When she’d asked her brother for his version of the events, he hadn’t denied it, just retorted that Derrick and his dingul mate shouldn’t have been there, as nobody went that way but away fans and boys looking for an off.
Calum hit the handset, changed the channel. Alison looked at the screen. That auld bag wi aw the make-up oan her coupon’s reading the lunchtime news. Funny, she usually does the evenings.
— A brick in his hand! Ready tae fling it intae a crowd! Derrick appealed to Alison again. She dutifully shook her head, though the image of her brother holding a brick in the street inexplicably amused her.
As Calum looked at his father, Alison could almost see his derisive, silent thoughts: A piece ay stane claddin, ya radge, no a fuckin brick!
Derrick shuddered, shaking his tired head. — Borstal, that’s where he’s headed.
— They call it approved school now. Polmont, Calum informed him.
— Dinnae get smart! Disnae matter what they flamin well call it, you’re joinin nae casuals, no at this game or any other!
— Ah’m no joinin nowt! Tryin tae listen tae the news …
Calum’s attention was focused on a shot of a place Alison recognised. It was the Grapes of Wrath pub, down near the Bannanay flats, where Simon came from. She heard Mary Marquis in voiceover, — … spearheading a new campaign to prevent local publicans becoming the victims of violence.
Then there was a shot of this old guy, the pub landlord, sitting all spazzy in a wheelchair, drooling out the side of his mouth, talking like a wheezing dummy about how some thugs had done him over and wrecked the boozer. Alison remembered that one: it was rumoured to be three guys from Drylaw, but they were never found.
They cut to this stern-faced polisman, Robert Toal, of Lothian and Borders Polis. — This is just one of the disturbing cases that have recently come to light, where an upstanding member of the community was brutally assaulted and robbed on his own premises, in broad daylight. In this case, the victim’s injuries have left him disabled and unable to continue working in the licensing trade. It’s sad that people who provide a community service are no longer safe in their own hostelries. Unfortunately, cash-based businesses are extremely vulnerable to this kind of attack.
They cut back to the quashed and downcast Dickson, wretchedly declaring, — All I wanted was to do was ma job ay work …
Cut to an exterior shot of the Water of Leith, the sun glinting off the river offering a sedate ambience, before the camera rose slowly to a bleak, disused factory on its banks, evoking an air of ruined menace, and finally, back to Mary in the studio. — A sad tale indeed, she sympathetically declared. — But now over to the sports desk, as we’ve a full Scottish football fixture card this afternoon. Tom?
— Indeed we do, Mary, said a svelte-looking youngish guy in a suit, — and it’s John Blackley’s Hibernian who have the unenviable task of trying to derail the all-conquering Aberdeen bandwagon of Alex Ferguson. But if the Hibs boss is nervous at the prospect, he’s doing a good job of concealing it …
And they cut to Sloop, trademark ginger hair greying slightly at the temples. Alison remembered how he’d come to the school one time, to present some prizes on sports day. She was glad of the Hibs feature; it allowed father and son to continue their temporary truce.
Alison didn’t really get the casual thing. Spending money on decent clothes, then rolling around in gutters brawling, it seemed perverse and self-defeating to her. Her dad, after initially approving on the grounds of smartness of dress, soon grew hostile. He confessed that whenever he saw Calum’s eyes peeking girlishly out from behind that daft fringe, it just enraged him. Made him want to take a pair of scissors to that hair. There was an insolence about it, he argued.
Nonetheless, Calum and Mhairi were going through some kind of hell. They were young, angry and scared. I’m not doing much better, Alison thought, picking up a magazine.
As the feature on Hibs finished, Alison saw Derrick draw in a creaky breath and steel himself, knowing he was going to start on her brother again. — You’re gaun tae nae fitba, n that’s that. Ah dinnae want ye joinin up wi they … he spat the word out, — casuals.