— So I keep hearing, Begbie says.
Then Cha Morrison bounds over, a big grin etched across his face. He stinks of drink, obviously from a celebration that pre-dates this one. — Better crematin that rubbish. Soas the disease cannae spread, ay-no.
Franco had thought that he would experience a violent psychonosema at those words, but there is nothing. He is breathing smoothly, and even smiles at Morrison.
Cha Morrison hasn’t envisaged this reaction, and seems genuinely upset by it. — Ken whae eh took aw that queer stuff offay? The poofy artist, Cha sneers, bending his wrist and puckering his lips, as bodies start to close in around the two men. — Ye gaunny paint ays a picture then, sweethert? Oooh, ducky, how’s the weather treatin ye in California?
— I was a bit fed up wi aw this, Franco laughs, — but you’ve fair cheered me up, with the drunken jakey act. Ah’ve kind ay missed aw that. The weather in California is very, very good, n thank you for askin. What are you daein these days? Stacking shelves at Tesco wi bairns fae the school?
— You’re a fuckin shiter. Morrison steps forward, only to feel a firm grip on his shoulder, yanking him back. He turns round to see not only Tyrone but Nelly and the boxing club boys. — I suggest you get tae fuck, while ye still can, Tyrone offers. Cha mutters something, but the boxers and Nelly are already ushering him outside, with Franco being led in the opposite direction by Elspeth. He glimpses Michael, who has moved close to the source of the commotion. — Proud ay ye, Frank, his sister is saying, — the wey ye didnae react tae that spiteful drunk. Ah never thought I’d say it, but I am.
— A little self-control goes a long way, he smiles, but never takes his eyes from the door.
He sees Tyrone come back in first, heading to the bar, followed by Nelly, a few steps behind him.
— Lucky ah didnae fuckin well go oot thaire. Joe is at his shoulder, then looking to Elspeth, — Ah’d huv fuckin well kilt the cunt. .
— Aw aye, by breathin on um? Elspeth challenges, and they start to bicker.
Fortunately, Mickey and some of the boys have come back in, and Franco gratefully heads over to meet them. Mickey tells him what happened, that they just kept the peace. Nelly cracked Cha on the jaw, but then he staggered off down the road, and a brutal stomping was averted. — He was swearing revenge on everybody, but it was aw just drunkard’s talk.
— Sound. Thanks, Mickey, he says, almost feeling sorry for Morrison, for so long in the frame to be his defining nemesis, but replaced first by Donnelly, and then Seeker. — I didnae want any scenes here, no today. Franco slaps his back. — I should go and thank Tyrone and Nelly. I was a wee bit out of order with the fat man last time I saw him. . And he is ready to head over to make his peace at the bar, when he sees Frances Flanagan furtively scanning the room, then slipping out the door. Her behaviour suggests she intends her exit to remain undetected, and is going further than the toilet. She’d said they needed to talk. They would do that. Franco makes some lavatory excuses and heads off, following her outside, relieved to escape them all. He gets into the street and looks down the road.
Frances seems to have vanished in the drizzle, but she’s only crossed over to the Links side of the street, and is cutting through the park. He sets off in pursuit and catches up with her, walking behind her. His eyes instinctively go to her arse. The undulating movement of her buttocks beguiles him for a second, then he recalls discussions with Melanie about the objectifying male gaze, and he lifts his eyes to take in all of her frame. He thinks about men looking at his daughters in that way, as they grew up. What would he do? He would kill them. Tear them apart. Toast the memory of their stares with a pint of their still-warm blood.
No. Breathe. One. Two. Three.
By a large oak tree, he pulls up alongside her. — Awright?
She stops and tenses, her startled eyes wide as she looks at him. Then she glances across the near-deserted park. — Aye. .
— No fancy steyin?
— Nup. No wi that Larry there, she says, scowling. — He ey tries tae go hame wi ays.
— Seems like a few people go hame wi you.
She looks him up and down, finding her confidence. — What’s that meant tae mean? What’s it tae you?
— Like oor Sean?
He can see that hits her like a fist to her stomach. — Nup. . he wisnae like that. We were mates.
It is now Frank Begbie’s turn to feel something strike him forcibly inside. He wasnae like that. He’d considered Cha Morrison’s taunts to be standard wind-ups, but they now seem to have some basis in fact. What sort of young man would be content with being ‘mates’ with a girl like this? But it’s all too much to think about right now. He sucks in some air and tries to reset himself. — Still surprised ye never steyed for a wee peeve. Ye like a drink, ah hear.
— Ah’m sober for three weeks, n even if ah wis drinkin ah widnae wi that Larry aroond.
— What aboot drinkin wi me? Franco suggests, as a maroon-and-white Lothian Transport bus pulls up in the road adjacent to the park. Up ahead, some gulls sit on the sodden football pitches, as if ground-nesting. — Mibbe having that wee chat we were talking aboot?
Frances wraps her arms around herself. — Ah’m AA, she says, evidently disappointed at her own announcement.
— Me tae, Franco smiles. — Well, no AA cause ah cannae be arsed wi meetings, but ah dinnae drink, ay. Let’s get a coffee. You near here?
— Aye, this wey, she says, nodding across the misty Links, and they set off together.
Walking with a young woman, in Leith, takes Franco back to an earlier self still brimming with possibilities, before the ever-tightening vice of violence began to shut down his options. Despite feeling the cold insinuating itself into his chest, he is oddly at peace, as he saunters through the haar like a ghost: a man of this place, yet almost dreamily detached from it. He listens to her talk, enjoying the soothing rhythms of her feminine Edinburgh accent, how she emphasises some words like a question. It is stock AA stuff; her conversation peppered with terms like journey and closure, but it sounds awkward and performative, like a kid wearing a set of ill-fitting adult clothes. At one point, she arches a brow and asks him, — How do you stey sober when you don’t go to meetings?
— Ah dinnae drink.
— But it’s a disease, and –
— Is it fuck, he scoffs. — It’s called choice. Ah chose tae be a bam. Now ah’m choosin no tae be. Simple as that. Ye go tae these meetings and they’re full ay so-called sober jakeys, wiring themselves full ay nicotine and caffeine and obsessing aboot peeve.
— But what dae ye dae when ye feel that pull?
— Paint and sculpt. Fling on my tracksuit and go for a run. Glove up and hit a bag.
Frances is silent at that, and for the rest of the way to her Halmyres Street flat. After one cup of coffee, during which she grows more nervous, fidgeting with the cup, Frank Begbie declares, — Ah’m gaunny get us a cairry-oot.
— Ah dinnae. . she starts.
— It’s up tae you whether you have a drink or no, he states, and he heads outside and down to the off-licence, returning a short while later with half a dozen bottles of red wine.
— I dinnae. . Frances protests again, never taking her eyes off the wine.
— You do. You want one, Franco says, sitting at the table, as he opens a bottle with a corkscrew he’d bought in the shop, — ah kin tell, and he pours the wine into two tumblers, as she has no wine glasses. — A nice wee civilised glass of wine, he sings, though he knows that his will only be for show.