As I talk my body involuntarily tenses further in anticipation of a violent dig, but Franco just listens patiently, drawing in firm breaths ay the sterile air. A couple of times I feel he’s fighting down the urge tae speak, as stewards and passengers jostle past us. When I finish my breathless spiel, he just nods. — Right.
I am flabbergasted. I would back away in disbelief if there was anywhere tae go in this narrow space we find ourselves trapped in. — Right… what do you mean by ‘right’?
— I mean that I get it, he shrugs, — I understand that ye needed tae get oot. You were fucked wi drugs. I was fucked wi violence n peeve. You got that ye had to escape fae where we were, long before I ever realised it.
What the fuck?
— Well, aye, is all I can say. I ought to be terrified, but I’m no getting the vibe that I’m being set up. I can scarcely believe that it’s Franco. He would never have had this mindset, or even been comfortable using those words before. — I didnae use the right escape vehicle though, Frank, I confess, both humbled and embarrassed. — I betrayed my mates. For better or worse, you, Sick Boy, Spud and Second… Simon, Danny and Rab, you were my friends.
— Ye fucked Spud by giein him the money. He was right back oan the skag. Franco breaks out his cold, bloodless expression, that one that used to set me on edge, as it was one that generally preceded violence. But now things seem different. And there was nothing I could say about Spud. It was true. That three thousand two hundred quid hadnae helped him at all. — Had ye done the same for me, you’d have probably fucked me with the drink. He lowers his voice as another stewardess passes us. — Actions seldom have their intended consequences.
— That’s true, I stammer, — but it’s important tae me that you know –
— Let’s no talk aboot all that. He raises the palm of his hand, shaking his head, and half shutting his eyes. — Tell me where you’ve been, what you’ve been up tae.
All I can dae is comply. But I’m thinking about his journey as I go through my yarn. After Franco’s attempted attack on me back in Edinburgh, even though I knew he was banged up, I became a very mobile DJ manager, rather than the landlocked club promoter I’d previously been. A manager is always on the move. He follows his clients all over the globe; dance music now has no frontiers, blah, blah, blah. But it was an excuse: a reason tae travel, tae keep moving. Aye, ripping off that poxy few grand delineated my life as much as his. Probably more.
Then this beautiful lassie with collar-length blonde hair comes up tae us. She has a slim, athletic build, with a long, swan-like neck, and eyes that exude a sort of tranquillity. — There you are, she says, smiling at Franco and turning tae me, urging an introduction.
What the fuck?
— This is Mark, an old friend of mine from Leith, the cunt goes, almost sounding like fucking Sick Boy impersonating Connery’s Bond. — Mark, this is my wife, Melanie.
I’m giddy with shock. My sweating palm reaches into my pocket tae the comforting bottle of Ambien. This is not my auld mate and deadly nemesis, Francis James Begbie. The horrible possibility dawns on me: perhaps I’ve been living ma life in fear ay a man who no longer exists. I shake Melanie’s soft, manicured hand. She stares at me in puzzlement. The cunt has obviously never even fuckin mentioned ays! I can’t believe that he’s moved on, tae the extent that the guy who ripped him off and caused him to be badly injured, his (ex) best mate, disnae even warrant being idly mooted tae his missus!
But Melanie confirms this when she says, in an American accent, — He never discusses his old friends, do you, honey?
— That’s cause maist ay them are in jail, and you know them, he says, at last sounding a little like the Begbie I knew. Which is simultaneously scary and oddly reassuring. — I met Mel in prison, he explains. — She was an art therapist.
Something flares in my mind, a blurry face, a snatch ay conversation half heard in a noisy club through an E rush or coke rant: maybe fae my veteran DJ Carl, or some Edinburgh head in the Dam on holiday. It was something about Frank Begbie becoming a successful artist. I never gave it any credence or dominion in my consciousness. Any mention ay his name ah just tuned out. And this was the maist outlandish and improbable ay the many myths circulating aboot him.
— You don’t look the jailbird type, Melanie says.
— I’m more of a prison warden-cum-social worker type.
— So what you do for a living?
— I manage DJs.
Melanie raises her eyebrows. — Would I know any?
— DJ Technonerd is my most famous.
Franco looks blank at this information, but not so Melanie. — Wow! I know his stuff. She turns to him. — Ruth went to one of his gigs in Vegas.
— Yes, we have a residency there, at the Wynn Hotel, the Surrender nightclub.
— Steppin in, steppin out of my life, you’re tearin my heart out, baby… Melanie hums DJ Technonerd’s, or Conrad Appeldoorn’s, latest hit.
— Ah ken that yin! Franco announces, sounding very Leith in his enthusiasm. He looks at me as if he’s impressed. — Nice one.
— There’s another name you might recognise, I venture, — mind ay Carl Ewart? N-Sign? Was big in the nineties, or maybe more the noughties? Mates wi Billy Birrell, the boxer?
— Aye… was he no a sort ay albino guy, a buddy ay Juice Terry? Stenhoose boy?
— Aye. That’s him.
— He’s still DJing? Ye never hear ay him now.
— Aye, he moved into film soundtracks, but he split up with his missus, hit a bad patch, and let Hollywood doon wi a score for a big studio movie. He cannae get any mair film work, so ah’m masterminding his DJing comeback.
— How’s that gaun? Franco asks, as Melanie shifts her look between us like she’s watching a tennis rally.
— So-so, I admit, although shit would be better. Carl’s passion for music has gone. It’s aw ah can dae tae get the cunt oot ay bed and behind the decks. As soon as the gig is finished, vodka and racket takes over and I, only too often, get dragged along in the slipstream. Like in Dublin last night. When I was a promoter based in Amsterdam, I used to keep fit. Karate. Ju-jitsu. I was a machine. Not any longer.
As the guy vacates the toilet, Melanie goes inside. I try tae no even think about how lovely she is, as I’m certain that Franco will read my mind. — Listen, buddy, I drop ma voice, — it’s no how I thought this would play out, but we have a wee bit ay catching up to do.
— Do we?
— Aye, cause there’s that issue that needs tae be resolved in your favour.
Franco looks oddly bashful, then shrugs and says, — We should swap numbers.
As we’re exchanging contact details, Melanie reappears, and we return to our respective seats. I sit back down, apologising effusively to the corpulent cunt, who ignores me but wears a scandalised perma-pout, passive-aggressively rubbing his beefy thigh. I shudder in the sort ay fear and excitement I huvnae experienced for years. The nervous flying drunk looks at me in bleary, jittery empathy. Meeting Frank Begbie under those circumstances is telling me the universe has gone arse-over-tit.
I pop another Ambien, and drift off into a half-sleep, my mind restless and looping on life’s themes. Thinking about how it hardens and stultifies you…