— Sorry to interrupt, but we have enough for a special VIP tape. The man points to a security camera above the door, its red eye blinking. He hadn’t even seen it.
— What’s going on? Euan looks at Jasmine, who can’t meet his eyes. As he dismounts her, she rolls away and promptly shrinks out of the room.
— Doctor Who? Welcome tae the Tardis. The man flashes a direful, violating smile. — I’m the owner of these premises. The name’s Syme. Victor Syme.
— What do you want? Is this how you run a business –
— I want you tae go and see your brother-in-law. Up at the City Cafe in Blair Street. In half an hour. He’ll tell you all you need tae know.
The podiatrist is chopped to the quick by the sneering certainty of this man. Deathly still, it’s his piercing green eyes that do the real talking. In an attempt to grab some control of the situation, Euan finds his professional voice. — But why are you taping me? What’s it got to do with Simon?
— I don’t like repeating myself, Doc. If you make me do it again, you’d best use your inside knowledge and tell me now exactly which A&E unit you would prefer to be taken to, Syme says, so cold and inanimate. — One more time: the City Cafe in Blair Street. Now go.
Held fast in a vice of his own silence, the naked podiatrist pulls on his clothes. All the time, he feels the pimp’s eyes on him, and is relieved to get outside.
On his way up to the City Cafe, Euan’s brain is a riot of confusion. The violent knot in his gut tells him that this latest disaster has made an already-terrible situation interminably more perilous. His certainty is that this is a blackmail scenario. The concept of forgiveness from Carlotta is like an elusive radio frequency which his mind tunes in to and out of. One minute totally dead, the next blaring beautiful, infinite possibilities at him. The confusion of international travel followed by the ambivalence of the last few days, on Tinder and in the saunas, that incessant veering between elation and despair; it now merely seems training for this new horror, which has yet to fully unravel.
I should have stayed on the year’s career break, travelled round the world, whoring my heart out. Why did I come back? But indulging his baser instincts only seemed to make matters worse. Or maybe go back to work, he considers, rent a flat, be a dutiful weekend dad to Ross, and live as a single shagger, the life that he obviously felt, beneath the threshold of consciousness, was groundlessly denied him. Even with Syme’s intervention and this horrific tape, the latter still seems the most rational course of action.
But there is Carlotta, his beautiful Carra… though he’s burnt his boats there, surely. Erred fatally. Neither his wife nor his son could un-see those horrible, perverse images. They sickened even him, the loose skin on his arms, the sack of flesh across his lower gut, his beady, budgerigar eyes. Then he vanished for months off the face of the earth. And now they might be seeing even more, the model husband and father with a prostitute!
And fucking Simon!
He steps into the City Cafe, enraged as he sees, sitting at a table in the corner, the man who has occasioned all this torment and twisted liberation. Simon David Williamson looks up at him with a sad smile. He has an Americano coffee, turning the large cup in his hands, never taking his eyes off Euan.
— What the fuck is going on, Simon? Why are you here?
— Carlotta asked me to find you, Simon Williamson says. — I’ve been coming back up here every fucking weekend, he exaggerates, — when I should be running my fucking business. Colleagues London and, potentially, Colleagues Manchester. Not Colleagues Edinburgh. You know why? Because I haven’t fucking set up a Colleagues Edinburgh… He cuts himself short as he seems to really see Euan for the first time. — You look gey shelpit, he says, surprising himself with his couthie Scots affectation.
— I’ve been travelling, he says, unable to stifle a sad groan in his voice. — How are Carlotta and Ross?
— You fuck off to Thailand, and don’t call them. Disappear off the fucking face of the globe. How the fuck do you think they are?
Euan hangs his head in miserable shame.
— Fucking hooring over there and doing the very same back here, I’ll wager.
Euan glances up at Simon. In his brother-in-law’s eyes he sees himself as old and depleted, pathetic and wretched. — And now your friend Syme has fucking filmed me with a prostitute!
Simon Williamson looks around, casting a sour eye on the premises and its patrons. The City Cafe hasn’t changed, but it now seems long past its cool heyday and the clientele has aged with it. He waves his phone. — First, he’s not my friend, he emphatically states. — But yes, he took great delight in telling me. I had asked him to look out for you, but I didn’t think you’d be so daft. Or that he’d stoop so low. I overestimated you both. You should have stayed the fuck in Thailand.
— What do you mean?
— I mean you fucked up badly. A gentleman is always discreet. And this life, Euan, it isn’t you…
— Well, it obviously is, as it’s the one I’m leading.
Williamson’s eyebrows rise. — Yes, so I’ve heard from Syme, the proverbial horse’s mouth on these matters. To paraphrase James McAvoy as Charles Xavier in X-Men: First Class, ‘Shagging hoors will not bring you peace, my friend.’
Euan meets his brother-in-law’s stare with a cold, implacable one of his own. — To paraphrase Michael Fassbender as Magneto’s reply, ‘Not shagging hoors was never an option.’
Sick Boy cackles loudly and rocks back in the chair. — Fuck me, I’ve created a Frankenstein’s monster here, he says, then leans forward, putting his elbows on the table, resting his head on his fists and letting his tone assume gravity. — I never thought I’d utter these words in a million years, but for God’s sake, think of your wife and kid.
— That’s what I’ve been doing. It’s why I couldn’t stay in Thailand. I need to see them…
— But?
— But I’m coming to terms with the sort of man I really am and I’m thinking that they are far better off without me. I’ve had those desires for years. The difference is that I’m now acting on them.
— That’s a big difference. That’s the crucial difference. So stop all the proddy bullshit.
— I don’t think I can stop seeing other women now. Euan shakes his head sadly. — Something has been unleashed.