The comic whispered, ‘If you call me a poof again, I’ll kill you,’ and smashed his forehead into the bridge of Magnus’s nose. There was a moment of pain and blindness. Magnus’s face was warm with blood and there was a fire klaxon sounding in his head. He grabbed a bath towel and held it to his nose.
‘That is what is known as a Glasgow kiss.’ Johnny turned to look at the Dongolites rumpled together on the couch. ‘Did I tell you my dad was Scottish?’
‘You did, John, yes,’ one of them replied, his voice soft, as if he feared he might be next.
Johnny said, ‘Trust nae cunt, son,’ in an accent that would pass muster on Sauchiehall Street. He squatted next to Magnus who was crouched in the bathroom doorway, the bloody towel still clutched to his face, and ruffled his hair. ‘Can you guess why I gifted the gig to you, Mags? Because you’re an ideal warm-up man, no one has to worry about the crowd peaking too early. As my old dad would say, you’re never going to set the heather on fire. I’m happy to have you on board, but don’t take fucking liberties. Now piss off out of here.’
Three
Magnus turned into a lane by the side of the hotel and leaned against the wall, head tipped back in the hope that gravity would help stem the gush of blood from his nose.
The hint of light he had seen reaching through the curtains was merely a nicotine dawn. It was a while since anyone had punched Magnus, but the pain was part of his body’s memory and it recognised and embraced it. Just as it had the time Murdo McKechnie ‘accidentally’ kicked a football into his face in P3. And on the night Rab Murchison decided Magnus was a ‘bloody nancy boy’ and smashed L O V E then H A T E into his ‘poof nose’. And on the only occasion his father had punched him. That last one he had deserved.
He felt his face swelling and realised that there was a good chance it would be him, and not Johnny Dongo, who would need an understudy tomorrow.
‘Fuck!’
Magnus spat a stream of blood and mucus on to the ground. He took off his jacket and shirt, held the shirt to his face and zipped the jacket over his naked chest. Blood was still running down into his throat from his ruined nose and he spat again.
He felt in his pocket for his wallet to check he had enough money for a cab, but it was empty. Magnus shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans and drew out the crumpled fiver dusted with coke. He already knew what had happened. He had followed a routine formed by years of dodgy, shared dressing rooms and taken his valuables on stage with him. His money and debit card were in the pocket of his sharp blue suit, zipped in its garment bag, still slung across the couch in Johnny Dongo’s hotel room.
Magnus slid down the alley wall and squatted on his haunches. He could probably face the humiliation of seeing Johnny again, but the night porter on duty at the reception desk possessed the bulk and Zen of Mike Tyson. The big man had been woken by the ping of the lift and raised his face from the reception desk as Magnus emerged into the lobby. Magnus had held his hands in the air and walked to the exit. But the porter had rubbed rabbit-pink eyes with grazed knuckles and shadowed him to the door, complaining about the bloodstains dripping on to the lobby carpet and detailing in a low voice, hoarse with a summer cold, the kind of things that happened to people who bled without consideration. Magnus could still feel the point, low on his spine, where the big man had shoved him into one of the rotating door’s compartments and spun him from the hotel. There was no prospect of going back there.
He slid his mobile from his pocket and then remembered that its battery was dead.
‘Fuck!’
He hurled the phone across the alley. It hit the brick wall on the other side and smashed open. The battery bounced from its casing, skittered across the ground and disappeared beneath one of the large container bins that serviced the hotel. This time Magnus did not bother to swear. He rose unsteadily to his feet, crossed the alley, lowered himself on to his hands and knees and looked beneath the container. It was dark, but he thought he could see the battery. He stretched a hand towards it, flinching at the touch of grit and detritus, but the battery was out of reach. Magnus stood and put his weight against the bin. Its wheels were padlocked and it refused to move. It was a problem beyond his ability. He gave the container a kick that hurt his foot and then slithered to the ground, rested his back against the bin and closed his eyes.
Magnus woke slumped on his side. His mouth was dry, his face a dull thump of blood and bruise. He had no idea where he was except that it wasn’t bed, it wasn’t home. Something touched his feet. Magnus batted out a hand, and drew up his knees, sharp to his chin. He had been on stage bathed in the audience’s laughter and then… Oh God. It all came back to him in a rush of shame and vomit. He wiped his mouth on the blood-crusted shirt still clutched in his hand, like a baby’s security blanket.
He had no idea of how long he had slept. Magnus struggled upright and looked towards the mouth of the alley. It was brighter, the sun higher in the sky, but there was a lack of traffic noise that made him think it was still early. Something rattled at the dark end of the lane and he found himself drawing deeper into the shadows thrown by the hotel bins. His mother had warned him more than once of the fall that followed pride. And here he was, like an illustration of a cautionary tale for children, skulking in ordure just hours after his big bow.
Someone coughed. It was a harsh animal sound, loud in the early-morning stillness. Magnus looked towards the noise and saw a couple locked together in the gloom. His first confused thought was that they were dancing. The man had his arm around the girl, her head rested against his shoulder and they were swaying together. Then he saw the floppiness of the girl’s limbs, the way the man was bearing all her weight, his legs scissored wide, spine pitched back for balance. The couple’s shadows reeled against the alley wall and Magnus realised that they were drunk. No, the man’s movements were quick and sure. The girl was beyond drunk, but her dancing partner still had his wits.
Magnus had made drunken love to drunken women in shadowy outside places. He spat on his ruined shirt and dabbed at his face, hoping to clean off the evidence of blood and dirt. There was a long walk ahead and whatever was happening at the other end of the lane had nothing to do with him. He was in no fit state to judge anyone. He thought, as he often did, of a woman he had met in a Belfast bar, late one night, after a gig. They had matched each other shot for shot of tequila and then fucked on the bonnet of a car parked in a deserted street, both of them reckless. Not so reckless he had not rubbered-up though. They had produced a condom at the same time, both of them laughing to see the other so prepared. ‘Quick draw, McGraw,’ she had whispered in exotic Ulster tones. And then she had kissed him.
Magnus got unsteadily to his feet. His legs had died at some point during his sleep, and he felt as if he were fresh from a night’s fishing, feet and knees skinkling at the firmness of solid ground. He looked back at the couple. The girl’s head lolled to one side and he caught an impression of blonde hair shining. The cough that had woken him rasped again, harsh and fox-like. The man spat on the ground and then started to busy himself with his fly. He shoved a knee between hers, pinning the girl against the wall, sliding between her legs. There was no ‘both’ or ‘together’. The man was alone with a human doll.
‘Fuck.’
Magnus cursed his conscience and stretched a hand beneath the bin, searching again for the battery of his phone, but it was useless. The battery was dead and lost in ratty darkness. He looked towards the mouth of the alley, but the road beyond was silent. He was on his own. He stepped into the middle of the alley and walked towards the couple.