‘I’ve done? You brought this on yourself.’
‘I’m your father.’
‘That’s no excuse.’
He stands up. Faces me. I look into his eyes, I’m ready to strike him again if he moves an inch. But he stands still before me.
I walk past him to my room. Pack my things. On my way out he doesn’t look up.
‘Don’t let me hear you’ve ever raised so much as a bad word to anyone in this family again,’ I warn him.
He still doesn’t look up as I close the door behind me.
46
Another Debs’s lawyer. I didn’t think it worth opening. I mean, what was it going to say?
‘ Congratulations, your last call was such a success that Ms Deborah Ross has decided to halt all formal divorce proceedings… ’
I doubted it. Scrunched the letter into a ball and launched it to the trash. My heart felt scalded but maybe it was time to move on. What’s the phrase? Oh yeah, flogging a dead horse.
A catch, I wasn’t. My career was washed up. I had a serious alcohol problem and, on top of everything else, I’d lost most of my top row of teeth. I mean, who’d rate me?
Debs deserved better, deserved to start afresh. It would take a cruel bastard to stop her. Much as I wanted to think she’d always be there, I knew I’d blown it. There may come a time I’ll be able to face her, tell her I was sorry, but it wasn’t right now. I turned to George Burns for support, he’d said: ‘Do you know what it means to come home at night to a woman who’ll give you a little love, a little affection, a little tenderness? It means you’re in the wrong house.’
I waited for the bus on Leith Walk. A man carrying a canoe strolled up behind me. I turned, thought about asking, then turned back. I didn’t want to know.
When the bus came the man with the canoe tried to follow on after me.
Driver said, ‘You can’t get on here!’
‘Why not?’ said the canoe guy.
‘Cos you can’t walk on a bus with a canoe.’
‘Would you prefer I paddled?’
I liked that, but the driver didn’t, got out his seat and looked ready to lamp the guy, before he took off. A man running down a busy street with a canoe is not something you see every day, even in Edinburgh.
I sat beside some geezer with a stookie on his arm. He’d a tight T-shirt, a toast-rack chest poked from beneath.
‘You look like you’ve been in the wars,’ he said.
This from a guy with a broken arm, I lied: ‘Car crash.’
He winked. ‘Aye sure.’
‘Excuse me.’
‘Had a bit of soapy bubble, big man?’
I tried to laugh it off. Left at the next stop. I couldn’t go around looking like part of the body count from a Steven Seagal film, so called Col’s dentist. By some kind of miracle he gave me an appointment right away.
In the waiting room I picked up an Ikea catalogue. Was full of happy couples, rosy-cheeked children and friendly-looking dogs. They all had perfect teeth. Even the dogs. For a moment, I wanted to live an Ikea life. The moment passed.
I turned to the free paper, the Metro. A picture showed a six-and-a-half-stone cyst that doctors recently removed from an obese woman. The article said the cyst weighed the same as Paris Hilton. Now, if they could cut her out, that’s a story I’d like to read.
The receptionist called out my name.
My nerves twitched.
As I sat in the chair, I felt my knackers tighten.
The dentist was called Klaus. ‘There’s quite a considerable amount of damage,’ he said. ‘How did you do this?’
For the second time in under an hour, I lied: ‘Rugby match.’
‘You should be more careful.’
‘Yeah, it’s a rough game.’
‘I mean at your age. Playing rugby. It’s suicide.’
Right now, if I got given the option of playing rugby or suicide, I knew which one I’d choose. But what got me was the ‘at your age’ bit. I’m only mid-thirties, but it struck me, maybe I look like I’m carrying a few more years on the dial.
Klaus fixed me up with a set of temporaries. Promised me a full new top row, bridgework, the lot, by the end of the month.
He handed me a mirror.
‘Wow,’ I said. They looked Ultrabrite white, arrow straight. I couldn’t believe that my mouth looked so good.
‘I could live with these.’
‘They’ll come out in a week or so, then I’ll do the bridgework proper.’
‘Great. Well, I’ll settle with you when the job’s done.’
To my shock, he bought this. Figured I’d be good for it in a week — if I lasted that long.
I had to check in with Hod, called him. ‘How goes it, man?’
‘Christ, you’re still with us, then?’
‘Oh yeah, no danger. You’ll have to try harder to edge me out the scene. How’s Amy?’
He stalled, changed subject. ‘Look, you coming round?’
‘Why, what’s up?’
‘Nothing, shit, all’s hunky dory here, compared to what you’ve… you know.’
I sensed cracks in Hod’s voice and his cover story, but I’d too much to think about right now to be delving further. ‘Right, sound. I’ll be in touch soon as… keep an eye on Amy for me.’
‘It’s done.’
‘But, not that close!’
‘Gus… c’mon, I’m on the job here.’
‘That’s definitely not what I want to hear…’
A laugh. ‘Sorry, just a slip.’
‘Make that your last. See you later.’
On the street I kept trying to catch a look at my teeth in the reflections of shop windows. Were they really mine? Well, no. But God, they looked good. With teeth like this, a bit of a tan, perhaps I could pass myself off as a regular guy.
Maybe not.
I dropped back to reality, remembered I’d things to take care of. Nadja could expect a second visit from me soon. But before that, a visit to Mac the Knife called.
47
On my way to grab a coffee I purposely passed two Starbucks. Finally settled on a place at the end of a side road leading out to Tollcross. Very low-rent. Gave it a month before the place got a revamp.
Browsed a chicks’ magazine and found one of those top ten worsts — on celebrity quotes. Jade Goody’s gormless utterances dominated the top five, but Mariah Carey had it as far as I was concerned: ‘I’m jealous of Ethiopian kids. I’d love to be skinny like them, except for the flies and the deaths.’
A case for bitch-slapping if ever I heard one.
As I flicked through the magazine again I felt a presence at my shoulder. Turned to see a bearded jakey stood over me. He looked old-school, herringbone coat and trousers held up with a length of rope. What was once referred to as a gentleman of the road, a paraffin lamp. He could have passed himself off for one of Van Gogh’s Potato Eaters.
‘Can I help you?’ I said.
‘Marks and Spencer’s.’
Not a clue what he was on about, said, ‘Come again?’
He leaned closer, I got a waft of him and moved in the opposite direction. ‘That,’ he said touching the magazine with a hand in fingerless gloves.
‘The magazine…?’
‘The advert for Markies, that’s my pitch. Paying a pretty penny now I tell you.’
I offered him the magazine. ‘Here take it.’ I hoped he’d get the hint and nick off, but he merely folded it down the spine, and expounded.
‘Now, you see yon Twiggy there?’
I nodded, Christ why did they always flock to me?
‘That’s the look they’re all after in there. They want the lot, big baggy jumpers, trendy trousers — och, even the hats!’
I lost patience. ‘Great — but can I ask, is there a reason for this?’
He looked stunned. ‘Is there a reason for anything?’
A jakey gets philosophical on you, you listen.
‘What I’m saying is my pitch has started paying out. I’m on a winner since Twiggy started on these ads. The women buying the clobber and the hats and that, they’re not short of a bob or two. They see me sitting outside after they’ve just got their hands on some big fancy outfit and they’re splashing the cash.’ He lifted up the magazine. ‘I’ve a lot to thank Twiggy for.’