The anticipatory glee of his humiliation filled the room. Then, next to him, Mark Renton, whispering, — Julie visited the cinema with Alice.
— Julie visited the cinema with Alice. . Franco repeated.
— Very good, Francis Begbie. But I’d appreciate it more if Mark Renton would keep his mouth shut. The next line, Francis.
The squiggles danced before his eyes on the page, reverbing. — Sh. . sh. . sh. .
— What did Julie and Alice — remember them? What did Julie and Alice visit the cinema to see, Begbie? What film did they see?
The laughter building in slow ripples around him. He could feel Renton, only Renton, sharing his anger.
— Can anybody help Francis Begbie?
Can anybody help Francis Begbie?
— Elaine! You never let us down!
Then the sooky voice of Elaine Harkins, entitled, impatient. Francis Begbie held everybody back again. — They had decided to see Gone with the Wind, starring Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh. Alice went to purchase some ice cream and popcorn from the refreshments stand.
The refreshments stand. Paggers at Tyney.
Frustrated by the local electrical shops, Franco decides that his best bet is to get a UK mobile. He opts to pick up a cheap one on a pay-as-you-go deal, and heads to Tesco’s at the Foot of the Walk, which he remembers being a Scotmid. Hopefully, he considers, he won’t be needing this device for long. Stepping outside, he tests it by calling Terry. It goes straight to voicemail (— Terry here. If yir a lassie, leave a message n ah’ll get back tae ye. If yir a laddie, dinnae bother. Simple as.) but at least he knows it works. Looking across the street to the Marksman Bar, he recalls old associations, then thinks about family.
As he crosses through the Kirkgate Centre, Franco is aware that a gaunt but wiry young man in a red Harrington jacket is staring right at him. It’s Michael, the younger of his two sons with June, whom he has heard is gaining a reputation.
As he moves over to the wall by the shuttered store, the boy’s slitted eyes widen slightly. — Aw, it is you, Michael says, dismissively. — My ma said ye were coming back ower.
Franco wants to retort, no, it’s somebody else. Instead he manages, — Aye. Want tae get a cup ay tea?
Michael considers this for a second. — Aye. Awright.
As they head down Junction Street, Franco notes two youths, wide and loud, coming down the road towards them. On spotting their approach, the young men fall abruptly silent and avoid eye contact. Franco is accustomed to inducing such a reaction in Leith, and turns to his son in a half-apology before realising that Michael hasn’t seen the boys and is striding ahead, lost in thought. Franco examines his profile, can’t see anything of himself, or for that matter June. The boy seems like a totally discrete entity.
The Canasta Cafe in Bonnington Road is still hanging in there, albeit as an even more depleted incarnation than when he’d last been in town. They find a booth and settle down and are served the traditional milky coffee, both repulsive and oddly reassuring to him. Franco asks his son, — What’s the story wi Sean?
Michael starts talking; grudgingly, sparingly and in terse, economical sentences, as he would do with a cop. Franco learns little new. Michael talks about Sean in a general way, revealing nothing about their closeness or otherwise. They could have been bosom buddies, or had a relationship like him and Joe. Both his sons’ backstories, from the meagre info he’s garnered, appear to offer few surprises. It seems Sean was prone to mood swings, his life-and-soul-of-the-party flamboyance followed by June’s brand of broken resignation, which made him an ideal candidate for junk’s levelling ministrations. Michael, on the other hand, looks like he’s picked up some of Franco’s own brooding aggression. It’s hard for him to work out who landed the worst inheritance. One would be bent out of shape, then crushed by the world, offering no resistance to the heroin- and alcohol-soaked streets. The other would attempt to bend it to his will, then be broken by it. Franco feels disappointed, as part of him had hoped that his own rags-to-relative-riches story might have somehow inspired his sons. He realises how paltry and unrealistic this conceit on his part is.
Michael keeps a searching gaze trained on him, as if demanding some kind of deeper revelation than the super-ficialities his father is prepared to offer. Franco feels like he knows that look from somewhere, and can’t quite place it, but it isn’t the shaving mirror. Wherever its origins, it’s annoying him. So Frank Begbie shrugs, takes a deep breath. — You know, I never changed his nappy. Nor yours. Not once. Left youse full of shit till your ma came back. There’s another couple of kids that are mine, around here somewhere. . I don’t know them, barely knew their mothers.
Michael’s intense scrutiny of him never wavers.
— My girls though, my sweet Californian girls, Franco says, almost wistfully, — I changed them without thinking about it. I always thought I wanted boys. ‘If it’s a lassie, it’s gaun back,’ I used to say. Now I’m different. I like girls, I don’t like laddies.
— Good for you –
— Fuck laddies, Franco cuts him off. — It’s youse I never wanted. No really.
At last his son blinks. He takes a cigarette from a packet. A woman behind the counter looks like she is going to say something, but instead turns away.
Franco feels his own mouth tighten in a satisfied smile. — I liked the idea ay having sons, but I was never really interested in you or Sean. Never loved youse like I do my girls. My beautiful, rich, spoiled daughters. You boys, he shakes his head, — tae me there was never any real point in you boys.
Michael’s tight sneer of a mouth suddenly flaps open. The cigarette between his fingers is directed at Franco, — Is that aw you’ve got tae say tae me?
— Naw, Franco says, rising to depart. — Whaire’s it your ma steys again?
Michael smiles for the first time. Lights up the cigarette. Looks at his father. — Fuck knows.
12. THE EX
Michael’s ostentatious non-cooperation is superfluous; the address he is heading to has stuck in Franco’s mind, as it’s next to the stair where a much-hated rival of his had once lived. Walking from the Foot of the Walk along Duke Street, to Easter Road and up Restalrig Road, he looks at a video clip that has come in, on his almost-dead US phone. Grace and Eve are sitting on the couch, waving to the camera, one with enthusiasm, the other coyly guarded. Melanie’s text: We miss you and we love you!
Franco feels something stir inside him, but clicks off the phone and fights it down. It is Lochend, and in the drizzle the darkening streets surrounding him conjure up nothing but a steady flow of paggers and vendettas past. This is no place for him to be conflicted. He hunches into a bus shelter and pulls out the Tesco phone, trying to punch in Melanie’s cell number through the use of antiquated, multi-function keys. Rage rises in his chest, and he tries to breathe slowly, as with the activity of his big fingers and the jumping display on the liquid crystal, the shifting hieroglyphics slowly take shape as her number. Present with him in the bus shelter: a dead pigeon, a discarded kebab (which looks in better shape than the deceased bird) and two empty tins of Tennent’s Super Lager, one stacked neatly on top of the other. Euphoria rises in Franco as Melanie’s full number, with the US +1 dialling code is completed in its entirety.