The Bullet Trick

I raised my drink to my lips, hiding my expression behind the glass and taking a long gulping swig, all the quicker to finish and get out of there.

'Aye, well, it’s true.'

Johnny seemed to have forgotten he had a round of drinks to deliver. He stood there waiting for me to tell him why I’d given up my calling. I let him wait. Johnny Mac had never been good at silences.

'I ran into your mum in the town the other week.' Johnny hesitated waiting for me to say something then broke the pause again. 'She said you’d been not well.'

'I don’t know where she got that from.'

'You’re all right then?'

I held my arms out.

'See for yourself.'

Johnny looked dubious.

'That’s good.'

I forced my face into a smile.

'I’m doing fine, you know what my old dear’s like. I get a cold and she thinks I’m on my bloody deathbed. She’s aye been like that.' I strained the smile wider. 'Like the man said, reports of my death were much exaggerated.'

Johnny nodded, his eyes still on my face.

'Glad to hear it.'

From across the room I caught sight of a slim, dark-haired woman in her late twenties.

Even before she started making her way towards us I knew she was with Johnny. Johnny’s dark curls and quick smile had given him his pick of women, but he’d always gone for good Catholic girls, fresh-faced Madonnas who refused to sleep with him. Johnny had left his faith at the schoolhouse gates, but in those days it seemed that the tenets of the church were destined to rule his sex life. Johnny’s girl was clear-skinned and sober, but her eyes were amused. She slid her hand round his waist, his grin reappeared and I reckoned that after a certain age even good Catholic girls started to put out.

'There’s men at that table complaining their throats are cut.'

Johnny slammed his forehead with the back of his hand.

'I’m sorry, Eilidh love. I ran into William here and he kept me talking.' He flashed me a look. 'He’s a right chatterbox this one.'

Eilidh smiled. She was the staid side of fashionable, her hair long and simple, brushed into a side parting. It was her smile that kept her from being homely. Her smile and her eyes, a violet blue I’d have thought was painted on if I’d seen her on a movie poster. I wondered what she did for a living. Johnny liked them saintly. I took in her low-heeled brown boots, her coordinating skirt and jacket, just a shade away from a suit and guessed teaching or social work.

'Will you join us?'

I shook my head. For some reason I was having difficulty meeting her look.

'I’m sorry, I can’t.'

Eilidh didn’t try to press me, simply shook her head in mock exasperation and leaned past Johnny to take the three remaining pints in hands that looked too small to span the glasses.

'It was nice to meet you, William.' She smiled at Johnny. 'I’ll give you ten minutes then you’d better come over.'

Johnny gave her a kiss that threatened to topple the pints.

'You’re a wee doll.'

'I know,' Eilidh smiled again. 'One hundred per cent pure gold.'

Johnny watched her careful walk to the table, 'Who would have thought I’d end up henpecked?'

He looked more proud than bowed. I followed his gaze, watching the slim figure depositing the drinks on the table.

'She’s a good-looking girl.' Johnny gave me a stern look that was half mocking but fully meant and I added, 'My womanising days are over.'

'You’re a broken man right enough. You shouldn’t give up yet though. Ye canny whack the love of a good woman. As long as she’s your own.'

'Aye, point taken.' I drained my glass and held out my hand. 'It was good to see you again, John.'

'You too. Maybe we can meet up for a drink when you’ve got more time.'

'I’m not in town for long.'

Johnny gave me a look that said he knew me for a liar, but he didn’t try to argue.

Instead he reached into his pocket.

'Look, I’ll give you my number. It’d be good to catch up.' He pulled out his wallet and flicked through its contents. 'Fuck, I never have any cards when I need them.' The thought of Johnny Mac with business cards amused me and I smiled in spite of myself. 'Here,' he took out a bit of paper and scribbled a couple of telephone numbers and an address on them. 'Now you can get me at work, home or on the move. Mobiles, eh? They were yuppies-only when we were knocking about.'

I glanced at the scrap of paper and saw a half-familiar address. I pocketed the note, intending to drop it in the street when I got outside.

'No, no.' Johnny shook his head he knew my game. 'I went to the trouble of writing that down, the least you can do is keep it safe.'

I fished the paper out of my pocket, found my wallet and slipped it in.

'Happy now?'

'Not really, but it’ll do.'

'Catch you later then, Johnny.'

'Aye,' he said. 'Make sure you do or I’ll hunt you down.'

I made my way into the street. Eilidh gave me a wave as I passed her table. I looked straight ahead and pretended not to notice.

I wasn’t surprised that my mother and Johnny Mac had run into each other. However hard it pretends to be a city, Glasgow is just a big village. I’d known it wouldn’t be long till someone recognised me, and news of my return filtered along the M8 to the pensioner bungalow in Cumbernauld. That was one of the reasons I’d only held out a month after my return before phoning her, that and the brown envelope from another time that she was keeping safe for me. Mum came through the day after I phoned, as I knew she would.

The clock outside Buchanan Street bus station is a fey sculpture, a working clock frozen fleeing towards the entrance on long aluminium legs. I wondered what had come first, the image or the title, 'Time Flies’ — too bloody true.

On reflection the bus station probably wasn’t the best place to hook up. It had been renovated a few years back, but no one had bothered to maintain it since and the building was shrugging off the revamp. I arrived early, or perhaps the bus was late, so I took a seat on one of the cold perforated metal benches that sit on the edge of the concourse unprotected from the elements, smoked a cigarette and watched the buses sailing in and out of their slots, sliding across the forecourt like reckless ocean liners on speed. A bus left the far stand, the faces of its passengers blurred behind fogged-up windows. As it revved into top gear a second coach sped into the concourse from Buchanan Street, slicing towards the departing bus. They faced each other like reflections in a mirror and I tracked their course, tensing myself for impact. Just when collision seemed inevitable one of the drivers, I’m not sure which, peeled back and they cruised by with a quick exchange of salutes, one two-fingered, the other a single digit.

A woman of around my mother’s age sat at the far end of the bench. I gave her a reassuring smile and said, 'They should set that to music.' She shot me a sour look and shifted away from me. I muttered, 'Stuck up old cow,' just loud enough for her to hear, then threw my cigarette butt onto the concrete, walked to the edge of the stand and looked out into the forecourt. The wind had full reign across the open space. It blew down from the Necropolis, through the infirmary, across the motorways and round the high rises until it could reach its goal and whip loose grit into the inadequate shelter. I rubbed my eyes. There was an illusion waiting to present itself on the edge of my mind.

'Excuse me, Jim,' an old man stood at my left hand. 'Could you help us out with my fare to Aberdeen?'

I searched in my pocket for some change, the illusion still shifting angles in my head.

'There you go.'

I put fifty pence into his palm. He glanced at the coin before folding it in a firm grip, like a child scared of losing his pocket money before he made it to Woolworth’s.

'I need to get away frae this godforsaken city and back to civilisation, see?'

'Aye, well, I hope you make it.'

'This is a bad place, son; Sodom and Gomorrah had nothing on London. Land of bloody heathens.'