As Skinner undressed, the old woman removed her coat and began to struggle out of a series of cardigans, pinafores and vests. Lying on the bed, she looked smaller but still monstrous, wrinkled rolls of flab spilling over the mattress. Foul aromas rose from the putrefying pools of sweat and dead skin trapped within the folds of her flesh. — Thoat ye’d be bigger, Mary pouted as Skinner removed his Calvin Klein briefs.
Fuckin cheeky auld clart . . .
— Next time ah’ll bring a strap-on, he said bitterly.
Ignoring him, Mary lay back on the bed and pulled away at the sagging corrugations of her body until she was able to locate her sex. — Ah’ve nae cream tae lubricate this. Ye’ll huv tae use spit. Howk it up, she commanded.
Skinner moved across to the bed. Mary’s bony fingers held her folds up, and he saw it between those surprisingly spindly thighs, which were so thin and sharp it was as if the thigh bone would rip through the papery yellow and blue-blotched skin. Amazingly, the hair was still as raven black as the hair on the woman’s head probably hadn’t been for many, many decades. With the skin around her pubic region angry-red and swollen, probably from some kind of infection, her genitalia appeared to him like the deformed newly born offspring of a life form not yet conceived.
In a gripping fascination, Skinner wondered how many frustrating sexless years she’d endured, relentlessly nagged by a body clock that refused to run down. In confirmation, he glanced at her head sprawled on the pillow, and she caught his eye with a coy look, enabling him to briefly glimpse the young woman in her, which rendered her all the more grotesque in his eyes. His knees sank into the mattress, as the waft of the yellow urine and slimy golden-brown faecal matter that lay saturating the incontinence pads underneath her rose in the cold air.
The smell was bad, but he thanked the cocaine blockage of his nostrils. He pulled phlegm up from his chest and sucked mucus down from his head, mixing them into a pungent cocktail before splattering it with violence on to her pubic area. — Work it in, Mary urged, as Skinner took his thick green slime and spread it like a chef might glaze some pastry, at the same time slowly breaching and exploring. A ludicrously distended clitoris popped out from nowhere like a jack-in-the-box, the size of a small boy’s penis, and disconcertingly strangulated groans coming from the bed told Skinner that he was hitting the spot. After a while she gasped, — Pit it in now . . . pit it in . . .
In his total preoccupation with the macabre pantomime he’d become involved in, Skinner hadn’t even begun to consider his penis, but it was rock hard, even after him having done half a gram of cocaine earlier. Without being conscious of it, he was framing yet another hypothesis to explain his alcoholism: he speculated that he possessed a libertine sexuality and attempting to swamp it with the bottle was a way of preventing situations like these continually arising. He rubbed some of the waste on to the tip, then the shaft of his cock and entered her with slow trepidation.
— Been that long it’s probably sealed up, she said heavily, reading his mind as he forced his way in.
She took a lot of fucking; her desire might have been intact but if there was a climax in her it seemed to be well buried.
Fuck sake, I should get the morn’s lottery numbers plus next week’s racing results for this!
There were times when she was close to the brink but it seemed to slip away, and Skinner felt like giving up as the foulness of the situation hit him. He watched the old alarm clock by the bedside going from seven twenty to seven forty. As he felt the slurping of her wet skin on his stomach, thighs and testicles become the rub of coarse sandpaper then the jag of brittle old bones, he was forced to recall the old Leith motto: Persevere.
When she came it was accompanied by a long, nocturnal, wolf-like howl, and her bony fingers sank like meat hooks into the tight flesh of his buttocks.
Without coming himself, Skinner withdrew, climbing off Mary and the bed. Gingerly picking up his clothes and holding them out from himself at arm’s length, he went to the toilet, knowing that if he looked at what he felt was splattered on his genitals, abdomen and thighs, he’d never be able to hold on to the contents of his stomach. There was a small shower at one end of the bath, with an alarm cord to call the warden in emergencies. There was no soap in the shower tray: it lay by the bath taps. Skinner suspected that Mary came from the generation where getting clean meant steeping in a tub of your own waste every Sunday. The water was tepid but he watched tendrils of mucus, faeces and other excretions weave a dance around the grill of the plughole before vanishing.
He dried off, dressed and returned to the front room. There was no sign of Mary, though he reasoned that she was just putting on all her layers; but then he feared that the old woman might be lying dead, so preoccupied was he with his destructive powers. Eventually, he heard her moving down the hallway and was relieved to see her appear. As she collapsed down into the chair, a huge smile changing her expression so radically it was like she’d had a facelift, she said, — Doon tae business. What’s the problem?
It took Skinner a while to get into his story, aware of its ridiculousness. However, he found to his surprise that what they’d just been through seemed to make it easier for him.
And Mary listened attentively, never once interrupting until he finished. After his tale, Skinner felt cleansed somewhat, unburdened by the act of disclosure.
Mary had no doubt as to what the problem was.— Intentions, son . . . call them wishes if ye want, they can be so powerful in some people that they do become curses, become spells. Yes, you’ve definitely put a spell on this young man.
Having lived with this strange arrangement for many months, Skinner accepted this as given rather than just a fanciful notion. — But why do I have that power, and why just with Kibby? I mean, I’ve wished for other things tae happen tae other people but nothing’s come of it, he explained, thinking about Busby, as he picked remorselessly at the skin around his nails.
Then Skinner felt a chill, the air seeming to cool, as Mary nodded slowly. For the first time he became aware of a certain power emanating from this old woman. — It’s either something tae dae with the nature of what ye wished for or tae dae with the person you wished it upon. What does the spell mean tae ye? What does this laddie mean tae ye?
He shook his head slowly, stood up and prepared to take his leave. — Thanks very much, but I have been thinking about those questions, he said, his tongue dripping sarcasm.
Mary twisted her head round and said, — The more things in your life that are unresolved, the more powerful yir anger is, the stronger the potential fir ye to do this sort of harm.
Skinner stopped. — Kibby was a . . . he began, then halted as he had an abominable but opaque awareness. It was stark but somehow not envisionable. He had a sense that somewhere inside of him he knew the answer, but would never be able to dredge it into the realm of conscious thought.
But . . . one time I mind of this guy who always used to watch us play football. Inverleith Park, the Links. He always kept his distance though. One day he said to me, ‘Good game there, son.’ He was . . .
— I’m worried for you, she warned, — worried that you’ll come to harm. Then her hand reached out and grabbed Skinner’s wrist.
Skinner’s heart flew to his mouth, shocked as he was at the sudden movement and the speed of the old woman’s reflexes and the strength of her grip. Nonetheless, he composed himself and twisted his arm away, breaking her grasp. — Worry about the other boy, that’s the one you should be concerned for, he scoffed.
— I fear for ye, she told him.
Skinner again scorned her, but as he departed he could not conceal his apprehension. Maybe he would go for that drink he needed.
41
Train Wreck
THE WHISKY HELPED. It had given him the power and determination to embark on the arduous task of hauling his heavy, battered frame up the stepladder. The wasted muscles in his arms and legs burned like hot coals as the aluminium steps creaked, popped and groane
d under his weight. A fuzzy rasp trawled through his lungs, which toiled to push in enough oxygen to feed his exertions as his pulse accelerated. At one stage he was so giddy he thought that he was going to slip off the ladder and crash to the floor. Then, with one last exhaustive heave, he stepped, trembling, into his old attic. It felt like breaking through a suffocating membrane into another world as his head spun with the drink and the effort of the climb. He gasped, struggling to regain his wind and senses as he tugged on the cord light switch. The neon strip lights flickered into action confronting him with the model railway and town.
Its delicacy and precision instantly mocked him. He stood there, housed in the wrecked and wretched soft machine of his body and raged at his pristine, useless creation.
What is all this? It’s all I’ve done with my fucking life. It’s all I’ve got to show that I ever existed on this planet. This fucking toy!
I won’t get another job.
I’ll never get a girlfriend, never find somebody to love.
This is all I’ve got. This!
It’s not enough!
— IT’S NO ENOUGH! he screamed, his voice emanating from a buried, tortured part of his soul and ricocheting around the cavernous attic.
The hills his father had made, the houses he had built, the tracks he’d laid, the trains he’d bought, all looked back at him in an obstinate, contemptuous silence. — IT’S NOTHING! IT’S NOWT! And he lumbered towards the town and found himself tearing it apart; kicking and pulling and punching at it with an energy and power he thought that he’d never, ever possess again. Brian Kibby smashed the buildings to pieces, tore open the papier mâché hills, ripped up the tracks and hurled the train engines across the room, ransacking the model town like a demented beast in an old horror movie.
But the adrenalin vanished as mysteriously as it had appeared and exhaustion suddenly took him, stranding him prone on the floorboards, leaving him crying softly in the rubble he’d created. After a bit his glassy gaze drifted across the floor to the glossy maroon-and-black engine, which lay smashed and strewn in the debris. He could see the gold-and-black plaque on its side branded with the words: CITY OF NOTTINGHAM.
The R2383 BR Princess Class City of Nottingham. Its axle was broken. He picked it up, cradling it like a first-born child that had been fatally hit by a passing car. As he wept slowly he raised his head and looked at his father’s once magnificent hills, now levelled and reduced to trash.
The hills that Dad built . . .
NO . . .
What have I done?
And he climbed back down the aluminium stairs, now not worrying about the jarring thumps as his legs crashed down each step, and he thought that now was the time he was ready to die.
It would be better for everyone.
But perhaps there’s somebody else who has tae die first.
It was as if both Caroline Kibby and Danny Skinner had realised that there was a kind of love so empyreal in its nature that the window of opportunity for real physical congress cracked open for only a short period of time. If, for whatever reason, you couldn’t jump through it, it was slammed shut for ever.
The smell of her hair. Her lovely deep hazelnut eyes. That beautiful skin, how it all seemed to change under my touch, as if corrupted by my proximity. I can’t be with her: not in that way.
Yet what other kind could there possibly be? he wondered as they stiffly headed arm in arm down Constitution Street in the confused, beaten silence of doomed lovers.
Caroline dug into her make-up bag, produced the gold lipstick tube and twisted it. As that scarlet piece popped out Skinner imagined his cherry poking out of his foreskin in the same way.
If only . . .
It was the curse on her brother; that was what was messing them up. It had to be. He wanted to tell her so much, just scream it out: I’m killing your brother, I’ve put a hex on him. I did this because I objected to his mediocrity, his blandness and how he would advance beyond me purely because he didn’t have my demons holding him back. I won’t be able to touch you until this curse is lifted . . .
What could she say to that?
But who are they, this strange but so mundane family: the student daughter, bright and full of life; the stricken, nerdy hillwalker brother; and the crazy God-fearing anxiety-ridden matriarch? Who in the name of suffering fuck are those people? What the fuck was the faither like?
Skinner thought about the missing Kibby, the one who seemed to have cast such a large shadow over the others. — Caroline, what happened to your dad?
Caroline pulled to an abrupt halt under the orange sodium street lamp and looked quizzically at him with the same bewildering sense of intrusion she demonstrated when he tried to touch her. This moved Skinner to qualify his motivation. — Naw; it’s just that Brian’s illness seemed to happen shortly after your dad died. Did he have something the same?
— Aye, it was horrible . . . his organs had just seemed to rot away from the inside. It was weird, because, like Brian, he was never a drinker.
Danny Skinner nodded. After all he had been through with Brian Kibby, he began to entertain the notion that maybe there was no hex, perhaps it was all just the uncanniest of coincidences. Maybe Kibby had the same, rare degenerative disease that his old man had before him. Who had he been to assume that he had the power to put a hex on anybody? Perhaps it was all his own mad, twisted vanity, distorting everything he saw around him.
No, he had to get away from them, he’d kill them all, like he’d probably killed his own father. Only now Alan De Fretais seemed more alive than ever: it was reported that sales of The Bedroom Secrets had picked up dramatically in the last week, putting his aphrodisiac cookbook back at number one on the best-seller lists. Scotland on Sunday, the Herald, the Mail on Sunday, the Observer and The Times all ran big features on him. Stephen Jardine presented a television documentary on the life of ‘Scotland’s greatest culinary talent’. On this programme, one wag claimed that De Fretais taught us to look at food differently – holistically – relating to it in a completely cultural and social way. They referred to him as the ‘Godfather of the Culinary Generation’.
He was simply a cunt, Skinner thought, thinking of the old joke:
Who called the cook a cunt?
Who called the cunt a cook!
The lights of the Shore flashed into view, dancing across the Water of Leith. Skinner had insisted that he return the compliment by taking the Kibbys out to dinner at his favourite seafood restaurant. Joyce was delighted but she worried about how Brian would react. Strangely, he had raised no objection, although he was far from enthusiastic. — I hope you have a good time, he said, albeit in a distant, hollow tone.
— But Brian . . . you’re invited as well, Joyce had incredulously shrieked.
— I’ll come if I’m up to it, Kibby said, the fight further knocked out of him following his deeply regretted trashing of the model railway and town. But even as he protested he realised that in his heart of hearts there was no way he was going to be absent, to be the subject of Skinner’s one-sided propaganda. One thought burned in his brain: I need to protect them from that bastard.
As they crossed over the cobblestones, Skinner glanced down an alleyway, saw something move. It was a gull, and it appeared to be covered in blood, on its head and chest. It was hiding among the sacks of rubbish from the restaurants. — Look at that . . . poor bastard, Skinner said.
— It’s only a seagull, Caroline scoffed.
— Naw, he’s covered in blood . . . a cat must’ve got him while he was rummaging . . . It’s okay, pal. Skinner crouched, moving closer to the wild-eyed bird.
The gull squawked, suddenly rising and flying past him, into the sky.
— It was tomato sauce, Danny, Caroline explained. — It had been scavenging, ripping open the bin liners.
— Right, he said, keeping his face away from her, so that she wouldn’t see his tears, those strange tears for the lonely seagull.
When they got to Skipper
’s Bistro, they noted Joyce immediately, standing in the doorway outside the restaurant, too nervous to enter unaccompanied.
— Hi, Mum . . . Caroline pecked Joyce’s cheek and Skinner followed suit. — No Brian?
— I haven’t seen him today, he went into town . . . He said he might come.
— Here we go, Skinner nodded tightly, glancing over Joyce’s shoulder. She and Caroline turned to acknowledge the source of his gaze. Through the fog and night an almost shapeless figure emerged, moving slowly towards them. He seemed less a real human being than a piece of the vapid darkness come alive.
— The man himself! So you made it then, Danny Skinner smiled warily as Brian Kibby approached.
— Looks like it, Kibby snapped curtly back.
Skinner opened the door of the restaurant and ushered Caroline and Joyce inside. He held it open for Kibby, mouthing a crisp and stagy, — After you.
— You first, Kibby bit again.
— I insist, Skinner said, his elongating smile disconcerting Kibby. It was cold and he was desperate to get inside and into the heat, so he stumbled through the door with Skinner following behind.
A girl took their coats and they had a drink at the bar, Kibby sipping a tomato juice under Joyce’s approving scan. — Awright, Charlie. Skinner enthusiastically greeted the chef who had come through from the kitchen and they exchanged pleasantries for a bit.
— You must know a lot of chefs through your work, Danny, Joyce remarked, obviously impressed.
— One or two . . . though not as many as I’d like, he said, a sadness coating his words.
In her excitement Joyce didn’t pick up on his lugubrious tone. She turned to her son, whose eyes were fixated on the spirits gantry. — I’ll bet you know a few chefs from your council days too, Brian?
— Not at my level, Kibby said evenly.
They were shown to a table, where, at Joyce’s instigation, they ordered some wine. Skinner was reluctant at first, then looked over at Kibby and said, — I’m not so much of a drinker these days, but maybe just one glass. What’s it they say: a meal without wine is like a day without sunshine?