Dead Men's Trousers

  Euan’s spirits sink further, despite re-emerging onto brighter, warming streets. Summer is digging in, Scotland’s most anticipated guest, who generally arrives late and is usually the first to leave. Euan was uncertain of where he was going but he instantly knows when he gets there. It’s where he was yesterday, a building down a side street with an orange sign that says TOUCHY FEELY SAUNA AND MASSAGE.

  Thankfully Jasmine, whom he visited the previous evening, is working her shift again. This time she takes him to what she describes as the ‘special suite for preferred customers’. It certainly seems impressive enough. There is no bed, just piles of giant red cushions of all shapes and sizes strewn over a floor with indented lights. There’s a big TV set on one wall and, most theatrically, a red velvet curtain on the other. The cushions, though decorated with gold lace trimmings, are designed to facilitate various sexual positions; some are wedged, others rectangular, and Jasmine is skilled at the configurations they offer. Euan is excited, yet senses that something is off in her performance. He finds Jasmine tense and wary, her distracted eyes tinged with trepidation, a contrast to the highly engaged, cheerful and performative woman who serviced him yesterday in the less salubrious chamber. He wonders if it is bad protocol to visit the same girl two days in a row; if it marks him in her eyes as desperate, damaged or sleazy. Then he’s aware of another presence in the room. He turns to see a man in a suit, his face hard and weaselly, all sharp angles, standing over them. Sweating, the man rubs at his neck with a hanky, although it isn’t hot. Euan realises that he’s been behind the red curtain, which is open, indicating a small, recessed stage. — What’s … what is this …? and he ceases his activity. He looks from Jasmine to the menacing interloper.

  — Sorry to interrupt, but we have enough for a special VIP tape. The man points to a security camera above the door, its red eye blinking. He hadn’t even seen it.

  — What’s going on? Euan looks at Jasmine, who can’t meet his eyes. As he dismounts her, she rolls away and promptly shrinks out of the room.

  — Doctor Who? Welcome tae the Tardis. The man flashes a direful, violating smile. — I’m the owner of these premises. The name’s Syme. Victor Syme.

  — What do you want? Is this how you run a business –

  — I want you tae go and see your brother-in-law. Up at the City Cafe in Blair Street. In half an hour. He’ll tell you all you need tae know.

  The podiatrist is chopped to the quick by the sneering certainty of this man. Deathly still, it’s his piercing green eyes that do the real talking. In an attempt to grab some control of the situation, Euan finds his professional voice. — But why are you taping me? What’s it got to do with Simon?

  — I don’t like repeating myself, Doc. If you make me do it again, you’d best use your inside knowledge and tell me now exactly which A&E unit you would prefer to be taken to, Syme says, so cold and inanimate. — One more time: the City Cafe in Blair Street. Now go.

  Held fast in a vice of his own silence, the naked podiatrist pulls on his clothes. All the time, he feels the pimp’s eyes on him, and is relieved to get outside.

  On his way up to the City Cafe, Euan’s brain is a riot of confusion. The violent knot in his gut tells him that this latest disaster has made an already-terrible situation interminably more perilous. His certainty is that this is a blackmail scenario. The concept of forgiveness from Carlotta is like an elusive radio frequency which his mind tunes in to and out of. One minute totally dead, the next blaring beautiful, infinite possibilities at him. The confusion of international travel followed by the ambivalence of the last few days, on Tinder and in the saunas, that incessant veering between elation and despair; it now merely seems training for this new horror, which has yet to fully unravel.

  I should have stayed on the year’s career break, travelled round the world, whoring my heart out. Why did I come back? But indulging his baser instincts only seemed to make matters worse. Or maybe go back to work, he considers, rent a flat, be a dutiful weekend dad to Ross, and live as a single shagger, the life that he obviously felt, beneath the threshold of consciousness, was groundlessly denied him. Even with Syme’s intervention and this horrific tape, the latter still seems the most rational course of action.

  But there is Carlotta, his beautiful Carra … though he’s burnt his boats there, surely. Erred fatally. Neither his wife nor his son could un-see those horrible, perverse images. They sickened even him, the loose skin on his arms, the sack of flesh across his lower gut, his beady, budgerigar eyes. Then he vanished for months off the face of the earth. And now they might be seeing even more, the model husband and father with a prostitute!

  And fucking Simon!

  He steps into the City Cafe, enraged as he sees, sitting at a table in the corner, the man who has occasioned all this torment and twisted liberation. Simon David Williamson looks up at him with a sad smile. He has an Americano coffee, turning the large cup in his hands, never taking his eyes off Euan.

  — What the fuck is going on, Simon? Why are you here?

  — Carlotta asked me to find you, Simon Williamson says. — I’ve been coming back up here every fucking weekend, he exaggerates, — when I should be running my fucking business. Colleagues London and, potentially, Colleagues Manchester. Not Colleagues Edinburgh. You know why? Because I haven’t fucking set up a Colleagues Edinburgh … He cuts himself short as he seems to really see Euan for the first time. — You look gey shelpit, he says, surprising himself with his couthie Scots affectation.

  — I’ve been travelling, he says, unable to stifle a sad groan in his voice. — How are Carlotta and Ross?

  — You fuck off to Thailand, and don’t call them. Disappear off the fucking face of the globe. How the fuck do you think they are?

  Euan hangs his head in miserable shame.

  — Fucking hooring over there and doing the very same back here, I’ll wager.

  Euan glances up at Simon. In his brother-in-law’s eyes he sees himself as old and depleted, pathetic and wretched. — And now your friend Syme has fucking filmed me with a prostitute!

  Simon Williamson looks around, casting a sour eye on the premises and its patrons. The City Cafe hasn’t changed, but it now seems long past its cool heyday and the clientele has aged with it. He waves his phone. — First, he’s not my friend, he emphatically states. — But yes, he took great delight in telling me. I had asked him to look out for you, but I didn’t think you’d be so daft. Or that he’d stoop so low. I overestimated you both. You should have stayed the fuck in Thailand.

  — What do you mean?

  — I mean you fucked up badly. A gentleman is always discreet. And this life, Euan, it isn’t you …

  — Well, it obviously is, as it’s the one I’m leading.

  Williamson’s eyebrows rise. — Yes, so I’ve heard from Syme, the proverbial horse’s mouth on these matters. To paraphrase James McAvoy as Charles Xavier in X-Men: First Class, ‘Shagging hoors will not bring you peace, my friend.’

  Euan meets his brother-in-law’s stare with a cold, implacable one of his own. — To paraphrase Michael Fassbender as Magneto’s reply, ‘Not shagging hoors was never an option.’

  Sick Boy cackles loudly and rocks back in the chair. — Fuck me, I’ve created a Frankenstein’s monster here, he says, then leans forward, putting his elbows on the table, resting his head on his fists and letting his tone assume gravity. — I never thought I’d utter these words in a million years, but for God’s sake, think of your wife and kid.

  — That’s what I’ve been doing. It’s why I couldn’t stay in Thailand. I need to see them …

  — But?

  — But I’m coming to terms with the sort of man I really am and I’m thinking that they are far better off without me. I’ve had those desires for years. The difference is that I’m now acting on them.

  — That’s a big difference. That’s the crucial difference. So stop all the proddy bullshit.

  — I don’t think I can stop seeing other wome
n now. Euan shakes his head sadly. — Something has been unleashed.

  Williamson looks around the premises again. A DJ whom he recalls playing lots of cool shit back in the day now sits slaughtered at the bar, a semi-jakey, slavering about the pomp of Pure, Sativa, the Citrus Club and the Calton Studios to a bored, younger barman. — Do what we Catholics do.

  — What’s that?

  — Lie. Be a fucking hypocrite, Williamson shrugs. — I never rattled as many women in my life as I did when I was married to Ben’s mother. Rode the mother-in-law, the wee sister, banjoed the fucking maid of honour on the night before the wedding; the whole shebang, for fuck sakes! I’d have rammed the old boy if he’d had a fanny. If I had my way I would have drugged that cunt, given him a gender reassignment operation, had him ganting on it, then made him my bitch and treated him atrociously, he declares, visibly warming to the thought.

  Euan finds himself sharing guilty laughter, surely a measure of how far he’s fallen, before he reflects in sad resignation, — My life is a mess …

  — Listen, mate, you have to go back and try to make amends.

  — It’s not possible. You saw the video. You witnessed her reaction. Her fury was beyond incandescent. She was totally broken and completely disillusioned, Euan whines, refusing to drop his voice, even though two couples have sat down at the table next to them. Foam spills from the ripped leather seats between them.

  — She was in shock, ya radge, Simon declares. — People are adaptable. I’m not saying you’re her pin-up boy and she’s coming round a hundred per cent, but she needs to see you. It’s been months. She’s had time to process it all.

  This observation provides Euan with a smidgen of comfort. — Yes, he concedes, — I can see that.

  — Well?

  — Well, what?

  — Do you want to return to normal family life?

  — Well, yes.

  — But still shag around on the side?

  Euan reaches into his heart. Trembling, he looks at Simon. Nods grimly. — But thanks to your friend Syme, the first is no longer an option.

  — We certainly can’t let Carlotta see that video, Simon says. — Or it’s over, and he passes his phone to Euan, who is stunned to see an image of himself, having sex with Jasmine in the sauna, only thirty minutes ago.

  — How did you –

  — Technology will kill us all. Williamson screws his face up, as if in edgy recall. — I can get Syme to erase those videos. But you need to work with me. That means doing him a wee favour. If not, he puts this shit online and not just Carlotta and Ross, and her friends and his classmates, but all your colleagues and patients will see this. They will form an opinion as to the type of man you are. A one-off mistake is one thing; a serial philanderer and pervert, exhibitionist hoor-monger is something else.

  Euan wallows in his despair. The images with Marianne were devastating for the family. But this stuff the world would see. The credibility he’s built up over the years would be trashed and he would be humiliated in his profession, a laughing stock and a pariah … He struggles to make sense of the nightmare. — How? Why? Why me? What does Syme want with me?

  His brother-in-law swivels his eyes around the bar, and sighs. — It was my fault. I was looking for you, at Carlotta’s request, and I took that Christmas picture around the saunas. Syme heard about this, came after me, and was curious about what I wanted with you. He obviously thought I was the polis at first, then perhaps some kind of grass. I told him the situation and let slip that you had medical skills, at which point he suddenly took an interest. Then you vanish off the map for months, and I have to deal with the hassle from this murderous buffoon, who fucking well thinks we’re both at it. Then you come back and he rumbles you rifling one of his Roger Moores in the sauna. Bang to rights.

  — He … this Syme character, he wants me to look at his feet?

  — He has a job for you. Simon Williamson notes a swaggering posse of lads enter the bar. He puts on a Wild West frontier accent. — Some kinda doctorin work, I’m supposin. With Euan evidently unmoved, he adds abruptly, — That is as much as I know.

  — But I fail to see how – how can you do this to me?! This is blackmail! We’re family!

  Simon Williamson’s features seem to turn to cold stone. He speaks in a clipped, staccato rhythm. — Let me make one thing clear: you are not being blackmailed by me. For both our sakes, I wish that were the case. We are both being fucked over by a very dangerous cunt indeed. You should not have gone to the saunas, Euan. I would have set you up with a tasty wee bit of –

  — It’s your set-ups that have ruined my fucking life already!

  — Look, we both fucked up. Simon suddenly slaps his own forehead. — We can point fingers at each other till the cows come home, or we can try and sort it. I’m suggesting the latter course of action. If you disagree, feel the fuck free to have this argument with yourself. I’m off.

  Euan is silent in the face of Simon Williamson’s cold logic.

  — It’s broken, but it can be fixed.

  — What do you want me to do?

  — I don’t want you to do anything. But this cunt, and I use the term advisedly, he apparently needs your medical skills. What for, I can’t even imagine.

  Euan contemplates his brother-in-law. — What sort of world are you mixed up in? What kind of a person are you?

  Simon Williamson looks at him in injured disdain. — I’m as desperate as you, and I’ve been pulled into this world by you shagging about!

  — You gave me that fucking drink spiked with MDMA! Your drugs started –

  — Fuck you and your First World problems! If every cunt that had taken their first ecky committed adultery by jacksie-rifling the first psycho fucker who smiled at them, not one worthwhile relationship in Britain would still exist! Either you man the fuck up and we sort this shite out, or everything, your family, your job, your reputation, are all down the fucking swanny!

  Euan sits trembling in the seat. His hand fastens around the glass of vodka and tonic. He downs it in a oner. Asks Williamson, — What do I have to do?

  16

  OUT OF THE SHADOWS

  For some time anonymous shapes and shadows, their identities almost but not quite discernable, have haunted Danny Murphy. They swagger out of Leith Walk’s pubs for cigarettes, sprawl in duos or groups to the next howf, or stare out as menacing smudges from behind dirty bus windows. His heart jumps beats in anticipation as echoing footsteps in the stair outside intensify, only to die out on the floor below, or slap past his door bound for the top-floor flats. But as the days roll by, he finds himself reacting less. The unlikely scenarios of comfort he’s formulated and magnified start to achieve dominion in his mind. Perhaps the biker crashed and the box somehow opened, and it was presumed that had ruined the kidney. Maybe he was in the clear.

  One evening, all this changes. Indoors with the dog, watching TV, he hears the familiar steps on the stair. This time there is something about them, perhaps their weight or rhythm, that indicates a dread purpose. This sense is shared by Toto, who looks poignantly up at his master and lets out a sad, barely audible whine. Danny Murphy sheds a skin, and he almost breathes a sigh of relief at the bang on the door, which he opens up to the inevitability of Mikey Forrester. — Mikey, he says.

  Forrester’s face has been pulled an inch south. His hands are clasped together in front of him. — You fucked this one up big time. You’ve cost my partner, Victor Syme, a great deal of money and –

  As if on cue, a man pushes past Mikey, who, in timid deference, gives way for him. Whereas Mikey is all performance, Victor Syme carries an overwhelming air of reptilian menace, speaking with the certainty of a man already privy to the conversation he is about to have. — You, he points at Spud, — you tried tae take the fuckin pish!

  — Ah’m sorry, man, Spud desperately blurts out, taking a backward step, as Forrester slides in and shuts the door behind them, — it wis an accident, likes. The dug knocked ower the ice boax a
nd ate the kidney! Ah jist pure panicked, ay, but ah’ll make it up tae ye –

  — For fuckin sure, Victor Syme says, before turning to Forrester. — So this is the boy you vouched for. He struts down the hallway, scanning its squalor in disgust. — A fuckin jakey.

  — Tae be honest, ah didnae ken he’d fallen on such hard times, Vic, I thought –

  — Shut the fuck up, Mikey. Syme dismisses Forrester with a raised hand, closing his eyes, as if not trusting himself to even look at his supposed business partner.

  Mikey’s plummet into screaming silence sets off a sickening confirmation deep inside Spud that this isn’t going to end well. Victor Syme moves towards him, seeming to glide as if on castors, and ushers him over to the window. — Nice view. He gazes outside to street activity barely visible through the grime on the panes.

  — Eh, aye … Spud says, his head bobbing and jerking. Blood pours from the side of his mouth. He sees Syme register it. — It’s aw the speed, ah need it tae distract ays fae the peeve.

  — Aye, no such a nice view in here, the brothel-keeper smiles, looking at an implausible stack of old Pot Noodle containers.

  — Ah ken that Pot Noodles urnae good for ye and ah shouldnae be eatin thum –

  — Nonsense, you’ve got everything ye need in them. Chinese folk live for ages. He turns to Mikey. — Think ay the Master in Kung Fu.

  — Ah suppose thaire is that, Spud smiles wanly.

  — What dae ye see oot there, mate? Syme asks, attempting to envision what it would be like occupying the mind of a man like Daniel Murphy, trying to comprehend how it would feel to see the world through his hollowed, veering squirrel eyes. This exercise fills him with corrosive distaste and a sense that obliterating such weakness would constitute a service to humankind. He puts one arm around Spud’s thin, trembling shoulder as he smoothly slips a cosh out of his pocket with his free hand.

  — Ah dunno … likesay buildins and shoaps n that …

  In one violent predatory movement, Victor Syme jumps back and batters Danny Murphy over the head. Mikey Forrester, forced to bear witness, cringes in guilt and revulsion as the assailant hisses through clenched teeth, — What do ye see now?!