The Blade Artist

  Over Spud’s shoulder, he can see June, still tearful, being comforted by Olivia, with Michael looking on, seeming almost nonchalant. Franco feels a strange reverberation coming from deep inside him. Breathe . . .

  One . . . two . . . three . . . who are we . . .

  To think that this was once his family, and these were once his bosom buddies. He contemplates Mel and Grace and Eve, trying to isolate details of their faces as they slither through his mind, their friends Ralph and Juan, and even his in-laws and his agent, Martin, back in the sun of California. And they call this grey place Sunny Leith. It was bizarre. Life often seemed like a meaningless joke. You either got the custard pie in the face, or you got to giggle at those who did. — Right enough, Spud, Franco almost bellows, fighting back a gurgling laugh.

  As the drinks kick in, so the procession of old lags from all over town sidling up to him, full of conspiratorial talk in jailbird whispers, grows exponentially. The inanities and the exhortations to violence, most regarding vengeance against Anton Miller, are almost overwhelming. He feels the bleakness crawling into his skull. Franco breathes in steadily, trying to tune it all out. That pressure on your brain. Eroding focus. Diverting the flow of thought down old, ruinous neural canals. He is thinking of his heads of actors, and specific mutilations on them. Of his canvases, those attic versions of Dorian Gray, drenched in blood red. He keeps his eye on Frances Flanagan, and is almost pleased when Elspeth and Greg come over to rescue him. — There’s a boy from the local paper here, a crime reporter, Elspeth informs him.

  — Disgusting that they won’t leave a family alone to grieve, Greg muses, looking at the reporter, ruddy of face and grubby of dress, who stands alone in a corner. Then he turns to a group of youths, who have been stealing glances at Franco.

  Frank Begbie has registered this too, deciding that at least some of them had to be mobbed up with Anton Miller. He might not be here but he would still see everything that went on. — Aye, he agrees.

  — Hmm. Greg takes another glimpse at the young team. — Do you think there’s a danger that you might be seen as a hero by some young kids around here?

  Franco gives a matter-of-fact shake of his shoulders. — I am a hero to some young kids around here, he says, pausing to look at Elspeth. — I was a hero to my son and I was never there for him. Now he’s in a grave at twenty-one. And I’ll no be here for anybody else’s son either.

  Greg sees his wife’s eyebrows arch towards the ceiling in dismay.

  Terry is chatting to some members of the young team. Franco watches as he jokes easily with them, all the time drawing their girlfriends into the conversation, eliciting giggles as he then ignores the boys. The young team are keeping away from Tyrone, who stands at the bar, a brooding vengeful aspect hanging around his big shoulders like a cloak. And he is with Nelly, Franco’s old buddy, who studiously avoids him. He is about to go over and say hello, and perhaps offer some kind of apology to Tyrone, when suddenly Larry is back in his face. — So, Franco, what’s changed about Scotland, then?

  — Cunts still have bad teeth, drink too much, take too many drugs . . . he looks over at Tyrone, — they’ve got fatter. That’s what’s changed.

  Larry’s face creases in a grin. — Like they’ve no goat fat cunts in the States? It was thaim that started aw this fat-cunt shite!

  — Aye, it’s a global problem now, Franco smiles, noting that one thing about Larry was that people avoided him. Elspeth and Greg, for example, who have sloped off across the room. He has his uses.

  — Too right, Larry argues. — They say three hundred million Chinkies are obese these days. That’s nearly mair obese Chinkies than Americans ay aw sizes. That means a lot ay shite grub’s gittin scranned. Ye dinnae git that wey on a handfay ay rice!

  — Heard Chinese Democracy?

  — Thaire’s nae democracy in China.

  — Naw, it’s an album, Guns n’ Roses.

  — Nup.

  — Check it oot. Comes highly recommended.

  — Right . . . So how’s life in California then, Frank?

  Frank Begbie looks over at a couple of old adversaries. One is Cha Morrison from Lochend, who originated from the stair next to the one June now lives in. With a fistful of sovies closing round a beer glass, he looks like the cat that got the cream. It is, he reflects, something of a result for Cha; he gets to laugh at Sean’s demise while drinking the booze his father, a long-term rival, has paid for. — Been enjoying it, but there’s something missing, he considers. — Like a war.

  — Funny wee temperature in this room, Larry acknowledges.

  Frank Begbie remembers that Larry was once a victim of Cha Morrison’s blade; his assailant did time for it. He feels his pulse starting to race. He makes himself breathe slowly and evenly, in through his nose, out through his mouth. Even. Stay even. The best time to hit somebody is when they are drawing in a breath.

  — Awright, Frank? Larry asks.

  There follows an ominous lull in energy, like on the dance floor of a busy nightclub, just before the DJ is about to drop that track that will send the floor crazy. And he realises that he is the DJ. They are all looking to him to drop the tune. To swing the fist or boot, to throw the glass, to launch the headbutt, or even the blood-curdling scream across the room, that will set the place alight. — They always say ‘listen tae your gut reaction’, Franco says softly. — If I listened tae my gut reaction, not one cunt in this room would be breathing, he smiles cheerfully. — And that wouldnae be good, he says, looking across at Frances Flanagan.

  — It’s Miller, that Anton Miller, Frank, Larry declares. Franco scents the fumes of drink on his breath, reckons that he is approaching that jakey loop, where he will make the same point over and over again. — He was in and oot ay that flat. Sean owed him, and he didnae like him hinging aboot wi wee hairy there. He nods over at Frances, who stares at a row of full wine glasses on the table. — Mark ma words, Miller’s the one.

  — So I keep hearing, Begbie says.

  Then Cha Morrison bounds over, a big grin etched across his face. He stinks of drink, obviously from a celebration that pre-dates this one. — Better crematin that rubbish. Soas the disease cannae spread, ay-no.

  Franco had thought that he would experience a violent psychonosema at those words, but there is nothing. He is breathing smoothly, and even smiles at Morrison.

  Cha Morrison hasn’t envisaged this reaction, and seems genuinely upset by it. — Ken whae eh took aw that queer stuff offay? The poofy artist, Cha sneers, bending his wrist and puckering his lips, as bodies start to close in around the two men. — Ye gaunny paint ays a picture then, sweethert? Oooh, ducky, how’s the weather treatin ye in California?

  — I was a bit fed up wi aw this, Franco laughs, — but you’ve fair cheered me up, with the drunken jakey act. Ah’ve kind ay missed aw that. The weather in California is very, very good, n thank you for askin. What are you daein these days? Stacking shelves at Tesco wi bairns fae the school?

  — You’re a fuckin shiter. Morrison steps forward, only to feel a firm grip on his shoulder, yanking him back. He turns round to see not only Tyrone but Nelly and the boxing club boys. — I suggest you get tae fuck, while ye still can, Tyrone offers. Cha mutters something, but the boxers and Nelly are already ushering him outside, with Franco being led in the opposite direction by Elspeth. He glimpses Michael, who has moved close to the source of the commotion. — Proud ay ye, Frank, his sister is saying, — the wey ye didnae react tae that spiteful drunk. Ah never thought I’d say it, but I am.

  — A little self-control goes a long way, he smiles, but never takes his eyes from the door.

  He sees Tyrone come back in first, heading to the bar, followed by Nelly, a few steps behind him.

  – Lucky ah didnae fuckin well go oot thaire. Joe is at his shoulder, then looking to Elspeth, — Ah’d huv fuckin well kilt the cunt . . .

  — Aw aye, by breathin on um? Elspeth challenges, and they start to bicker.

  Fortunately,
Mickey and some of the boys have come back in, and Franco gratefully heads over to meet them. Mickey tells him what happened, that they just kept the peace. Nelly cracked Cha on the jaw, but then he staggered off down the road, and a brutal stomping was averted. — He was swearing revenge on everybody, but it was aw just drunkard’s talk.

  — Sound. Thanks, Mickey, he says, almost feeling sorry for Morrison, for so long in the frame to be his defining nemesis, but replaced first by Donnelly, and then Seeker. — I didnae want any scenes here, no today. Franco slaps his back. — I should go and thank Tyrone and Nelly. I was a wee bit out of order with the fat man last time I saw him . . . And he is ready to head over to make his peace at the bar, when he sees Frances Flanagan furtively scanning the room, then slipping out the door. Her behaviour suggests she intends her exit to remain undetected, and is going further than the toilet. She’d said they needed to talk. They would do that. Franco makes some lavatory excuses and heads off, following her outside, relieved to escape them all. He gets into the street and looks down the road.

  Frances seems to have vanished in the drizzle, but she’s only crossed over to the Links side of the street, and is cutting through the park. He sets off in pursuit and catches up with her, walking behind her. His eyes instinctively go to her arse. The undulating movement of her buttocks beguiles him for a second, then he recalls discussions with Melanie about the objectifying male gaze, and he lifts his eyes to take in all of her frame. He thinks about men looking at his daughters in that way, as they grew up. What would he do? He would kill them. Tear them apart. Toast the memory of their stares with a pint of their still-warm blood.

  No. Breathe. One. Two. Three.

  By a large oak tree, he pulls up alongside her. — Awright?

  She stops and tenses, her startled eyes wide as she looks at him. Then she glances across the near-deserted park. —Aye . . .

  — No fancy steyin?

  — Nup. No wi that Larry there, she says, scowling. — He ey tries tae go hame wi ays.

  — Seems like a few people go hame wi you.

  She looks him up and down, finding her confidence. — What’s that meant tae mean? What’s it tae you?

  — Like oor Sean?

  He can see that hits her like a fist to her stomach. — Nup . . . he wisnae like that. We were mates.

  It is now Frank Begbie’s turn to feel something strike him forcibly inside. He wasnae like that. He’d considered Cha Morrison’s taunts to be standard wind-ups, but they now seem to have some basis in fact. What sort of young man would be content with being ‘mates’ with a girl like this? But it’s all too much to think about right now. He sucks in some air and tries to reset himself. — Still surprised ye never steyed for a wee peeve. Ye like a drink, ah hear.

  — Ah’m sober for three weeks, n even if ah wis drinkin ah widnae wi that Larry aroond.

  — What aboot drinkin wi me? Franco suggests, as a maroon-and-white Lothian Transport bus pulls up in the road adjacent to the park. Up ahead, some gulls sit on the sodden football pitches, as if ground-nesting. — Mibbe having that wee chat we were talking aboot?

  Frances wraps her arms around herself. — Ah’m AA, she says, evidently disappointed at her own announcement.

  — Me tae, Franco smiles. — Well, no AA cause ah cannae be arsed wi meetings, but ah dinnae drink, ay. Let’s get a coffee. You near here?

  — Aye, this wey, she says, nodding across the misty Links, and they set off together.

  Walking with a young woman, in Leith, takes Franco back to an earlier self still brimming with possibilities, before the ever-tightening vice of violence began to shut down his options. Despite feeling the cold insinuating itself into his chest, he is oddly at peace, as he saunters through the haar like a ghost: a man of this place, yet almost dreamily detached from it. He listens to her talk, enjoying the soothing rhythms of her feminine Edinburgh accent, how she emphasises some words like a question. It is stock AA stuff; her conversation peppered with terms like journey and closure, but it sounds awkward and performative, like a kid wearing a set of ill-fitting adult clothes. At one point, she arches a brow and asks him, — How do you stey sober when you don’t go to meetings?

  — Ah dinnae drink.

  — But it’s a disease, and –

  — Is it fuck, he scoffs. — It’s called choice. Ah chose tae be a bam. Now ah’m choosin no tae be. Simple as that. Ye go tae these meetings and they’re full ay so-called sober jakeys, wiring themselves full ay nicotine and caffeine and obsessing aboot peeve.

  — But what dae ye dae when ye feel that pull?

  — Paint and sculpt. Fling on my tracksuit and go for a run. Glove up and hit a bag.

  Frances is silent at that, and for the rest of the way to her Halmyres Street flat. After one cup of coffee, during which she grows more nervous, fidgeting with the cup, Frank Begbie declares, — Ah’m gaunny get us a cairry-oot.

  — Ah dinnae . . . she starts.

  — It’s up tae you whether you have a drink or no, he states, and he heads outside and down to the off-licence, returning a short while later with half a dozen bottles of red wine.

  — I dinnae . . . Frances protests again, never taking her eyes off the wine.

  — You do. You want one, Franco says, sitting at the table, as he opens a bottle with a corkscrew he’d bought in the shop, — ah kin tell, and he pours the wine into two tumblers, as she has no wine glasses. — A nice wee civilised glass of wine, he sings, though he knows that his will only be for show.

  She has drunk two glasses and is on her third by the time she realises that he hasn’t touched his. — You no drinkin?

  — I’m a bit slow, he says.

  Frances isn’t so slow. She is getting drunk, flushing with a bombastic confidence, but with part of her brain still reserved for sobriety. This would be the time for her to stop, Begbie thinks, as he recharges her glass, but that’s never gaunny happen. — Ah like aulder guys, she ventures flirtatiously. — They treat ye right. Dinnae muck ye aboot as much as younger fellys.

  Franco laughs in her face, shaking his head. — Larry, a bag ay disease, wantin ye tae go bareback wi um. Juice Terry, tryin tae get ye tae dae his crappy scud flicks. Aye, they’re proper gentlemen! The young team must be bad bastards, right enough!

  That hit home. Her eyes fill with a steady anger. — It’s . . . it’s no fair! They never leave ye alaine. She shakes her head, and knocks back another big swig of claret. — How can they no just let ye be . . .

  He recognises her dilemma: how the good-looking girl in their environment could be corralled into a similar pen as the hard man. How they had one resource to fall back on, were put on a pedestal for it, and discouraged from learning anything else, could never get past it, as it steadily entrapped them. But other things could imprison you too. — It’s a curse, so it is, the drink, Franco holds up his full glass. He looks at it in contempt; has zero interest in its contents. — Your auld man, Mo, he was rotten wi it. A nice guy, but eh couldnae pass a boozer. The old Irish genes, and reared in Scotland . . . not a great mix, not a recipe for a sober life.

  — Did you ken ma dad? Her eyes are big, sad, imploring.

  — Aye. Franco picks up the empty bottle by the neck, his eyes flashing with violence. — Good guy; his lassie though, ah’m no that sure aboot her but, ay. The last person tae see Sean alive. Pits you right in the fuckin frame in ma book.

  Frances’s bottom lip quivers. He raises the wine bottle, and in a sudden violent movement brings it crashing down against the table, shattering it. Glass flies across the room, eliciting a loud gasp from Frances. — Now it’s time, he holds the jagged bottle neck up to her face, — that you started gabbin.

  Frances gapes at him in abject terror. It’s as if she realises that every other nightmare she’s experienced in her life has been solely to prepare her for this one. She nods, taking up her drink and throwing it back. Then she starts to talk in such breathless compulsion, it seems like only another threat of violence could
get her to stop. — Me n Sean went up tae this flat he was steyin at, and we got wasted. Totally blootered. On everything. He took loads, ah did n aw, but no as much as him. Naebody took as much as him. She screws up her eyes, then opens them wide. — Ah passed oot, n when ah came to, ah found him like that. The door wis open, n ah got the fuck oot. Then ah phoned the ambulance, fae the payphone at the Esso garage.

  Franco lowers the broken bottle to the table. — What did ye run away fir? How did ye no phone the polis?

  — Ye say ye kent ma dad, Frances says, in reprimanding tones.

  Franco doesn’t like the taste of that, but is forced to swallow it. — Was the door locked behind youse when you went intae the flat?

  — I think so, but ah cannae be sure, she trembles. The way he looks at her, his hand still round the neck of the broken bottle. It’s like he’s going to rip her face apart. Frances reaches slowly for the intact, open bottle, emptying the last of its contents into her glass.

  — So if it was locked, either somebody had a key, or Sean came to, and heard them at the door. He knew who it was and he let them in, Franco speculates.

  — As ah said, Sean was even mair wrecked than me. Frances laughs bitterly as she looks him in the eye. It is a look of appeal, and it goes to another drink. He places the broken bottle on the table and picks up the corkscrew, opening another for her. — Ah doubt he’d have been able tae get up off the couch.

  — Who else had a key?

  — Fallon would have one, she says, lifting her glass to her lips.

  — Who?

  — Fallon. He’s the landlord, Frances says off-handedly, feeling a satisfying thump of the wine’s anaesthetic, — it wis his flat, and she lifts the bottle he’d opened and starts to pour.

  — Where does he stey?

  — Ah dinnae ken, Frances knocks back a full glass like a shot, — but I ken where he goes for brunch every morning . . . tae that Valvona and Crolla place at the top ay the Walk, she says and looks at his glass. — Ye no gaunny take that drink?