If it is your life (20 page)

Arthur squinted at me like he didnt know what I was talking about.

Sons, I said, they’re their pride and joy.

The fucking sun shines out their arse ye mean. Arthur shook his head and spat into the fire. A different story when ye’re merried to them, when the boy grows to a man. Fucking nag nag nag.

Discipline begins in the home, said Tim, looking directly at me. Or not at all. Tim was licking the gummed edge of his roll-up. He smiled. It was you said it.

Me?

Aye.

What did I say?

Ye would punch fuck out him. Yer boy, if he went to the hooligan games.

Well so I would. When he was that age. Know what I mean, it’s a long time since he was a teenager.

Tim smiled again, eyes closed and shaking his head. He had a habit of doing that. It was fucking annoying, like ye had said something daft. Why not come out and say it, if that was how he felt. I saw him gie a wee look to Arthur but I didnay say nothing. Him and Arthur could gang up on folk. We were all mates but some were matier than others. It was like that in this world. Since time immemorial. It gied ye a pain in the neck. If ye let it get to ye. I didnay. We cannay be everything to everybody. Nay point trying. I learned that a long time back. It was just that I talked too much. Sometimes I wished I didnay, I wished I could shut up, just shut my fucking mouth.

Nicky Parkes was like that. He hardly said fuck all and was the better for it.

Tim had made him a roll-up as well as one for himself. He got the light from the fire. He didnay have to because him and Tim both had lighters. But it was good using the fire. Same with me if I had smoked. It saved ye lighter fuel as well. But it was more than that. Ye just liked doing it. And then the smell, I aye liked the smell of fires, even auld yins; the smell on yer hands.

We watched Nicky Parkes getting the light. He tore a page out a newspaper and folded it lengthwise. Lengthwise! That made me smile. And it was very tight
the way he folded it; ye might say crisp. Deep and crisp and even. When he had it burning he held it for Tim. Tim had to draw his head back in case the flame burnt up his nose and eyelashes. That was close! he said.

Once they had their lights Nicky Parkes dropped the paper on the fire and we watched it flare up then settle; burnt out, the ash blowing. There was a wee swirl of draught roundabout this place, and ye felt it. I did and so did the other three. Auld age; the blood gets thin. Too many fucking aspirin. Imagine the chemist firm that made them went bust, and they stopped manufacturing the cunts: half the male population of Glasgow would collapse with heart attacks. I was going to make a comment on the subject but couldnay be bothered. Tim started telling us about an auld cunt that froze to death. It was in the
Evening Times
. Nayn of the rest of us had read about it. Froze to death in Scotland! It was hard to believe. All kidding aside, he said. It was a gaff in Miller Street.

There’s nay gaffs in Miller Street, I said, nay cunt lives in Miller Street. No nowadays, it’s all shops and offices.

We’re no talking nowadays.

All I’m saying is naybody lives in Miller Street.

Right enough, said Arthur.

Tim sighed. I’m no gony argue the point. It isnay me saying, it, it was in the
Times
. They found the auld guy deid; they had to batter down the door and it was a tenement building down Miller Street

A tenement building down Miller Street … I shook my head at that. I thought they were all offices.

They are all offices. Was it upstairs or down? said Arthur

Tim glared at us. How the fuck do I know.

It matters.

Matters fuck all, yez are just being stupid.

It matters if ye’re trying to work it out, said Arthur, that’s all. I’m no trying to get at ye.

Tim sighed.

Did they say where they found him?

I dont fucking know, wait til I phone them.

Naw, said Arthur, likely it was a basement; down a dunny. They auld tenements are full of dunnies. That’s where the auld yin will have been staying. The same round the Clyde walkway. It’s all manholes and dunnies along there. The homeless go down at night; they’ve got saunas and fucking tv lounges down there. Know what I mean, they homeless cunts, they’ve got better conditions than us, better than Barlinnie. Maybe the auld yin done the same, climbed down a manhole and got lost!

Shoosh, I said, I cannay go this right-wing shite.

What d’ye mean? Arthur grinned. It might be shite but it isnay right-wing.

Of course it is: Hate the Homeless week yet again.

Gie us a break.

It was a joke, said Tim.

Aye joke the coalman.

Tim shook his head and dragged on his roll-up, blew out the smoke. He gazed across to the back of the shops. There was a big black dog sniffing about at a pile of bricks. Some size of a dog, he said.

Nicky Parkes was looking at it. I’m fucking starving.

Dont tell me ye’d eat the dog? I said.

Fucking right.

I wonder how come it’s sniffing about there? said Tim. Probably a deid body buried under the ground.

Think so?

Oh aye.

Mind you, said Arthur, it is feasible.

I turned and spat a gob into the fire. It sizzled a moment.

Arthur said, Careful.

What do ye think it’s going to put the fire out?

I didnay mean it like that.

Aw, okay. I nodded, but in a sarcastic way. Arthur annoyed me. He knew he annoyed me. The cunt could-nay make a fire and here he was taking control.

It was me and Nicky Parkes made the fires. Tim helped but no that much. But it didnay matter. I liked making them anyway. I am no saying ye have to be special to make them. But what I will say is: some folk are good at it.

Same when I was a boy. We used to set fire to fields and all sorts, middens and what have ye. We set fires everywhere. There was a rubbish pit no far from our street and we dragged stuff from it. I am talking childhood days, the bygone era. Ye learned about fires. Leather furniture for instance, ye learned about that. Some stuff is dangerous. Motor-car tyres. Rubber. If that lands on yer wrist ye know all about it. Burning rubber; I once got it on my legs. There is more to fires
than people think. Nicky Parkes was the same. I knew it the way he built them. And ye have to build them. Fires, I said.

The other three looked at me.

Ye’ve got to build them. I’m talking if ye want them to last.

Oh aye … Tim glanced ower at Arthur.

Nicky Parkes was shaking his head. No at me. He was away thinking about something else. He was even staring in another direction. He was a rude cunt at times. Ye were standing with him but he was away someplace else. How come he palled about with ye? Ye wondered. I liked him but. I dont know why. But I did. He drifted in and out of company. Now ye see him now ye dont.

Like the auld guy, him that died; freezing to death inside a cold tenement building, nay heating or fuck all. What a life. Ye thought ye were doing okay and then ye werenay, ye woke up fucking dead, a block of ice. Poor bastard. Probably he had grandkids too.

The auld yin? said Arthur.

Aye.

Arthur nodded. That’s what I was thinking.

Poor auld cunt.

Heh Tim, what did the headline say?

Man found dead.

Man found dead, it hardly fits the bill. No for something like that, said Arthur, fucking tragedy.

Tragedy’s right, said Tim.

I said: Scandalous. Scandalous is the word I would use.

Nicky Parkes was watching me, he was expecting me to say something more. What? What was I supposed to say? There wasnay a single solitary word. Poor auld cunt, what a way to go. It just wasnay fair. That was the world for ye.

I stepped sideways and edged some burnables into the fire. At least we had a fire. Unlike the auld yin. The truth is I didnay like Tim’s story. I was even half-prepared to know his name. Almost like I knew I would. I asked Tim. Did they gie ye his name?

Him that died?

Aye.

Tim thought about it. Naw, he said.

I shook my head. There was just something about it, some familiar thing.

What do ye think ye knew him?

Naw I mean, nay reason to think that, nay reason at all. Except just

What?

I dont know …

Arthur started speaking about something. The other two listened. I didnay. I rubbed my hands at the fire. Thank fuck it was going good. Sometimes they didnay.

Arthur was on about the time he did in Barlinnie. Ye were sick hearing about it. Some asbestos scare. Burst pipes in the cludgie ceiling. Or Gents’ pisshouse as he called it. Gents’ pisshouse! As if there was another one for Ladies! Barlinnie fucking Prison, know what I mean. The pisshouse was down the back of the block and down a step, and there was a slope there. The
plumbers were in working. Ye went for a piss and came out looking like Santa Claus. It was all clouds of asbestos dust, that white fibre stuff. All the bears went on strike, said Arthur. A couple of laggers were in with us, they knew all about it. The screws were feared, they werenay gony do fuck all until we telled them! They were going, Dont worry about white it’s blue that’s the killer! A load of fucking keech. White’s every bit a killer.

Too true, I said, there’s brown, white and blue; each one of them’s deadly.

That was what we said, go for a shite and ye’re a goner. Know what I mean, ye’re in for Breach and wind up it’s a death sentence, mesotheli-whatever-the-fuck.

Christ! said Nicky Parkes.

Stories about the jail aye interested Nicky Parkes. It was obvious he had done time. He wasnay the brightest of cunts but he was crafty. I yawned. It wasnay that jail stories bored me but I had heard this one afore: no just from Arthur.

I stopped listening. He was in full flight. Governors and ministers and priests and fucking royal princes or some shite. What next man the three fucking stooges.

The thing about the asbestos story, I didnay know what it
meant.
It must have
meant
something. Otherwise how come guys telled ye about it so much? Was it like solidarity between screws and bears? There was something like that the way Arthur telled it. Fucking shite.

I drifted, looking for stuff.

Ye done time in there ye wanted to forget about it, ye didnay go yapping about it every ten minutes. That was what I thought.

I found a wooden contraption, like a wean’s playpen or an old-fashioned chute for toddlers maybe. I propped it up on a couple of bricks and stuck the heel on the uprights, snapped them easy. I kicked them ower to the side. It definitely wasnay a chute. Nicky Parkes came ower to help and we kicked it nearer the fire. Good wood, I said. All we need is a carton of coffee and we’ll be well away.

What about a wee brandy?

Exactly, smoked salmon and a pound of grapes.

Now Nicky Parkes gave a look in the direction of Arthur. I just shrugged. These two never saw eye to eye. I stayed out it. I didnay get on too well with Arthur either. There wasnay many cunts I did get on with. The wife said that. I was a crabbit auld cunt. That was what she called me. Well, she didnay say cunt, she didnay like swearie-words.

The word for Nicky Parkes was moody. Ye didnay want to do him a bad turn. It was him and me kept the home fires burning.

He had the touch. Ye notice that with fires. Same as a boy, when you and yer mates are building a fire, when it comes to lighting it, getting the thing going, it is usually just the one or two that does that. The other boys stand back. I was quite good. I have to say but something tells me I wasnay in the Nicky Parkes league. Just something about him.

And oily cloots werenay needed either. It wouldnay matter if a galeforce wind was blowing. One match,
that was all he needed. He would burn down an entire leisure complex, hotels, fucking restaurants. He was yer man. He was smiling at something. Hey Pat, he said.

What? I said.

A large brandy would be better than a wee yin.

Yeh.

He laughed: A large brandy waiter!

I laughed too. Plus a salmon sandwich!

Arthur looked across at us, wondering what we were laughing about. Meanwhile Tim yakked on about something.

It was about a guy had odeed. Who gives a fuck: that was what I thought. Drugs and dope, I cannay be arsed with it. That many problems in the world. Get us a winner at Cheltenham, that was what I was looking for.

But where was he? said Tim.

What ye talking about?

Him that odeed. I’ll tell ye where he was man he was sitting on the fucking chanty, that was where they found him. Odeed on the fucking chanty, poor cunt.

A common scenario, said Arthur.

Is it fuck.

It is.

Tim glared at him.

I’ll tell ye how.

Ye’ll no tell me how. Tim cleared his throat, spat in between his feet and took out his tobacco again.

Nicky Parkes squinted across at me. It was because the other two were at the argy-bargy; usually they were on the same side. I couldnay care less, edging the wood
to the fire. But I raised my eyebrows a wee bit. No too much. I wasnay wanting involved. All these battles. I would have been as well sitting home with the wife. I listened to Arthur and Tim for another couple of minutes then I shook my head. Sitting on a chanty but, what a way to go! At least it was a relief, I said.

That stopped them and they laughed. Usually I was nay good at jokes. This time it worked. Even Nicky Parkes was laughing; a kind of laugh. Ye never knew with him. He wasnay huffy or fuck all he just – I dont know. It was a strange kind of laugh he had; all this talk about cludgies but the truth is the laugh he had sounded like constipation grunts.

It wasnay his fault. Ye just had to be careful with him; that was what I thought. He stepped away from the fire now, turned his back on the company and off he went. Soon he was out of sight. That was Nicky Parkes. Not a fucking word of explanation. I watched him go.

Arthur had been chipping bits of stuff into the fire. Now he started telling us about a dream he had had. Jesus christ man. I checked my watch. Still too early; the doors hadnay opened.