Nine years I had worn a suit and pushed numbers round spreadsheets. Nine years of balancing budgets, making projections, income and expenditure. Accounting for this, accounting for that. No accounting for eventualities.
After it happened, I was in and out of the office for a few months. Compassionate leave, then back, signed off ill, then back.
Drinking too much, thinking too much, arguing too much, threatening to beat people up too much. Sent home to think again. Then paid off. All very sorry that it had to come to this. Nobody’s fault. Sure. Fuck you.
After that I had eight months at home, looking at walls and going up them. Then I went to work for Cammy Strang driving a taxi. It worked for me, I guess. They called me mate. Or driver. Sometimes they’d call me pal or buddy. When the booze or the pills or the anger or just the sheer fact of living in Glasgow got to them, they’d call me things that really weren’t very nice at all.
People flit in and out of your life when you are a taxi driver. Few of them ever register on your consciousness, they are just shapes and voices and half-arsed directions. They are demands for receipts and hands reaching out for change. They are threats to your upholstery and assaults on your opinions.
It suited me. They weren’t real people so you didn’t have to have real conversations with them. If pushed you had the traditional taxi conversation and all you had to give were the traditional taxi answers. It was an old game.
‘Been busy the night, driver?’
‘What time you been on since?’
‘Time you on to?’
‘Long shift that, eh?’
‘You into the fitba?’
‘Who do you support?’
‘Aye, but who do you support?’
‘Aye? Very good. But who do you really support though?’
‘Aye, fair enough. Rather no say, eh? Nae worries. I’m a Rangers man maself.’
‘Been busy the night, driver?’
Aye, I’ve been busy. Busy driving drunken wastes of space like yourself home. Busy shipping deadwood out to deadtown. Busy listening to shite. Busy thinking. Busy gliding through neon and never wondering about the creatures passed in the night. The only thing that could conceivably interest me about anyone I drive is that they might be next. Any one of them.
Glasgow seems a much smaller city at night. Smaller and deader, brighter and greyer, emptier and scarier. Streetlight tunnels to nowhere and bogey men that go stab in the night.
Drive a taxi in Glasgow and you see its people at their worst. Never, ever, at their best. Dead men drinking. Drunk men barely walking. Drunk girls barely capable of talking. Every cliché you can think about this city you see in the back of a cab. ‘Been busy the night, driver?’
Sometimes, just sometimes, the shapes in the back of the car said things that made me listen.
Late as it was, he was still in a suit, tie yanked to the side and down. His eyes were booze red in the rear-view mirror and he was howling of the stuff. He could more or less stand still in front of Central Station and was capable of walking to the door so that was something.
‘Awrite, mate. How you daein? Springburn. Croftbank Street. Been busy the night?’
‘Not too bad.’
‘It’s fucking jumping in the toon. Must be keeping you gawn.’
‘Aye, busy enough.’
‘Time you been on since, driver?’
‘Just a couple of hours.’
‘Cool. Bit wasted masel. Gid night though.’
‘Aye, good.’
‘Workin’ in the morning in aw. Ah fuckit, ah’ll be fine. Here, d’ye read aboot that lawyer that got kilt?’
Just a slight pause.
‘Aye.’
‘Fucksake. Killin lawyers, what’s it comin tae? Ah well, wan’s a start, eh?’
Silence.
‘Ah said like wan’s a start, know what ah mean?’
‘Aye.’
‘Fuckin’ lawyers, shower a bastards, man. Screw you for every penny you’ve got. Here it’d be good if the cunt that kilt this wan’s gonnae start knocking them aw aff. Know what ah mean?’
‘Aye.’
‘Wan’s a start. What d’ye think? Gangsters that did it? Fund oot in the middle uh naewhere like that.’
‘No idea.’
‘Stands tae reason, man. What the fuck was he daein oot there onyways? Shady if ye ask me. Got gangsters written aw o’er it.’
‘Aye, maybe.’
‘Makes a change fae some stupid wee ned getting hiself stabbed ah suppose. An they say a change is as good as a rest. Gae the cunt a medal that’s what ah say. See the fitba last night?’
‘No.’
‘Guid game, man. Never a penalty though. No way, no how. Who’dye support yersel?’
‘No really into football.’
‘Aye bit who dae you support?’
‘Partick Thistle.’
‘Aye? Who dae you really support? Bet you just say Thistle to any drunk that asks you, eh?’
No shit, Sherlock.
Another night a couple got in. Middle-class types, middle-aged. Picked up at the Theatre Royal on Hope Street and heading for Milngavie. Take a pound out of the cliché bank. They were both half cut and squabbling, none of it any interest or business of mine until I heard the name. Tuned right in then.
Him. ‘But Jonathan was a good guy.’
Her. ‘Jonathan was a prick.’
‘Oh, come on, the guy is dead.’
‘Doesn’t change the fact that he was a little shit. Treated Becca something terrible. I am sure he was cheating on her for years.’
‘He’s been murdered for Christ’s sake.’
‘Yes, and I’m sorry about that. Actually, I’m not sure I am.’
‘Gillian!’
‘Oh, come on, David. He would have sold his grandmother for a tenner and he would have probably fucked her as well.’
‘Christ sake! Look keep it down, and anyway you don’t know he cheated on Becca.’
‘Ha. No? Your precious friend Jonathan would have shagged a barber-shop floor. You know that full well. Don’t think he didn’t try it on with me.’
‘What?’
‘Oh grow up, David. Of course he did. The way he was I’d have been insulted if he hadn’t.’
‘You didn’t . . .?’
‘Oh, fuck off.’
‘That’s a no?’
‘You shouldn’t have to ask.’
‘No, of course not.’
‘It’s a no.’
‘OK.’
‘Do you think that maybe . . .?’
‘What?’
‘Do you think maybe Becca did it?’
‘What!’
‘Or had it done? It makes sense. If you were doing what he was doing then I’d have you killed too.’
‘Jesus Christ, Gillian!’
‘I’m just saying, and take that by way of a warning. I never did like the number of times you two went to Rotary together.’
‘Gill . . .’
‘Oh, shut up. It’s the next on the left, driver.’
Something about the night makes people open up. Alcohol probably. Driving through the city with a complete stranger at the wheel. It’s like talking into the mirror. But sometimes, sometimes I wished they would just shut the fuck up.
It is like the city is whispering at you. All babbling away at once, the way crazy people hear voices.
‘When you on till? Working again tomorrow? Been doing this long? My wife left me. I hate my job. Read about that murder? What team do you support? Been busy the night? I’ve been waiting an hour for a fucking taxi. See what happened to that lawyer? Terrible night, eh? What time you been on since? I hate this weather. This traffic is murder, isn’t it? Did you read about that murder? Did you read about that murder? Did you read about that murder?’
‘Been busy the night, driver?’
There was a girl from school. Jill Hutchison.
My first love.
So corny but nothing truer. First time I’d felt it and it threw me big time. I couldn’t understand what was going on. Every time I saw her, my stomach turned over and my thinking went wonky. Stammer, stutter, smile, sweat and scarlet. I couldn’t put sentences together properly. I talked complete and utter shite when I most wanted to talk sense.
Didn’t know what it was at first and when I worked it out, I wasn’t impressed. If this was love they could keep it. Couldn’t help myself though. For all I couldn’t understand what was happening to me, it wasn’t hard to work out why.
She was amazing. Beautiful. Smart too. Sweet and funny. She made my head spin. Long, lush black hair and fiery brown eyes. Her smile killed me.
It was three years before I had the guts to ask her out. Could barely believe it when she said yes. On the way out of a physics class, I bumped into her accidentally on purpose and we got talking. For once, the words came out more or less as I meant them. By the end of a three-minute conversation, I had asked her to see
Top Gun
. I’d had a plan to suggest going to see
Nine and a Half Weeks
but chickened out. It seemed for the best. Mickey Rourke and Kim Basinger would have given the wrong impression. Tom Cruise was a safe bet.
I kept my hands to myself and my verbal diarrhoea under control. It went well. It must have, she kissed me and said we should go out again.
I was fifteen and the happiest guy in the world. Pictures. Parties. Walks. Her room or occasionally mine. Listening to Prince, the Thompson Twins and the Jets. Touching each other. Never more than a snog and a grope. That was fine by me.
Of course I wanted to do more. I strangled myself three times a night thinking about doing more. The thought of it burned me up every time I looked at her. But that’s not the way it was. I loved her. I respected her. If she wanted to wait then I’d wait. God knows she was worth waiting for.
She had this thing where she would look right in my eyes as if I was the greatest thing since I don’t know what. It was a kind of shy thing, looking up as if I wouldn’t notice. Sometimes she would put a hand on either side of my face and touch me really gently. Then she’d kiss me really slowly, full on the mouth. Sensuous, that’s the word for it. Sensuous.
So sensuous that one time I actually came in my pants by her just holding my face and kissing me like that.
Of course I wanted to do more. Guys would ask me if I was doing her and I’d say no. They’d laugh but I didn’t care. They said that they definitely would and I didn’t doubt it but there was more to it and they just wouldn’t understand.
I told them I respected her and they laughed some more.
Then, four months into it, we were to go to a party that I couldn’t make it to on time. I was playing football and we’d agreed she would go along first then I’d get there as soon as I could after getting changed. 119 Clelland Avenue. I remember the address even though I don’t remember whose house it was.
It sat on the sweep of the bend and had two large conifers either side of the door. The path was gravel. I can still hear its crunch. I knocked on the door although the music banging through the windows should have told me it was a waste of time. Madonna. Full blast. Funny the things you remember.
After a couple of minutes I just pushed the door and went in. There were kids everywhere, most of them I knew by sight or name.
Couldn’t find her at first and tried the kitchen and the various groups that stood around in huddles. I dragged a couple of kids from their drinks and asked if they knew where she was. A girl shook her head, a guy smiled and shrugged. Then one told me she was upstairs.
I made my way through the folk on the stairs. Talking, snogging, drinking. I missed the sniggering though or else I might not have opened that door as I did.
There she was.
Naked and impaled on top of an eighteen-year-old bastard named Tony Di Rossi.
Not sure what was worse. Seeing her. Writhing. Her head back, hair flying. Listening to her beg him for more. Beg him for it harder. Or knowing that I’d have to walk back out of that house, my ears burning, my face scarlet, my mouth hanging open and salty with my own hot tears. Every dickhead in the place laughing at me.
Fucking bitch.
Maybe I’d opened the door quietly, maybe she just wasn’t listening. Either way she didn’t know I was there.
He did though. He saw me and looked. He kept on thrusting at her. His bastard grin said, ‘Enjoying the show?’ His bastard grin said ‘Oh she’s good.’ ‘Oh she’s loving it.’
I couldn’t move. I watched. Watched her drive herself down on him. Talking dirty to him.
No, the worst thing was that I was turned on by seeing her naked. First time. I was being humiliated beyond my worst nightmares. The girl I loved was betraying me in front of my eyes and all I could think of right then was how amazing her breasts were. I was hard. Maybe if she’d seen me earlier, she’d have stopped but by the time she did, it was way too late. She came all over him as she saw me.
There was a flicker of surprise and maybe some guilt on her face. Not much. Certainly no remorse. Right then, she wasn’t regretting anything.
He saw her look and knew it for what it was. He loved it. He was laughing. Laughing loud. At me.