FOUR OLD GEEZERS AND A VALKYRIE
Gordon Lawrie
Four Old Geezers And A Valkyrie
Gordon Lawrie
Published by Gordon Lawrie at Smashwords
Copyright 2012 Gordon Lawrie
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4658-6151-1
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Chapter 1 - The Parabola Of The Flying Saucer
Chapter 7 - Getting In Shape For Sunday
Chapter 11 - Supersomething Meets Gerry Rafferty
Chapter 12 - Paint Mixing At B&Q
Chapter 13 - Taking Stock With Harry
Chapter 14 - Bumping Into Geoff
Chapter 15 - Another Encounter With The Siren
Chapter 16 - Na Na Na Na Nah Na
Chapter 19 - Geoff Meets The Band
Chapter 23 - What's In A Name?
Chapter 25 - Dreaming Of Christmas
Chapter 26 - The Ghost Of Christmas Past
Chapter 27 - Ding-Dong Merrily
Chapter 29 - The Real Costa Coffee
Chapter 34 - The World's My Oyster
Chapter 35 - Citizens' Advice Bureau
Chapter 36 - The Labours Of Geoff
Chapter 37 - The Studio, Part One
Chapter 38 - The Studio, Part Two
Chapter 39 - Hard Negotiations
Chapter 41 - The Fruits Of Our Labour
Chapter 42 - Acting Out The Music
Chapter 44 - The Finishing Touch
Chapter 45 - Passing The Torch
Chapter 46 - The True Value Of Fame
Chapter 47 - Courting Disaster
Chapter 48 - Thank God It's Thursday
Chapter 50 - A Grand Gathering At Bev's
Chapter 52 - For Whom The Bell Tolls
Chapter 54 - At Cantina Mexicana
Chapter 57 - Desperate Measures
Chapter 58 - Legal Correspondence
Chapter 59 - The Truth About Brian
Chapter 60 - Condemned Men Eat Cheese Scones
Chapter 62 - Curtains For Walnut
Chapter 64 - Otis Farrell And The Upbeats
Chapter 65 - Live From Peebles
The Parabola Of The Flying Saucer
The characteristics of thrown domestic objects vary with the items chosen. Light pans offer relatively little satisfaction; they make lots of noise but do little damage, whereas heavier ones such as frying pans - despite the reputation that they and rolling pins jointly undeservingly enjoy - have the huge disadvantage that they are likely to do lasting damage to the intended target. While this might seem at first to be a good thing, it is important that the thrower retains the option to fire further missiles; the main pleasure derived from doing anything enjoyable is the knowledge that one can do it again without feeling guilty. Le Creuset will probably be fatal, which defeats the object completely. Cutlery, especially knives, is particularly unsuited to being thrown, since it’s a matter of sheer chance whether the metal slices through dermis and epidermis to permanent and lasting effect, bounces off the target, or skims past and embeds itself in something else which the thrower actually quite values. Sharp knives also have an unnerving habit of spinning vertically in the air.
Some individuals err on the safe side, making soft cushions, wet cloths, or perhaps oranges their weapons of choice. However, these people are not, in my opinion, really taking part in serious projectile-throwing at all, but instead are indulging in a perverse attempt to demonstrate affection. If the missile lands on its target, it should cause pain, either physical or, better still, mental.
That’s why fine crockery is made of porcelain and not plastic or enamelled metal. It’s light enough to fit in the smallest of hands - even heavier teapots come with convenient handles - fragile enough to shatter against any reasonably hard surface, and, if well-chosen, items can be of sentimental value to the target - like Great Aunt Ethel’s Victorian hundred-piece tea-service - can strike deep into the soul of the mark, perhaps also shattering on his or her skull. For this purpose it helps to select quality china; nothing from TK Maxx or Asda will do here.
But even within the range offered by a china tea-set, different pieces of china perform differently. A jug or a sugar bowl, both heavier objects, will travel through the air in a flat arc, barely deviating from its initial line of flight. A cup, because of its handle will be unbalanced in the air. This might straighten its flight, in fact, in much the same manner as a bullet fired from a rifle barrel, although there remains a good chance that the thrower will catch a finger in the handle and make a mess of things. Plates, even side plates, can, like jugs, be a little heavy for effective use.
Which leaves the saucer. In fact, owners of tea-sets must wonder if there is any other purpose for saucers, especially in the modern era when tea- and coffee-drinkers are so wedded to mugs for everyday use. Let’s face it - when did you last use a saucer when you didn’t have guests in the house? These things sit in some difficult-to-reach corner of a cupboard or dresser (lower cupboards of dressers are really suited to nothing else, are they?). The chosen drinking vessels of the twenty-first century are the mug and the wine glass. Wine glasses throw well, too, by the way, and of course they shatter brilliantly, but nothing beats the saucer in the air. And who needs saucers? There are always more than you ever need, especially since cups and saucers seem to break in a ratio of three to one.
So there they sit, these saucers, just waiting for the next domestic dispute to come along so that they can fulfill their true purpose, like butterflies whose finest hour is the instant before their death. Saucers are the Ferraris of the domestic projectile world, the go-to implements for all would-be pitchers. They can be hurled directly, just like teacups and jugs, but far more satisfyingly they can be slung backhanded, whereupon they assume one of their two extraordinary frisbee flight-paths. Right-way up, the right-handed thrower will see the saucer set off, bank slightly upwards to the left, then fall away to the floor and its certain destruction; upside-down, the saucer will bend left-to-right, then dip sharply downwards to the right and an even faster terminal impact. If you see a saucer flying upside-down towards you, it is fatal to duck - you’ll duck into its flightpath, like as not, increasing the impact speed - instead, the correct technique is to sway smoothly backwards and forwards to allow it to pass harmlessly by. During the Falklands, British naval helicopters used a similar technique to dodge Exocet missiles, I’ve been told; I suppose they in turn might have learned the trick from Spanish matadors.
By now you must be asking how I’ve become such an expert in the parabolas of flying crockery, and, yes, you’d be correct in guessing that it’s born of personal experience, sometimes painful experience at that. Picture the scene: Brunhilde, my wife of thirty-one years, has once again decided that I am a useless, no-good piece of manure fit only for the wheelie-bin (once while I was sleeping, she pinned a notice on my favourite lambswool jumper which said “DO NOT RECYCLE”). We’re standing in the kitchen/dining-room of our rather nice house in Newington in the south side of Edinburgh, just off Minto Street to the left going down. She’s thrown things before, but this time she’s found the mother-lode, the aforementioned Aunt Ethel’s tea-set. It had actually been worth quite a lot of money, at least while it was only in one hundred pieces. Brunhilde’s not her real name, incidentally; her real name’s Jane, but her valkyrie-like features make the nickname inevitable. Now she’s gone, having swept out the front door, leaving me behind to sweep up thousands of pieces of what was Aunt Ethel’s pride and joy. Hopefully, there’s no life after death and she can’t be aware of its fate. Personally, I wasn’t that bothered, thus displaying the very indifference that had driven Brunhilde mad in the first place. Indifference about my job, life, Brunhilde, the universe, whatever. Almost everything, but not quite everything.
She didn’t leave permanently. Later that evening she returned and demanded that I did instead, her reasoning being that the children needed her to be in the family home. I could have debated this, especially since one of our children, Becky, was twenty-two at the time and coming to the end of a degree in French and Linguistic Studies at St. Andrew’s, while the older one, Harry, was well and truly off the payroll - with both a law and an accountancy degree - and safely settled in his own Bruntsfield flat with his long-term partner Danni. I certainly wasn’t indifferent to them, but they weren’t coming home in a hurry. And contesting the occupation of a home with so much grief attached was another thing I was indifferent to, so out I went, to find myself to rent a small basement flat in the West End. There, my life became quieter, safer, and - frankly - more boring.
For a while, at any rate.
There is no glory whatsoever in being the Depute Head of a secondary school. (The word is pronounced ‘deh-pyoot’ incidentally, as opposed to the word ‘deputy’, as in ‘Deputy Dawg’.) In essence, Depute Heads are failures, all of them, poor sad cases who aspired to the stardom of a headship of their own, but fell short of the mark. Don’t believe any of them who try to tell you they are “happy where they are, thank you”, they’d all jump at the chance to give the orders themselves rather than be the dogsbodies beneath them. In Scotland, you can go on a course to become a headteacher, no matter how little talent you might have, wasting large amounts of local authority money that would be better spent on teaching five-year-olds how to tie their shoelaces or whatever. Local authorities decide who should go on the course, which in reality means your school’s head; if your face fits, you’re on. My face didn’t fit, and perhaps I was lucky, not because I would have made a good head - I wouldn’t have, by the way - but rather because I’ve seen what happens to the people who do get chosen: Stepford Wives, the lot of them, even the men. Perhaps especially the men. The women turn into Stepford Husbands who have created male robots to fulfil their needs, so the Ira Levin novel operates in reverse.
It’s not even as if the money’s that good. Don’t get me wrong - teachers generally are not on the breadline, although that’s often because there’s two of them in the one household, and the hourly wage-rate isn’t so attractive once you take the real length of the working week into account. No, the point I’m making is that Depute Heads aren’t paid that much more than heads of department in a secondary school, and they get to do something I haven’t done for years: teach the kind interesting classes. They get the fun classes, the ‘sexy’ classes if you like, the ones with the fancy certificates. Depute Heads get the leftovers, the second year classes full of malcontents, the bottom sets and the troublemakers. Depute Heads are treated like dogsbodies when it comes to teaching, too - do you detect a pattern here? Actually, department heads might well work longer hours, but they’re doing stuff they want to do. Depute Heads have to do what they’re told, by irate headteachers, by irate parents, by irate social workers, by irate community police - even by irate visiting speakers sometimes.
Sooner or later, most Depute Heads waken up to the fact that life has passed them by. No-one pays the slightest attention to them, and turning up to work has become a purgatory to be endured until the merciful release of retirement comes. Unless…
Unless you get really lucky. Once in a generation, some fool in an office somewhere decides that the solution to all of life’s ills is to flush out all the dead wood - they mean people like me - and replace us with something younger, more dynamic, and - above all - cheaper. They think they can do without you, so they offer you a package to leave, which is sometimes attractive enough (very rarely these days, actually) to make it just about possible to up sticks and do something else. When I was fifty-six, a number of Depute Heads of my age were made an offer to leave. I couldn’t get out quick enough. I’d been in the job too long and I knew it.
The difficulty was that what I received from my former employers was never going to be quite enough to keep me in the manner to which I’d become accustomed, and with which I wanted to remain on speaking terms. I needed something to top up a smallish pension, and something to keep me occupied and out of mischief, away from bookshops and music stores. I tried sending articles to magazines and newspapers. The first paid very little and the second paid nothing at all, simply ignoring everything I fired at them. If the truth be told, I wasn’t any better at writing than I was at teaching.
Then I did land a small job to keep me going. My local Costa coffee shop was looking for a part-time barista, and so on Tuesdays and Thursdays - they had students working at the weekend - I find myself standing with a black apron trying to construct the best espressos and lattes the cut-price coffee would produce. I’m not too bad at making coffee, I reckon. I like talking to customers, passing the time of day, discussing the weather, some item of news, or even a football match, and they like talking to me. I’ve even served own my daughter Becky once, when she came in to see how I was getting on and give me moral support. I gave her a latte with vanilla syrup on the house in return. Jane has never come in, though, even although she’s knows I work there, which is maybe just as well; the cups would hurt too much if they hit me. Funny thing, though: I called her Brunhilde, sometimes even to her face, when we were married, but now she’s gone, she’s ‘Jane’.
Late one November Thursday afternoon, I’m clearing up some tables and getting ready to load up another dishwasher when a voice from the past whispers in my ear.
“Aye, aye, Captain, fancy finding you in here of all places!” Did I say the voice whispers? It’s a cross between heavy breathing and a bellow. A moment or so ago I was all alone.
Even before I look round I know who it is.
In fact it’s as well that I recognise Fleece’s voice before I see him. He’s utterly different from the figure who was my best man when I married Jane. He’s put on a ton of weight, grown a beard of sorts, and his once-blonde hair has turned a pinkish shade of grey. Frankly, the man’s a mess, and his clothing - never the tidiest at the best of times - would allow him to pass as a street beggar. He doesn’t look fat as such, he’s just bulked out, and it’s difficult to say if he’s developed a beer belly because he’s so large in directions otherwise. He looks like a cross between Gerard Dépardieu and Brian Blessed, and like the latter he roars with laughter, a characteristic which caused his friends embarrassment in many a pub and restaurant in younger days. But now that I study him again, he remains in the same broad proportions as when we first met at university. Back then he was on the first of four university course (I did say four, yes) that he’d try out for size. Fleece had money, or at least his parents did, so he was able to chop and change like goldilocks and the three degrees. He did eventually finish the last one, something in business management, I heard. Not that it mattered. His dad owned a collection of snooker and pool rooms in Glasgow which he knew would keep him more than provided for.
The first degree attempt was in French and Law, for goodness’ sake! Can you imagine Fleece - whose real name is Big Josh Mackay, by the way, although his parents called him Joshua and omitted the “Big” - with his beer-stained jumpers, entertaining clients in a Queen Street law office? There was never any danger that he’d be allowed out in the open where he could possibly ruin a corporate image. But there he was, mid-1970s, supposedly studying law and even a little French until the time came when he had to sit some exams at the end of the first year. And that was that.
He’s talking to me, but I’m not listening properly, I’m just adjusting to the deafening presence of this gorilla in the West End Costa. He’s in my domain, he’s invaded my space! And he knows it, just as he knows I’m not happy.
“Look Captain, I know you’re not listening, you don’t need to answer,” he says, punching me in the shoulder. “I’ll just turn round and leave the same way as I came in. I know when I’m not wanted.”
I’ve missed something, but I’ve no idea what. “No, no, please - stay. How are you, Fleece?” Why do people say things they don’t mean just so as not to appear rude? Of course it would be nice if he turned around and left. But instead I say, “Haven’t seen you for years - it must be…?”
“That’s just what I was saying, you daft twit. Don’t you ever listen? Are you going deaf in your old age as well as putting on weight?” He delivers an almighty backhanded wallop to my stomach. “I saw you at Walnut’s fiftieth, remember?”
Yes, I do remember. Walnut’s real name is Duncan, and Fleece had christened him Walnut “in loving memory” of the Walnut Whips that were once made in the Duncan’s chocolate factory in Canonmills, just down the road from where we stand as he reminds me. Nowadays, they’re made somewhere in darkest Yorkshire, I believe. Duncan hated being called “Walnut”, in fact, and he was acutely embarrassed when a number of his old university chums turned up at his function in the Roxburghe Hotel at the end of George Street. Duncan, you see, had started the same law course as Fleece, but he’d actually gone on to be a successful part of the Edinburgh legal establishment. For a while I’d got to know Duncan quite well after Fleece had dropped out for the first time. Duncan and I were rugby fans, the only ones in our little group, and we ended up going to internationals together. Even a couple of away games - Twickenham and Paris. That was in the days when you had to stand on giant terracings. Duncan was good at picking up girls from nowhere, so we always had a good time. A very good time.
But our worlds drifted far apart until I bumped into him at Murrayfield one February Saturday, dressed in a Barbour jacket and now bald apart from a neat fringe around his ears. He’d greeted me like a long-lost friend, called me ‘Brian’, my real name, and asked after Brunhilde. He invited us to his fiftieth, which by chance was to be the following Friday night. Jane and I were still together then, so we both turned up, and sure enough Duncan had invited a number of his old university friends; there, in all his glory, was Fleece. That night, Fleece had his second wife Hannah on his arm. His first wife, Carla (the main result of his second attempt to gain a degree, Italian Studies) and he had had two daughters, but then Carla had thrown Fleece out in much the same way that Brunhilde would later eject me.
Fleece only wears Barbour jackets when he feels he should look smart. Most of the time, he wears… a fleece. Surprisingly for a closet Hibs fan, he used to wear maroon ones quite a bit, although one of his daughters once gave him a nice green Hibs fleece for a birthday and for a while he felt obliged to wear it. “I look a prat in this, don’t I, Captain? I look a prat.” Fleece has a habit of repeating himself, although he insists that was my habit, and in particular he claims I have a habit of agreeing in a ‘knowledgeable’ way, nodding my head sagely and simply saying “Aye”, often several times, usually because I could never get a word in while he was talking. Get the nickname now? Then Fleece repeats it over and over again until it sticks. I suppose he thought it was funny. Fleece thinks most of what he says is funny, and no-one’s got the heart to tell him otherwise.
“Heard you and Brunhilde split, old boy,” he yells, just about loud enough for the other barista, whose busy washing up in the kitchen, almost to hear. “Sorry to hear about that. She was a bit wild, wasn’t she? I often wondered what you saw in each other to be honest, you had so little in common.”
“Did we?”
“You can always tell how well couples will get on by how well their tastes in music match up. Take me and Carla. I like cowboy music and southern rock” - Fleece loved everything by The Band - “and she liked pop music. Marriage made in heaven.”
I wait for him to square this logic with the fact that his first marriage to Carla disappeared in flames even quicker than mine years ago. I am not to be disappointed.
“Well it should have been,” he explains, “until pop music went over to that New Romantic stuff. Beat’s in a different place. It needs to be da-da-dah. Da-da-dah.” He emphasises the last ‘dah’ each time. “Think of Neil Young in Southern Man. So that was that for Carla and me. Led astray by Spandau Ballet and so on.” He pauses, then throws his head back and roars with laughter again. Meanwhile I am reminded that Fleece was a recreational drummer in a past life, conjuring up an image of the hairy drummer beast from The Muppet Show. For some reason I ask him if he’s still beating the skins.
“Hell, yeah!” he exclaims, mimicking some wild west cowboy who almost certainly never existed by slapping his thigh. On second thoughts, maybe Doris Day in Calamity Jane. “How’s a man supposed to give vent to his frustrations if he doesn’t smash a drum-kit regularly? Helped me get through Carla all those years ago, in fact. Me and Little Joe still jam regularly, would you believe?”
“Really?” I feign interest.
‘Little Joe’ is in fact Joe Mackay, Fleece’s younger brother, whom I do see from time to time. He and I happen to belong the same squash club, although he’s at least ten leagues higher than me (most of my opponents are beginners or over seventy, in fact) and in squash terms he treats me like something he’s just scraped off the sole of his shoe. Joe is ‘Little’ in the sense that he is six years younger, and a whole heap thinner, although as it happens he is also three inches taller at six feet three. He confuses everyone by being bald, too - not as bald as Walnut, certainly, but with a massively receding hairline. He’s attempted to deal with this by cropping what he has left really closely, so that with a vest on he probably takes after Bruce Willis; it just about works, I think. Joe could be any age, and when he’s not smiling he can look evil. Joe may not be little but then again Fleece is a Bonanza fan, especially since he’s found repeats of his favourite childhood western series on ITV 6 or some other obscure satellite channel.
The very mention of Joe sets Fleece off.
“Da, duddle ah, duddle ah, duddle ah, duddle ah-dah -
Da, duddle ah, da, duddle ah, da duddle ah dah dah.”
he sings, belting out the Bonanza theme tune. As he does so, I’m reminded that Fleece’s drumming skills require him to hold a rhythm better than a tune. I humour him by smiling politely.
“Little Joe was the youngest of the four Cartwrights in Bonanza,” I remind him. “There were only two of you, although you’d make a good Hoss Cartwright given a decent ten-gallon hat.”
“I believe you’re making reference to my increased stature, Captain. I can’t tell a lie, I’ve put the beef on a bit. But there’s life in me yet, I’ll have you know. I turned out for Old Wanderers two weeks ago.” Fleece used to be a very good rugby second-row forward, but this still amazes me. He amplifies. “I lasted all of thirty-five minutes.”
“Really?” I’m amazed.
“Yes. Although in two instalments. The first one lasted three minutes then I had to sit down to get my breath back. A wee while later I came back on and ran around for a while at a more sensible speed.”
“So what are you up to these days?” I ask. “Last I heard you were refusing benefits to lots of needy people in the Department of Social Security.”
“Still am, I’m afraid. Not like you, you lucky bugger, getting paid to get out. The government intends to make me complete all my sentence. Nelson Mandela only got twenty-seven years and they treated him like a hero!”
“So you’ve around three years to go?”
“Two years, seven months and seventeen days.” He looks at his watch. “Less the eighteen minutes it took me to walk here from Market Street.” He roars again. I notice a customer has appeared, a mother and child, bringing some welcome relief from this continuing assault on my eardrums. She orders a latte with an extra shot - a good choice, the coffee’s like dishwasher today - and an organic orange juice for her son. They share a packet of assorted mini-muffins, before the child, who’s probably aged around three, sets off to play with the toys that I’ve both cleaned and tidied up for the day. Or so I’d thought.
Meanwhile Fleece is standing around like a spare part and, finally taking the hint, puts his hand in his pocket to buy a ristretto, which is not only the smallest but also the cheapest thing I sell. He wants a glass of water to go with it, which is not surprising since effort of laughing has forced him into a sweat, while his always-red face now looks a deep crimson.
“How’s Hannah?” I ask. Hannah and he met and married in a whirlwind romance after the demise of Carla, and she and Brunhilde always got on well.
He shifts his weight uneasily from one foot to the other and then back again. For a moment I wish I hadn’t asked. “Well that’s the thing, Captain, that’s the thing. You see, Captain…” - dropping his voice for the first time, he fumbles for the right words and looks away from me - “she’s only gone and left me, hasn’t she. So there we are, the pair of us.”
“Jane didn’t leave me,” I correct him. “She threw me out. Where are you staying?”
“Ah well, Hannah and I had already downsized after the kids left, and we moved into a modern small flat off the Canongate three years ago. Very nice. A wee garden, even. Unfortunately it left Hannah with loads of money to lavish on a toy-boy. Fucked off with him in June. Probably literally.”
“A toy-boy? Hannah?”
“Well, she’s about six months older than him.”
I try to make a comparison between Hannah and Fleece’s sister-in-law. “Joe’s two years younger than Bev. Is Joe a toy-boy?”
Fleece considers the question carefully. “Possibly. But it doesn’t matter because Bev is drop-dead gorgeous and Joe actually looks about five years older than her.” Actually, this is cruel, but spot-on.
“I’m shocked, Fleece,” I say. “I’m sorry to hear that, my friend. That’s the two of us in much the same situation, I suppose.”
“Indeed it is, Captain, indeed it is,” Fleece intones. He pauses, shuffles around. He’s got something on his mind. Then he asks, “What time do you clock off tonight, Captain?”
I’m not sure I’ve heard this right and decide to play safe. “I’m not sure what you’re asking, Fleece, and I know you’re probably desperate, but I should make it clear that I’m not. At least not that desperate.”
Fleece looks at me blankly, then roars with laughter. “Nice one, Captain, nice one. No, all I was suggesting was a quiet drink. How about Mathers just up the road? Seven-fifteen?” Mathers is a classic old working men’s pub of the type where any self-respecting woman can now swan in and order a large glass of chilled sauvignon blanc. To go with olives and a scotch pie. It’s perfect.
“OK, I’m doing nothing tonight,” I say. In fact I’m doing nothing tomorrow night, the night after, or the night after that…
I’m sitting alone in Mathers in a dark corner. I made a point of turning up fifteen minutes late because Fleece is absolutely always late by a quarter of an hour at least, but it’s past a quarter to eight when he appears.
“Hope I haven’t kept you waiting, Captain,” he greets me. “I didn’t rush because I knew you’d be be late. What’s the recommendation?” Considerate of you, Fleece, I think. You’re one pint behind already,.
“Stewart’s Pentland Ale seems to be a guest beer,” I suggest. “Good. Like treacle, bitter.” I omit the fact that it’s got a low alcohol-by-volume of under four percent as well, a major plus point in any strategic entanglement with Fleece in a public house.
He returns with a pint of something entirely different, of course.
“You didn’t tell me they had Old Speckled Hen.”
“By the way, Fleece, they have Old Speckled Hen,” I inform him.
He plants his ample rear on a slightly unconvincing chair across from me. “So, then, Captain, what’s the news? Kids well?”
I’m surprised he’s remembered to ask about anything outside of his immediate orbit. I give him a very brief summary before he loses interest.
“Harry and Danni still live in Bruntsfield, making shed-loads of money now. Becky’s got a man, too - Tommy - and they live in Bathgate. She’s working in what she calls ‘public affairs’, but I call her lobbyist for an obscure charity.”
“What’s the obscure charity?”
“Oxfam.”
“Right.” It’s a test to see if he’s still listening. Turns out he is, just; he smiles after a brief delay. “But she’s not earning shed-loads?”
“Nobody in that sort of job earns shed-loads unless they’re with a very, very special firm, Fleece. That’s why they live out in the sticks. Can’t afford Edinburgh prices.”
He’s paying attention again. “And I suppose the Bank of Mum and Dad is experiencing a bit of a credit crisis at the moment?”
“Like all the other major high street banks. Being separated is a financial disaster, I’ve discovered.”
“Tell me about it,” he agrees. “Remind me what Danni does?”
“You probably wouldn’t ever have known, actually. She’s a stockbroker and financial adviser, although she works in a law firm, in fact. Little old ladies looking for advice from their family solicitor on what to do with their savings get sent to her.”
“Where they get ripped off?” he asks, a cynical smile spreading across his face.
“Of course,” I reassure him. “And she takes her commission for ripping them off and hands it over to the firm. She’s a valued employee.”
“I bet she does a roaring trade in divorces as well,” he laughs.
“Of course. Think of all those nest-eggs that have to be turned into hard cash so that the proceeds can be divided up properly.”
“Do you like her?”
“Of course.” And I do, actually, and not only because she makes my son extremely happy. “I like Tommy, too. He’s a cabinet-maker. An up-market joiner if you prefer. Works for a wee firm out in West Lothian making and selling nice pine furniture.”
“A horny-handed son of the soil, then?”
“Not a bit of it. He was in Becky’s year at university.”
“Did he drop out?”
“No, no, he finished his course all right. Did fine, actually - got the bog-standard two-one that everyone seems to get nowadays. Then he discovered that in the present economic climate, there’s not much demand for Metaphysics graduates, honours or otherwise.”
“Metaphysics! Christ, I didn’t know anyone still did that.”
“No-one with any sense does.” Then I reconsider. “Actually, perhaps courses like Moral Phil and Metaphysics are the only courses worth doing at university these days. At least when you leave you’re already know how useless you are in the world.”
“Perhaps, so, Captain, perhaps so. So how did he end up as a joiner?”
“He got a good grade in Standard Grade woodwork, it seems.”
Fleece smiles, then slightly shifts the angle of the conversation. “How did they take it when you and Brunhilde? You know…”
“On the surface they were OK about it. But I could tell they were upset, even although they knew Jane and I were fighting non-stop.”
“Fighting non-stop? I think that’s putting it mildly, Captain. Listen, though, I notice you call her ‘Jane’ these days. When did that start? Feeling wistful, all of a sudden?”
I look into my Pentland Ale. “Perhaps.”
He knocks the table abruptly with the knuckles of his right hand. He ticks me off. “Cut it out, my boy. Absence may make the heart grow fonder, but you began from a low starting point. It wasn’t safe in the Reid household.”
“It certainly wasn’t. But there things about her I miss.”
“Like her contribution to the family finances, perhaps.”
I smile ruefully. “Indeed. But I miss having someone to talk to at times. And I miss the company. You know.”
He knows, but he won’t let me feel sorry for myself. “Well,” he says, “I don’t think she misses you. She missed you plenty when she was throwing the cups,” he says, roaring with laughter. “And in the meantime you’ve just found me to talk to.”
“That’s nice,” I reply, although ‘nice’ is actually not a word I’d use in relation to Fleece at all. Curiously, though, it’s turning out to be nice to have run into him. There’s a brief pause in the conversation, and I know that now’s the time to ask.
“Tell me about Hannah, Fleece. It’s why you wanted a drink, isn’t it? You wanted to talk about Hannah.”
Fleece has returned from the bar with a second pint, and for once I agree to have a second as well, although my first isn’t actually finished. Fleece can lap me comfortably every fourth pint, actually; it’s why he’s the size he is. This time he’s followed my lead and bought the Stewart’s Pentland.
“Damn good this, Captain, damned good this,” he says, gulping back a huge mouthful of the dark nectar.
I decide to keep pressing, quietly. “You were about to tell me about Hannah, Fleece.”
“Yes I was, wasn’t I? I don’t know what to tell you, Captain. Some of it’s sort of… personal, you know.”
“Spare me the sordid details if you want.”
It’s Fleece’s turn to look down at the floor. “To cut a long story short, I’ve been a bit careless, Captain. I didn’t pay her enough attention. I drank with the lads when I should have spent time in with her and a bottle of wine. I played drums with Little Joe when I should have taken her to the theatre or the cinema. I drank pies and pints in pubs when I should have eaten oysters and champagne. So some other guy got in there and did it all for Hannah instead.”
“Very eloquent,” I say to him, “and utter bullshit. True, you’ve let yourself go to seed a bit” - I glance at his midriff and stained jumper - “but that stuff comes after, not before, a marriage grows cold. There’s no point in getting married if you can’t tell your partner what you really think of them.”
“You’re saying she might have been looking for an excuse?”
“Well, I can’t say that for sure - ”
“I even went to see a doctor, although not till after she’d gone.” He hesitates. “You know, about…”
“Are we talking about erectile dysfunction here, Fleece?”
He looks around, ssh-ing me. This is a new experience for me; normally I’m the one who’s mortified at the thought that my conversations with Fleece might be overheard. “They call it ‘ED’ now, Captain.”
“VD?” I ask, mischievously. I’ve heard him all right.
“You heard me, you bugger, and keep your voice down,” he says. “Anyway, I went to the GP. Trust my luck to get a woman, but actually she was very nice.”
“Very nice?”
“I should have said ‘very good’, you dirty so-and-so. Said I should lose weight and do some exercise.”
“Hence the rugby?”
“Hence the rugby. And I go hill-walking. And I’ve started playing golf again. Fancy a game sometime?”
Actually, Fleece’s golf used to be both entertaining and awful. That might work if we can find somewhere that will have us. I promise to consider it.
“So Hannah found someone else?”
“Would you believe, she went off with an airline pilot?”
I can’t help but make the joke. “Up, up and away with him?”
Fleece ignores me. “I’ve met him, Captain. I met him at a party once. Hannah was actually shagging him at the time and I didn’t know it. He was the most boring man you’ll ever meet. Spent the whole time telling me how difficult it was to land a plane in Gibraltar.”
“Is it difficult to land a plane in Gibraltar?” I ask.
“Apparently.”
“Then that’s Gibraltar crossed off my holiday list.”
“Anyway, I found out too late that she was two-timing me. She was off with him.”
“To Gibraltar and other places.”
“Well, they get free travel. How’s a civil servant supposed to match that?”
“Do you miss her?” I ask. The conversation has gone full circle. “Feeling wistful?”
He looks at me intently for a moment. Surely he’s not about to shed a tear? Then suddenly he throws his head back and - laughing - roars, “Hell yeah,” slapping his thigh. “Gawd-dammit’, she done make a mean apple-pie!”
“Can’t you be serious for just a minute?”
“I miss Hannah, Captain.”
“Does she still sing with The Blonde Bombshelles?” Hannah was the singer in a band, a proper one, which played lucrative gigs like weddings. All the band members were female - that was its special feature - and Jane/Brunhilde sang screeching valkyrie-like backing vocals while playing guitar and bass. Brunhilde was heavily influenced by Joan Jett. Her playing was unsubtle, it was fair to say.
“That’s been put on the back burner for the moment, I gather. Hannah never seems to know whether she’s going to be in Tranent or Tokyo.”
“And all for free. What about you? Have you been beating the drums again?”
“Quite a bit. You should get into it yourself. Come to think of it, you used to play guitar yourself. Remember?”
“I remember.” How could I forget? Every Tuesday night in the Southsider Bar in Newington. Got paid a fiver a night, which seemed a lot when I was a student. Just me and an acoustic guitar with an impossibly high action and which was almost impossible to tune. That must have been almost forty years ago, I think.
He can read my mind. “The beer was shite then, too,” he says. It’s the word ‘too’ that’s the problem in that sentence. “Listen,” he says, “me and Little Joe are having our weekly jam on Sunday. Fancy joining us? Just for old time’s sake?” He punches me in shoulder, to emphasise the invitation I suppose. I can think of no other reason.
God knows what ‘old time’s sake’ Fleece is referring to. We have never played musical instruments together, ever, in our entire lives. He is a passable drummer who sweats a lot. He has always treated my three-chord guitar playing and folk-singing with utter contempt.
With devastating logic, I agree. Then I get cold feet and want to lessen the torture. “But I’m busy earlier in the afternoon. Can I come later?”
“Jesus, you come when you fancy, Captain, you come when you fancy. Your turn for another Pentland, please. And a packet of cheese and onion crisps if they’ve got any.”
Of course Fleece leads me astray, as I knew he would. Thankfully neither of us need drive home and in fact all I have to do is stagger across the Dean Bridge - I always look over the parapet at the hundred-foot drop for some reason, which is stupid when you’re the worse for wear - to my Eton Terrace flat. Doesn’t Eton Terrace sound a grand address? It is a grand address, in fact, but my particular flat’s a small basement thing with a tiny paved patio at the back and an even tinier paved area at the front. It suits me, and I suppose it’s home. In any case, it’s all I can afford.
Anyway, I’ve been out all day and it’s after half past eleven when I unlock my front door, which has three separate locks ever since I was broken into in the first week there. I haven’t been home all day, so I have to climb over the usual pile of junk mail and the local free newspaper, the Herald and Post. That and the equally cost-free The Metro form my newspaper reading, supplemented for quality by internet versions of the newspapers I wish I could afford. There's a couple of proper letters addressed to me, but I’ve decided I like junk mail as well; it makes me feel more valued. I even like the leaflets. This time there’s a couple for takeaways, the Sun Palace Chinese, and Shazia’s ‘genuine Bangladeshi’, which I notice has all the same ‘genuine’ dishes as every other bog-standard Indian restaurant. I’ll maybe give the Chinese a shot sometime, but I make my own curries, and with a lot less oil. Both do free deliveries without a minimum order, though, which is a plus point, and probably speaks volumes about their need to compete in the current recession.
One of the proper letters is handwritten, and I open it first. It’s from a nephew and his wife, thanking me for a present I sent to their new-born daughter, and for the twenty pound note I sent them, too. Young couples need a treat in that situation, I remember. One of those takeaways would do the trick perfectly. I put it on the mantelpiece as I put the lights and living room gas fire on.
The other letter comes in a heavyweight envelope, and I assume it must contain several sheets of paper but when I open it, it turns out there’s only one. I look at it but I take a minute or two to absorb it. It’s from a firm of solicitors that I know only too well, the magnificently named Robb Merriman. They’re Brunhilde’s solicitors, and how appropriate that their very name implies that they act like a reverse-gear version of Robin Hood: they take from poor people like me and give to rich people like Brunhilde. My heart always sinks when I see their letter-head at the top of the page, and this is no exception.
ROBB MERRIMAN, W.S.
Robb Merriman
18, Rutland Square
Edinburgh, EH1 2BB
11th November, 2011
Brian Reid,
19A, Eton Terrace,
Edinburgh, EH4 1QD
Dear Mr. Reid,
I write regarding our client Mrs. Jane Reid (née Forrest), your former wife.
It has come to our attention that you recently retired from your employment as a teacher with the City of Edinburgh Council, and are now in receipt of a pension as a result. You will be aware that under the terms of your separation from Mrs. Reid, she is entitled to a share of this pension, in accordance with the number of years you contributing while you were married.
Our client has informed us that she is not receiving any share of your pension, although she ought to be, and has asked us to write to you to clarify and rectify this situation.
I look forward to hearing your reply by return. Should you have any concerns regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Yours sincerely,
Susan Gunn
(Partner, Robb Merriman)
I re-read the letter three times. Is this the effect of drink? If so, I’ll sign up for Alcoholics Anonymous first thing Monday. But it’s not the booze. Brunhilde wants half my pension, I think. She’s got plenty herself, but she wants half of what I’ve got as well. This is why we fell out.
Why did I agree to this? Who knows, but I must have, just to get rid of the cow. Bitch cow bitch cow bitch cow. May she rot in hell. It occurs to me that I could always go back and take the hundred-foot jump off the Dean Bridge and then she’d get half of nothing, but then it also occurs to me that I probably wouldn’t get anything either. Although knowing my luck and general incompetence, I’d survive anyway. That’s what Brunhilde would say, now that think about it.
I scrunch the letter up into a ball and throw into the corner. It belongs with the fluff I’ve never got round to hoovering up, and I’ve got more important things to do, like make myself some toast, the ultimate comfort food. Four nice slices of Kingsmill brown bread, with loads of butter and a big hunk of cheddar will help me forget Brunhilde, Robb and his Merrimen. Five minutes later, I’m feeling better, and - perhaps fuelled by some Pentland Ale - at the top of my voice I start singing the only suitable song I know, The Letter, as in the Box Tops’ hit from 1967. It’s one of my earliest memories, and because it’s one of my earliest memories, I’ve completely forgotten all the words. Who cares? No-one can hear me.
Da-da-da-de-da-de-da-de-da-de-da,
Da-de-da-de-da-de-da-de-da-de-da,
Da-de-da-de-da, Da-de-da-de-da -
Actually, it’s all wrong, I think, and I stop singing almost at exactly the same time as the old boy upstairs bangs on my ceiling to tell me to shut up at this late hour of night. It seems someone can hear me after all. Shut up yourself, I think, you haven’t just opened a letter from your ex-wife. Actually that’s a bit harsh too given that his wife died eight years ago; he’d probably either love to get a letter or die on the spot of a heart attack. Anyway, one way or another, I’m being asked for money that I’ve no hope of providing, and that’s only the beginning of my problems.
More pressing still is, how am I going to get out of this jam session with Fleece and Little Joe? In all of our chat, I forgot to mention that I haven’t actually played the guitar for over thirty years, although I still have the thing I used to use in its original case, presumably with thirty-year-old strings. I’ve not been idle in the interim: I tried to learn to play the piano, but Brunhilde will testify that as piano player I was a good guitarist, and as a guitarist I was a good piano player. There’s a lot of stuff you can try to play on the piano, though, and I have any amount of sheet music that I can’t play piled up around my pride and joy, a Technics SX PC-26 that I’ve had for years. By the way, the music I play on the piano is classical stuff, or something that Mssrs. Chopin, Bach, Ravel, Handel and co. might vaguely recognise as their own given enough clues. I can’t play modern stuff - rock, R&B, jazz, that sort of thing. I’m really not very good, but I work on the principle that, since no-one will ever hear me, no harm can be done. You can turn the volume right down on a Technics SX PC-26, or better still plug in some headphones.
The guitar is an “Angelica”, an entry-level thing with a rounded neck produced by Boosey and Hawkes in the early 1970s, and I discover it in a cupboard under some welly boots, my toolkit, and - for some reason - a bag of potting compost. (Inside the actual half-filled bag of compost there’s a mouse-trap. I’ve no idea how that could have found its way in there. The guitar is probably more of a hazard to mice.) The case is caked in dust, but inside the guitar itself is just as I last saw it in the 1980s, and to my amazement, five out of the six strings are on the guitar, with only the top one missing. That’s not a bad start, and there are spares in a little compartment in the middle of the case; the bad news is that three of the strings are actually at the same pitch, and as I start to tighten the strings a little, two more snap. That’s all right - there’s a music shop in Queensferry Street which I can visit tomorrow, and in the meantime I might be able to do something with what I have in the case if I can just prevent the little twiddly things at the end that you use to tune the strings stop slipping. Remember all of this is happening when it’s almost midnight.
I manage to get the guitar vaguely in tune with the help of a few reminders from the internet and my Technics SX PC-26. I strum it with my right hand, then I place the fingers of my left hand one by one in the appropriate positions for the chord of C. This needs assistance from my right hand for the fourth finger to help it get to the third fret on the A string, and then I’m ready. The tips of my fingers are in agony as the metal carves through them like cheese-wire, but I know I must suffer for my art. Hopefully, I play the chord with my right hand, and it sounds like someone’s put a wet sock over all the strings.
I decide it’s bedtime, and I don’t want the old boy above me complaining again, but I realise there is work to do tomorrow. And Saturday. And Sunday morning, too. What have I agreed to?
Meanwhile, Brunhilde’s lawyer can wait.
By the next morning - Friday - I have become utterly obsessed with trying to avoid making a fool of myself in the coming Sunday session. I rise early and, quickly downing a coffee and what remains of the loaf, toasted, I dive up the road to the music shop where I buy two sets of brand-new strings for my beloved Angelica. Actually, I already know how awful a guitar it is. The strings sit miles away from the fretboard, and there is an ominous bulge behind the bridge which suggests that it might one day part company with the rest of the guitar. I suspect that the two problems might be connected.
In the meantime I get back to the flat and tune up. I have decided on a plan: I’ll stick to a very small number of chords, major and minor, and use a capo to do everything else such as changing key. I’m not going to try to be smart here, as Little Joe and Fleece will have had thirty years’ more practice than me. I discover that, surprisingly, I can just about remember the important ones: C, F, G, D, and I can still do A minor, D minor and E minor, too. As a bonus, the seventh chords C7, G7 and D7 come back to me, too, although I can remember nothing of the mysterious F7. Later, I can remember E and A major, too. They’re not so hard, either. I will do nothing at all except strum with right hand, either using what nails I have left or perhaps a plectrum (is that called a ‘pick’?). The whole of the period leading up to lunchtime is chords, chords, more chords, changing chords, with my fingertips in agony, but the fact that I can remember more of this than I expected is a major compensation. Adrenalin carries me through the afternoon - I’m almost excited, and I’ve still got two days to go - and I very nearly forget that I’ve got nothing for tonight’s evening meal.
My inspiration with the guitar carries over into my cuisine, and I decide to make myself a fish curry, something I haven’t done for, well, years. I nip across the Dean Bridge again to collect some fish from the fishmonger, and using a small tin of potatoes, some coconut milk, leaf coriander and spices such as turmeric and chilli I contrive to create something I could even have served to a guest. It’s a pity I don’t have a guest to show off to, but my feeling of loneliness is compensated for by the fact that there’s more for me to tuck into. But I decide to drink no alcohol, although I’m not going out, because I want to be at my best for my practising.
Then it’s back to the guitar for the evening. My fingers don’t seem quite so sore tonight, which could be down to better technique, or it could simply be that calluses are already forming on the tips of my precious digits. That’s good, but now the new problem is occasional cramp in my left hand. I remember that used to happen in the old days, too, when I was trying too hard. The secret is to relax, but it’s easier said than done.
By around eight or so I feel confident that I’ve got the main chords pretty well in shape, and I’m ready to try out a few songs. For some reason, The Letter is still in my mind, although I can’t for the life of me remember why. Off I go, starting it in E minor…
Dum-de-dum-de-dum (change to C) dum
(change to D) Dum-de-dum (change to A) Dum
(back to E minor) Dum-de-dum-de-dum (now C) Dum-de-dum -
What the fuck chord is that? A chord from the planet Mars? I go up and down the fretboard, desperately trying to construct something from nothing, but playing from ear I get nowhere. I can’t play anything on the guitar that remotely sounds right.
Defeated, I can think of nothing better than to look up the idiot’s friend, the internet. Surely there must be somewhere that tells you what chord comes after what in The Letter. “There ain’t no point in the internet”, I sing to myself as I Google, only to come up with the immediately miraculous site chordsforeverything.com site, which turns out to be a companion site to lyricsforeverything.com. Where have these been hiding? I needed to look up the lyrics anyway.
But “Chords For Everything” tells me that the chord I’m looking for - in the “Easiplay Version”, by the way, how insulting - is the remote B7, a chord that I’m sure I never once played in my entire career as a pub-singer. It even gives me no less than eleven, yes eleven, different ways of playing the precious B7, so I spend half an hour trying to find a version that I can both play and at the same time sounds right. But I’m right up for The Letter now, and I shall never surrender. I went for a few piano lessons when I started playing my Technics SX PC-26, but when my teacher described my playing as “dogged” one time, I knew it was time to give up any hopes of being good. The strength of my musicality is that, like Sylvester Stallone in Rocky, I bravely keep coming back for more punishment when the instrument has given me a severe beating. Besides, I’ve made the effort to print out the words from “Lyrics For Everything”, and I’m not going to waste a good sheet of printed A4.
By the third attempt, I’ve just about got the hang of it, so I decide to stand up and do a dress rehearsal. I successfully lay waste to all three verses and chorus, and even manage to come up with great series of chord changes to finish with, which I celebrate with a Pete Townshend windmill flourish. To my horror, this performance is greeted with rapturous applause from a drunk in the street - it is Friday night, you will recall - who I discover has been standing on the pavement gazing down into my basement living room at my moronic display. Jesus, he must have been able to hear me, too.
“Bravo,” he slurs. “Bravo!”
I’m mortified, but all I can do is to wave back in thanks.
Next morning, I wake up to discover that in fact he was urinating into my basement area.
Once I’ve hosed down the basement on the Saturday morning - it’s the seventh time this year I’ve had to do it - I feel less inclined to practise my guitar skills. I have a leisurely breakfast. Actually, all my breakfasts are leisurely these days, but this time I nip up to the newsagent to pick up a couple of rolls to supplement my Oat Krunchies and grapefruit juice, so that breakfast is a long enough experience to make it worth scanning the internet versions of the morning papers. I always start with the BBC itself, studying the main news, then the sports headlines, and finally anything to do with Hibs. Hibs are playing at home today, but I’ll be avoiding Easter Road Stadium since they haven’t won there for almost a year. That’s another one to follow on the internet.