Filth (28 page)

However, we’ve got a few cans and bottles in, and there’s a fair crowd here. Yes, even Drummond’s here: one gless ay wine, then making a big point tae every cunt about needing to get back tae work. Nae cunt takes a blind bit ay notice ay her though, even if the atmosphere lightens up as she leaves. Needs cocked badly that yin, for every other cunt’s piece ay mind as well as her ain. Anywey, I’m mair interested in
real
fanny. That big civvy piece, the Size Queen, she’s around. Lennox is smarming and getting nowhere. He’s smarming, but he’s no thinking. I am. We made a fifty-quid bet on who’d be the first yin to get into the Size Queen’s knickers, and that dosh is going in the Robertson coffers. I kid you not. I watch what I’m drinking and bide my time until every cunt’s three sheets. Then I start shifting the conversation round to the topic of a gentleman’s size, watching Lennox go all nervy and trying to change the subject.

– Mind back in Oz, at the New South Wales Police Department, I carry on, we used to play this party game . . . in our station at College Street. The Aussies . . . well, they can be a bit
risqué
.

– Aw aye, what was that? asks Karen Fulton. She’s a game cow. Known for it. Gone a bit snooty these days, but the alcohol and the festive atmosphere of the holiday period are just the ticket to pull a slag back into the fold. They just can’t help themselves.

– Perhaps I’d better not say, Karen my darling. Our colonial cousins . . . can be rather coorse.

– C’mon! Spill the beans, Fulton urges.

– This sounds intriguing, the Size Queen purrs.

– C’mon Bruce, don’t start something you can’t finish, says big-mooth Lennox, raising an eyebrow, blissfully unaware that he’s singing his ain death warrant.

– Well . . . okay . . . what it was, right, was that the guys would take it in turns tae go into the photocopier room and photocopy their wedding tackle on to a sheet of paper. Then they’d write their names on the back, and put them into an envelope. Once everybody’s been done somebody then tacks the prints on to the board.

– Get away Bruce! Lennox scoffs, but to the cunt’s embarrassment, everyone else seems captivated. I look at the big hoor, the Size Queen, whose eyes are like saucers.

– Naw, bit listen, I continue, – The lassies would then try to match the cock to the guy.

– Lit’s dae it! roars the Size Queen. I clock Lennox looking stricken, but there’s nothing he can do. Even auld Gus is up for it. Peter Inglis goes first, the fuckin animal. Fags are the biggest size queens of the lot and a repressed, inadequate closet case like him must be drooling at the prospect of checking out all that meat. Aye Inglis, ah’ll have you outed ya cunt. Promotion? That? Aye, sure. It might be some equal opportunities cunt’s idea tae turn the force intae a bastion of buggery but old values die hard here, especially in the craft. He’ll ken awright.

Inglis emerges with a sheet of paper in an envelope. He hands the envelope to Ralph Considine, who’s only a uniformed spastic and thus shouldnae even be here in the first place, and he goes in and does the business, handing the envelope to Gus. There’s whooping and cheering from everybody, except a tentative Lennox, when auld Gus goes in. Then Lennox reluctantly disappears, trying to brass it out. I’m next, but when I put my gear oan the gless plate, wiping it first after the rest of these cunts have been against it, I turn up the enlarger switch to full and take the copy, before sliding it back to its normal setting. I stick the name on the back of my enlarged dick. Thankfully the rash doesn’t look too noticeable with the black and white image and paper quality.

I emerge with the envelope. Clell and some spastic who worked with Gus do their bit, then we’re away.

The game is interesting. One cheeky cow marks me down for what’s obviously Lennox’s tackle. That will be fuckin right. Eventually they are all turned over and put in descending order:

BRUCE

GUS

ALAN

ANDY

PETER

RALPH

STEVE

RAY

PHILLIP

It turns out that auld Gus’s is almost as big as my enlarged one. Nae wonder the sly auld fuck was rarin tae gie it a go! The biggest shock though was that someone was smaller than Lennox, a uniformed spastic called Phillip Watson. I’d’ve thought that impossible without him having a fanny!

After the disclosure, everybody’s giving me loads of attention. I catch the Size Queen’s flirtatious eye. As time and drink pass she’s embarrassing herself over me, and Lennox has taken the hump big-time, the moosey-faced rat-bag. I’m playing it cool: just flirty enough to keep the cow on the boil, making her suffer, always the best way. I’m doing a James Bond here, firing out the suave
double entendres
left, right and centre, one or two of them across the bows of a certain Mister Raymond Lennox. The same rules apply.

I’m going to say fuck all to this big blonde hoor. I want the Size Queen off her high horse, I want
her
to proposition
me
. Which, after a while and more drink, she does. She sidles up to me and vampishly announces, – The winner deserves a prize. Let’s go back in there . . . and she takes off and I follow her at a discreet distance into the copy room, clocking Lennox with a wink as I depart. She leans back across the desk and I don’t even kiss her. I lift up her skirt and pull down her knickers. – Give it to me, she’s saying, just give it to me now, her eyes shut.

I push in and watch the Size Queen thrust and buck with an increasingly puzzled look on her face. She’s daein aw the work and that suits me fine. After a while I shoot my load and leave her wondering what’s been happening.

I collect my fifty quid from Lennox then I’m off hame, as high as a fuckin kite. Even the short drive gets me horned up again. It’s the rhythm of the traffic and the heat in the car, as well as the lyrical content of the Motley Crüe album
Girls Girls Girls
on the stereo, which has mair references tae hot pussy than a Dutch newspaper would if someone had torched the floating cat home in Amsterdam.

When I get hame there’s a couple of letters. One’s a gas bill, the other has a Chelmsford postmark and it’s from Tony and Diana. I feel my cock stir and think about the four-hundred-mile drive to Chelmsford. I could do it through the night on charlie, fuck myself blind for a couple of hours, then head straight back. Yes. I ignore the gas bill, I ignore all of these. Carole takes care of that shite, and I’ve enough fuckin paperwork in my job, for fuck sakes. I eagerly tear the Chelmsford letter open.

14th December 1997

Dear Bruce,

I hope all is well with you. We are writing to tell you that we all feel that it’s not a good idea that you join ourselves and Laurence and Yvonne next month. I am sorry that you and Carole are having difficulties, but I don’t think it would be appropriate for you to join us without her.

We’ve had some great times together, but I think that any period of experimentation needs a little bit of time for reflection. This is what Diana and I are currently undertaking.

I hope you and Carole resolve your difficulties satisfactorily.

Best wishes,

Tony Crosby

Tony, the fucking twat. I feel a spasm of hatred twist through me as the power simultaneously leaves my cock. Fuckin soft Tony: lecturer in fine art at the Chelmer Institute or whatever you call it. All our frenetic fucking going on and him mincing around like a vegetarian in an abattoir. Carole fuckin well shiting it as well, giving him a nervous hand-job. They don’t have the big-match temperament. That Diana does though. Fuckin hell, I could have done with going another fuckin few rounds wi yon big hoor.

I think about phoning Geoff Nicholson of the Essex police, and telling him about this sordid little club. Solid in the craft, is Geoff. I’m just about to pick up the blower when there’s a knock on the door and it’s Tom Stronach, his wavy fair hair sticking up in tufts. He’s dressed in a grey Russell Athletic sweatshirt and grey tracksuit bottoms. He looks quite downcast.

– Tom . . . how goes it? I ask in phoney concern.

– I’m fuckin Zorba’d Bruce. One thousand, two hundred and thirteen paying customers. I gave that fuckin club twelve years of loyal service.

– I see. I thought the gate was nearer two thousand.

– Naw, the
Evening News
bumped it up a wee bit.

– Well, I was there, I lied. Some fuckin chance. Versus a Derby County reserve side on a pissing wet Tuesday with only eight shopping days left until the gig?

Tom shakes his head, then brightens up a little bit, – I did get a nice note from Kenny Dalglish.

– I’m sure he’d have been there if he could, I shrug. – Guys like that, they must get loads of requests. It’s a bad time of the year.

– Aye, right enough, Tom concedes. – Anyway Bruce, I’ve a couple of tickets for you for the Sportsman’s Dinner, for my testimonial likes. We’re gonny huv it in that lull between Christmas and New Year. Any excuse to keep the perty going!

– Nice one Tom, I say, grasping the embossed tickets he hands over with the leaflet. Instantly I see that it was a mistake, the bastard has stung me. The ticket reads:

YOU ARE INVITED AS A V.I.P. GUEST TO

THE TOM STRONACH TESTIMONIAL SPORTSMAN’S DINNER

at the Sheraton Hotel, Lothian Road, Edinburgh

on Monday, December 28th, 1997

Dress is informal (lounge suits)

Donation of £60 for all ticket holders to the Tom Stronach Testimonial Fund.

Donation. Sixty bar. Stung by that bastard Stronach! I’m saying nothing, but the cunt’s straight in. I might have guessed. He’s known for it. There’s always a bit of jiggery-pokery, high drama and stand-offs reported in the
Evening News
when his contract comes up for renewal. The bastard isnae slow when it comes to dosh. – Sorry I cannae let ye have them buckshee Bruce, but it defeats the whole purpose, if ye ken what ah mean.

– Mmm, right Tom, I cough, – I’ll just get my cheque-book.

Cunt.

I’m scribbling out a cheque and he’s rabbiting away in my ear, – Graeme Souness might be one of the after-dinner speakers. I’m hoping that Kenny’ll make it this time as well. And Rodney Dolacre’s definitely coming up. He’s a great speaker.

– Mmm. Rodney Dolacre, ex-England. I hear that he makes a bit of money on the circuit. He’s done some stuff with Besty, Marshy and Greavesy.

– Aye, it was good of him to express interest.

No way will Dalglish, Souness or Dolacre come to that tube’s testimonial dinner.

Stronach wastes little time in donning that mantle of arrogance which characterises most fitba guys on a roll. – If ye want any mair tickets Bruce, just gies a shout. Ah’m no sayin ah’ll be able tae get them mind, but ye ken, seein as it’s you n that.

– I’ll bear that in mind, I snap, handing over the cheque which is equivalent to twelve blow-jobs from a Leith hoor. Bastard.

The cunt leaves with a smile on his face. He’s aw fuckin pleased wi himself cause he thinks that he’s got one over on Bruce Robertson. Well you are in for a shock, my dim-witted spastic footballing friend, because the news for you is that the same rules apply.

Later that night Chrissie comes over. Stronach’s net curtains twitch, but he’s playing tonight, so it’ll be that nosey golddigging hoor he married. I pull Chrissie in and we start to turn the gas off for each other. The hoor is getting good at this, her that wisnae intae it at all in the first place.

– Tighter Bruce . . . tighter . . . she groans, and I feel my own windpipe constrict a few centimetres as she twists her belt.

I’m finding it difficult to keep enthusiastic. I keep thinking about the rivals in the promotion stakes:

GUS BAIN

PETER INGLIS

JOHN ARNOTT

Fuck every one of youse plebs . . .