Filth (32 page)

– I’ve lost some files, he points at the machine on his desk.

– Computer files?

– Yes.

– I’m not a great fan of new technology. That’s computer files for ye. They’re a bit like brother freemasons in the craft: it doesn’t matter how full of shit they are, you have to remember to back them up.

Toal smiles painfully, then looks thoughtful for a bit. Then he says something which confuses but encourages me. – Often brothers are being supported in ways which they cannot imagine. Then he says, wearily, – If you hear anything Bruce, let me know. I’d appreciate it.

– You mean with files and things . . . I ask, playing the daft laddie to give myself a bit of space.

– Anything, he says sniffily.

The conversation with Toal has made me feel uneasy. What should have been a fucking triumph has a bitter and hollow aftertaste. I can’t think why. Anyway, the day seems to be drifting away from my control. I keep thinking about . . . stupid things.

Stacey. Christmas. Carole.

Fuck all that shite. She’s fuckin poisonous. A danger to herself and to other people. Well, I have news for her, and for Mister Toal, and for Mister Niddrie: you don’t fuck about with Bruce Robertson. Same rules apply. My methods are my methods are my methods.

You think the day cannae get any worse. Wrong! Things can always get worse, it seems as if they now can’t fucking improve. A social ratchet, that’s my life. What’s a ratchet? A wee bit bigger than a moose’s shit.

But it is getting worse Bruce, my sweet, sweet friend, because she’s here, waiting for us,
here
, outside the fucking station. – Bruce, she says, as we pretend not to see her and go to the car. That snakelike hiss of a voice. Broossssss . . .

Brooosssss

Let’s turn off the gassss Brooossss . . . no, that’s Chrisss-ie. Thisssss isss Shhhir-ley. Mind Ssstacey’s
Jungle Book
video. That sssnake that used tae sing, Trusssst in me . . . what wis that cunt’s name again? Sheer Khan? Naw, that wissss the fuckin tiger. That’s right, that’s right, that’s right, that’s right . . . Tiger Feet. Mud. Or Les Gray and Mud as they became.

– Hello Shirley. We cannot talk here. I shall see you in the pub on the corner in ten minutes.

– But Bruce . . . she says, her face twisting in that plea for clemency, but there can be no clemency, there is only the law which must be obeyed. The same goes for social laws, the ones we make in our daily interactions. She is trying to renegotiate the contract between us. The contract stipulates that there will be no fucking about with us in our private and personal life and this fuckin contract is being broken. No, no and no again!

Brooossss

– I repeat, we can-
not
talk here. Listen, because I’m not going to say this again, I kid you not. I’ll see you in the pub in ten minutes. My eyes glint in the sunlight which insipidly tries to negate the chill of a Scottish winter, blocking the hoor from my vision. I turn sharply away and out of the car park, stealing off down the road.

Ten minutes my arse, I can hear her following me, her creepy footsteps. I’m hoping nobody sees us. She doesn’t realise that she’s giving those cunts weapons to destroy me; cunts like Toal, Lennox, Gillman, Drummond and the like. Her presence in my company could, in the wrong hands, be a lethal weapon.

Tough Scottish cop Bruce Rabertson could hear the footsteps of the broad behind him as her heels clicked the tarmac. He thought of the legs attached to those heels and that Mecca they led to. No matter how many times he made that particular pilgrimage, Rabertson always reckoned that another visit was in order. He could hear her breathing heavily, her pursuit of him causing her heavy breasts to rise and fall, those warm and inviting mammaries that Rabertson knew so well . . . there ye go Toal, ya cunt that ye are! That’s fuckin screenwritin! Any cunt can fuckin well dae that shite!

That’s the right idea though that Toal’s got. Get as many voices in your head as you can and hide in the crowd. We’ve got loads of them. Probably as many as there are worms eating away inside us. There’s some billboards telling us to drink Tennents Lager: we can do that! None for the purple tin but: they know it’s not a recreational drug, any more than smack or crack is. There’s another one telling us to test drive a new Fiat Uno. We can do that; at the same time as the Tennents if ye want!

Ha!

Gotcha!

Wrong!

Come taste the bacon baby, come taste that muthafuckin bacon!

We go into the bar of the Rag Doll and get up some drinks. We are thinking that we should perhaps be more annoyed at this stupid cow than we actually are. Actually.

Actually!

Shirley is a funny bitch; fucking desperate for it. Everything’s fake about her, but with her skill at applying the make-up she can approximate how she used to look, or at any rate her make-up colludes with our hormones into making us believe she approximates it. After we’ve blown our muck, all we can see is her as a caricature of a former self.

Muthafuckin ho, that’s all she is. Dat ho is desprit to taste di bay-con.

This gets us thinking of all the times we’ve, I’ve fucked her over the years. Loads n loads n loads n loads n loads. – We should be able to do things for each other, we, I once told her. – The laddies are at school, so’s wee Stacey. You’re fed up, ah’m fed up. We should be able to have a wee bit of harmless fun. Only get one life, eh.

All those years of deceit. We turn round and see her. She reminds us more of Carole now that she’s getting older. She was always heavier built than Carole.

Come taste that bacon baby . . .

She opens her mouth and there is a noise in our head, and we, I, we see her mouth going oval-shaped and pleading and in our head we hear the message: Broooosssss

She’s getting it. They’re all fucking well getting it.

She is telling us something as we sit at the table in the pub. The bar is almost empty. The sun streams in across the lino. We see a report of a game on the back page of the
Evening News
. I wonder if Stronach was playing. We nod over to a uniformed spastic who comes in and says something to the publican. A uniformed spastic with a loose mouth in the canteen and the malevolent ears of the vicious gossiping faggot Inglis tuned in to every salacious tit-bit spewed from those embittered lips. Time to go.

– We can’t talk here, I say, and we call for a taxi. Thankfully it takes no time to arrive and we get in it with her. The engine and the heat and her perfume make my flannels start to rise and my mouth is on hers silencing that whingeing racket as I force my tongue as far into her gob as I can, poking it into every crevice. The taxi shudders to a halt and we are back at our place.

Gotcha!

I, we . . . I take her to our unmade and smelly bed, full of stale spunk and crumbs. I’m straight down on her cunt with my mouth, slurping, devouring. It tastes of strawberries. The soap. She’s loving it but will not take my stiff cock in her mouth, my scaly, flaking, stinking cock, and she’s pushing it away from her face and pulling at it and we are about to come so I pull away and go around and stick our cock up her, and she is disappointed as she doesn’t want the rancid prick that Rossie has been unable to cure inside her but she wants to come and we’re fucking hard and we come and she does too, and it’s the same rules.

The same rules. She’s lying chuffed and dreamy, she’s had her dose of cock. Her sister’s man. She’s fucking well won; she’s debased us again. We are empty.

Brooossss

We’re in bed, sitting up in bed, and I’m lighting a fag and saying: – Mind the first time ah rode you?

– That’s a horrible way of putting it! she pouts obstinately.

– What the fuck dae ye want us tae say? Remember the first time we made love darling? Ha ha ha. Eighty-five? Eighty-six? Over ten years ago now anyway. Carole . . . we were no long married. You were at ours and the pair of you were quite pished. Drove you hame. Mind that?

– I remember, her face twists in recall at this shared but unacknowledged history.

– Rode you in the back of the car. Portobello, we smile. – Mind what you said then? Naw? Never tell Carole. That was what you said. Ten years on and off and you’ve been getting rode by your sister’s man. Mind the time you came ower tae Australia? You n me n that Abo bird I used tae shag. Madeline. We had that threesome. She licked you oot. You couldnae wait for it. As soon as Carole’s back was turned. Mind?

– You can be so cruel, she’s shaking her head. – What do you get out of being like that? Eh?

– Just stating a fact. Ten years it’s been gaun oan. Kicked off again as soon as I got back fae Oz. Hudnae even unpacked the suitcase before ah wis pokin you, fir fuck sakes! That’s a cow in any book, I shake my head, watching her simmer in rage. – Once, even twice maybe, an indiscretion, but ten years? That spells cow. C. O. W. Cow. I tell her.

– Yeah? Well have you ever thought what that makes you son? She coughs out.

We, I, we, ignore her. – Mind when you got thegither wi Danny. The first time you brought us round tae yours was when he was on the rigs. Funny, mind a while back, ah brought Ray roond, you mind ay ma mate Ray? He was a D.C. at the time. D.S. now. The pair ay us rode ye. A right motley
ménage à trois
that yin. That’s you goat the set now, a threesome wi an extra bird and an extra guy.

– That was . . . we were all drunk . . . you . . .

– Perr Danny. Two weeks on, two weeks oaf. Know just how the cunt feels!

She looks at us, in a bitter, focused way. – I don’t know why I waste my fuckin time oan you! You’re not that fucking good, she sneers.

– There’s three reasons: one, Danny’s in the UAE, two, I have a cock and three, I am discreet, we smile at her.

– Nae wonder Carole’s away! She did right tae get shot ay you! She’s up, getting dressed in haste. There’s nothing that excites the morbid fascination more than watching an old boiler you’ve just fucked struggling into her clothes without dignity.

But we are injured by what she has said and want to shout, She’ll be back, but we say nothing on the subject. – Just go, I command.

– Don’t you fuckin well worry, she spits back, and departs.

After a while we, I, we find that we have become aroused again. We, I, we could have done with another go at it. Still, she’ll be back. Nothing surer than that. We put on our Frank Sidebottom
Timperley
EP. Then we, I, we put on a video in which this big blonde hoor takes on a couple of lumberjacks in an Alaskan forest. Now we are most definitely aroused and decide to call Bunty.

– Hello Boontay!

– Frank. If that’s your real name . . .

– Course it’s me real name! You don’t know what you’re talking about you fooking stupid big-titted whore.

There’s a bit of silence. No so sharp now Bunty. I have got this fuckin cow on the run. My breathing is getting out of control.

– How do you know what size my breasts are? She eventually says, tentatively.

She is now following the advice given to her by Detective Sergeant Brooossss Robertson. Detective Inspector Elect Brooosss Robertson. We find that our cock is really stiffening now and we are required to unbutton our trousers.

– I know everything. Now tell me your sexual fantasies Boontay.

– Shut up! You disgusting little creep! Leave me alone will you? She slams the phone down. This cunt’s riled.

We wind on the video to the place where a tired-looking, greasy continental stud is fucking a stretch-marked boiler up the arse. Worn goods, but some excellent close-up shots. The pole must be well-greased to get that kind of motion. We discharge over the axminster.

Later on we decide to telephone Bro. Clifford Blades.

He’s a bit upset. – Sorry Bruce, can’t make the club tonight. Actually, Bunty’s in a state. The pervert called again.

– Oh God, Bladesey. It never rains, eh. Look, you console her, and I’ll be right over.

– Thanks Bruce, I really appreciate it. She’s beside herself.

We go to the bog and give our arse, thighs and genitals a good clawing, then we cut up a line of coke. This is washed down with a Glenmorangie to get the taste of diseased druggy scum out of our tonsils.

Then we realise that our car has been left in the works car park, due to the self-centredness of the hoor Shirley. We get a taxi out to Corstorphine, the meter running to the price of a gam from a half-decent hoor, just to be with our friends Cliff and Bunty Blades.

Carole Remembers Australia

The things my Bruce has seen, the things that have hurt him. They don’t know. They would never know. But he shared them with me. Always.

He explained to me why he went with that prostitute back in Australia. He needed to be with someone. It meant nothing. I failed Bruce by not being there for him. I was with my mum.

Bruce had been working all the hours God sends. He had been operating undercover in the Kings Cross district, on the trail of these gangsters.

He told me about that terrible day. There he was, trying to open the huge, swinging doors of the garage. He couldn’t get them open properly, only just enough for him to squeeze through. He looked into the darkness, venturing right into its black heart. Looking back, behind him, he could see a ray of sunlight across the garage forecourt. The odd car drove by, perhaps the odd working girl swinging along in her short skirt and high heels.