Filth (34 page)

There’s a few nods around the table, all except Inglis who doesnae look happy. He’s an irrelevance. No votes for queers in this section. So Drummond has her way and we decide that it’s expedient not to invite a uniformed spastic to our Christmas do.

Result!

Of course, if I had said, No way a uniformed spastic gets invited to a plain-clothes do, then Drummond would have been the first to shoot me down in flames. But the last thing I want is to be sitting in my brown (the new black) leather jacket, checked shirt and fawn flannels in the curry hoose beside Considine decked out in a white shirt, black polis troos and shoes.

After this little meeting I get restless, and I feel a chug coming on. I head downstairs with the paper.

I do a bit of graffiti in the bogs:

PETER INGUS IS A FUCKIN HIV SPREADER

and:

INGUS = SICK, DISEASED QUEER

I’m sitting there looking at it for a while. I start chuckling and my sides ache. Then a depressed feeling digs in, followed by a steady outrage. It was wrong to do this to a brother officer. The force can’t have this going on. I’m the fuckin Fed rep here. To describe a brother officer in this manner . . . I’m psyching myself up, getting into role.

I pull the chain and flush away my shit. There’s some traces of worm, but no sign of the head. I’ll get the bastard though, sure as fuck I’ll get him.

I’ll get him alright.

I go upstairs and stride purposefully over to Peter, tapping his wrist and steering him over into a corner.

– Peter, have you seen the graffiti in the toilet? I ask, in a low concerned voice.

– Ach, thir’s always something thair. Ah nivir take any notice, he shrugs.

– Maybe ye should, I tell him, letting my anger rise. – I’m getting a bit fuckin well fed up of this shite. As fuckin Fed rep ah’m no having people’s character defamed in this way. I’m gaun up tae see Total now. I raise my voice and look over the room, – Some cunt’s playin silly fuckers here. Just hope ah dinnae find oot whae it is!

I storm out of the room, leaving them looking bemused. I’m charging up the stairs to Toal’s office and I’m in without knocking. – Gaffer, a wee word.

– Bruce, I’m a bit busy right now, Toal says, shuffling through some papers. He looks so fucking low.

– I want you to come and see something, some graffiti in the toilet.

– I don’t have time for . . .

– As Fed rep, I don’t have time to see brother officers being slandered by other members of the service!

– What’s this?

I explain the graffiti to Toal and he’s following me down to the bogs. The others have come along, their faces like the ghouls when that Colin Sim guy died. They are looking at Inglis for a reaction and he looks crestfallen. – It’s jist a load ay bloody nonsense, he’s saying over and over again, torn between trying to make light of it, and being genuinely staggered.

How did it make you feel?

I head back up the stairs with Toal, who beckons me into his office and closes the door. – Listen Robbo, he says, – Inglis isn’t, well, you know, is he?

– What? I ask. I’m starting to enjoy this.

– Like the graffiti says, Brother Robertson, Toal snaps.

Toal must be upset to resort to playing the craft card so nakedly. – Whether he is or isn’t is irrelevant surely, I say, planting the seed, – Peter’s sexuality is his business. He’s being harassed and we operate a non-discrimination policy on the grounds of sexual orientation.

– But he can’t be being sexually harassed if he’s not a . . . well, gay, I think the fashionable term is these days.

– Well, you can call it sexual harassment or just plain harassment Bob, but the way I see it, is that this is the unacceptable face of canteen culture . . .

– Whoa Bruce, whoa, I’m on your side . . . this has to be stamped out. It just came as a bit of shock to me . . . I mean, Peter’s a craft stalwart . . .

– Peter’s a lonely guy Bob. What he gets up to is his own business, and I don’t profess to know much about him, but I’m not having a brother officer harassed in this way.

– Exactly. I’ll make sure this is dealt with.

I walk out as high as a kite. The concepts ‘Inglis’ and ‘poofery’ are now indelibly associated. The concepts ‘Inglis’ and ‘promotion’ not so. Ah, the games, the games.

You should keep moving when you’re on a roll and I decide to call on Estelle at the flower shop. I’d like tae fuckin gie that wee shag one. She’s probably feart of Gorman and Setterington. What she needs is protection from those monsters. Someone she can trust in her life. An older, more mature man who can respond to her needs. If there are damsels in distress need saving, then I can think of no better knight in shining armour than Detective Inspector Elect Bruce Robertson.

That old familiar lump in the flannels starts rising as I think about Estelle and a combination of positions and girlie sex noises. A threesome with her and wee Claire, the hoor fae Maisie’s. Just what the doctor ordered. That’ll sort ma fuckin rash oot Rossi!

When I get to the shop, the only person there is the disapproving auld boot, who tells me that Estelle is off sick with the cold.

– A lot of it going about, I cheerfully say.

– Aye, sure, the auld cow mumbles. She doesnae like Estelle at all, that’s as sure as another trophyless season in Gorgie.

– Does she get many callers?

– Too bloody many, the wifie says, then crinkles her nose and commences hostilities, – What’s it tae you?

Looks like the auld cunt just woke up and smelt the bacon. The Scottish working class and respect for the polis go together like Mother Theresa and
Playboy
centrefolds.

I decide not to probe. – Just trying to make sure I’ve no rivals, I smile, heading for the exit.

– I never thought she wis that desperate, the cheeky old boot says.

I stop abruptly and look around at the stock and give some of the plants a sniff. – Bad time ay the year for flooirs, I say, then: – You got a staff toilet back there?

– Aye, she says. – Anything else?

– Not for now.

That cheeky auld boot is getting a visit from the environmental health; we’re fuckin sure the auld cunt is. Anyway, it seems a good idea to take the rest of the afternoon off and let the form OTA 1–7 take the strain. Call it stress management Mr Toal. Call it stress management Mr Niddrie. Bruce Robertson stress management.

I leave the Hunter’s Square bogs, then stop into the pie shop for a chilli pie. I almost got the bastard worms right out there. There can’t be much of them left. I get in the Volvo and head out to Colinton. The worms are on the run. The worm called Inglis is being flushed out the system; outed and routed, before further infestation can take hold.

At home I cut myself out a big, celebratory line of posh. I’m soon dying on a shag. The only person I can think of belling is Shirley. It’s either that or hooring and she’s cheaper.

Shirl girl.

I succumb to the force of libido and make the call, but as soon as she arrives I can see that I’ve made a mistake and that I’d have been better off with a wank. She’s like a block of ice; she’s staring at me, leaning back on the chair, smoking a fag, looking really nasty.

– I don’t know why I’m here, she says bitterly, and I’m about to retort along the lines of ‘because you’re a slag who wants fucked’ but I bite my tongue. – Carole phoned, she says suddenly in a gleeful inspiration, hoping to get to me. – She told me that she doesn’t want anything to do with you. If you try to see the bairn . . .

– Huh! What does she know? She knows nothing! That’s what she fuckin well kens. The sum total, I snap, feeling my anger rising. I try to control myself. – I mean, she’s deluding herself Shirley . . . it’s said. I’m more sad than angry about it. She’s unstable: I personally think that she’s had some sort of breakdown. I worry about her.

– She seems alright to me . . . Shirley says doubtfully, folding her arms, fixing her eyes on me. Her dark eyes. She’s a sexy cow from a certain angle.

– Believe you me Shirley, the game I’m in, you become something of an expert on human nature. She’s obviously had some kind of breakdown that’s gone undetected. She’s telling lies; lies to poison you against me.

– Poison me against you! Huh! You’ve been quite capable of that yourself, she scoffs, her face contorted in petulance, almost cracking that foundation mask which she wears to cover the acne scars she has. I like the way she does her eyes but, always have.

Time to move. I get ready to make my pitch. – Look . . . I know I’ve been cruel to you in the past. But you know why, surely to God you know why, I plead.

– I wish I did Bruce, I really wish I did, she says, shaking her head.

– Don’t wind me up Shirley, please, and don’t insult the both of us . . . I stand up and walk to the door. Surely the whore can’t be stupid enough to fall for it.

– I’m sorry Bruce, I don’t follow you . . . she says. Her pupils are widening. The fuckin spastic. I don’t believe it. She’s doubting herself. That’s step one: establish doubt. Step two: drive the bus right through her fucking doubt.

– Shirley, you surely to God know only full well that I’ve been trying to drive you away . . . cause I . . . fuck . . . I’m saying too much . . . I shake my heid.

– What! What are you saying?

– I tried to drive you away cause I couldn’t fuckin stand it!

– What! What couldn’t you stand?

– Danny! Carole! Him being with you! Me being with her! Making love to her and pretending it was you! Putting up with sneaky shags in backs of cars when I wanted to take you to my bed and hold you in my arms and make love to you all night and shout to the whole fuckin world: This is her! This is the lassie I love!

She holds my gaze and her eyes start to water and I think of all the injustices that have been perpetrated against me recently and I hope that I feel sorry enough for myself to make my eyes moisten as well and I hope that she mistakes this for some of my soul sliding into them and the spasticated cow does and I can’t hold this gaze for long without bursting out laughing so I pull her towards me in a tight embrace and listen to her sob, – Broossss Broooossss can we no work something out Brooosss, I love you . . . and I see my eyes in the mirror behind her, like the eyes on that Tory Party election poster about that Tony Blair spastic.

I fuck her, and I’m regretting it and regretting my stupid spiel even before I’ve blown my muck inside her. After I have to listen to her rabbiting on about her plans and ambitions for us. The sex with her is nothing like I imagine it to be prior to commencing it. I feel entrapped by my lust, but when I actually get round to doing it, it just seems so pointless and tedious. She’s jabbering away and I’m telling her about Inglis and his misfortunes.

– Bruce, she laughs, – why is it you have to savour everything bad that happens to others?

I think about this for a second or two. – It stems from a belief that there’s only a finite number of bad things that can happen in the world at any given time. So if they’re happening to someone else they ain’t happening to me. In a way, it’s a celebration of
joie de vivre
.

She wants to stay the night but I tell her I’m on backshift. She reluctantly leaves and I do some more lines before tanning a bottle of Grouse. This gives me the shits and I stagger through to the bogs.