Scratch (19 page)

I got through the day at work without any major problems other than the by now normal not-being-able-to-work-the-till-properly ones. I was getting better; Mark only had to comp fifty quid’s worth of orders and all of the customers completed their visits assault-free.

Mark agreed to let me leave a half-hour early to allow me time to go home and change before my dinner-date, sorry, appointment. I was in and out too quickly to properly gauge my dad’s anger level, but Mum’s cheery ‘say hello to Terry’
(I’d lied about where I was going) as I left suggested she remained unaware of the previous night’s escapades.

***

‘So, Jim,’ Louise said, passing the roast potatoes. ‘Joe tells me you don’t get along with your parents. What’s happened there?’

Oh, cheers a lot, mate.
‘Eh,’ I said. At least we had established his name for the evening.

 
Joe grinned across the table at me. ‘Now
now
, Lou, you’re embarrassing the poor lad,’ he said, his eyes twinkling.

‘I’m sorry, Jim,’ Louise said. ‘I didn’t mean to.’ Paula’s mum was of an age where it’s okay to use the term ‘handsome’ without it sounding like an insult. She had aged at least as well as her husband and it was obvious where Paula got her looks (and all her other good points). She was persistent, though. ‘So, what happened? Do they struggle with the choices you’ve made for yourself, is that what it is?’

‘Eh,’ I said. I looked at Paula, who was sitting in silence beside me. She gave a brief, supportive smile but didn’t speak.

I had arrived at the Frasers’ a little late and was ushered straight to the dining table by Paula with only a quick ‘
hiya
, dinner’s ready’. I’d said hello to Louise, who thankfully made no mention of soap, as I sat down. Joe appeared from upstairs a minute later and simply nodded to me before starting to eat. Louse’s remarks, therefore, had taken me by surprise as a conversation opener.

‘That would be part of it, I suppose,’ I said, eyes down.

‘And what would the other part be?’ Louise clearly didn’t share her husband’s glee at making me uncomfortable; she just seemed to have a natural talent for it.

‘C’mon Mum, let him eat his dinner,’ Paula said.

‘He thinks they think he’s failed to meet his potential,’ Joe said.

‘And have you?’ Louise asked me.

‘Eh,’ I said.

‘That’s not the point, Lou,’ Joe said, ignoring me. ‘What’s important is he
thinks
that’s what his parents think.’

‘Dad, give him a break,’ Paula said.

‘I’m talking to your mother, Paula, not Jim.’

‘Behave yourself, Dad,’ Paula warned, prompting a smile from her father.

I had sunburn again and stared down at my plate, saying nothing. At least Paula was on my side.

‘So what if he’s back working in a pub? There’s no shame in that,’ she said, not very helpfully.

‘I never said there was,’ Joe said. ‘I think it’s admirable. I simply don’t think he’s doing it for the reasons he thinks he is.’

I wanted to shout
I’m sitting right here!
but was too crippled with embarrassment to do anything other than take another mouthful of salmon.

‘Why does he think he’s doing it, then?’ Paula asked her father.

‘Not for me to say,’ Joe said. ‘Anyway, this is hardly fitting conversation for the dinner table; the poor lad’s mortified. Pass the pickle.’

‘Your father’s right, Paula, stop poking your nose into Jim’s business,’ Louise said.

‘You started it,’ Paula replied. She turned to me. ‘Didn’t she start it?’

‘Eh,’ I said.

‘Oh shush, Paula,’ Louise said. ‘Any more word about Ingo’s grandad?’ As changes of subject go it was pretty slick, if unexpected.

‘Not today, no.’

There was a brief silence before Louise said, ‘I’m sure he’s just not had a chance to call yet.’

‘Yeah,’ Paula said.

‘Right, James, hurry up with your dinner,’ Joe said. ‘We’ve got things to do.’

‘We have?’ Paula’s comments had distracted me, and it took a moment or two for the fear to hit.

‘
Oh yes
,’ Joe said. There was more than relish in his tone, there was a full salad garnish with balsamic dressing and spicy salsa.

***

Twenty minutes later Paula smiled apologetically as she and her mum left to meet Andrea and go to the cinema - an arrangement she had somehow neglected to mention when inviting me over.

‘You’re in for a treat, lad,’ Joe said as he led me into the living room. ‘Park your arse there.’ He indicated one of the two leather armchairs.

I sat as Joe headed for a huge plasma TV in the corner, which dominated the room. It was at least a fifty-incher, far bigger than the relatively small room could reasonably accommodate, and threw the aesthetics of the otherwise tastefully decorated and accessorised lounge totally out of whack. It was fucking gorgeous.

‘Nice telly.’

‘Isn’t it just? It arrived on Saturday; Louise nearly slit my throat when she saw it.’

‘What stopped her?’

‘Fortuitous timing.’ Joe was crouched in front of the magnificent beast, fiddling with the DVD player on the shelf underneath. ‘The
X-Factor
came on just after I got it set up. As soon as she heard that wee Declan lad in 7.1 Dolby Surround Sound, she was a convert.’

Declan O’Hara was a seventeen year-old Irish kid who, now all of the Scottish contestants had been voted off, was the Caledonian press’s top tip to win the competition. I had to admit that, despite my long-standing and still unbroken policy of never watching the show because it’s shite, even I wanted him to win. That I had no idea whether he was any good or not didn’t come in to it; it was a
celtic
(with a ‘k’) thing.

Joe finished whatever he was doing and headed for the other armchair, remote in hand. ‘Ready?’ he asked.

‘For what, exactly?’

‘Just watch.’ Joe hit the remote and the screen came alive.

‘
Aah
,’ I said when the credits began. ‘I saw this years ago on video.’

‘Not like this you didn’t,’ Joe said. ‘Special edition, re-mastered.’

It was, of course, a Bruce Lee film. Specifically,
Enter the Dragon
.

‘His first, and as it turned out only, big American movie,’ Joe said a few minutes later, as a young oriental woman was chased around what appeared to be a fish market by a ginger-bearded baddie and his mates. ‘That’s Lee’s sister, Su Lin.’

‘What, in real life?’

‘No, in the film.’

‘Right,’ I said. ‘Her name’s Su Lin and she’s playing Bruce’s sister?’

‘No, her name’s Angela Mao and she’s
playing
Su Lin, Lee’s sister.’

I was getting confused. ‘So the character she’s playing is Bruce’s sister?’

‘No, she’s Lee’s sister.’

That didn’t help. ‘And Lee is?’ I ventured.

‘Bruce.’

‘As in, Bruce Lee?’

‘Yes.’

‘Okay.’ The word
senile
crept into my brain. ‘So, Su Lin is, stop me if I’m wrong,
Lee’s
sister but not
Bruce Lee’s
sister. But Bruce
is
Lee, is that right?’ I was starting to wonder if I should be phoning some kind of mental health professional.

Joe gave me a
Christ, you’re thick
look. ‘Exactly!’

‘Okay.’ I wasn’t sure where to go from there. On screen, Su Lin, whoever’s sister she might or might not be, stuck a big shard of glass into her stomach and killed herself rather than submit to the baddies.

‘Classic motive through back-story,’ Joe said. ‘Of course, it’s there for characterisation more than anything else. He’d have gone to the tournament anyway because he’s a hero. The dead sister merely adds depth.’

‘Who, Bruce?’

‘No, Lee. You’re starting to worry me, James. I thought you’d seen this?’

‘I was very young,’ I said, trying to put Joe’s incoherence to the back of my mind. By now, we were watching people on boats going to some kind of martial arts competition. ‘That’s John Saxon,’ I said, excitedly. ‘He was in
Nightmare on Elm Street
. And
Murder She Wrote
.’

‘A fine actor. No match for Bruce in the fighting stakes, but he does fairly well. He’s a black belt in karate.’

‘There’s a man ripe for a Tarantino comeback,’ I said.

‘Couldn’t agree more, James. He’ll be in his seventies by now, right enough.’

‘That doesn’t matter. I can see him as an ageing, sadistic hit man.’ I was starting to enjoy myself.

‘And now we meet Mr Jim Kelly. He should have been bigger,’ Joe said as the action switched to the next protagonist.

‘He looks pretty big to me.’ Jim Kelly had a superb seventies afro and a mean line in kicky/punchy violence. ‘It’s good to see black actors could get decent roles back then,’ I said.

‘As opposed to all those Chinese people, do you mean?’

‘Very funny.’

‘Still, it’s hardly a surprise that Kelly is the only one of the three stars to get killed in the film. They weren’t all that enlightened in those days.’

‘Thanks for spoiling that for me there, Joe.’

‘You’ve seen it.’

‘Years ago, I can’t remember anything apart from the bit at the end with all the mirrors.’

‘Classic scene, that. This was released the year you were born.’

This took me by surprise; not the fact, more that Joe would know it. ‘Was it?’

‘Same year as Paula, too. I had to go on my own to see it; Louise had an arse the size of Killarney and couldn’t fit into the seats at the
Scala
.’

We watched in silence for a while, and I finally realised Bruce Lee’s
character‘s
name was Mr Lee, which gave our earlier conversation more clarity.

‘This is my favourite line,’ Joe said, as a badly acted thug approached Bruce, now on a bigger boat with everyone else, and asked him what his fighting style was.
The art of fighting without fighting,
Bruce replied. ‘How’s that for profound?’ Joe asked.

‘Doesn’t that just mean arguing?’ I asked.

‘No, watch.’ Bruce convinced the thug to get into a lifeboat with the promise of a fight on a nearby island, then, instead of following him, unhitched the dingy from the bigger boat and set it adrift. ‘See?’ Joe said. ‘The art of fighting without fighting.’

‘He just conned him,’ I said.

‘No, he used cunning and guile to defeat his opponent without resorting to violence.’

‘Yeah, he conned him.’

‘No, he resolved a conflict with misdirection rather than physical prowess, despite knowing he could have bested his enemy easily.’

‘Okay, but doesn’t the fact he spends the rest of the movie kicking the shite out of people kind of undermine that philosophy?’