Hope and Other Stories Read online

  For Trev Taylor

  Contents

  Hope

  The Happening

  Castle Terrace Car Park

  Reanimation

  The Bez

  There is a Light that Never Goes Out

  This is My Story, This is My Song

  Victims

  The Boxroom

  Destination Anywhere

  Meat

  Also by Laura Hird

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Hope

  1

  AS THE AMBULANCE blares towards the Infirmary, I try to look as out-of-it as seems necessary. Can a hundred paracetamol kill you? That’s what I told them so they wouldn’t make me vomit. The driver tells me not to worry, he’s only put the siren on to emotionally blackmail his way through the traffic. They can’t pump your stomach with paracetamol, can they? When Julian swallowed them that time, all the blood vessels burst on his face and his tongue went black. Or maybe that was the Cabernet Sauvignon.

  The wee lassie that attached me to the monitor looks about twelve. She looked pissed-off when my vital signs showed up normal. I know how to read them having watched Dad slowly die on one. She and her even tinier mate have just carried me from the middle of Saughton Park to the main road. I called 999 from the phone box outside Davie’s, then staggered over there.

  When we get up to the hospital, I wait until they’re busying themselves with the ramp and stretcher before pulling free of the monitor and leaping out into the glow of A & E. As I hit the ground running, I’m halfway across Lauriston Place before they register what’s happened. The driver is a fast-moving blur behind me as I sprint into Forrest Road. By the time I get to Desiree’s flat on George IV Bridge he’s obviously re-read his job description and given up. I have no complaints about the NHS. I’ve always found it very hospitable.

  Desiree’s out for the count by the time I arrive, having just received a cassette stuffed with supergrass from Eartha in Laos. A rather misguided children’s charity gave Eartha a grant to go there, bugger street kids and post marijuana to his pals for six months. It makes you realise what Comic Relief is really about. I’m going to send them a proposal. Get out of here. Go somewhere hot.

  I knock back half a glass of red wine and skin-up before bothering to look up and see who’s here. There’s always a full complement of people in this room. Some come once, can’t handle the slagging fags and never return. Others visit weekly or every few days. Some never seem to leave. Desiree and Eartha usually hold court but in their absence it is rather like a chat show without a host. Splinter groups have been established. They are all probably bitching fiercely about one another. Noticing a woman in her sixties sitting with the pigeon sisters, I wonder if she’s our David Dimbleby for the evening.

  I slowly start to take in everybody else although I know it’s fruitless. There’s never any talent here. I’ve had my cock sucked by a couple of them but only ever through blind drunkenness or unbridled desperation.

  Jason squeezes my shoulder and hands me a copy of some treacherously stapled literary mag from the North East. He wants me to look at a poem he has in it and watches my reaction as I read. It is a self-obsessed navel contemplation and as predictably shit as the rest of his stuff. Jason’s high opinion of himself really makes me cringe. If there’s one thing I hate it’s those poor-me-tormented-writer types. Handing the magazine back I feign interest nonetheless and ask if he has anything else in the pipeline.

  ‘I wish. Nobody’s interested these days if it’s not about asylum seekers or talking dogs. Nobody wants real literature any more.’

  ‘Couldn’t you stick a few gypsies in to keep the punters happy?’

  He stomps away, feigning offence.

  As I spark up the joint, I turn my attention back to the pigeon sisters. Coo is in the midst of an astronomical phase and has been boring the tits off us all for weeks with his black holes and supernovas. Doo has started going to saunas again to illustrate his disquiet. As Coo rambles on about Stephen Hawking’s universe, Doo keeps trying to get the conversation down to his level.

  ‘Honestly though, if they have the technology to leapfrog galaxies surely they could get a better voice for the poor guy.’

  The old woman chortles.

  ‘… don’t you think though, a nice wee Sean Connery or something? Intershtellar coshmanaughtsh. Much more believable.’

  Coo is blushing and flustered.

  ‘Oh, you’re such an ignorant prick. Your brain’s the size of a sixteenth. There’s no room for anything new in there,’ he says, banging his temple for emphasis. Clattering his chair dramatically, he proffers his back to Doo and attention to the old woman.

  ‘I’ve never met him before tonight, honestly. Intelligent conversation, please, before I lose all faith in humanity. What are your thoughts on cosmology and the search for dark matter, pray tell?’

  The old woman winks at Doo and smiles.

  ‘I’m awfully sorry dear. I watched a couple of documentaries about that chap, but the only thing that really struck me was that so many eminent scientists have subscriptions to Penthouse.’

  The comment seems to focus everyone’s attention on her.

  Shirley drapes an arm around me. I hadn’t even noticed he was here.

  ‘Speaking of which, Dionne, I’d like you to meet Hope, my auntie. She’s been festering away in her huge New Town penthouse since my uncle died. I thought we could do with having someone old and wise round for a change.’

  ‘Hey, less of the wise,’ she smirks, raising her glass to me. ‘Dionne, is that your real name?’

  I can’t even remember why or how we ended up addressing each other in such ridiculous ways and suddenly realise how sad it is.

  ‘Martin … Martin Bell as it happens.’

  ‘Now he IS an alien,’ Doo butts in. Hope blanks him.

  ‘Then I’ll call you Martin if you don’t mind. These Las Vegas names are all very well but I prefer Hope to Despair.’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  Numerous joints circle the table. When Hope is passed one she takes a long draw then blows a smoke ring. She’s cool. Not as old as I thought at first, maybe just late fifties, with a Marianne Faithfull sort of clumsy elegance. Intrigued, I pick up my drink and go over.

  No sooner have I sat down than Shirley has his big arse squeezed on the back of my chair and whispers unsubtly in my ear, ‘Auntie’s climbing the walls in that huge flat. See if she fancies a lodger. You must get out that smelly place you’re in.’

  I push him away awkwardly as Hope frowns and shakes her head.

  ‘Honestly, Angus, I’m not senile, you know? I do still have control over my power of speech. I’ve no doubt Martin does too.’

  The room erupts in laughter. Angus! He told us his real name was Andrew. No wonder he makes us call him Shirley. We try and out-do each other with crap Angus/sheep-shagger jokes until I notice Hope’s eyes starting to glaze over and don’t want to seem as arse-ish as the rest of them.

  ‘Come on girls, it’s like the bloody Gang Show in here. Anyone would think we were smoking real blow.’

  The door goes. It’s a couple of guys Shirley knows from the Traverse, very fuckable but straight, I’ve already asked. In line with flat decorum they immediately uncork a bottle of Jacob’s Crack and start skinning-up. The effect the youngest guest has on the assembled queens is rather like that of a discarded fish supper on seagulls. I regale Hope with my observation.

  ‘And he thinks I don’t get out much!’

  It’s nice to have someone look me in the eye when they talk to me without reading something into it for a change.

  ‘I didn’t even know Shirl … Angus had an auntie, or a family for that matter. I
just assumed someone had found him in a cabbage patch in London Road in the mid-eighties and handed him in at the Laughing Duck.’

  Hope pulls a face.

  ‘We don’t really have a family as such. First and second generation black sheep, far too garish for beige people like them.’ She gestures to Shirley. ‘His father’s a church elder, you know, not that the implication of that is what it used to be.’

  Replenishing my drink from one of the army of bottles, I offer her some. Fumbling in a carpetbag by her side she produces a half bottle of Ten-Year-Old Macallan’s and pours herself a navvy’s measure. Shirley sidles through from the kitchen, topping up Hope’s glass with hot water, blood orange juice, a spoonful of Tate and Lyle and a stir.

  Hope gives him a smile of appreciation, takes a little sip and hugs herself.

  ‘It was my only precondition of coming here tonight. I bring my own bottle though or he tries to palm me off with that revolting Grouse nonsense. Even with their Sunday clothes on I can still tell one from the other.’

  ‘So is that your standard tipple?’ I ask her, amused at her extravagance.

  ‘Only when there’s someone else to do it for me, or if I know I’m really going to be hitting the sauce. It dehydrates and rehydrates me simultaneously. I never get a bad head, just a good night’s sleep.’

  I’m completely sold on hot toddies and begin wolfing down the wine, briefly scanning the girls as I swallow. Coo seems to be having most success with the Traverse dream-boat. The rest sulk round them, having one of their little joint-rolling conferences. I don’t think I’ve ever met any of them when they’ve been straight. Mind you, I’m hardly one to talk. I’m only ever straight at work. Usually! Turning back to Hope I take a long sniff of her drink and go mmmmm.

  ‘Finish that red muck and have one if you wish. Don’t let the rest of them near it though or I’ll end up on the red muck too.’

  I’m flattered that she seems to have singled me out like this and feel a need to disassociate myself from the rest of them. They suddenly seem so childish, superficial.

  ‘So you’re having some accommodation trouble I gather?’

  Not wanting to sound like a dosser after Shirley’s ‘smelly place’ comment I play it down.

  ‘I’d like a bigger place but they all want a deposit and a month’s rent in advance and I resent handing £1200 over to some horrid little Jew before I even spend a night there.’

  Oh shit, the anti-Semitic lapse was maybe a bit much. Hope is smiling and seems to have appreciated it though.

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘Besides, I spend so much time at work I never have time to look at anywhere.’

  ‘What’s your line of work?’

  God, how embarrassing.

  ‘I manage a bookshop near Stockbridge. Not really what I intended to do with my MA in Fine Arts but you just can’t get funding these days.’ Does it sound like I’m hustling her? Fuck, I’m just being honest.

  ‘Surely the Arts Council could help you out? What about a Creative Scotland Award?’

  ‘Erm … oh yes. I suppose I could try that.’ Shit, shit, shit. I got them to send me a form out to apply last year but I couldn’t be arsed to fill it in. She’ll think I don’t know what I’m talking about now.

  Supping her toddie, she glares at me as if she’s trying to suss me out. Just as I convince myself she’s realised what a twat I am however, she says very matter of factly, ‘There’s bags of room in my flat. I’m not out of my mind with loneliness as Angus seems to think but you’re welcome to stay while you look for somewhere. It’s Northumberland Street.’

  Northumberland Street! Isn’t it that gorgeous Georgian street that all the queens stay in? I’m instantly fantasising about leaving my shithole in Haymarket behind, along with two months’ unpaid rent, a kicked-in wardrobe and some extremely dodgy downloads on the flat computer’s internet history. I knew there must be a reason I pulled the ambulance stunt to get up here tonight. You never see cabs in Whitson. Nobody can afford them. God, I’m sitting gouching without having responded to Hope’s offer.

  ‘Seriously, you wouldn’t mind?’

  She laughs as if I’m joking. ‘What’s to mind? You’re not a sociopath are you? Angus can vouch for you, can’t you Angus?’

  Shirley tries to focus his attention away from Traverse-boy. Jesus, don’t they get bored being so lecherously queeny all the time? He points at the blood orange carton, not understanding.

  ‘No dear, I’m just wondering if Martin here would be likely to run off with the family silver.’

  ‘I’d let him. Silver’s just so passé. Make not bad ashtrays I suppose.’

  Jesus, do people really have family silver? I’ll be lucky to get a sixteen-piece catalogue special with two chipped saucers and a plate missing when mum pegs out.

  Angus gives me the thumbs up regardless and immediately turns his attention back to Traverse-boy who I’ve decided looks like a young Christopher Walken.

  Hope grabs my hand and shakes it till I hear the bones crack.

  ‘See how we get on anyway. Better than throwing money at a horrid little Jew. I’ve known a few myself.’

  I shake back enthusiastically, consciously more firmly than my usual flaccid-penis-in-the-palm thing.

  ‘That’s great, honestly, great.’

  People are so stupid. They trust implicitly anyone who shows the slightest interest in them. It’s loneliness I suppose. Other people can’t seem to be comfortable with their own company the way I can, pathetic really. I can make myself like Hope though. I can make myself like anyone.

  2

  The following day, I go for a few swifties in the New Town after work for my nerves then make my way down to Northumberland Street, to see the flat. As I try to work out the house numbers, I see Hope struggling towards me, two Thresher bags clanking from each arm.

  ‘I thought I should rejuvenate my drinks cabinet if I’m going to have company. Please don’t say you’re a whisky puritan like myself, I’ve rather splashed out on lesser things.’

  As I wrestle a couple of bags off her, she begins making her way up the steps to one of the houses. It’s like a fucking foreign embassy. Then we’re on the way up this plush and seemingly endless stair. For a second I think she owns the whole thing. Fuck, these New Town places are only three floors but they seem infinitely higher than normal stairs. By the time we finally reach the top landing, I’m knackered. Hope smiles at my wheezing, looking decidedly unexerted.

  ‘I only keep this place on for the exercise. It’s either that or starving myself. I can’t abide overweight people.’

  The front door opens onto a very long, polished-floored hall. Old film posters are pasted to the walls like they used to be outside cinema two at the Filmhouse. I wonder who stole whose idea. Some of them would be worth a fortune. The Wizard of Oz looks like an original, Lolita, The Servant, The Sweet Smell of Success – they all look old. Pasted to the bloody walls though, worthless.

  ‘This is absolutely fab. Did you do it yourself?’ I ask her, gesturing to a poster for the original Desperate Hours. God, Bogie was such a man.

  ‘Good God, no. I don’t have the patience. They were my husband’s babies. Completely movie-mad he was. We saw a lot of them together. They remind me of him, in a good way.’

  All over the ceiling as well. God, it’s so cool. I’m trying to see how many I recognise as she leads me to this enormous kitchen. In the centre is a huge, cast-iron cooking range, overhung by dozens of stainless steel utensils. Honestly, every cooking implement (and some that look like they came out of Guantánamo Bay) you could ever dream of. At the top of the room, by the window, is a massive china sink, like the kind you used to get in art classes and a gorgeous chunky oak breakfast table. It’s like a bloody hotel kitchen. I think of the windowless boxroom in my current flat with ochre grease a centimetre deep on the walls. The walls in here are a fresh-looking Habitat green with a stunning abstract-print linoleum floor. Opening the vast fridge door, Hope b
egins transferring bottles from her bags.

  ‘What’s your poison? Wine, beer, champagne? There’s spirits in the other room if you’d prefer.’

  ‘Anything, I don’t mind.’

  Hope extracts the Moët with a flourish.

  ‘How about this to whet our whistles? Carry it round with us as I show you the place.’

  Popping it open she hands me a glass with a bowl the size of a grapefruit and pours us both one.

  ‘To you and your kindness.’

  She pulls a face and switches off the kitchen light.

  ‘Spare me the sentiment, dear, please, it lulls one into a terribly false sense of security.’

  First on the right is this enormous bedroom – big brass double bed, polished floors with a couple of extremely expensive-looking rugs, ornate lead fireplace, with a view right down towards Stockbridge and into the houses of all these rich, lucky bastards. A lovely mahogany wardrobe and chest of drawers; massive old pirate’s chest. This must be Hope’s room, absolutely exquisite.

  ‘What do you think then? Will it do until you find somewhere else? Don’t worry about money. Cook me the odd spaghetti carbonara if you must.’

  I’m utterly aghast, already imagining the reactions of the people I’m going to invite here, the ones who try to make me feel inadequate because I don’t have my own place. Fuck them and their mortgages.

  Hope seems so keen for me to stay, and for free. There will most definitely be a catch but I’m damned if I’m going to worry about that before it makes itself apparent. Could I finally be getting a break?

  There are another three bedrooms, all immaculate, like mine, and Hope’s, which is packed to the gunnels with books, antiques and boxes looking for a home. You can barely make out her bed amidst the intense camouflage of clutter. Our rooms are at opposite ends of the hall, however it is hers, rather than my own which is conveniently next to the main door. We have a bathroom each, both with gloriously theatrical dressing-room bulbs round the mirrors, perfect for blackheads. It’s like bloody Malmaison.