Hope and Other Stories Read online

  Eventually we retire to the living room, which is so wonderfully chilled-out it’s unreal. Again, big, chunky armchairs with ethnic-looking throws over them, massive fireplace, antiques absolutely everywhere, loads of plants.

  Hope puts the Moët on the table in front of the fire, switches on an art deco lamp in the corner of the room and tells me to make myself at home. I already am – totally.

  We seem to become embroiled in this intense conversation as soon as we sit down. There’s none of that ridiculous small talk that Edinburgh people usually use to keep people at a distance till they’ve decided what to dislike about them. Hope appears to have angles on everything that I’d never even contemplated before and seems able to make any topic interesting. She sells all these wild concepts to me and is encouraging enough to make me think up a few of my own. It’s so refreshing. The Scots used to be renowned for their love of a good argument. Now they just bottle it up and go daft. As we finish off the champagne, having smoked a few joints, I start going on about the Holocaust.

  ‘It was more like a revolution if you ask me. Honestly, if there was a major revolution in Britain tomorrow the targets would be the same. All these wee enclosed, self-perpetuating groups of wealthy people – the Jews, the black market, Freemasons, homosexuals, the aristocracy. You know? They’re all we’re-all-right-Jack types?’

  Whilst I realise I shouldn’t really be advocating the gassing of gays I feel like I’ve suddenly understood what it was actually all about. Like I’ve just realised how we colonise things – bars, professions, streets, councils – and can be protesting for the right to be accepted one minute and watching someone’s grandad take a dump through a hole in a wall the next. I don’t want to be gay, I never have. I hate gays and that contempt they have for everyone else. I see it in myself and I hate that too.

  In the midst of regaling Hope with my new homophobic philosophy I start to panic that I’m going too far or that I’m getting a bit anything-you-can-think-I-can-think-sicker. I’m pleased with the bit about recognising it in myself though. It makes me seem quite sorted I think. Hope refills our glasses with two huge measures of a seemingly precious bottle of Glencoe though, so she must have appreciated it.

  ‘Oh, I’m a great one for extremes myself, my dear. The middle ground has always bored me silly. Someone once said I should set up a fascio-communist alliance. My politics sort of dangles somewhere along the Bering Straits.’

  Although her comment is intended to put me at ease, it unnerves me and I begin to worry about her being more intelligent than me, thinking I’m an arse. Why am I having this sudden downer when I had coke-like confidence a minute ago? To overcome my negative thoughts I study the stack of CDs by the fireplace, mainly classical, bloody boxed sets – Mozart complete piano sonatas, the whole Ring, loads of Bach and baroque stuff which I love, musicals, hundreds of film soundtracks.

  Hope tells me to put something on and I start to panic again as I’m certain I’ll pick the one she hates, the one she’s ashamed of. I’m taking too long so I plump for Debussy and start going on about him dying of fright when he heard the noises of battle coming towards him. Then I realise I’m taking the word of a music teacher, fifteen years ago, who probably made it up in a fruitless attempt to make the pupils more interested. Change the subject, quick!

  ‘I’ve not noticed a television in the flat. Are you a nonbeliever?’

  ‘Can’t stand it. The real opium of the masses. I can’t tell you how many good friends I’ve seen wither to death in front of the box. It’s worse than cancer.’

  Oh well, there goes Newsnight Review and Big Brother.

  ‘It can be terribly manipulative, I suppose.’

  ‘I’ll say. Wasn’t it originally supposed to be educational and impartial. Bloody propaganda! If I want to learn about something I’ll go to a library and make up my own mind, thank you.’

  ‘Not get your opinions prescribed to you by multinationals,’ I manage to slur out, replenishing my confidence somewhat.

  ‘Precisely!’ and she clinks her glass against mine.

  My sense of wellbeing gathers momentum again as we begin joking about the things that make life worth living. It’s amazing how many queer wee things we have in common – Bob Fosse musicals; DH Lawrence; really fishy seafood; the cult of Terry Wogan (and she was snooty about TV?); the Q&A in the Saturday Guardian being the best bit; sitting amongst cows and the smells of the London Underground; tar; carbolic soap; baked potato shops; and these little white bits you cough up sometimes. Jesus, and I thought I was the only one.

  Then we start on our dislikes. We resolutely agree on mobile phones; cars; media witchhunts; people who tell you to cheer up just because you’re not grinning inanely; the tragedy of bad smells during beautiful moments; snoring; any form of audible breathing; mothers who don’t need to work but do (hi mum!); the Middle East (both sides); and people who break wind in public.

  Then Hope doesn’t respond to my ‘women who have abortions because they want a life’ (hi again, mum, I didn’t want a brother anyway). If that doesn’t make me paranoid enough, she then comes out with ‘confidence tricksters’ and ‘people who rip-off the Health Service’ in quick succession.

  I don’t know how long I sit with a stupid look on my face before managing a measly, ‘people who go on about their sun tans’ (Hope and myself are both peely-wally and interesting) and the fact that the Daily Record is the biggest-selling newspaper in Scotland. I realise how crap they are as soon as I’ve said them but it’s too late now anyway. These little rushes of unpleasantness are starting to get the better of me and I want to go. She can’t see me puking in the toilet before I even move in.

  Wolfing down the remainder of my whisky, and stifling a subsequent boak, I say I’ll have to go, work in the morning, all that shit. Hope welcomes me to stay the night but I want back to my moisturiser and my Ribena and just that pile of rubbish I call home. Once I’ve moved it here, this will be home. That is the nature of rubbish.

  As I won’t be able to flit for a couple of days (the landlord’s always snooping around for the rent on Wednesdays and Thursdays) I give her my work number in case she changes her mind. I’m only thinking about the good bits by the time I get in the taxi. Northumberland Street, you cunt!

  3

  I busy myself for the next couple of nights hassling the local grocers for cardboard boxes and savagely disposing of a lot of my belongings in the name of a lighter-travelling existence. Having to work until six both nights doesn’t help. I have loads of annual leave to take but it’s not cost effective. Besides, I’m saving it up for a big blow-out, maybe a cruise.

  Generally, the majority of my working days are spent constructively anyway, i.e. not working. Hope and I have a few long phone calls at my boss’s expense. It’s good to have someone intelligent to talk to for a change.

  I’m lucky if I get three hours’ sleep on the Thursday, my last night in Shitsville, as I’m thinking about that gorgeous flat and the people I’m going to show it to and potentially good times with Hope. Life does smile on me sometimes. I must take advantage of it this time.

  Leaving for work the next morning for the last time is glorious. At the side of the bulging wheelie bin, my excess baggage lies strewn for the binmen along Haymarket Terrace, like the staff of Number Ten bidding farewell to an outgoing Prime Minister. Though I leave ten minutes after I should have opened up I take my time to gaze at the shit-stained road for hopefully the second last time. Who buys secondhand books at ten in the morning anyway? I’ve been running the shop on my own since my boss retired three months ago. He just pays the bills now.

  Cutting down Palmerston Place I walk along the Water of Leith. The smell of rotting vegetation is as refreshing to me as sea air. As I pass under the Dean Bridge, I recall a fuck I had down here with an old wino in my early teens. He could only summon a semi, but it was huge. I had sparse pubes at the time, which really drove him wild, but he stank of rotting liver.

  An old bloke w
alks past with his dog, jolting me out of my thoughts with a ridiculous, ‘Cheer up, it’s not the end of the world.’ Christ, we were just talking about that the other night. People do actually still say it. I give the old tosser a smile anyway. He has a complexion like an uncooked beef sausage.

  It’s 10.25 by the time I get to the shop. In the unlikely event that Callum the owner’s phoned to check I’m in on time, I’ll just say I forgot to switch the answering machine off. Another plus of not having a mobile phone. No messages though, no calls and no customers for most of the morning. Leisurely speeding myself up with black coffee, I listen to Classic FM and throw myself into the Scotsman crossword. Sometimes I really like routine.

  A Goth-looking lassie comes in about 11.15 and tries to sell me a bag of John Mortimer. How is there so much fucking John Mortimer, John Galsworthy and Raymond Chandler in the world? I think they breed with each other on the shelves at Barnardo’s. Having regaled the lassie with my observation, she looks suitably embarrassed, then slopes back to Transylvania.

  Occasionally in this shop I’ll get offered a little gem but generally it’s scruffy twenty-somethings who sell me course books, get used to the extra money then bring in their film books, then the Penguin Classics till eventually it’s the spanking new never-read book club editions and they come in with tears in their eyes. I take books off these student bastards I know I can sell for a couple of hundred pounds, get them to sign for enough money for a sixteenth, then stick a two or three in front of the £7.50 when they leave – everybody’s happy! Stewart only pays me £120 a week, after tax. I’ll be saving £45 a week on the flat now so that can go straight in my Instant Access Savings Account. The rest of my money usually gets tied up in debts I haven’t been able to dump and my blow. For entertainment I usually aim to fiddle about £50 a day which is piss easy via a subtle combination of over-charging, under-ringing, altering figures and private sales. The shop only takes about £150 a day but Callum hasn’t checked the accounts in ages. The cancer will finish him off in a few months anyway. He’s not going to waste his time book-keeping now.

  By closing-up time I’m pretty excited about the move but starting to feel a bit edgy about cohabiting with a woman I’ve only known for three days who’s older than my mother. I don’t want to end up like some Tennessee Williams toy boy. Do women her age still want sex? Surely not. Is it obvious enough that I’m gay? She is all right though, I’m sure. I know I was pissed but we’ve been fine on the phone since and we have a laugh together. Besides, I read somewhere that mothers are supposed to be the new fashion accessory.

  4

  One taxi journey is enough to transfer the few worldly belongings I haven’t binned to my new street. The three boxes of junk and expandable case full of clothes take only two treks up and down the stairs. A previous entourage of books and records were sold long ago in less flush days. My current occupation is a symptom of this.

  Hope flutters around as I feather my new nest with my minimalist belongings, trilling along to a Kurt Weill CD. Adding a few postcards and random drapings of white muslin, I roll a joint. Unwinding with the first few puffs I take it through to Hope with a bottle of Bowmore I got her on the way back from work.

  ‘For me, darling? How sweet.’

  ‘Just to say thanks, you know, for letting me stay. I’ll find my own place as soon as I can.’

  ‘If you’d rather be on your own, that’s fine. You’re welcome here though, no rush. No more presents though, ok?’

  She hands me back the spliff as I follow her through to the living room. I’m expecting a whisky but she puts the Bowmore in a cupboard and squeezes past me into the hall again.

  ‘I’m going to be away for the night. You don’t mind, do you? You won’t be scared?’

  ‘Erm, no, that’s fine,’ I stammer, slightly taken aback. ‘Going anywhere exotic?’

  She slings a shawl dramatically around her shoulders and grimaces at me.

  ‘Not exactly, well not unless your idea of exotica is line dancing in Loanhead.’

  I laugh too forcefully.

  ‘Oh I know, dear. I went there with some friends about three months ago though and I’m completely hooked. Pathetic, isn’t it. Anyway, it’s one of the few places I can go and still feel faintly glamorous.’

  Biting back a mumble of patronising clichés about being good for her age, I settle for a simple, ‘I know the feeling.’

  Then the front door’s open and she’s rushing out excitedly.

  ‘Try to enjoy yourself and if you do burn the house down, make sure it looks like an accident – insurance, you know? I should be back tomorrow evening sometime. Be a good boy,’ and she pats my cheek and launches down the stairs.

  I feel quite stunned for some reason as I wave over the bannister at her. As she gets to the bottom she shouts up, ‘I go to the occasional rave as well,’ then I hear the stair door slam. It’s more than I do.

  Going back into the flat I stand and stare along the huge empty hall. My huge empty hall. Fuck two years of celibacy. I’m bringing a man back here tonight.

  5

  Time seems to pass so quickly as you get older. It seems as if the South Bank Show’s on every night of the week. My system never gets time to recover between drinking bouts. What the hell, it’s predominantly wine I drink, which is good for you anyway. Drinking is preferable to eating. The choice between two bottles of claret or a meal is a simple one. Eating’s time consuming and makes you look so bloody bad. I’m lucky if I have one proper meal a week but I still look fat. I can feel my ribs through my jumper but I’m terribly podgy about the abdomen.

  Going to my enormous, gorgeous room, I stick Garbage on, uncork the bottle of red wine I bought myself and roll a massive spliff. Striding about, knocking back the drink, I look at the view down to Dublin Street and across towards Stockbridge, into the lives of all these rich fuckers and I think here I come, you bastards, here I fucking come.

  I sit down on the bed and begin fantasising about all the different people I’m going to bring back here. What their reactions will be. Then I have a prolonged dwam about slapping this little chicken I have my eye on about the place and almost get a hard-on. When I come to, it’s 9.45, and the wine’s nearly finished. Two and a half hours have vanished. This happens a lot these days. I go into myself and can’t find the way out.

  Forcing myself under the shower, it feels fantastic after the dirty, fibreglass tub I’ve been subjected to for the past three years. Feeling suitably invigorated I study my nakedness in the bathroom’s full-length mirror. Jesus, my belly gets bigger every time I look at it. Maybe I should shave my pubes again. It might help me feel hornier.

  Despite my liberating flit from Haymarket I feel strangely drawn to my old local. Faggots have been slowly streaming into it over the past few years and it’s now more or less a gay bar but with the odd hairy arsed workman. The other guys remain unconvinced and refuse to go there with me.

  I want someone with me tonight though, an accomplice, someone to do all the talking while I stalk my prey. Jesus, listen to me. Who am I kidding? I’m beginning to think I’m completely unshaggable. Some speed might help, but it always makes me psychotic and I feel like topping myself for about a week afterwards. It’s just the physical act of snorting it I like. It goes pear-shaped after that.

  Once I’m outside and fully conscious of where I am, I see sense about my Haymarket idea, and allow my feet to drag me easterly, to the Phoenix. As I swing into a room full of vodka-breathed people it seems not a bad decision. I always see someone I know in here, I think, a second before seeing Simon, a guy I know from Sainsbury’s Central who’s usually good for a bit of toot. Standing at the bar with him I begin to think my life is either charmed or I am psychic.

  Simon gets me a double Black Label Smirnoff and Diet Coke. It’s so cheap in here it’s untrue. We go up the steps, sit looking down on the bar and I painlessly score a gram off him. There is a guy at the juke box with his dog, acned ugly bastard but wearing f
ootball shorts which I love. There’s something about that flimsy layer of fibre between me and a cock. My ultimate fantasy is to be at a football match, standing beside some wee kids and their dad, someone like Duncan Ferguson getting tripped-up in front of us and his three-piece falling out the bottom of his shorts. I saw a photo of that very phenomenon in a magazine a few years ago but I thought of it first. I made Duncan’s balls fall out.

  Simon starts telling me about his friend in the Western with pneumonia, being on his last legs. The last time I saw the guy was about two months ago in the New Town. He had on a cropped t-shirt to show off his suspicious sarcomas. He works for an AIDS charity as well. Mind you, everyone I know that works for an AIDS charity is HIV positive. It doesn’t do much to reinforce my faith in safe sex.

  Was I sitting gouching when he was telling me about his pal dying? Oh God, he’s talking about Joy Division now. Simon always seems to bring every conversation round to bloody Joy Division or bands he thinks are trying to sound like Joy Division. The singer died about 20 years ago didn’t he? They were crap anyway.

  ‘Did I tell you about the time I saw them support the Buzzcocks at the Odeon?’

  ‘I think you have, yeah, you definitely have.’

  About a thousand times. I start checking out the bar for possible means of escape from misery-guts as there’s no way I’m spending my night talking about John Peel and the cowie. The guy in the football shorts gives me a thin smile as I catch his eye. There’s something really horny about ugly guys. They look like they’re game for anything, and they’re usually so grateful you’re taking them on they go mad for it. I’ve seen him before a few times but I can’t remember where.