Текст книги "Guilt Tripper"

Автор книги: Geoff Small

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Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 8 страниц)

 “But you have changed. You’d have to travel a long way to find someone more positive than you these days.” Judith spread her arms wide at either side of her. “This place is a temple to optimism for God’s sake!”

 “So why send me back among the heathens then?”

 Judith was delighted to learn that Gairloch would remain her home for the foreseeable future. Also, she felt she could carry on living under Danny’s roof without any guilt about broken families, having argued Ingrid and little Lawrence’s case. But this happy state was to be very short lived. Within the hour another ghost from Danny’s past would stroll into the kitchen, through the open front door.

 

CHAPTER: 14

 Bob Fitzgerald had been hunting Ingrid since being released from prison, but he was always one step behind and had seen nothing of her since his arrest, over two years previously. When he’d arrived in Oxfordshire, her parents had directed him to Paris on a wild goose chase and it was another year before he’d discovered her London address. Even then, fate conspired against him, with Ingrid returning home just as he was knocking on her front door. Having driven past unnoticed, she’d hidden at a friend’s for several days until he’d gone back to Glasgow.

 They say that once you stop searching for something, invariably that’s when you’ll find it. This is exactly what happened to Bob the afternoon before the night in question. He’d been driving along Great Western Road towards Glasgow city centre, when Ingrid’s Range Rover went by in the opposite direction. U-turning his battered, nineteen eighties Datsun in the face of oncoming traffic, he’d gone after her, forgetting to check his fuel gauge and breaking down just outside Fort William with no money. Having guessed her destination, he’d waited until nightfall before skulking around the little town and siphoning enough fuel to reach Gairloch. And here he was, shaven headed and looking the worse for wear in a blue Adidas tracksuit.

 Without even acknowledging the woman beater, Judith went to her room and pushed a set of draws against the door for some security. Then, she lay on her bed in the heat, listening to Hamish’s snoring next door and raised voices downstairs. Danny had evidently revealed the existence of Little Lawrence, as Bob was screaming.

 “You told me that you’d merely consoled her! It was evidently more than that…she’s got your kid for Christ’s sake!”

 “Yes, I lied and I’m sorry. I just didn’t want the truth to be misconstrued as triumphalism, that’s all.”

 The news had obviously hit Bob like a sledgehammer and a long period of silence followed. When he spoke again, his voice was much quieter, so that Judith struggled to hear.

 “You know Dan, I’ve always wanted to see you fall because your principles make me feel hollow. I thought I’d finally got you when you blackmailed me… thought you were, at last, motivated by money. But you’ve suckered me. I was watching the kids lying on the grass before I came in, all laughing and joking, and what I saw there were all the things I’ve never been able to acquire: community…association.”

 “Surely the band provided that?”

 “No. Even the band was all about competition and making sure everything revolved around me.”

 “Well, you’re welcome to stay here as long as you want. You’d enjoy it. We’ve got some real talent emerging. For example, young Ryan Kearney’s about to sign a book deal, just as soon as he sends the finished article off to the publishers next week. I’m dead proud of him.”

 “No. The more I see how happy those kids are, the more bitter I’ll become, and then I’ll be a danger to them.”

 “But it doesn’t have to be like that!”

 “Well it is! Ok? You’ve won! By your principles you’ve created joy. You took that money, split it twenty odd ways and now you’re happy as part of a community, I can see that. But I’m a misfit and the only way I’ll ever enjoy equality is when I can see that everybody is as miserable as me. That’s why I stole Ingrid from you, screwed whores like Carina Curran and tantalised homeless Dickens with wealth. So you see Danny, we’re both egalitarians in our own funny ways.” Bob started laughing manically. “To think I’ve wasted the last two years hunting for Ingrid to spite you, because I thought you still loved her. Well, now I know you don’t I can call the search off and concentrate on salvaging something from my sad little existence.”

 “Why do you hate me so much Bob?”

 “I hate the fact that you command attention simply by being yourself.”

 “What?”

 “When I released my first album, I was on TV, radio, front covers of magazines, but whenever we went anywhere together, it was you, an unemployed wastrel that everyone knew. Even the street cleaners when we were making our way home at seven in the morning knew you by name…I’m still amazed at how you used to stay out all night on orange juice! But back to the point, you even managed to befriend me, an absolute loner.”

 “You’re talking rubbish. You enjoyed plenty of attention during The Squeaky Kirk’s heyday.”

 “That was only among the sycophants in the art world. Outside of that, in normal pubs or everyday situations, no-one even recognised me – not until I got with Ingrid anyway. But they were queuing to speak with you, while I just hung about in the background like a spare prick. They obviously didn’t want you for your money…you weren’t fashionable or good looking or talented in any way. I mean, I’m sorry, but your paintings were at best mediocre. No, they just loved you for being Danny White, straight as a dye and true to your cause. You can’t manufacture that sort of popularity. Believe me, I’ve tried.”

 “And you resented me for that…simply because I got along with people?”

 “Yes. Despite being brought up to believe I was special, I’d been crippled by social inadequacy my whole life. I was full of ambitions but incapable of going among people to realize them. You, on the other hand, wanted nothing from anyone, yet could get along with everyone. That always seemed unjust to me. In the end, being in your company became insufferable. You seemed to be flaunting your popularity in my face, reminding me that, without you having introduced me to your friends, I’d have been nothing.”

 “So, because of some imagined slight, you stole my girlfriend?”

 “Yes. But there was more to it than that.”

 “Well? How did this poor, socially awkward outsider manage to seduce a girl like Ingrid then?”

 “It was when your mother fell ill and you’d stopped hanging around on the scene. I’d carried on visiting the usual haunts, though why, I don’t know. I was having a miserable time, standing in the corner of bars on my own, waiting for people to lavish attention on me simply because I sang in a band. But it never came. Of course, I knew most of the people in these places through you, but didn’t have the charisma to engage any of them in conversation beyond the basic pleasantries. Anyway, the night after BBC Scotland screened a documentary about the Squeaky Kirk, Ingrid wandered in alone. She was living with you at the time and reckoned she’d just stormed out half-way through an argument. I found this difficult to believe, though, because she’d really dolled herself up. I bought her a drink and she started moaning out about how terrible things had become since your mother’s stroke. Sticking by your side, she’d felt as if under house arrest…said she hadn’t been out anywhere in months – not easy for a beautiful, nineteen-year-old girl. She claimed that you were venting all your stress through her…flying into rages if she dared to contradict your political point of view, usually during conversations around the TV at news time. Of course, you’d expect a mate to make excuses for you and emphasise your good points, but I didn’t. Selfish to the last, I used the opportunity to spew out all my own misgivings about you, confirming Ingrid’s doubts in the process. I was enjoying the slag-fest so much, I invited her back to mine at closing time, to do some more. From the gasps of approval on seeing my apartment, I knew straight away that good living was her Achilles heel. From there on, bagging her was a breeze. To be honest, beautiful though she was, I had no sexual inclination towards Ingrid and spiting you wasn’t actually my primary objective. All I really wanted her for was reflected glory. Simply by being in her company that evening I’d attracted more attention than I’d ever done with the band – from both sexes.”

 “She’s a head turner alright.”

 “After a glass of champagne and a couple of lines of coke, she started whining that she needed a break from you…that she was cracking up being cooped up in that apartment all the time. She said she needed a couple of weeks in the sun and began crying. I remember thinking that I should wrap my arms around her, but I just couldn’t pluck up the courage. In the end she slept in one of the spare rooms and, when she woke, there were two air tickets to Italy on the pillow by her head. She flew into a virtual panic and couldn’t get out of the apartment fast enough, thanking me for the offer, but saying she had to get back to you. That evening, I was lying in bed thinking what a fool I’d been, when someone started banging at the front door. Convinced you’d come to beat my brains out I asked who was there before opening it. I couldn’t believe it when I heard Ingrid’s voice. When I opened the door, she was on the landing with two suitcases, one at either side of her on the floor. Apparently, you’d had another one of your teatime rants during the news, which had inevitably degenerated into a vicious, personal attack on her.”

 “Oh, it wasn’t that bad! In fact, she started it. She said that unemployed people shouldn’t get dole money and that soup kitchens should provide their food. I remember her shrieking: ‘They’d soon get up off their lazy butts then!’ As if she didn’t know that would get me going.”

 “Whatever the case, she used it to legitimise leaving you and, the following day we flew off to Italy. I remember looking at Glasgow from the plane. Knowing that you were down there, falling apart, while I was up in the sky with the love of your life…it felt great.”

 “You’re a sad man Bob.”

 “Keeping Ingrid entertained in Italy required just two things: designer clothes shops and a credit card. I myself was beginning to tire of her company. It was really hard work, pretending to be interested in all her self-obsessed babble. But the reflected glory of her beauty – even in Milan – was addictive. Passing catwalk models would flash glances at me. They’d stare right into my eyes, searching for whatever it was that made me so valuable to such a good-looking woman. After a fortnight of this my self-esteem was soaring, so much that I felt attractive to women for the first time. But Ingrid and the catwalk models of Milan didn’t do it for me. It was the hookers of Naples that got my blood boiling…preferably the bigger ones. They went out of their way to make me feel good. With them, I got to do the talking, instead of having to listen to all that hard done to, feminine bullshit. We stayed in Italy for another fortnight and were both sublimely happy. During the day Ingrid got to wander round clothes shops with me feigning interest at her every word, then, in the early hours, when she was fast asleep, I stalked the red-light areas, indulging myself stupid. By the time we got back to Glasgow I’d been transformed. On leaving, I’d been a lonely virgin. Now, I had a paragon of beauty on my arm and a catalogue of up to twenty sexual liaisons under my belt. I was oozing confidence and growing stronger every day, while you faded into oblivion. That said, the Italian trip had left me up to my eyes in debt, having spent nearly ten grand on my credit cards.”

 “What are you on about, debt? Ten grand to you is like a hundred quid to most people!”

“Oh Danny Boy, you’re so naïve…that’s why everyone likes you I suppose. Still, they had me fooled as well. I was the last to know what was going on.”

 “You’ve lost me Bob.”

 “It’s all a sham Danny. The Squeaky Kirk – it’s a fraud. Back when we started out, Billy’s old man ran up a big gambling debt. Rex McLeod’s boys were sent to retrieve or bereave, but when the Big Man found out that his son had a band he offered him an escape route. He was willing to wave the full ten grand, pay for Squeaky Kirk recording sessions and even create a record label for us. The only condition, that he could launder his ill-gotten gains through spurious sales of records and merchandise. After our first album I was wandering around Glasgow like I owned the place, oblivious that we’d only shifted two hundred units of the sixty thousand sales going through the books. We were playing in front of twenty people some nights on the continent, yet still managing to shift two thousand CDs, T-shirts and programmes. The irony is that after my arrest we actually started selling albums for real, though only about five thousand nationwide.”

 “What about the six hundred odd thousand sales reported in the press?”

 “Oh come on Danny! Do you really think McLeod hasn’t got people working in the media, weaving illusions for him and lending his scams credibility?”

 There was a pause, during which Danny no doubt tried to digest the extent of the deception, before interrogating Bob further.

 “So I take it he was paying you a wage?”

 “Two hundred and fifty quid a week plus touring expenses. The cars and suits were on credit and Ingrid was able to fund most of our nights out, after she landed a well-paid TV commercial when we returned from Italy. Stupid cow believed I was paying thousands out a week on mortgages, and so thought she was getting the best end of the deal. Not only did she think I was paying for the apartment and our retreat up on the coast, but a couple of places I’d invented in St Tropez and Mauritius too…what a friggin’ joke eh?”

 “How the hell did you afford those houses then? And what about the little knocking shop over in Govan?”

 “They all belong to Rex. Of course, as soon as I attracted the attention of the police he kicked me out. Do you know where I’ve been living this past year?”

 “Where?”

 “Herman’s.”

 “Friggin’ hell, after all that’s gone on?”

 “One frosty night, I was driving round Calton when I saw him with some church group, handing out cups of hot soup to the hookers. I felt obliged to take him home…though I don’t know why, not after all the harm he’s done me. When we got there, his house was lit up like a bloody Christmas tree…there was a friggin’ party going on! There must have been fifteen of the dirty rotten scumbags in the place – old winos with beards and smack head louts, supping out of cans from cardboard crates, neatly stacked up along the living room wall, all the way up to the ceiling.”

 “Jesus.”

 “He’d only been down to the Great Eastern and invited everyone back to live with him. Said it was an act of contrition, for what happened to that mouthy little bitch Curran. Also, he was trying to emulate you.”

 “Me?”

 “Yes. I’m afraid you’re his new hero. You’re all he ever talks about, ‘Danny this’ and ‘Danny that’. He’s been trying to do with the down and outs what you’ve done with the kids…it’s pathetic. At one stage he locked all the booze away until they sat through his music appreciation classes in the kitchen.”

 Danny blew his cheeks out, a little spooked at being Herman’s new obsession. “And you moved in there, with all that lot?”

 “Well, I’d been living in a bed and breakfast, so I thought, if I can just get rid of the freeloaders, Herman’s pad could make a good springboard for the future. So I did, while he was attending an appointment up at the loony bin. I got Rex’s lad, Jimmy, to come round with a team and scare them off. In return they helped themselves to some of Herman’s more valuable furniture. When he got back I just told him the down and outs had robbed him and fled…stupid bastard was devastated.”

 “So I take it you’re still living there?”

 “I was, up until a fortnight ago, when the prick stopped taking his medication and got detained again. Some do-gooders came round wanting to know my connection to him. Unsatisfied with my answers they returned next day with the police and had me evicted. For the past fortnight I’ve been sleeping on the back seat of my car, in a lay-by off the A82, between Glasgow and Dumbarton. It was while I was making the return journey to town – to wash at the swimming baths – that I spotted Ingrid and Francesca heading out here.” Bob stopped talking for a moment, as if suddenly stunned by a vision of some sort, before announcing: “It’s all over Dan. I’m gonna have to go back to my parents.”

 “Stay here with us.”

 “No, I’ll stay the night then it’s time to confront reality. It’s going to be hard, explaining that their precious only child never really made it big after all… that he’s a failure… a vulgar gangster’s ping pong ball…When I went to prison my mother attempted suicide you know. Fortunately, I’ve managed to convince her I was the innocent victim of a madman’s spite and she’s made an almost full recovery now. God knows what this is going do to her.” He made another big sigh. “But for that mouthy whore everything would be ticking along fine! The moment they arrested me I became a liability in Rex’s eyes. You see, his boys used the Govan stair my apartment was on for storing and chopping heroin. He’d put the whole place under my name and turned it into apartments with non-existent tenants. That way, if the police raided, they couldn’t pin anything on an individual. Luckily, the latest cargo had been shipped out by the time they arrived to try and gather evidence against me…not that they were gonna find much after I’d repainted the place twice and repeatedly jet sprayed the stairs with bleach and water.”

 “Hold on…heroin? Rex Macleod doesn’t go near drugs, he bloody hates them!”

 With what sounded to Judith like exasperation at Danny’s simplicity, Bob affected a sneering laugh. “What was it Shakespeare wrote? ‘Methinks the lad doth protest too much.’ Macleod hates drug dealers like Roy Cohn hated homosexuals. The anti-heroin persona? That was just a smokescreen for one of Europe’s biggest drugs barons. The street corner dealers he used to shop? They were actually banging out his gear, but didn’t even know it – stupid wee bastards! Just like I never knew he was buying all my records.”

 “So where did my money come from?” There was a panic in Danny’s voice now.

 “Definitely not from song royalties, put it that way. When you blackmailed me I begged Baxter to help find a solution, but he deserted me as a Rex McLeod reject. Until, that was, I explained the painting scam. He put it to the Big Man, who then lent me seven hundred and sixty grand on the express understanding that he recouped a million within twelve months, or else. Mercifully, my brainwave was a success, otherwise I’d be couriering packages every other month and ending up in the same prison cell the whole scheme was designed to keep me out of in the first place.”

 “What do you mean, painting scam?”

 “The kebab house man who bought all your work at the exhibition I set up in London was in the loop. He bought the paintings from me with money which Rex was already laundering through his takeaway shop tills. Then, having established a phoney market for your work, he sold them for real and got over a million quid, all of which went straight back to the Big Man, netting him a handsome two-hundred and forty grand profit on the original seven hundred and sixty he’d lent me in order to pay you off. The rich get richer my friend, but then you already know that better than anyone, after all, it’s pretty much all you’ve ever droned on about these past twenty-five years”

 “You mean this college is courtesy of the plague that’s ravaged our city? Oh please God…no! Kids have died in their hundreds, been made homeless or lost limbs so that I can play with paints and drink fine wine? You bastard! You knew what you were doing all along didn’t you? You’ve deliberately made me complicit in that which I despise…compromised my soul and will no doubt destroy my mind in the process. All that crap about me having ‘won’, it’s just your bitter sarcasm. You’re the winner. Now, till the day I die, I’ll be more miserable than you ever could be.”

 “You’ve only yourself to blame Danny. You relinquished the right to moralise once you entered the world of blackmail. Besides, it’s your own vanity that’s making you miserable…your romantic need to be perceived as ‘the good guy’. No one leaves this world with a clean sheet Danny boy, so why the hell did you think you were going to be any different?”

 “You should have told me! You should have let me know you were broke! I’d never have shopped you anyway!”

 “I couldn’t take that chance…not with your friggin’ morals! I may have made the most of my time-out in Barlinnie Prison to think, but I certainly had no intention of going back there.”

 Danny, who was muttering insanely now, sounded like he was crying. “Oh-please-God-no! Please, please, please God – no!”

 “Oh grow up man! Surely you of all people must be aware that all money’s filth. Our city, the one you’re so passionate about, was built on tobacco and slavery. And now, your college is built on heroin. Just like the National Health Service is built through taxes imposed on smokers with lung cancer and drinkers with liver disease, not to mention the oil guzzling, kid killing car drivers for whom, as you never ceased banging on about, half of Glasgow was demolished to provide a motorway. It’s the great paradox of life Danny – happy birthday son!”

Danny made no response.

“Anyway, I have to be up early so I’ll bid you adieu.”

 The sound of Bob making his way upstairs to spend the night in Danny’s room, just across the landing, made Judith feel physically ill.