The Blade Artist (11 page)

— Fair comment, Franco concedes, picking at a lace on his trainers. — I just thought that with us having a Hibs background you might have dug your heels in a bit, that’s aw.

— What? Like ah gie a fuck about any ay that pish. She scowls at him. — I see what you’re daein, Frank. I see what you’ve become. You’re the same evil bastard but you’ve just
learned to control your anger. I can see it in your eyes, the same murderous, selfish killer’s eyes –

Breathe . . .

Franco finds himself bristling, as a volcanic rage wells up in him.
That same shite Tyrone had come out wi, the nonsense about ma eyes. One . . . two . . . three . . .
— What are you talking about? He shakes his head, lets himself fall back into the chair. — Your eyes are your eyes!
Relax and enjoy the joust. If you lose your cool first, you lose.
— How can I change my eyes? Ye want me to wear zombie contact lenses or something?

— You’re worse. Elspeth takes another sip of gin. — You’ve learned how tae be sneaky and manipulative. At least when you couldnae control that rage ye were honest.

Frank Begbie draws in another deep breath and drops his voice. — So if I freak oot and smash the place up . . . he looks around the comfortable room, — . . . that would be me being
honest
? But if I try and talk things through with people, then I’m a psycho? You’re no making any sense, Elspeth, he snorts dismissively, pointing at her drink on the coffee table between them. — That’s a big glass ay gin, hen. Maybe you want tae ease up. Your old man’s daughter?

Elspeth is stung by the remark. An awareness that you are drinking too much is one thing, but another party openly registering it is a different matter. She thinks about Greg, and wonders how much he has picked up on. Surely not the boys . . .

She raises her head to see her brother looking at her, as if he’s read her thoughts. Franco might have been fearsome
when he exploded but he was always scariest when he nursed his wrath, keeping his powder dry. That simmering incubation had never lasted long, it had always been beyond him to prevent his molten anger erupting, but now it seems to her that he’s mastered that art. In Elspeth’s mind this makes him even more dangerous. The air is thick with a veil of threat. She has never felt that directly from Frank before, despite witnessing him administering violence to other family members, notably Joe.

Frank breaks the silence, gets to his feet, standing over her with a strange smile. — But then mibbe if your ain life was a wee bit more fulfilling you might no drink so much. Just putting that out there, he says, dissolving into unselfconscious American, and wandering through to his room.

On the bedside cabinet, the Tesco phone is now displaying 100 per cent charge, but Franco finds that he can’t open it. — Unbelievable, he says to himself, drawing in a deep breath, and opting to relax by lying on the bed, reading
A Clockwork Orange
on his Kindle. He recalls seeing the movie of it in his youth. Reading is a struggle, but a rewarding one, as his mind works the pulsing symbols into sounds, then rhythms in his head.
Don’t read books, sing them
, was the breakthrough advice he’d been given by the specialist in prison.

There is a knock at the door, and Greg enters. It is obviously time for some reconciliation. — I heard that you and Elspeth . . . ehm, well, I think we’re all a bit nervous about the funeral tomorrow . . .

— Aye.

— The boys are at my mum’s. Will you come through and join us? We’re about to have some roast chicken I’ve cooked.

— Sound, Franco says, rising. He doesn’t particularly want company, and a second helping of roast chicken didn’t excite, but he has burned a load of calories today and it would be sensible to eat again.

The atmosphere around the table is tense. Franco looks up at Elspeth, knows she is drunk. A bottle of white wine has been opened. Greg will get one glass out of it, if he’s lucky. Suddenly his sister starts snivelling, pushing a hand up to her eyes. — Oh my God . . . she says softly.

— Sweetheart . . . Greg puts his arm around her. — Are you alright?

— No! Ah’m no awright! My nephew’s gone, wee Sean, Elspeth groans, sounding wrought with pain. Then she turns to Franco and says sadly, — I mind when I was a young lassie, I was so excited and proud when you and June brought him back to the house.

Franco stays silent. He recalls that time, the irritating fuss Elspeth and his mother had made.
The bairn this, the bairn that.
The bitterly resented implication that his life was now over, that he would live by proxy through this child. And he realised that he’d been manipulated, that the pregnancy and the birth of the kid had represented a (forlorn) hope by June and his mother that he would change. Thinking of the latter, he wishes that he could have taken Val Begbie to Santa Barbara, had her meet his daughters. Shown her how it had worked out fine after all, like he’d always assured her it would, throughout those decades of midnight police raids, calls from
the cells, court appearances, and grim, ritual trips to prisons. But all Val – by then in the advanced stages of cancer – got was a brief meeting with Mel, and some pictures of Grace as a newborn.

— But you, you dinnae care, Elspeth is roaring at him. — You never cared!

— Elspeth, this really isn’t helping, Greg protests.

— I’m trying to find out what happened to him, Franco says. — If I didn’t care, I wouldnae be trying, would I?

— Aye, but you don’t care about
him
, Elspeth bubbles. — You didnae know him! He was a lovely laddie, Frank, a great kid, till the drugs got him, she states, almost breathless. — Had a smile for everybody and a great big laugh. I’m fucking sad he’s gone! Aren’t you, his fucking
faither
, aren’t you sad he’s gone? she begs. — Tell me! Tell me you’re sad!

— What? Are you kidding me? Franco’s eyes narrow to creased slits. — We’ve no seen each other in five years, and you want me tae sit here and talk aboot how ah feel aboot my son being murdered, to you, now, wi the funeral the morn? Never gaunny happen, Franco says emphatically.

— Elspeth, Greg pleads, — it’s Frank’s son. People process grief differently. Please, try to show a little respect, let’s just help each other get through this.

— But he never even tried to help them! Look at him! Just sitting there like nothing’s happened!

Franco sets his knife and fork down. — Look, ah made the decision that I had nothing tae offer them –

— Even when you made it as an artist!

— I have my own family . . . my other family, my new family.

— But those boys needed a faither . . . n that other laddie, that River . . .

— And they didnae get one. It’s shite, but it happens. Tae me. Tae you. Tae loads ay folks. I failed them, aye, but I couldnae make it right for them, he says firmly, waving his fork in the air. — That ship had long sailed.

— So ye just wash yir hands ay the mess you created! Elspeth snaps. — That River, you’ve never even met that poor bairn, she bellows in accusation.

Greg scrunches up his face, but Franco remains calm. — All I can do for them is try to live my life in a decent way. Show them the different consequences ay that. Show them that acting like a radge means a twelve-foot concrete box in Saughton, which is not good. But opening yourself up and finding what you’re good at and expressing yourself: that means a house by the beach in California, which is pretty damn fine. That’s the only lesson I can impart to anybody. I’m not going to preach. He lays down his cutlery and spreads his hands. — It’s all there for people to look at, if they would just care to open their fuckin eyes.

Elspeth flinches at that, but continues to glare at her brother.

— People grieve in their own way, Greg repeats, rubbing his wife’s arm. — I think Frank’s doing very well to hold it all together. It isn’t going to do any good for us to start freaking out at this stage. He looks at Franco, who is spooning up
some mashed potato. — You don’t know what he’s going through inside.

— Aye, naebody does, but we can guess! Nowt! Elspeth declares. — There’s a beautiful young laddie been stabbed tae death by a maniac, and naebody cares! Naebody!

— I really think you should sack the peeve. It’s no helping anybody, Franco says, as he cuts off a piece of chicken breast and starts chewing on it.

Elspeth looks first at him, then Greg, and rises to her feet, storming through to the front room. Greg turns to Franco, and makes to rise to go after her.

— Let her go, Franco suggests. — Perhaps I’m wrong, mibbe a couple ay drinks might be what she needs. As you say, we all deal with things differently, and that’s obviously her way. There was a time when I’d be joining her, getting pished up and creating a scene, but that doesn’t work for me any more, he shrugs. — Now tell me something that’s been bothering me . . .

— What? Greg says, lowering his voice and leaning in towards Franco.

— Am I getting a faint trace of coriander in this sauce? and he half closes his eyes to savour the taste. — It’s very good.

Within five minutes of Juice Terry dropping him, Greg and Elspeth off in the drizzling rain at Warriston Crematorium, Franco feels uncomfortably wet. A cold dampness has settled under the collar of his shirt, seeming to spread between it and his skin. The Tesco phone appears to have mysteriously unlocked, and he manages to send Melanie a text, having little confidence that it will actually reach her. There are groups of people assembling, some who look gravely over at him. Elspeth, thankfully silent this morning (probably, he considers, due to a hangover), has started circulating with Greg. However, Franco is disinclined to make small talk with anyone, and is glad of Terry’s company as a deterrent. The scud-flick cabbie’s gaze has shifted to a girl with brown-blonde hair, who wears a black zip-up top and smokes an electronic cigarette. — Tried tae git that yin intae the Roy Hudd, he grins. — A right wee doady-basher. Gied it the message n even screen-tested it, but she’s an awfay pish-heid, n she’s tied in wi that Anton Miller boy. Your auld buddy Larry Wylie’s been there n aw, n thir sayin he’s goat the David Bowie, Terry rolls his eyes in disdain, sweeping the rain out of his curls, — so it’s a ‘steer well clear’ job.

Franco takes an interest at the unsolicited mention of Anton Miller. — What’s her name?

— Frances Flanagan.

Those new names are once again featuring. Franco watches Frances Flanagan as she looks over at a group of swaggering youths. Wonders if they were friends of Sean’s, and if the other name he’s been hearing lately, Anton Miller, is in their midst.

— Mo’s lassie, Terry notes. — Mind ay Mo Flanagan?

That name rings several bells, and Franco nods, recalling Mo as an old YLT foot soldier back in the day. South Sloan Street suggests itself. Another recollection is that Mo hit the drink badly, and Terry informs Frank that he died several years ago. — Lassie’s got the same weakness as her auld man. Shame, cause she’s a wee honey n aw, he laments. — That’ll no last but, ay.

Franco looks across at Frances Flanagan, now talking to two older women. She did possess a fragile, vicious beauty, her scraped-back hair highlighting lacerating cheekbones. He shivers as the cold, trickling rain seeps further into him. Thinks of California and dispassionately considers how much he hates this place. He checks the Tesco phone for any signs of Melanie, laboriously punching out another text to tell her he’s now at the funeral.

There is a fair crowd gathering. From what he’s gleaned, Sean seems to have been a bag of drugs, perennially locked in to shady deals, but he was evidently popular enough. Or perhaps the crowd was simply about his youth. You could be a bad bastard, but if you died young, you were sort of forgiven; there was always the possibility of change, however realistic-ally remote. He thinks about the very first funeral he attended
here, his old grandad, Jock Begbie, how that one could have been held in a phone box. Very little about the crematorium has changed in those thirty-odd years. The same functional buildings and landscaped gardens, tucked away in this secluded, inhospitable nook of the city. The constant rain.

Then he sees June, kitted out in black clothes. They look quite expensive, like she’s really made an effort. Her sister Olivia is alongside her, recognisable by her trademark pensive expression. He recalls fucking her once, when she was babysitting the boys. He and June had returned home, and June, pished, had passed out cold on the settee. Franco had picked her up and deposited her into the bed like a sack of coal. Then he’d gone through to the living roon, nodded to the couch and said to Olivia, — Get them fuckin off, then. Me n you.

She’d protested that they shouldn’t, and he’d countered that it was only a bit of fun. Olivia had looked at him strangely, but then started to undress. He was over to her and was guiding her onto the couch, then jumping on her and getting up her quickly, in a silent, aggressive cowp, groping roughly at her breasts as he pumped. It was over swiftly. Afterwards she’d started to cry, and he’d mumbled, — Fuck sake, youse cows ur daein ma fuckin heid in, and retired to bed.

Olivia is now overweight, but not yet at June’s level of morbid obesity. The black insect-dead eyes in her suety, pockmarked face gaze at him in much the same expression she’d dispensed back then. A visible shiver racks her plump frame. Franco is considering that the episode perhaps wasn’t as sordid as it seemed; what was youth but a violently puckish
romp? If there have to be lamentations, he considers, poking somebody isn’t one worthy of inclusion on the list, especially as he can feel almost zero connection to that incident.

Increasingly his life seems fractured, as if his past had been lived by somebody else. It isn’t just that the place he now resides in and the people around him are poles apart, it’s like he himself is an entirely different person. The overriding obsessions and foibles of the man he’d once been now feel utterly ludicrous to the current resident of his mind and body. The only bridge is rage; when angered he can taste his old self. But in California, the way he is currently living his life, few things can vex him to that extent. But that’s over there.