The Blade Artist (21 page)

— That’s good, Franco says, — you have tae be able tae trust people.

— But eh wis a waster. Anton shakes his head. — Drugs got him. Drugs ah sold, drugs he sold. Ah used tae tell him: Sell drugs, get rich. Take drugs, fuck yirsel. Tae me that’s always the ultimate no-brainer. Sean should have got that. He wisnae a daftie. Till he was wasted.

— Ah never knew him that well. Ah was either in jail, or kipped up wi some other bird when he was growing up. Heard he was a drug addict, though. That’s disappointing tae me. Franco arches his brow. — These people always disappoint.

Frank Begbie’s voice has dropped ominously, but Anton now seems lost in his own dark thoughts. — Ma auld man; ah bought him n ma auld girl a hoose on a nice estate at Barnton, oot ay the scheme. Took them roond there in the car. A big surprise. Drove them ootside this nice walled-and-gated development, landscaped gairdins, the lot, and handed them the keys. He telt me tae stuff it; refused tae even get oot the motor. My ma greetin her eyes oot, her dream hoose, and this prick wouldnae even get oot the fuckin car tae have a look at it. And he wouldnae let her get oot either. Said he didnae want anything that was peyed for by
misery money
. That was what he says:
misery money
. Can ye fuckin believe that?

Franco is silent, looking out to sea. The light is fading. It’s getting really cold. — People are hard tae figure oot sometimes, he states, then looks at Anton. — Who do
you
think murdered Sean?

Anton stares him coldly in the eye. — The easiest thing tae say would be Power, or one ay his mob. But that would be a lie. The truth is, ah’ve no got a clue. But if you find oot, let me know. As I say: he had his faults, but I liked Sean.

— No enough tae go tae his funeral.

— There isnae much ye can dae for somebody when thir deid, Anton shrugs mildly. — You think half the bams who were there, those fuckin ghouls, really wanted tae pey respects tae Sean? If ah’d turned up, there would’ve been an atmosphere, wi Power and a few others. Ah showed
ma
respect by stayin away.

Franco thinks about this, and his confrontation with Cha Morrison. — Fair enough.

— You know . . . we’ve got something in common, Anton ventures, a slight wistfulness creeping into his tone. — Sean wisnae the son you wanted. Ma auld man wisnae the faither ah wanted.

— We’re baith too auld tae bother aboot adoption papers now.

Anton laughs loudly at that. — You know, it’s nice tae meet somebody who isnae scared ay me.

— How d’ye ken ah’m no just frontin it?

— Ah ken, Anton says. — N ah also know that you’ve got nothing against me.

Franco smiles at that. — And if ah did have?

— Oh, you’d be deid by now, Anton tells him, — and your wife and bairns, and he holds up the Tesco phone. There is a text from Melanie displayed on the luminous yellow-green screen.

Call me as soon as you get this. It’s urgent. Love you. X

— You should, Anton Miller says impassively, and hands over the phone. As he takes it, Franco Begbie tries to see whether the younger man is breathing in. He can discern nothing.

The salsa class at the Santa Barbara Dance Center was busy, and all the participants were couples. Melanie had seen the two gay men in the group, and registered Jim looking intently at the very flamboyant pair. Then he’d studied the other couples, and noting everybody was unconcerned, seemed to lose interest in them. At the end of the session, Melanie got chatting with the men, Ralph and Juan, discovering both also worked at the University of Santa Barbara. The quartet decided to go for a drink together in the wine bar across the street.

This became a habit, often with Sula and other class members joining them. Jim was one of the few present who never drank alcohol. The evenings weren’t riotous affairs; there was probably only one occasion when they all got really drunk and Jim had watched them in semi-detached amusement.

Melanie had woken up twice, first just before 2 a.m., then again just after five, but both times she’d managed to bury herself back in the domain of sleep. When she next bats into consciousness, she is horrified that it’s almost ten and she feels more exhausted than ever. Nonetheless, she forces herself up and into the shower, getting dressed as some strange British television show plays in the background. For breakfast she locates a cafe on South Clerk Street, relieved
to find its offerings more than acceptable to her Californian palate. Two espressos help her into the day.

There is another message from Harry, now sober and penitent. — Melanie, it’s Harry, Harry Pallister. I see from my caller ID that I called you yesterday. I can only vaguely remember. I was very drunk, and I apologise. I’ve been having issues with depression and I’ve taken sick leave to get treatment, and I’ve joined AA. Please forgive me. It’s Harry Pallister, he repeats. — Bye for now.

— Fuck you and your bullshit, Melanie says out loud to her phone.

As the data-roving facility on her cell will prove disastrously expensive, she locates an Internet cafe, where she finds Elspeth’s address from an old email. It dates back to the funeral of Jim’s mother, which she hadn’t been able to attend as Grace had only been weeks old. She traces the address on Google Maps and sets off for the west side of the city. Edinburgh has suddenly, unpredictably, gotten very warm, and she quickly feels overdressed in her tracksuit top, tying it around her waist.

Mindful of her only previous visit to her sister-in-law’s, Melanie anticipates a hostile reception. It had been a Christmas affair, ending in calamity, during which both Elspeth and Jim’s . . . no, Frank’s brother Joe had gotten drunk and made a terrible scene. This weighs heavily on her mind, as she disembarks from the tram and comes upon the house.

In the event, she is surprised to be treated with great warmth. Elspeth is tearful, explaining that the house had been attacked by thugs looking for Frank, with George
suffering a cut on his hand. Melanie fights down her mounting panic as her sister-in-law tells her the story. Elspeth concludes by saying they all agreed that it would be best if Frank moved out, and he went to stay with an old friend, Larry.

Melanie can’t recall hearing of Larry before, perhaps in passing, but Frank is generally reticent in talking about old associates. Unlike a lot of dangerous men she’s met, he’s disinclined to talk about his past. She had taken this as a sign that he’d put it behind him. Now she feels a darker undertow.

Elspeth doesn’t know Larry’s address, and they try Frank’s UK phone again, but it goes straight to voicemail. — It does that aw the time.

The family attempt to get Melanie to stay with them at Murrayfield, but she refuses. Elspeth insists that she at least has a meal with them. Melanie is happy to do so, and to chat to the boys. George and Thomas are both fascinated by her, beset with hopeless crushes for the exotic American aunt they remember meeting a few years back.

— You had the baby, and another one, Thomas says.

— I did!

— When I get older I’m going to get on the plane and visit you and Uncle Frank and meet the girls, George advances.

— That would be so cool. How’s your hand?

He shakes a bandaged mitt. — I got a fright, but I think that was just with the window being smashed in and all the flying glass. I’ve cut myself worse shaving.

As Melanie laughs, Elspeth draws in a breath of dismay, and looks to Greg.

Later, when Melanie rises and announces her intention of going out to find Frank, Elspeth takes her aside. Melanie believes that her sister-in-law is going to try and talk her out of this course of action, but instead she entreats: — Take him back home tae California when ye find him. He doesnae belong here any more. Whatever I think of him, it’s obvious that he does a lot better with you over there than he’s ever done with us over here. I can see that now.

Melanie recalls Harry’s grim conversations and prays that Elspeth is correct. She leaves, unaware that she is being instantly followed down the street by a man who has been keeping Elspeth’s home under survelliance, in the hope that somebody else might return there.

Taking a cab down to Leith Walk, Melanie gets out at Pilrig, into a cooling drizzle. The weather has changed again. Her plan involves doing a dry pub crawl, the picture of Frank on her phone to be shown to the inhabitants of every bar until she finds him. And she prays that when she does he will be fine, perhaps a little drunk, having fallen off the wagon, on the tear with some old friends.

In the event, she only gets to do one fruitless hostelry, when, heading down the Walk, she turns to see a limousine pulling up by the kerb alongside her.

Once again, the sun has come up in Edinburgh.
Open sesame
. The city changes, instantly bright with optimism. Mischief is in the air. Boys swagger and girls strut, underdressed and exchanging devilish half-smiles. Franco is happy that he opted not to bring a jacket, and sports a vintage grey T-shirt with a prowling bear and CALIFORNIA REPUBLIC emblazoned under it. And now he and Larry are driving through town, talking about old faces and old times. Franco has the bag on his lap, containing items he’s borrowed from his friend, which the driver’s eye is straying to. — Ah thought ye were a married man, above aw that, he chides, with a salacious cackle.

— Ah wonder how much we really change, Franco drily retorts. He’s recalling how Anton and his friends left him at the docks yesterday evening. When they’d departed, anger had got the better of him, and he’d cathartically crushed that source of his misery, the Tesco mobile, under his heel, kicking its ruins into the River Forth. Now he wants to ask Larry to borrow his phone, in order to call Melanie.

But not yet.

— Well, you’ve no anywey. Larry nods at the bag, the edges of his eyes crinkling. — So whae ye giein the message tae, ya dirty bastard?

— Ye cannae kiss and tell.

— It’ll be that Frances! A fuckin rampant wee pump . . . pack a few voddies intae her n it’s fill-hoose time! Bet ye hud a sly look at ma tape, Larry ventures, glancing from the road to Franco.

— Ye inspired ays, Larry, Franco smiles, — but it’s no her, ah’m huntin bigger game.

Larry laughs, delighted that he’s properly bonding with his old pal again. Franco had been out all day yesterday, and hadn’t got back till late. Larry had tried to pry as to his whereabouts, but as usual no information was forthcoming. So he contents himself with platitudes. — Aye, the auld days . . . good times, Franco.

But Franco is shaking his head. No, he doesn’t want to use Larry’s phone to call Melanie, as even this far away he doesn’t like the idea of her digits being stored in it. — Were they really, but, Larry? Ah’m just no feelin it, he says, recalling slivers of alcohol-fuelled violence, bonhomie and shagging. Then the long periods in between, of being stuck in a cell. Coming out. A fresh start. A new bird. Big plans. Resolutions made.

Then another wide cunt. Another incident.

The same depressing pattern that had eaten away his youth. All the smells and sneers and hollow laughter of other men like him, veterans in the prison system. Often defiant but essentially beaten; besieged by the horrible truth that they’d never figured out how to stay away from those dreary, spirit-crushing places.

Then the mentor. The dyslexia treatment. The lifeline. The books; those windows on alternative worlds.

And finally, the physical embodiment of those worlds. The art therapist.

The
real
Dancing Partner.

— Mibbe we should take a wee trip doon tae Leith, Franco says. — Auld times’ sake.

Larry’s face cracks open in a grin. — Set controls for the Port ay Leith it is, he sings, pulling off a slick lane change in Waterloo Place, cutting ahead of an SUV, to set them hurtling down Leith Walk.

— Go straight doon Constitution Street, Franco suggests. — Let’s take a wee hurl doon tae the docks.

— Huvnae been there in donks, Larry says, but a short time later he is pulling up outside the dockyard gates.

— Just drive through, urges Franco, — it’ll probably pish doon in a bit.

— It looks awright tae me, blue skies, ay, Larry says doubtfully, then points to a sign: NO UNAUTHORISED VEHICLES PERMITTED.

Franco’s eyes narrow. His voice drops, almost to the point where it approximates that intense but chilling burr Larry knows so well: recognisable, now, following its absence. — Since when did we need authorisation fae any cunt tae go anywhere in Leith?

Larry smirks in complicity, gratified to see Franco getting back to being his old self. He drives the van across the cobblestones and the grid, and under Franco’s instructions, they park by an old brick outbuilding. It’s deserted: no security around. Franco looks about; how strange it feels to see it properly in the cold light of day. They get out of the van,
walking to the edge of the dry dock. Franco looks over. — Did ah ever tell ye the story aboot ma auld Grandad Jock and Handsome Johnnie Tweed?

— Nup.

Franco is still looking down. It’s a long way to the bottom, not the pit of hell it seemed to him as a kid, but far enough. The subsidence in the crumbling walls has gathered pace; more boulders lie strewn over the bottom of the dock, despite some angled wooden buttresses on the far side trying to shore it up. His head starts to spin a little. He steps back and turns to his friend. — We were big mates, ay, Larry.

— Aye, still are, but, Franco, ay, Larry says slyly, but with wary concern.

— Big mates, but no mates, Franco considers in a cold monotone. — Mates ay a kind, but at heart despising each other.

Larry regards him in flinty-eyed aggression, briefly taken aback. He seems about to protest, but something reconfigures internally, and instead he breaks into a smile. — So it’s aw comin oot now, then, ay?

— You ey kent how tae play me, Franco continues, looking across to the cranes, as seagulls flap and squawk in the distance, probably at the rubbish in the tip beyond the corrugated-iron walls to the east of the yards. To his left, the sun is going down across the silver-grey river, a flaming red, as if poised to burn Fife off the map. — Kent how tae instigate trouble. Makin the snowballs for me tae fling. Probably did a lot ay jail time cause ay you, he declares,
without animosity. — My real mates, the likes ay Rents, Tommy, Sick Boy, Spud n that, they were ey wide for ye.