My Life as a Man (8 page)

Fuck’s sake.

‘Why did you do that? What was the point of saying that to him? That was a lie.’ I heard myself babbling and made the effort to stop.

‘He asked if the car was here,’ she said. ‘Why would he ask that? I couldn’t make sense of it, but I didn’t want him coming to the house. And then, in case he came
anyway, I hid it in the lane.’

There had been no explicit threats, only the persistence of the questioning, but something in the voice had made her afraid. Yet, despite being frightened, now she wanted to take me home. Bad
conscience, I suppose, but it was brave of her. It was maybe part of the change that had made her defy Norman back there in the house, something I’d have laid a bet she wouldn’t have
done before I’d kidnapped her and ruined her life. The jury had to be out on how badly.

As for me, I sat there and was too ashamed to tell her we were going to a place I’d been thrown out of and where there was no one I cared about or who cared for me. I couldn’t do it,
and while we went out of Giffnock and across town until we came to the tenements of Maryhill, and then up past Springburn and out into the familiar wasteland of pebble-dash houses, I drifted into a
plan. I’d let her take me home and once she’d driven off I’d walk away. Where to, God alone knew, but leave the hard questions for later. One good thing: I wasn’t worried
about her mystery man on the phone. After all, he didn’t know where I lived; and how could he get my address, when he didn’t even know my name?

We drove past the row of half a dozen shops opposite the scrubland where legend had it they planned to put a cinema some day; and up the hill to arrive at last outside the Hairy Bastard’s
mansion – easily recognisable by the size of the weeds in the side garden.

Mrs Morton sat looking at it for a while. ‘This is where you live?’ she asked at last.

‘The garden looked better when my father was here,’ I said. My father, of course, had never even seen the place. It seemed I couldn’t stop telling lies to her.

‘I’m sorry.’ I realised she thought he was dead. ‘Do you live here with your mother?’

‘You don’t want to hear my life story.’ I opened the door. ‘Thanks for the lift.’

I got out – and then thought that, all things considered, she’d been pretty decent, and tried to find something better to say as a farewell, but being a slow thinker was still bent
over looking in at her when the wailing started. It came from inside the house and it lasted for only a moment, but I felt the hairs go up on the back of my neck.

‘Oh, my God,’ Mrs Morton said. Next moment she was out of the car. I followed her up the path and watched as she rang the bell, waited, and rang again. I gathered her idea was that
we should check if anything was wrong.

I still had my key and unfortunately he hadn’t changed the lock. Maybe he was saving that for when he went off on holiday, in case I came back and held a trash party for a few hundred
guests.

In the hall it was so quiet I could hear Mrs Morton behind me panting softly as if she’d been running. Listening to her, it came clear in my mind how bad an idea it had been to borrow Mr
Bernard’s wife. Never mind the mystery man who had phoned her, Mr Morton frightened me. It was a bit late to realise that, but as I said I’m a slow thinker.

‘Who’s there?’ Any higher and I’d have been squeaking like a bat.

Nothing happened for all of half a minute and then the phone rang.

I reached out and picked it up without thinking. I’d lived there long enough, I didn’t have to look. The Hairy Bastard had put it in. I knew where we kept the phone.

‘Alec?’ I said.

But it wasn’t him.

A woman’s voice asked, ‘Is that Harry Glass?’

Fighting down an instinct to deny it, I grunted.

‘This is Theresa. You took Mr Bernard’s car key off my desk. It was you, wasn’t it?’ I didn’t answer. When she got tired of waiting, she asked, ‘Are you still
there?’ I cleared my throat. ‘You hadn’t any right to do that. I got into terrible trouble.’

‘Sorry,’ I said.

There was a pause. Mrs Morton was in front of me, trying to catch my eye. I looked away.

The voice in my ear said, ‘I’m sorry, too.’

‘What?’

‘I shouldn’t have given him your name and address. I’ve been worrying about it all morning. But Mr Bernard wasn’t there and he didn’t want to speak to Mr Norman. So
I got out your form and told him, but I shouldn’t have.’

‘I don’t understand. Who was it?’

‘A friend of Mr Bernard’s – that’s all he said. “It’s about the boy who took the car,” he said. “I’m a friend of Bernard’s.”
’

‘You gave him my name and—’

‘I knew it was wrong. Giving away company information, I’m trained not to do that.’ Her voice was thin and apologetic. I could hardly fit it to the arrogant girl behind the
reception desk at the factory.

‘What did he look like?’

‘That’s the thing, it was over the phone. I don’t understand how I could have been bullied by a voice on the phone. That’s why I had to tell you. Just in case he . . .
I’ve never done anything like that before. I am sorry.’

Behind Mrs Morton, the door of the front room was opening stealthily, an inch at a time. Nothing happened for all of half a minute and then a face came round the edge of the door. The first
thing I saw was orange hair, a spike at a time, and then half of a wee pale face with eyes like raisins pissed into a snow bank.

At this point, Mrs Morton, registering something was wrong, turned round. ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘You must be Harry’s sister.’

It was kind of disgusting to realise the Hairy Bastard’s new true love was about sixteen. But before I could ask her if she’d a home to go to, or was it so bad even cohabiting with a
monkey was preferable, she took an unexpected initiative by calling me a cunt.

This took me aback. I was reminded of a guy at school who’d passed a crowd of Celtic supporters chanting, ‘We are thu pee-pul,’ and thought, not in anything but honest surprise
– he being a follower of the late King Billy of Orange: No, you’ve got that wrong,
we
are. Which took me back to wee Spiky Head – the cunt of the first part, as it
were.

‘I don’t think we’ve ever met,’ I said, and at the response in my ear put the phone down.

‘Aye, but I know you. You’re Harry Glass.’

‘Well, you’ve got that right.’

‘It’s because of you he’s in hospital.’

‘Who? Alec? Alec’s in hospital?’

‘Smashed up he is.’

‘I’m sorry.’ And in a funny way I was; I’ve always had a soft spot for animals. ‘Did he get run over?’

‘He got a battering. Because of you, ya—’

‘Right, I heard you the first time. But you’ve got it wrong. Nothing to do with me.’

‘It was you they came to the door asking for.’

‘If he told you that, he was kidding you.’ That’s what I wanted to believe. After all, nobody liked Alec Turner. Chances were, he’d owed somebody money, or he’d got
into a stupid argument, or else he’d been so pissed he’d taken a header down a flight of stairs. It was even possible wee Spiky Head had a couple of big brothers who’d caught up
with him.

‘I heard them myself when they came to the door. He opened it and the guy said, “Where’s Harry?” and Alec said, “How the fuck would I know?” and next thing
two of them were battering him the length of the lobby. They were just pure mental.’

I didn’t decide to panic, it just happened. Questions steamed around in my head. I got one out. ‘What else did they say?’

‘How would I know? They took him through there and then the big one came out and picked me up and took me through and dropped me on the bed. I thought . . . you know. But he said,
“Not a move out of you,” and he put the blankets over my head. I lay there for ages and then the front door banged shut. Even then I lay for a while. I was awful frightened. Then I
heard Alec groaning. I got out from under the blanket and he was trying to crawl in the door.’

‘What did he say? Did he tell you what it was about?’

‘He couldn’t talk.’

I felt sick.

‘I just sat beside him crying. Then I saw Mrs Fleming going to the shops and I shouted her. It was her sent for the police. I told them about you, they’ll be looking for you.
They’re not long away.’

The neighbour, Mrs Fleming, had told me not only the hospital but that Alec Turner was in intensive care. One of the world’s Samaritans, she’d rung to see how he was. ‘The
nurse said, holding his own.’

He looked as if he’d been dropped off a roof. His nose was taped and when I bent close what came out was this little voice full of spittle and slush and a whistle of broken teeth:
‘What have you done?’

I’d expected him to curse me. Coming to the side of the bed, I’d been conscious of his one showing eye fixed on me like an evil spell.

‘Nothing.’

‘They wouldn’t believe I didn’t know where you were. “I’m not his fucking father,” I told them. But they just kept on. They thought I was protecting
you.’

I shook my head. Crazy. They might be good at handing out a hiding, but for sure they were no judges of character.

‘I haven’t done anything to get somebody after me,’ I lied.

He shut his good eye and I thought he’d drifted off to sleep. But it opened abruptly and he whistled, ‘They think you have.’

‘Did they say who they were?’

‘Oh, aye. Stuck a visiting card up my arse. You want to have a look for it?’

‘Maybe the police’ll find them.’

‘Don’t be stupid.’ He wasn’t a great believer in the police.

‘I’m sorry about this. But it’s nothing to do with me.’

I started to get up. He said something, but his speech was getting worse. I leaned close again.

‘Did you steal a car? They want it back awful bad.’

I was at the door, when he made another noise. I hesitated, having had enough, then went back one more time. I felt I owed him that, though it would have been hard to say what for. He whispered,
‘The wee guy was a madman. You should get the fuck away from here.’

Going back along the corridor, I wondered if it was possible to beat family feeling into somebody. That wasn’t a nice thought; on the other hand, I’d never heard him be that human
before – not, at least, since the early days when he was putting on the style to court my mother.

I went along past signs for X-ray and Physiotherapy and, under one for something called Oncology, realised I was being followed. Or thought I was. Or rather was sure and then not sure. A big
slouching man in a crumpled blue suit and a shirt without a tie; he was so close the first time I looked round (without warning, because it had come into my mind I should check and with the thought
it was done – ‘a word and a blow’, as the Irish guy said about his mother) I could see a sore inside his nostril where a hair had been pulled out. I convulsed into a walk and next
time I looked back he was further off and that for some reason seemed even more suspicious. I wasn’t going anywhere in particular now, but it did seem he was keeping in touch; near enough so
that I didn’t see me managing some clever way of shaking him off, even if I could have thought of one. Instead I stuck to the master plan. I went on walking.

After all, hospitals are big places; you could walk for days, allowing for exhaustion and the need to eat. Toilets, they’ve got those, and come to think of it counters where you could buy
a pie or a scone and a cup of tea. Maybe after a couple of days when you passed the same nurse for the tenth time she might send for the police. Of course, it would be easier to spot weird stuff at
night; if I kept walking until night, spot a stranger then, ‘I see strangers!’ and they’d have you. Have him. He was still there. I could hardly see for sweat. Fear-sweat cold on
my back and the insides of my legs; you could keep your mind busy chattering in your head, but you couldn’t fool your body.

By this time, I was moving so randomly I was on automatic pilot, and it crash-landed me halfway up a quiet stair. He came up after me, taking the steps three at a time. His fingers caught at my
sleeve, and I leaped away from him by half a yard. That wouldn’t work with the full grip on my arm that was coming next. Just then a door opened and a group of four in white coats came down
from the landing above. I stopped and turned all in the one movement, the ballet of the terrified idiot, and at once I was in the middle of the group and going past him. They didn’t squeeze
to the side; it was their hospital after all.

‘I wanted to ask you again about my mother,’ I said to the one on my left.

His name was MacRae, we established on the way down, and if he was a doctor at all it was very lately. From something he said, though, I worked out what oncology meant and told him my mother had
made a miraculous recovery, being superstitious for her sake. He thought I was a lunatic, or maybe that was the way everybody looked to him after a night without sleep. He couldn’t work out
how to get rid of me, and the other three were too tired to care or thought it was funny. I almost turned into the canteen with them, but I’d a feeling I’d worn out my welcome.

The short stretch between the canteen and the reception area was busy, and a public phone gave me an excuse to stay there. I bent my head to the dialling tone and spun numbers randomly. I
listened to the squeal for unobtainable and looked wistfully at the exit. In the car park out there Mrs Morton was waiting for me. She’d taken it for granted I’d want to see how Alec
was; and so it was her fault I was here at all.