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— No, she says, her face colouring again, her head bowing. And I see Rab raise his eyebrows as if urging me to leave it and it’s like he has some kind of empathy with Lauren’s pain which I wish I had.

— What about you then, Rab?

He grins and shakes his head. You see mischief in his eyes for the first time. — Naw, my mate Terry, he’s the man for them.

— Terry, eh. I’d like to meet him. Have you met him, Lauren?

— No, she says curtly, still tense but thawing a little.

Rab raises his eyebrows again, as if to suggest that it might not be a good idea, which sort of intrigues me a little bit. Yes, I think it might be nice to meet this Terry and I like the way that Rab thinks that it might not. — So what does he get up to? I quiz.

— Well, Rab begins cautiously, — he’s got this shag club. They make stag videos and all that kind of thing. I mean, it’s no my scene, but that’s Terry.

— Tell me more!

— Well, Terry used to go back tae this pub for a lock-in. There would be some lassies he knew and maybe a tourist or two. One night they all got a wee bit drunk and frisky and started going for it, you know. It became a regular thing. One time it got recorded on the security camera, he said it was an accident, Rab spins his eyes doubtfully, — but it got them started in the amateur-video thing. They make their fuck films and show clips of them on the Net, then send them off on mail order or swap them with other people who do the same. They put on a show, usually for the old boys in the pub for a fiver a head. Eh . . . every Thursday night.

Lauren’s looking pretty disgusted with this, and you can tell Rab is going down in her estimation, which is something he’s very much aware of. However, I’m finding it all very inspiring. And it’s Thursday tomorrow. — Will they be screening tomorrow? I enquire.

— Aye, probably.

— Can we come along?

Rab isn’t too sure about this. — Well, eh . . . I’d have to vouch for youse. It’s a private sort ay do. Terry’s eh . . . he might try tae get yis tae take part, so if we do go, just ignore everything he says. He’s full of shite.

I sweep my hair back, exclaiming grandly: — I might be up for that! Lauren as well, I add. — Fucking is a good way of getting to know people.

Lauren gives me a look that could down a charging bull. — I’m not going to watch pornographic films in a grotty pub with dirty old men, far less take part in them.

— C’mon. It’ll be fun.

— No, it won’t. It’ll be filthy, disgusting and sad. Obviously, we’ve got differing concepts of fun, she ripostes vehemently.

I know she’s edgy and I don’t want to fall out with her, but I’ve a point to make here. I shake my head. — We’re supposed to be studying film? Studying culture? Rab’s telling us that there’s a whole underground film-making culture happening under our very noses. We have to go for it. For educational reasons. And, we have a chance of getting laid as well!

— Keep yir voice doon! You’re drunk! She squeals at me, looking furtively around the pub.

Rab’s laughing at Lauren’s discomfort, or maybe it’s a way to hide his own. — You like tae shock, don’t you, he says to me.

— Only myself, I tell him. — What about you, do you ever take part?

— Eh, naw, it’s no really my thing, he stresses again, but in an almost guilty way.

Now I’m thinking about this Terry guy who
does
like to take part, wondering what he’s like. Wishing Rab and Lauren were a little bit more adventurous and considering what great fun a threesome might be.

7

Scam # 18,735

I
’m back (finally) in my home city. A journey by rail, which once took four and a half hours, now takes seven. Progress my arse. Modernisation my hole. And the prices get higher in direct correlation with the journey time getting fucking longer. I stick my package addressed to Begbie into the postbox at the station. Chug on that one, head boy. I taxi down to the foot of the Walk, that grand old thoroughfare looking much the same as ever. The Walk’s like a very expensive old Axminster carpet. It might be a bit dark and faded, but it’s still got enough quality about it to absorb society’s inevitable crumbs. Alighting at Paula’s gaff, I pay the comedian of a taxi driver his rip-off fee and meander past the burst entryphone, up the pish-smelling stair.

Paula gives me a hug, lets me into the gaff and sits me down in her cosy front room with tea and digestives. She’s on good form, I’ll say that for her, although she still looks like a road traffic accident on pianny legs. We’re not stopping here long though, nor are we going to Paula’s bar, the famous Port Sunshine Tavern. Too much of a busman’s holiday for her. No, we head into the Spey Lounge for one and I’m at once elated and disappointed to note the absence of kent faces.

Paula toys with her drink, and can’t help letting a self-satisfied smile mould her big slack face. — Aye, ah’ve spent too much time in thon place. Ah’ve goat ma ain life now, son, she tells me. — Ye see, ah’ve met this felly.

I’m staring into Paula’s eyes, and I know that my eyebrow is involuntarily arching, Leslie Phillips-style, but I’m powerless to stop it. However, I scarcely need to provide her with even the flimsiest cue to cut to the chase. Paula always was a bit of a man-eater. One of my most harrowing teenage memories was slow-dancing with her at my sister’s wedding, her hand clasped over my arse, as Bryan Ferry sang ‘Slave to Love’.

— Eh’s Spanish, a lovely felly, his ain place oot in Alicante. Ah’ve been oot tae see it. Eh wants ays oot thaire wi him. Gittin oot intae the sun, gittin this auld lum swept properly, she squeezes her thighs together and unrolls her bottom lip like a red carpet, — that’s whit it’s aw aboot, Simon. They say tae ays, aw thum aroond here, she snorts, including at least the entire port of Leith in her derision, — ‘Paula, yir livin in fool’s paradise, it’ll never last.’ Dinnae git me wrong, ah’ve nae illusions, if it doesnae last it doesnae last. What dis last? Any paradise seems awright tae me right now, she says, knocking back the last of her drink and taking the slice of lemon in her mouth, chomping it between those false gnashers and sucking out every last drop from it, before spitting it, mangled, back into the empty glass.

It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to see that sorry shaving of lemon as a terrified Spaniard’s cock.

Paula’s anticipated all objections, not that I would be enough of a killjoy to try and raise any. Her belief in me is touching: my lies of London leisure-industry success have impressed. She wants me to take over the Port Sunshine. The problem of her wanting twenty grand for the hovel is resolved surprisingly easily as she suggests that I pay it off as the bar earns. Until then, she’ll be my sleeping partner.

The place is a potential gold mine, just waiting for a makeover job. You can feel the gentrification creeping up from the Shore and forcing house prices up and I can hear the tills ringing as I give the Port Sunshine a tart-up from Jakey Central to New Leith café society. It’s got the lot, the big function room at the back, and the old bar up the stairs, long since shut and used as storage.

I need to apply for a licence, so as soon as I leave Paula, I’m up to the City Chambers to get the forms. Afterwards, I treat myself to a cappuccino (done surprisingly well for Scotland) and an oatmeal biscuit, in the patisserie round the corner. I examine the council paperwork and, thinking of the Hackney bedsit, start work on the documentation. Leith is on the up. It’ll be on the Tube line before Hackney.

Later, I head up to my parents’ house on the South Side. My mother is delighted to see me, grabbing me in a rib-cracking embrace and breaking into a sob. — Look, Davie, she says to the old boy, who can barely tear himself from the telly, — my laddie is-a back! Oh, son, I love ye!

— C’mon, Ma . . . Mama, I say, mildly embarrassed.

— Wait till Carlotta sees you! And Louisa!

— Thing is, I have tae go back soon . . .

— Aw, son, son, son . . . no . . .

— Aye but, the thing is, Ma, I’ll be back up soon. For good!

My mother bursts into tears. — Davie! Dae ye hear-a that? I’m going to have my laddie back!

— Aye, Paula’s said I could take over the Port Sunshine.

My old man swivels round in the chair and raises a doubtful eye.

— What’s up-a with your face! my mother says.

— The Port Sunshine? Widnae be seen died in thair. Fill ay hoors n comic singers, my father scoffs. The old bastard looks tired, sitting there with his weather-beaten tan. It’s as if he’s now admitted to himself that he can no longer fuck my mother about or she’ll throw the semi-jakey out on his arse and he’s now too enfeebled to find another daft cow to run after him, particularly one that makes pasta like her.

Conceding to her wishes for a family get-together, I decide to stay an extra night. My wee sister Carlotta comes in and squeals excitedly, planting a heavy kiss on each cheek, and calls Louisa on the mobile. I sit there with a sister on either side, fussing all over me, as the old man grunts and raises a bitter eye. Every so often my mother pulls Carlotta or Louisa from the couch and shouts: — Up-a the now. I want tae get-a proper hug ay that-a laddie of mine. Ah widnae believe it, ma wee laddie back here! For good as well!

Content with the way things are going, I head downhill to Sun City. I’m bouncing down the Walk, breathing in the sea air as scummy Edinburgh makes way to my beautiful home port. Then I go down to the bar with Paula behind it, and instantly suffer a massive comedown. The bar itself is shambolic enough: old red floor tiles, formica-topped tables, nicotine-tanned walls and ceiling, but it’s the punters that get me. It’s like a crowd of zombies in a George A. Romero movie, decaying away under the harsh strip lighting, which magnifies the multitude of sins. I’ve seen crack dens on estates in Hackney and Islington which are like fucking palaces compared to this shithouse.

Leith? I spent so many years trying to get out of here. How could I set foot in this place again? Now that the old girl’s moved to the South Side, there is absolutely no need. I’m up at the bar drinking a Scotch, watching Paula and her pal Morag, who’s a total Paula clone, serve up meals to these whining toothless old cunts like it’s a soup kitchen. On the other side of the bar incongruously loud dance music blares from the jukebox and several skeletal young men sniff and twitch and stare. Already I find myself anxious to get away from the pub, Paula and Leith. The London train is calling.

I make my excuses and I’m walking further down into the new Leith: the Royal Yacht Britannia, the Scottish Office, renovated docks, wine bars, restaurants, yuppie pads. This is the future, and it’s only two blocks away. The next year, the year after maybe, just one block away. Then bingo!

All I need to do is to swallow my pride and sit pretty for a bit. In the meantime, there will be some top scamming going on; the natives are far too much like backwoodsmen to be able to keep up to pace with a metropolitan swashbuckler like Simon David Williamson.

8

‘. . . just the solitary lens . . .’

R
ab seems nervous. He’s picking the skin around his fingers. When I challenge him he says something about giving up smoking, muttering about a baby being on the way. It’s his first ever hint to me, apart from this mysterious Terry guy, about a life outside the student world. It’s strange to think that some people actually do have them; whole, self-contained arenas, broken off into little compartments. Like me. And now we’re going right into at least a part of his hidden world.

Our taxi clicks and lurches its way from one set of lights to the next, the meter rolling by as relentlessly as a Scottish summer. It halts outside this small pub, but although the sinal yellow light spills out onto the grey-blue pavement and you can hear smoked throats bellowing laughter, we don’t go in. No, we’re down a piss-and-gravel side lane and to a black-painted back door on which Rab beats out a tattoo. Di-di, di-di-di, di-di-di-di, di-di.

You hear the noise of somebody cascading down a set of stairs. Then silence.

— S’Rab, he slurs, rapping again, another football rhythm.

A bolt slides, a chain rattles and a frizzy-topped head pops out from behind the door like a jack-in-the-box. A pair of hungry, slitty eyes briefly acknowledge Rab, then scan my body with such a casual intensity that I almost want to scream for the police. Then any sense of threat or discomfort evaporates in the heat of a white-hot smile, which seems to reach out to my own face like a sculptor’s fingers, moulding it into its own image. The grin is amazing, turning his face from that of a belligerent, hostile fool to some kind of feral genius with the secrets of the world at his disposal. The head twists one way, then the other, scanning the alley for any further activity.

— This is Nikki, Rab explains.

— Come in, come in, the guy nods.

Rab shoots me a quick ‘are you sure’ look and explains: — This is Terry, as I answer him by way of stepping over the door.

— Juice Terry, this big, curly-haired guy smiles, stepping aside to let me go up the narrow staircase first. He follows in silence, so that he can look at my bum, I expect. I take my time, showing him that I won’t be fazed by this. Let
him
be fazed.

— You’ve got an amazing arse, Nikki, I’ll tell ye that for nowt, he says with cheerful enthusiasm. I’m starting to really like him already. That’s my weakness; too easily impressed by the wrong type of person. They always said that; parents, teachers, coaches, even peers.

— Thank you, Terry, I say coolly, turning as I get to the top of the stair. His eyes are glowing and I look straight at him, holding the gaze. That grin expands further and he nods to the door and I open it and step in.

Sometimes the otherness of a place really hits you. When the summer fades and the term starts and everything is blue, grey and purple. The cleansing air in your lungs, the purity of it, then turning to cold until you huddle together for warmth in the dimly lit bars away from the bland could-be-anywhere Witherspoons/Falcon and Firkin/All Bar One/O’Neill’s-land that’s the corporate, colonised social hub of every urban centre of the UK. Go a bit out though, and you find the real places. Usually just a brisk walk, maybe a few stops on the bus, it never takes too long. This is one of those places, so overwhelmingly like stepping back into another age that its tawdriness dazzles. I head to the toilet in order to take stock. The Ladies is like a small coffin standing up Egyptian-style, barely big enough to sit down in, with a broken toilet, no bog paper, chipped tiles, a wash-hand basin with no hot water and a cracked mirror above it. I look into it, cheered that the spot I feared erupting seems to have gone into remission. There’s a blotch on my cheek but it’s fading. Red wine. Avoid red wine. That shouldn’t be difficult in here. I apply some eyeliner and more of that purple-red lipstick, and quickly brush my hair. Then I take a deep breath and walk out, ready for this new world.