Swim Until You Can't See Land (39 page)

Ba Boom.

I'm beaten. She always gets me with that one. Who cares though? She can have today's battle. I spoke to my dream girl. Spoke to her. She likes my watch. Maybe next time I'll find out her name. A gradual progression. How many magazines will I have to sell her before we sleep together? I don't even know what she ended up buying, I was too distracted to take it in. The fantasy of her keeps me occupied, until I become aware of a burning smell.

A flame flickers up the cord of the charity box tied to the counter. Some guy in a tracksuit and a baseball hat is standing in front of me holding a lighter.

Fight or Flight? Fight or flight? Fight or flight?

'Did you just set fire to that?' I ask, leaning over the counter and blowing out the flame. A tiny spiral of smoke hangs in the air between us.

'Nut,' he shakes his head and takes a step backwards. He's missing all his front teeth, there's just an empty gap. It makes a whistling noise and spittle flies from his mouth when he speaks.

Fuck, it's sexy.

'Wasnae me, likes.'

He follows my eyes as I glance down at the lighter in his hand. He puts it in his pocket and gives me a look as if to say what lighter? I pick up the phone and dial #21 to page, speak into the receiver. CAN SECURITY PLEASE COME TO THE BASEMENT COUNTER, SECURITY TO THE BASEMENT COUNTER.

The guy grabs the charity box but the cord's not completely burnt through. As he makes a run for it, the cord catches and he's jolted backwards. He lets go of the box and takes off up the stairs. I follow at a distance. Nobody bothers about shoplifters much these days. It's not like
T
rainspotting
. No chases along Princes Street.

The guy's out of the shop and away by the time I get to the top of the stairs, so I head back down to the basement. Chris, our overweight security guard, ambles up to the counter eating a bag of crisps.

'I'm on a break. What do you want?' he says to me, spraying salt and vinegar.

I point at the blackened cord and the charity box hanging from the counter.

You don't realise how many crazies there are in the world until you work in a shop.

3

He squinted over the top of his glasses as the security light flashed on and illuminated the front garden.

Davie dropped the orange juice.

I OPEN MY EYES and just about fall off the edge of the sofa. Alfie's leaning over me, his face right up against mine, our noses almost touching. At first all I can see is his grin in front of me, a disembodied smile floating in mid-air like the Cheshire cat.

As my eyelids unstick, the rest of his face appears. His smile looks carved from ear to ear.

Davie, do you know what a Chelsea smile is?

'Fuck sake, Alfie,' I say and push him out of my face. He stumbles backwards as I pull myself up from where I'm sprawled half-on half-off the sofa. My neck aches from the position I've been lying in and I rub it, my fingers shaking.

I can see Alfie's mouth opening to speak, but I can't hear anything. What the fuck? I've gone deaf. Alfie leans forward and pulls the headphones off my head. The Mute button is cancelled and my ears fill with sound. I can hear everything. The cars outside. Alfie's laughter. The drip from the dodgy tap in the kitchen. The hum of the fridge. The mice scurrying behind the skirting boards.

'Your face, mate. That was magic,' Alfie says to me.

'You just about killed me there.'

My heart is beating like crazy inside my chest.

Thathumpthathumpthathumpthathump.

I picture The Numbskulls from that old comic strip. The wee men inside me are running about in complete panic. It's about to blow, what'll we do? Steam is hissing off boiling hot pipes.

'Sorry, I couldn't help it,' Alfie apologises, 'I shouted you, like, three times, but you didn't wake up. You must have been well out of it.'

'Aye, it's those fucking seven o' clock starts, I'm always knackered when I have to get up so early.'

'Tell me about it. I'm glad I don't have to deal with any of that pish anymore. Do you want a brew?'

'Aye.'

I'm cold. I always wake up cold if I fall asleep on the couch. The hairs on my arms are standing to attention and I put on the jumper lying next to me, pull the hood up over my head and rub my arms.

'What time is it anyway?' I ask.

'It's about half eleven, eh?'

Alfie looks down at his wrist but he's not wearing a watch so he shrugs at me.

Davie waited for Alfie outside the flat. Where was he? They were supposed to meet the letting agent ten minutes ago. Davie was just about to phone Alfie when he saw him turn the corner and come into view. Not hurrying, not even acknowledging the fact that he was late. Did he even realise?

The letting agent buzzed them in and they went up the stairs to the flat.

It's a kitchenette, the letting agent said, showing them around, the bedrooms are separate but the kitchen is joined to the living room.

Ace, said Alfie, means you can make tea without waiting for the adverts.

The smell of whatever had been cooked in the kitchen
clung to the walls, as if they'd been painted with supernoodle and bacon fragranced paint. The rent was decent though and that was what mattered.

Alfie clicks the kettle on, leans his elbows on the counter and picks dirt out from under his fingernails.

The kettle begins to hiss and spit and smoke.

'Better stick some water in that,' I say.

Alfie salutes me, picks up the kettle and turns to fill it at the kitchen sink. The cold water hits the fizzing element inside the kettle and steam gushes out of the top, obscuring Alfie in a cloudy haze. He puts it on to boil again and helps himself to a bag of crisps out of one of the cupboards.

'Chuck us over a bag, will you?' I ask, then duck as a bag of salt and vinegar flies towards me.

The headphones hang around my neck. My ears are still getting used to all the noise. The kettle beginning to boil. The crunch of crisps as we both eat. Alfie's fingers drumming on the counter top, in time to whatever tune is currently playing on the jukebox in his head. The backbeat to my kitchen symphony.

Alfie forgets that our kettle is broken. He's engulfed in another, much more dramatic cloud of steam before he realises and clicks it off. Condensation drips down the kitchen units and the yellow woodchip wallpaper.

Alfie chooses two mugs from the pile of dirty dishes sitting next to the sink. He holds up my mug, the one that has the Hearts football club badge on it.

Davie hardly saw the games he went to after the funeral.

'Okay?' he asks.

'Aye, perfect,' I reply, 'all it's had in it was tea anyhow.'

I know without looking that the inside of my mug is stained brown with the ghosts of brews past, but it's not going to kill me if it's not washed.

Davie, this place is disgusting.

It's not as bad as all that. It's a small flat, it doesn't take much to look cluttered.

I told your mum I'd keep an eye on you.

What does she care?

'Where've you been?' I ask Alfie, who sniffs the milk before he pours it into the mugs.

'Eh... where was I again? Oh aye, at a gig. A mate of a mate of my brother's band was playing. I tried to phone you but you didn't answer.'

I swivel round on the sofa and glance around for my phone. It's lying on the coffee table in front of me, on top of a pile of old newspapers and magazines.

I pick it up: four missed calls, all from Alfie. I wave the phone at him and delete the missed calls.

'Sorry, must have slept right through.'

'Nae bother, you'd have probably freaked out again anyway,' he jokes.

'Aye, very good.'

Davie knew he'd smoked too much before he went out. It made him feel better though.

Alfie's band was on next and Davie stood next to them as they watched the support act. It was some guy wearing a feathered head-dress, playing dance music on a bunch of sampler machines and a keyboard. The guy walked backwards and forwards, pressing buttons and shedding feathers, as strange noises came out of the speakers on either side of the stage. There was a DVD playing on a projector screen behind him, some weird black and white film. It reminded Davie of that Japanese horror movie,
Ring
; the video the kids watch right before the creepy, Japanese girl crawls out of the TV and kills them.

Davie could feel himself getting more and more worked up the longer the guy's set went on. The sequence of images played on repeat, flashing by so quickly that you couldn't
work out what one image was before the next one was on. Davie was sure he could see Lewis flashing by on the projector screen. It was Lewis, he was sure of it. The room began to spin around him, but he couldn't keep his eyes off the screen. Lewis, Lewis, Lewis, Lewis.

The last thing he heard was Alfie asking him if he was okay.

Alfie wanders towards me carrying the two mugs of tea. He stares at the mugs as he walks. He's so busy concentrating on them that he misses the bag lying on the floor, gets his foot tangled in the strap and stumbles, spilling tea onto the floor. Instead of stopping to clean it up, he simply takes a step backwards, blots the tea with his sock, then continues on towards me. It's so slick, like a dance move. Alfie just oozes cool, unlike me.

He swirled the tea around with the sole of his baseball boot, couldn't be arsed going back to get a paper towel.

'You finally got yourself an iPod then?' Alfie asks as I remove the headphones and move the MP3 player off the couch to make space for him.

'I don't really know what it is. The One Dread Guy gave me it.'

'That old jakey?'

'Aye.'

'Seriously? How come?'

'Fuck knows, eh? Cheers for that.'

'Nae bother.'

Alfie puts both mugs down on top of the tower of DVDs we have stacked up the wall next to the sofa, most of which have been bought using my staff discount at Virgin. He produces a packet of caramel digestives he's had tucked under his armpit. The kitchenette means you don't have to carry everything you need in one go, but we're both lazy fuckers.

Alfie deposits the contents of his pockets onto the coffee table.

'Fucking skinny jeans, man, I cannae sit down if the pockets are full,' he says.

He's wearing spotty socks. I look down at my own socks: navy, with a hole in the heel and the toe. It's funny how even his socks make me feel so uncool. He hits the tower of DVDs with his elbow as he sits down; the tower wobbles but doesn't topple.

'Close one,' Alfie grins at me.

The sofa is tiny and, even with Alfie's already skinny arse squashed into skinny jeans, there's hardly room for the both of us. I shuffle along until Alfie slips down into the gap I've created.

'I hate this throw,' he says and pulls the oriental looking material out from underneath us, 'it's too shiny, I feel like I'm sliding off all the time.'

'It was your girlfriend that put it there, not me.'

'She's not my girlfriend, we're just good friends.'

I pick up my mug and wrap my hands around it before taking a swig of tea. It hits the spot. I can feel it flowing through me: down my throat, gathering in my tummy. It leaves me glowing like I've just had my Ready Brek.

His mum used to say that's why he was so clever at school: he always had a good breakfast.

There's bits of crisp stuck in my teeth so I take another gulp of tea and swirl it around in my mouth before swallowing.

'What's this?' I ask, picking up a bar mat with a number scribbled on it in purple pen.

'Some lassie gave me it just as I was leaving tonight.'

'Oh aye? Was she nice?'

'She was alright. A bit Amy Winehouse. She was singing in one of the support bands.'

Davie would never have been invited to a gangsters and molls party if it hadn't been for Alfie. Alfie, real name Lee, nicknamed Alfie after the Michael Caine character.

Man, Alfie, you've really made the effort haven't you, said Davie.

Alfie was wearing a three-piece, pin-stripe suit, complete with silver shirt, Mod tie and black and white brogues. He looked cool as fuck. Davie had worn his dad's suit. He hadn't worn it since the funeral, the hems of the trousers were still covered in dirt. Davie could see people looking at Alfie as soon as they arrived at the party.

Davie watched Alfie as he made his move on some lassie in the kitchen. He couldn't believe Alfie's confidence. He went up to the lassie and pulled out a metal cigarette case from his suit pocket. He took out two fags, put both in his mouth, lit them with a Zippo lighter and then handed one to the lassie.

Fuck sake, how do you get away with shit like that? Davie asked Alfie later.

I nicked it from some old Bette Davis movie, the oldies are always the best, Davie boy.

'Fuck, I wish you'd tell me how you do it,' I say.

He grins over his mug at me. I think he's had a couple of smokes tonight. His eyes are glassy, the pupils big and round: two empty fishbowls staring back at me.

'Are you going to phone her?' I ask.

'Aye, I might, like. Her friend was braw too. Reminded me of that lassie from
Romeo and Juliet
. What's her name again?'

'Claire Danes?'

'Aye, that's the fucking one! Well done.'

He slaps my knee, and shakes his head.

'Claire Danes. I've been trying to remember that fucking name all night.'

'No bother,' I say.

'Do you ken she was once in a video for Soul Asylum?' Alfie asks.

'Who? The lassie you met tonight?'

'Nah, you tube. Claire Danes.'

'I was gonna say, like.'

'What ever happened to Soul Asylum? They were great.'

'Who knows?'

'Man, I wish they were still around, eh? Runaway train la la la la la, runaway train la la la la la.'

'Let's have a look at this then,' he stops singing and picks up the MP3 player.

Something jumps inside me and I swallow down the urge to grab the MP3 player back off him with a gulp of tea.