The WPCs wore black minis, black ties over white shirts undone beyond push-up bras, little chequered caps, plastic truncheons. Wearing ‘L plates’ and pink balloons, their sergeant kept blowing a whistle. I watched them conga past the bouncers.
I turned back to the road. ‘Right. This taxi’s got its light on. Bastard!’
‘Check it out, Dad. Over yonder … The Bill on acid …’
‘I see them, Fraser. They’re not really cops, son!’
‘No. The club they’re going into? Subway? Mind?’
‘Mind what?’
‘That used to be Pipers. I mind you telling me that’s where you wound up on your stag night! Talk about everything going round in circles’.
‘Pipers? Aye. I mind of being dragged there. Is that what that fucking dive was called? Didn’t realise it was there. Some reason I thought it was way down Leith’.
‘Must’ve been as pissed as I am the night!’
‘Oh, believe me, Fraser. I would’ve been pissed all right. In they days I could drink for Scotland’.
‘It’s a sign. C’mon, Dad. I’m too sober for any fucking taxi rank’.
‘No danger, Fraz. Me, in a club full of bairns? I’d feel a right nonce’.
‘Whose shout is it? We’re last two standing out my whole stag party. So if I’m wanting one for the road, you’d be out of fucking order knocking me back’.
Fraser nudged me towards the gauntlet of headlights on Lothian Road.
* * *
A phone flashed and an image froze. The bride-to-be, stretched back, spreading her legs and thrusting a Smirnoff Ice. Fraser guffawed into his Beck’s. I watched him, ogling like a flasher. He was a few sips away from keeling over. I put a hand out to him. I felt the sweat plastering his shirt to his skin. He stared at his shoes, then at my hand gripping his shoulder. He focussed on my faded forearm tattoo. I gazed at my skin for a while, the lion rampant, the lights making it flare, vanish, flare, vanish.
I wasn’t used to this. Obviously I was being sociable. I’d spent the night clutching shandies or no-alcohol lagers. Even taken shots of Fraser’s spliffs between pubs. Blinking at the barrage of lights I clammed my eyes, deep-breathing. I drifted away from this tacky meat market.
My head span. I concentrated on what my fingers were touching, the sticky warmth of him, this person Susan and I created. I found myself worrying about next Saturday’s speech. I had no-one to nag me about preparing it. I kept snatching at ideas for inspiration. I’d checked the internet. One article said you were supposed to summarise their life in 10 minutes, select the funny bits, especially if embarrassing. How was he as a kid? Where had he taken his first steps? I remembered him starting St Cuthbert’s. He scowled because his blazer was too big. The article recommended these firsts as a starting point. School. Cubs. Hutchie Vale. Girlfriends. It wasn’t his first marriage, so I’d have to be careful sifting through the exes to joke about.
I’d also looked up stag nights. We’d initially planned for Dublin. Not enough bods could afford it. One site told me: “As father of the groom you should consider yourself in a privileged position. The stag is a ritual, father to son, linking generations, a rite of passage stretching through centuries, back to a point where you won’t even know the names of the people involved except that they no doubt drank a lot of mead that night”.
I noted the CCTV above the bar. If the technology had been there in 1981 there would’ve been footage of myself being propped up by Fraser’s grandad the week before my wedding. Now I felt fucking ancient, although the stone made me feel on a wavelength. The biggest changes in 30 years seemed to be the club’s name and that everyone could post their last flings on what Fraser called Bebo.
My eyes flickered. Fraser slurred something to the women. I let go. My son may have grown up but had never matured. He ruined his first marriage with flings, almost from the outset. But when Yvonne left him for good he took it badly. Following in my footsteps he tried the army. He did a tour of Kosovo, witnessed the far end of the wedge that begins with sectarianism on football terraces – neighbours forming into militias to go ethnic cleansing. Fraser had just been a kid, barely 17. But he never settled. Once he was discharged he drifted. Often I had to bail him out of trouble, out of debt. Just like his mother’s folks had with me.
I’d been medically discharged from the army in 1982. Fraser’s mother, Susan, suspected I’d had some sort of breakdown. I couldn’t say. The exact moment when months of bingeing and hangovers dissolve into an actual breakdown is muddy.
Everyone said Fraser was his father’s son. Despite his faults he’d always had a charm. He’d rarely been single. The only real surprise was he’d finally decided to get married again. And I loved my prospective daughter-in-law, Tricia. Fraser doted on her daughters, Maria and Anna. I hoped this would prove to be a fork, a final turn into a long, calm stretch for us both.
Tomorrow we could look forward to the wedding. I felt I should indulge his final night of horseplay. A nagging voice would only remind the boy of so many NCO’s. Those fuckers still rang in my ears.
* * *
My head was bowed while I pissed away more 0% lager. As the amber liquid gurgled along the trough I mused how little it had altered on its journey through my guts. I wondered how much of this stuff I’d bought over the years, the real McCoy or this insipid substitute, merely to be siphoned through my guts.
‘Dad!’
Fraser swayed in beside me.
‘Fraz’.
‘You just missed it’.
‘Missed what?’
‘They set off a dry ice machine, next to the DJ box. It comes drifting over the club, like … like a fucking war zone. Honest! Clouds of the stuff. I couldn’t see fuck all. Next minute one of the cop chicks has clambered on top of me. Gen! She’s on my lap, legs wrapped around my thighs … fucking … grinding herself into me. Then I gets the tongue sandwich, the tits in my face, the hand groping my balls … she’s undone my flies, then she’s fucking tugging my wire and her pals are all proper fucking decking it, cause eventually the dry ice starts dispersing. She’s dismounted, right and when the smokescreen clears away, my cock’s out like a fucking flagpole and I’m faced with a dozen lassies, all grinning at me. And their phones are all out, like a firing squad … I had the savvy to stick my hands across my face, likes. Not wanting to be a web star, days before the old fucking “I do”. I hope it was the redhead, likes’.
‘The fucking redhead?! You’re getting married next Saturday, lad’.
I glared at his reflection in the mirror. Then I was aware of two other figures entering. Instead of taking their turn, one hovered near the cubicles, the other stepped right behind. Like me he was way too old for a clubber. A bouncer? The stink of drink hit me with each tense breath so I reckoned not. Just a fucking wide-o. Waiting for me to zip up, he folded his arms, stare boring into me.
‘Can I help you?’ I demanded, about-turning.
‘Aye. Two of us. Two of you’.
‘What?’
He was heavy-set, his hair cropped apart from a tuft, gelled up, reminding me of a giant fucking Partridge or something. But his eyes were red warning signals. I recognised someone robbed of their judgement by alcohol. I saw it in Fraser. I’d seen it in countless mirrors.
‘I said. There’s two of us, two of youse’.
‘So you’re good at arithmetic?’ Fraser remarked over his shoulder. ‘You the fucking teacher’s pet?’
‘Fraser’, I said, diffusing this pointless face-off. ‘What exactly d’you want?’
‘We’re bored getting fucking knockbacks all night from the birds. We fancy some excitement, a fucking square go. How about it? Two on two? Either here, or we could outside? But in here’s perfect, eh? No cameras’.
I shrugged. ‘Listen, mate. This is my son. It’s his stag night. He’s getting married in seven days. This is has last night of freedom. He’s got enough hassles ahead of him, eh?’
The guy’s expression fading he gave a high-pitched snigger. ‘Nice one. Fair do’s. Enjoy yourselves, lads. We’re not wanting to spoil your stag’.
He thrust a hand at me. We shook bizarrely, him holding fast for several seconds, reluctant to let go. I wondered if he was going to try twisting my arm, at which point I would’ve wrenched his from its socket. I tensed, ready to burl him face-down on the piss-stained floor. A swift glance at his partner and I focussed on the Adam’s Apple I would pulp with my fist. But the grip relaxed. Then he shook Fraser’s hand.
‘All the best next week, pal’. They trudged off towards the booming music.
Fraser rinsed his fingers. ‘Clowns. We hadn’t washed our hands, yet. Serves the cunts right’.
* * *
The harsh lights turned her fake tan orange. I squirmed onto the patch of seating she was slapping. Immediately she leaned into me. Her bra wasn’t so much heavily underwired as fighting a war of attrition with her huge cleavage. An ink butterfly basked on her right breast.
‘I’m Sophie. What’s your name?’
‘John’.
‘Age?’
‘Forty seven’.
‘Brilliant. Never too old to rave. I’m forty-nine. You remind me of a younger Sean Connery. That same twinkle’.
‘I know. They all say that’.
‘They all say that? You a bit of a young slag in a mature body?’
‘Not a slag, Sophie. But you know what they say about merry tunes on old fiddles?’
‘Well, let’s have a fiddle, then!’
With that she clutched the back of my head, drawing me in to her body odour. I focussed on the insect quivering on her flesh. She forced her mounds into my embarrassed smile. While she had me captured she forced my head back against the seat and shook herself, parodying a pole dancer. All the time her friends whooped. I heard Fraser’s booming laugh clearest of all.
‘All the best to the father of the groom’, she murmured, peppering my face with spit and nicotine breath.
Tears came to my eyes. Her pretty face dissolved. For a moment I saw a much younger person staring up at me, large brown eyes, long, matted lashes. The vision curdled my stomach. I felt my heart racing and my muscles seemed to become elastic. The floor was trembling.
When she resumed slurping her bottle I smiled, relieved. Catching Fraser’s eye I shrugged, mumbled: ‘Your old man has still got it’.
‘Don’t know about that. Look like you’ve seen a ghost. You’re not having a fucking whitey?’
‘No’.
He raised his Beck’s to the ceiling. ‘At least you can’t blame it on the beers, Ma. He’s not drunk since you were here to nag him! You shouldn’t be watching over us tonight, anyway. What happens on the stag stays on the stag’.
I watched him wink at the ceiling. Remorse engulfed me. Fraser was nudging my shoulder. ‘Did she have a tongue stud?’
‘What?’
‘A pierced tongue? With a fucking bolt through it? That lassie?’
‘What? Eh … no. Don’t think so’.
‘Don’t think so? It’s a straightforward yay or nay, Dad’.
‘Okay, then. She didn’t. Tongue was smooth’.
‘Can’t have been the same one, then. Mine had a stud’.
‘Yours?’
‘Aye. The one that ambushed me in the dry ice … reckon mine was the sergeant with the L plates. I’m not the only one misbehaving’.
* * *
As I queued at the bar I recognised the guy next to me by his tuft. I registered the tattoo on his arm, Edinburgh Castle’s three-turrets, the St Andrew’s cross.
‘KOSB?’
‘What’s that, mate?’ His glassy eyes sought mine.
‘King’s Own Scottish Borderers?’ I nodded at the ink crest. ‘From Culloden to Minden to the Subway?’
‘Aye. The Kosbies’.
‘I was in the forces, once’.
More dry ice belched across the dance floor, enveloping us in perfumed, white mist.
* * *
We were on the garden bench outside my house, finishing a smoke, staring at Corstorphine Hill looming through the dawn. My head was swimming. I pictured the lads who’d commenced the stag night in the Centurion, Sophie and her deranged hen party, the square-going Kosbies.
Fraser’s head nodded. Clenching the curls at his nape I tugged. He smiled as I swivelled him around like his ventriloquist. I continued staring at my son. At times it did seem as if history was on a loop. We’d both fucked up as younger men, been wasters. I blamed me. Sometimes he couldn’t have trusted me further than he could’ve rolled me up that hill.
All those years ago I hadn’t adjusted to civvy street. Retreating into a bitter shell, I’d surrendered to alcohol, speed, valium. In and out of psychiatric units I’d just been pumped with more drugs. Too many months later I was properly diagnosed. Post-traumatic stress disorder. By then I was juggling my dependencies and my bank balance. Prior to her cancer Susan had spent so much of her brief life just putting up with me. She did give up a few times but never completely. Susan brought me through it all.
When Fraser had been old enough to hear about my army days he just dismissed it. “Pub talk, Dad. You read too many of they Sven Hassel paperbacks behind the bar in the Clerrie Inn”. By then none of my stories were reliable. Even I couldn’t tell the fact from fantasy half the fucking time.
“You were in uniform in the Eighties, Dad. Meant you were fighting for Thatcher. Don’t know why your generation bothered enlisting. You were part of that whole Gotcha mentality. You would’ve been up for napalming the Falls Road and nuking Buenos Aires”.
I returned the joint. ‘Here’s to next Saturday, son. You and Tricia’.
Fraser grinned. ‘And Anna and Maria’. He inhaled greedily, then gripped my fist, like shaking over a peace treaty. He flicked the roach away and it sparked towards the brittle blue of the encroaching dawn. As I gazed at the dwindling stars, wisps of clouds veiled them, like the dry ice; like gunpowder smoke.
* * *
I was blinded by the lung-corroding clouds. After the crazed sprint across the rugged terrain my breathing was desperate. Ahead of me Wilson cast his arm over his shoulder. Seconds later I felt the grenade’s flash. I overtook him, leaping over the ruined machine-gun nest.
There were four youths sprawled along the narrow trench - conscripts, in oversize fatigues, like boys dressed as soldiers for a fancy dress party. It was as if they were asleep, huddled together to keep warm on this sleet-lashed moor. The rest of the platoon followed, casting glances at the enemy, moving on through the drifting mortar smoke like phantoms. We kept our bodies close to the cold earth as fire continued to strafe our position from further up the incline, the rounds cracking in the gloom.
I was aware of someone moaning. I moved closer. One of the enemy caught my eyes with his own glazed eyes. There was a gaping shrapnel wound punched in his chest, crimson seeping into his tunic. He was mumbling to me in Spanish but his mouth kept filling up, as if he’d been gorging on claret. Wincing with the effort he raised his hands towards me.
Despite the violent trembling I noticed words tattooed across the back of the left wrist. Blood seeped from his mouth.
‘Me rindo … por favour … no me mates … Madre de Dios, sálvame …’
Coming towards me on all fours, comically, Lieutenant Cunningham snarled: ‘We need every man to clear this ridge. You get my drift, MacLeod?’
‘Sir?’
Cunningham peered into the boy’s feeble expression. ‘God is with you now’. He turned to me. ‘Private MacLeod. There’s not enough of us to post any guards’.
‘Sir?’
Fifty yards to our left tracer fire pummelled the Argentine positions. I could see the Welsh Guards, darker shapes against the murk, creeping to outflank the enemy.
The officer glared. ‘Do it’.
My heart pummelled. Denying myself time to hesitate, I stepped right up to the enemy, raised my arms towards the junction of nose bridge and eyebrows and saw the grey eyes focussing on the mouth of my SLR. The boy made a feeble attempt to force himself up, like someone nearing the close of a marathon push-up session. He raised his hands towards me. I deciphered the tattooed words.
‘Boca Maradona?’ I mumbled.
‘Si… si … Ma … Maradona …’
Stomping a boot into the right shoulder-blade, I pinned him there, feeling the muscles working as the fingers reached, rigid as claws. At this range he’d splatter me with his blood and bones. So I snatched the weapon with my left hand. In the same movement I tugged my bayonet from its sheath. His eyes wavered on the rifle. I lashed the blade out, plunged it into his throat, hacking it back across his neck. Blood fountained over his skin, his Adam’s Apple slithering out like a battered plum. His eyes rolled backwards and his fingers twitched. Digging the knife into his jacket, I wiped away his stains.
Gunfire came from ahead, the bullets whistling aimlessly over our heads. After a grenade retort they ceased. Cunningham gestured with his revolver. I got down on all fours. I seized the long grass to heave myself onwards, clawing the wet clumps as if it were hair.
* * *
My eyes lingered on the back of Fraser’s head, dropped to his kilt’s folds. I looked at Tricia’s billowing skirt, then watched her girls in their matching outfits, excitably rocking on their feet. The minister invited everyone to pray.
I bowed and shut my eyes. When I prayed I always pictured this. A family gathering around a TV in a cramped apartment in blazing sunshine. They are surrounded by photos of children, grandchildren, births, weddings. Grinning faces bustle around the blu-tacked Madonnas and Sacred Hearts. Amongst the images is a stern teenage boy in khaki; like the images of Mary and Jesus, destined never to age.
Four years after the war over the Atlantic rocks, the world is focussed on Mexico. Maradona is virtually dancing with the ball and these spectators, young and old, female and male, roar him on as he weaves around each Englishman, finally slotting home the greatest goal any of them has ever seen. The mother looks at her son and smiles, convinced that amongst the billions watching this moment, he especially is sharing their triumph.
I turned back to the road. ‘Right. This taxi’s got its light on. Bastard!’
‘Check it out, Dad. Over yonder … The Bill on acid …’
‘I see them, Fraser. They’re not really cops, son!’
‘No. The club they’re going into? Subway? Mind?’
‘Mind what?’
‘That used to be Pipers. I mind you telling me that’s where you wound up on your stag night! Talk about everything going round in circles’.
‘Pipers? Aye. I mind of being dragged there. Is that what that fucking dive was called? Didn’t realise it was there. Some reason I thought it was way down Leith’.
‘Must’ve been as pissed as I am the night!’
‘Oh, believe me, Fraser. I would’ve been pissed all right. In they days I could drink for Scotland’.
‘It’s a sign. C’mon, Dad. I’m too sober for any fucking taxi rank’.
‘No danger, Fraz. Me, in a club full of bairns? I’d feel a right nonce’.
‘Whose shout is it? We’re last two standing out my whole stag party. So if I’m wanting one for the road, you’d be out of fucking order knocking me back’.
Fraser nudged me towards the gauntlet of headlights on Lothian Road.
* * *
A phone flashed and an image froze. The bride-to-be, stretched back, spreading her legs and thrusting a Smirnoff Ice. Fraser guffawed into his Beck’s. I watched him, ogling like a flasher. He was a few sips away from keeling over. I put a hand out to him. I felt the sweat plastering his shirt to his skin. He stared at his shoes, then at my hand gripping his shoulder. He focussed on my faded forearm tattoo. I gazed at my skin for a while, the lion rampant, the lights making it flare, vanish, flare, vanish.
I wasn’t used to this. Obviously I was being sociable. I’d spent the night clutching shandies or no-alcohol lagers. Even taken shots of Fraser’s spliffs between pubs. Blinking at the barrage of lights I clammed my eyes, deep-breathing. I drifted away from this tacky meat market.
My head span. I concentrated on what my fingers were touching, the sticky warmth of him, this person Susan and I created. I found myself worrying about next Saturday’s speech. I had no-one to nag me about preparing it. I kept snatching at ideas for inspiration. I’d checked the internet. One article said you were supposed to summarise their life in 10 minutes, select the funny bits, especially if embarrassing. How was he as a kid? Where had he taken his first steps? I remembered him starting St Cuthbert’s. He scowled because his blazer was too big. The article recommended these firsts as a starting point. School. Cubs. Hutchie Vale. Girlfriends. It wasn’t his first marriage, so I’d have to be careful sifting through the exes to joke about.
I’d also looked up stag nights. We’d initially planned for Dublin. Not enough bods could afford it. One site told me: “As father of the groom you should consider yourself in a privileged position. The stag is a ritual, father to son, linking generations, a rite of passage stretching through centuries, back to a point where you won’t even know the names of the people involved except that they no doubt drank a lot of mead that night”.
I noted the CCTV above the bar. If the technology had been there in 1981 there would’ve been footage of myself being propped up by Fraser’s grandad the week before my wedding. Now I felt fucking ancient, although the stone made me feel on a wavelength. The biggest changes in 30 years seemed to be the club’s name and that everyone could post their last flings on what Fraser called Bebo.
My eyes flickered. Fraser slurred something to the women. I let go. My son may have grown up but had never matured. He ruined his first marriage with flings, almost from the outset. But when Yvonne left him for good he took it badly. Following in my footsteps he tried the army. He did a tour of Kosovo, witnessed the far end of the wedge that begins with sectarianism on football terraces – neighbours forming into militias to go ethnic cleansing. Fraser had just been a kid, barely 17. But he never settled. Once he was discharged he drifted. Often I had to bail him out of trouble, out of debt. Just like his mother’s folks had with me.
I’d been medically discharged from the army in 1982. Fraser’s mother, Susan, suspected I’d had some sort of breakdown. I couldn’t say. The exact moment when months of bingeing and hangovers dissolve into an actual breakdown is muddy.
Everyone said Fraser was his father’s son. Despite his faults he’d always had a charm. He’d rarely been single. The only real surprise was he’d finally decided to get married again. And I loved my prospective daughter-in-law, Tricia. Fraser doted on her daughters, Maria and Anna. I hoped this would prove to be a fork, a final turn into a long, calm stretch for us both.
Tomorrow we could look forward to the wedding. I felt I should indulge his final night of horseplay. A nagging voice would only remind the boy of so many NCO’s. Those fuckers still rang in my ears.
* * *
My head was bowed while I pissed away more 0% lager. As the amber liquid gurgled along the trough I mused how little it had altered on its journey through my guts. I wondered how much of this stuff I’d bought over the years, the real McCoy or this insipid substitute, merely to be siphoned through my guts.
‘Dad!’
Fraser swayed in beside me.
‘Fraz’.
‘You just missed it’.
‘Missed what?’
‘They set off a dry ice machine, next to the DJ box. It comes drifting over the club, like … like a fucking war zone. Honest! Clouds of the stuff. I couldn’t see fuck all. Next minute one of the cop chicks has clambered on top of me. Gen! She’s on my lap, legs wrapped around my thighs … fucking … grinding herself into me. Then I gets the tongue sandwich, the tits in my face, the hand groping my balls … she’s undone my flies, then she’s fucking tugging my wire and her pals are all proper fucking decking it, cause eventually the dry ice starts dispersing. She’s dismounted, right and when the smokescreen clears away, my cock’s out like a fucking flagpole and I’m faced with a dozen lassies, all grinning at me. And their phones are all out, like a firing squad … I had the savvy to stick my hands across my face, likes. Not wanting to be a web star, days before the old fucking “I do”. I hope it was the redhead, likes’.
‘The fucking redhead?! You’re getting married next Saturday, lad’.
I glared at his reflection in the mirror. Then I was aware of two other figures entering. Instead of taking their turn, one hovered near the cubicles, the other stepped right behind. Like me he was way too old for a clubber. A bouncer? The stink of drink hit me with each tense breath so I reckoned not. Just a fucking wide-o. Waiting for me to zip up, he folded his arms, stare boring into me.
‘Can I help you?’ I demanded, about-turning.
‘Aye. Two of us. Two of you’.
‘What?’
He was heavy-set, his hair cropped apart from a tuft, gelled up, reminding me of a giant fucking Partridge or something. But his eyes were red warning signals. I recognised someone robbed of their judgement by alcohol. I saw it in Fraser. I’d seen it in countless mirrors.
‘I said. There’s two of us, two of youse’.
‘So you’re good at arithmetic?’ Fraser remarked over his shoulder. ‘You the fucking teacher’s pet?’
‘Fraser’, I said, diffusing this pointless face-off. ‘What exactly d’you want?’
‘We’re bored getting fucking knockbacks all night from the birds. We fancy some excitement, a fucking square go. How about it? Two on two? Either here, or we could outside? But in here’s perfect, eh? No cameras’.
I shrugged. ‘Listen, mate. This is my son. It’s his stag night. He’s getting married in seven days. This is has last night of freedom. He’s got enough hassles ahead of him, eh?’
The guy’s expression fading he gave a high-pitched snigger. ‘Nice one. Fair do’s. Enjoy yourselves, lads. We’re not wanting to spoil your stag’.
He thrust a hand at me. We shook bizarrely, him holding fast for several seconds, reluctant to let go. I wondered if he was going to try twisting my arm, at which point I would’ve wrenched his from its socket. I tensed, ready to burl him face-down on the piss-stained floor. A swift glance at his partner and I focussed on the Adam’s Apple I would pulp with my fist. But the grip relaxed. Then he shook Fraser’s hand.
‘All the best next week, pal’. They trudged off towards the booming music.
Fraser rinsed his fingers. ‘Clowns. We hadn’t washed our hands, yet. Serves the cunts right’.
* * *
The harsh lights turned her fake tan orange. I squirmed onto the patch of seating she was slapping. Immediately she leaned into me. Her bra wasn’t so much heavily underwired as fighting a war of attrition with her huge cleavage. An ink butterfly basked on her right breast.
‘I’m Sophie. What’s your name?’
‘John’.
‘Age?’
‘Forty seven’.
‘Brilliant. Never too old to rave. I’m forty-nine. You remind me of a younger Sean Connery. That same twinkle’.
‘I know. They all say that’.
‘They all say that? You a bit of a young slag in a mature body?’
‘Not a slag, Sophie. But you know what they say about merry tunes on old fiddles?’
‘Well, let’s have a fiddle, then!’
With that she clutched the back of my head, drawing me in to her body odour. I focussed on the insect quivering on her flesh. She forced her mounds into my embarrassed smile. While she had me captured she forced my head back against the seat and shook herself, parodying a pole dancer. All the time her friends whooped. I heard Fraser’s booming laugh clearest of all.
‘All the best to the father of the groom’, she murmured, peppering my face with spit and nicotine breath.
Tears came to my eyes. Her pretty face dissolved. For a moment I saw a much younger person staring up at me, large brown eyes, long, matted lashes. The vision curdled my stomach. I felt my heart racing and my muscles seemed to become elastic. The floor was trembling.
When she resumed slurping her bottle I smiled, relieved. Catching Fraser’s eye I shrugged, mumbled: ‘Your old man has still got it’.
‘Don’t know about that. Look like you’ve seen a ghost. You’re not having a fucking whitey?’
‘No’.
He raised his Beck’s to the ceiling. ‘At least you can’t blame it on the beers, Ma. He’s not drunk since you were here to nag him! You shouldn’t be watching over us tonight, anyway. What happens on the stag stays on the stag’.
I watched him wink at the ceiling. Remorse engulfed me. Fraser was nudging my shoulder. ‘Did she have a tongue stud?’
‘What?’
‘A pierced tongue? With a fucking bolt through it? That lassie?’
‘What? Eh … no. Don’t think so’.
‘Don’t think so? It’s a straightforward yay or nay, Dad’.
‘Okay, then. She didn’t. Tongue was smooth’.
‘Can’t have been the same one, then. Mine had a stud’.
‘Yours?’
‘Aye. The one that ambushed me in the dry ice … reckon mine was the sergeant with the L plates. I’m not the only one misbehaving’.
* * *
As I queued at the bar I recognised the guy next to me by his tuft. I registered the tattoo on his arm, Edinburgh Castle’s three-turrets, the St Andrew’s cross.
‘KOSB?’
‘What’s that, mate?’ His glassy eyes sought mine.
‘King’s Own Scottish Borderers?’ I nodded at the ink crest. ‘From Culloden to Minden to the Subway?’
‘Aye. The Kosbies’.
‘I was in the forces, once’.
More dry ice belched across the dance floor, enveloping us in perfumed, white mist.
* * *
We were on the garden bench outside my house, finishing a smoke, staring at Corstorphine Hill looming through the dawn. My head was swimming. I pictured the lads who’d commenced the stag night in the Centurion, Sophie and her deranged hen party, the square-going Kosbies.
Fraser’s head nodded. Clenching the curls at his nape I tugged. He smiled as I swivelled him around like his ventriloquist. I continued staring at my son. At times it did seem as if history was on a loop. We’d both fucked up as younger men, been wasters. I blamed me. Sometimes he couldn’t have trusted me further than he could’ve rolled me up that hill.
All those years ago I hadn’t adjusted to civvy street. Retreating into a bitter shell, I’d surrendered to alcohol, speed, valium. In and out of psychiatric units I’d just been pumped with more drugs. Too many months later I was properly diagnosed. Post-traumatic stress disorder. By then I was juggling my dependencies and my bank balance. Prior to her cancer Susan had spent so much of her brief life just putting up with me. She did give up a few times but never completely. Susan brought me through it all.
When Fraser had been old enough to hear about my army days he just dismissed it. “Pub talk, Dad. You read too many of they Sven Hassel paperbacks behind the bar in the Clerrie Inn”. By then none of my stories were reliable. Even I couldn’t tell the fact from fantasy half the fucking time.
“You were in uniform in the Eighties, Dad. Meant you were fighting for Thatcher. Don’t know why your generation bothered enlisting. You were part of that whole Gotcha mentality. You would’ve been up for napalming the Falls Road and nuking Buenos Aires”.
I returned the joint. ‘Here’s to next Saturday, son. You and Tricia’.
Fraser grinned. ‘And Anna and Maria’. He inhaled greedily, then gripped my fist, like shaking over a peace treaty. He flicked the roach away and it sparked towards the brittle blue of the encroaching dawn. As I gazed at the dwindling stars, wisps of clouds veiled them, like the dry ice; like gunpowder smoke.
* * *
I was blinded by the lung-corroding clouds. After the crazed sprint across the rugged terrain my breathing was desperate. Ahead of me Wilson cast his arm over his shoulder. Seconds later I felt the grenade’s flash. I overtook him, leaping over the ruined machine-gun nest.
There were four youths sprawled along the narrow trench - conscripts, in oversize fatigues, like boys dressed as soldiers for a fancy dress party. It was as if they were asleep, huddled together to keep warm on this sleet-lashed moor. The rest of the platoon followed, casting glances at the enemy, moving on through the drifting mortar smoke like phantoms. We kept our bodies close to the cold earth as fire continued to strafe our position from further up the incline, the rounds cracking in the gloom.
I was aware of someone moaning. I moved closer. One of the enemy caught my eyes with his own glazed eyes. There was a gaping shrapnel wound punched in his chest, crimson seeping into his tunic. He was mumbling to me in Spanish but his mouth kept filling up, as if he’d been gorging on claret. Wincing with the effort he raised his hands towards me.
Despite the violent trembling I noticed words tattooed across the back of the left wrist. Blood seeped from his mouth.
‘Me rindo … por favour … no me mates … Madre de Dios, sálvame …’
Coming towards me on all fours, comically, Lieutenant Cunningham snarled: ‘We need every man to clear this ridge. You get my drift, MacLeod?’
‘Sir?’
Cunningham peered into the boy’s feeble expression. ‘God is with you now’. He turned to me. ‘Private MacLeod. There’s not enough of us to post any guards’.
‘Sir?’
Fifty yards to our left tracer fire pummelled the Argentine positions. I could see the Welsh Guards, darker shapes against the murk, creeping to outflank the enemy.
The officer glared. ‘Do it’.
My heart pummelled. Denying myself time to hesitate, I stepped right up to the enemy, raised my arms towards the junction of nose bridge and eyebrows and saw the grey eyes focussing on the mouth of my SLR. The boy made a feeble attempt to force himself up, like someone nearing the close of a marathon push-up session. He raised his hands towards me. I deciphered the tattooed words.
‘Boca Maradona?’ I mumbled.
‘Si… si … Ma … Maradona …’
Stomping a boot into the right shoulder-blade, I pinned him there, feeling the muscles working as the fingers reached, rigid as claws. At this range he’d splatter me with his blood and bones. So I snatched the weapon with my left hand. In the same movement I tugged my bayonet from its sheath. His eyes wavered on the rifle. I lashed the blade out, plunged it into his throat, hacking it back across his neck. Blood fountained over his skin, his Adam’s Apple slithering out like a battered plum. His eyes rolled backwards and his fingers twitched. Digging the knife into his jacket, I wiped away his stains.
Gunfire came from ahead, the bullets whistling aimlessly over our heads. After a grenade retort they ceased. Cunningham gestured with his revolver. I got down on all fours. I seized the long grass to heave myself onwards, clawing the wet clumps as if it were hair.
* * *
My eyes lingered on the back of Fraser’s head, dropped to his kilt’s folds. I looked at Tricia’s billowing skirt, then watched her girls in their matching outfits, excitably rocking on their feet. The minister invited everyone to pray.
I bowed and shut my eyes. When I prayed I always pictured this. A family gathering around a TV in a cramped apartment in blazing sunshine. They are surrounded by photos of children, grandchildren, births, weddings. Grinning faces bustle around the blu-tacked Madonnas and Sacred Hearts. Amongst the images is a stern teenage boy in khaki; like the images of Mary and Jesus, destined never to age.
Four years after the war over the Atlantic rocks, the world is focussed on Mexico. Maradona is virtually dancing with the ball and these spectators, young and old, female and male, roar him on as he weaves around each Englishman, finally slotting home the greatest goal any of them has ever seen. The mother looks at her son and smiles, convinced that amongst the billions watching this moment, he especially is sharing their triumph.
First published in Bedlam