Cover
About the Book
About the Author
Also by Irvine Welsh
Foreword
Title Page
Epigraph
part one: Lost Empires
1. Another Lost Empire
2. The Scheme
3. The Pursuit Of Truth
4. Leptoptilos Crumeniferus
part two: The City Of Gold
5. Into The City Of Gold
6. Huckled In The City Of Gold
7. Escape From The City Of Gold
8. Trouble In The Hills
9. The Praying Mantis
10. Bernard Visits
part three: On The Trail Of The Stork
11. Casuals
12. Kim Visits
13. Marabou Stork Hunting
14. Winners And Losers
15. The Flamingo Massacres
part four: The Paths Of Self-Deliverance
16. Respect
17. Zero Tolerance
18. Running
19. Miss X’s Confessions
20. Self-Deliverance With A Plastic Bag
21. Facing The Stork
Copyright
Roy Strang is engaged is a strange quest in a surrealist South Africa. His mission is to eradicate the evil predator-scavenger bird, the Marabou Stork, before it drives away the peace-loving flamingo from the picturesque Lake Torto. But behind this world lies another: the world of Roy’s bizarre family, the Scottish housing scheme in which he grew up, his mundane job, a disastrous emigration to Africa, and his youthful life of brutality with a gang of soccer casuals. As one world crashes into the other, this potentially charming story of ornithological goodwill mutates into a filthy tale of violence, abuse and redemption.
Irvine Welsh is the author of twelve works of fiction, most recently Skagboys. He currently lives in Chicago.
The author is grateful for permission to reprint lines from the following:
‘Mad About the Boy’ by Noel Coward © 1932 The Estate of Noel Coward, by kind permission of Michael Imison Playwrights Ltd, 28 Almeida Street, London N1 1TD. ‘Never, Never, Never’ by Tony Renis and Alberto Testa copyright by Italcarish Edizione Musicale S.R.L. Milan © 1973 by Peermusic UK Ltd, London. ‘Big Spender’ by Cy Coleman and Dorothy Fields © 1965, 1969 Notable Music Co & Lida Enterprises, Inc. All rights administered by WB Music Corp, Campbell Connelly & Co Ltd, 8–9 Frith Street, London W1V 5TZ. All rights Reserved. Used by permission. ‘From Russia with Love’ (Lionel Bart) © 1963 EMI Catalogue Partnership / EMI Unart Catalog Inc. USA. ‘Goldfinger’ (Barry/Newley/Bricusse) © 1964 EMI Catalogue Partnership / EMI Unart Catalog Inc. USA., ‘Nobody Does it Better’ (Marvin Hamlisch/Carol Bayer-Sager) © 1977 EMI Catalogue Partnership / EMI U Catalog Inc. USA., ‘Thunderball’ (John Barry / Don Black) © 1966 EMI Catalogue Partnership / EMI Unart Catalog Inc. USA., ‘For Your Eyes Only’ (Bill Conti / Michael Leeson) © 1981 EMI Catalogue Partnership / EMI U Catalog Inc. USA., ‘Diamonds Are Forever’ (John Barry / Leslie Bricusse) © 1971 EMI Catalogue Partnership / EMI Unart Catalog Inc. USA., and ‘You Only Live Twice’ (John Barry / Leslie Bricusse) © 1967 EMI Catalogue Partnership / EMI Unart Catalog Inc. USA. All reprinted by permission of CCP/Belwin Europe, Surrey, England.
Every effort has been made to obtain necessary permissions with reference to copyright material. The publishers apologise if inadvertently any sources remain unacknowledged.
Zero Tolerance
The material used in this book is taken from the Zero Tolerance campaign which originated in Edinburgh. Zero Tolerance is the first campaign to use the mass media to challenge male violence against women and children. The campaign believes that there is no acceptable level of violence against women and children.
Thanks time again. Always first and foremost to Anne, for reasons which you could write all the books in the world about and still not do it the slightest bit of justice.
Then to Kenny McMillan and Paul Reekie for providing me not just with stacks of ideas for this book, but also much of the information I needed to complete it, as well as numerous other East Terracing (now sadly, the East Stand) boys for their specialist info. To Kevin Williamson, Barry Graham and Sandy McNair for casting their beady eyes over the manuscript and providing useful feedback. It goes without saying that the above can’t be held responsible for the many defects, only that such crap bits would have been more numerous without their intervention.
To the City of Munich local authority, without whose generous hospitality this book would not have been so quickly completed.
To all at the publishers, especially Robin Robertson and Nicky Eaton, and Lesley Bryce, the best editor in Western Europe. To Jeff Barratt at Heavenly.
To various pals in Edinburgh, Glasgow, London, Manchester, Amsterdam and other places whom I can always rely upon to drag me into clubs or pubs or onto the terraces for mischief whenever an outbreak of sanity threatens. You know who you are; nice one to each and every one of you.
Nods, winks, hugs and best wishes to all the punters and posses I’ve met up with over the last year at Pure, Yip Yap, Slam, Sativa, Back to Basics, The Ministry, Sabresonic, Desert Storm, The Mazzo, The Roxy, Sunday Social and Rez. Well done to all the DJs for keeping it going.
A very big thanks to my family for not being the one in this book.
Massive respect to all.
Scepticism was formed in Edinburgh two hundred years ago by David Hume and Adam Smith. They said: ‘Let’s take religion to the black man, but we won’t really believe it.’ It’s the cutting edge of trade.
—P.R.
We should condemn more and understand less.
—Major.
It.was.me.and.Jamieson.
Just us.
On this journey, this crazy high-speed journey through this strange land in this strange vehicle.
Just me and Sandy Jamieson.
But they were trying to disturb me, trying to wake me; the way they always did. They willnae let this sleeping dog lie. They always interfere. When the cunts start this shite it makes things get aw distorted and I have to try to go deeper.
Aye right ye are, take your fuckin hand oot ma fuckin erse.
DEEPER
DEEPER - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -Sandy Jamieson is my best friend down here. A former professional sportsman and an experienced hunter of maneating beasts, I enlisted Jamieson’s aid in a quest I have been engaged in for as long as I can remember. However, as my memory is practically non-existent, this could have been a few days ago or since the beginning of time itself. For some reason, I am driven to eradicate the scavenger-predator bird known as the Marabou Stork. I wish to drive this evil and ugly creature from the African continent. In particular, I have this persistent vision of one large blighter, a hideous and revolting specimen, which I know somehow must perish by my own hand.
As with all other events, I have great difficulty in recalling how Sandy Jamieson and I became friends. I do know that he was of great help to me when I first came here, and that is enough. I do not wish to remember where I was before. I am averse to my past; it is an unsavoury blur which I have no wish to attempt to pull into focus. Here and now, Africa and Sandy, they are my present and my future.
I feel a cool breeze in my face and turn to face my companion. He’s in good spirits behind the wheel of our jeep.
—You’ve been at the wheel far too long, Sandy. I’ll take over! I volunteered.
—Wizard! Sandy replied, pulling over by the side of the dusty track.
A large insect settled on my chest. I swatted the blighter. — Yuk! Those insects, Sandy! How positively yucky!
—Absolutely, he laughed, clambering over into the back of the vehicle. — It’ll be great to stretch these damn pins! He smiled, extending his long, tanned muscular legs across the back seat.
I slid into the driver’s seat and started up the jeep.
All Sandy and myself had in the world were this rotten old jeep, some limited supplies and very little money. The majority of our possessions had recently been expropriated by a cunning but somewhat morally deficient native fellow, whom we’d rather foolishly hired as a guide.
For a while we had planned to engage the services of some young native boys, but the undernourished specimens we had encountered had proved to be unappetising prospects … that is, manifestly unfit for the physical demands adventures with Sandy and I would inevitably place upon them. Eventually we secured the services of one shifty urchin who went by the name of Moses. We took this to be a sign of good luck. It proved anything but.
Moses hailed from one of the shanty towns that lined the banks of Lake Torto. While I have to admit that we were not in the position to be able to pay our manservants generously, our behaviour towards Moses scarcely merited the response of this roguish boy: the blighter did a runner with the bulk of our money and supplies.
I find this attitude of ‘something for nothing’ sadly prevalent amongst the non-white races, but I put the blame fairly and squarely on the shoulders of the white colonialists, who by assuming responsibility for GOD THAT
FUCK OFF
—Definitely more of a response that time, Roy. It’s probably just a reflex, though. I’ll try it again … no … nothing this time around.
Naw, cause I’m too quick for youse, you’ll never find ays in here.
DEEPER
DEEPER
DEEPER - - - - - - -Sandy is masturbating in the back of the jeep and she is just laughing … eh … what the fuck’s gaun oan here … what’s she daein here … it’s just supposed tae be Sandy n me … I’m losing control and all I can hear is her laughter and I see her face in the mirror; her face warped and cartoonish as his semen shoots onto her blouse. Her face is like … is like I want to … I’m feeling jealous. Jealous of Jamieson. What I want is for her not to just sit there laughing, not to sit and encourage him; I want to scream, don’t encourage him you fucking slut, but I have to concentrate on the road because I’ve never driven before …
I can’t keep my eyes off Sandy Jamieson. There is a sick tribe of demons lurking behind his generous if gormless facade. I am moved to shout, — You’re a metaphor, Jamieson. You don’t exist outside of me. I can’t be angry with nothing, you’re just a manifestation of my guilt. You’re a projection.
This is ridiculous. Sandy’s my friend. My guide. The best friend I’ve ever had but
But Jamieson now has his penis in her mouth. Its head bubbles her cheek outwards from the inside. It looks horrible, that swelling, that distortion of her face. Sandy’s face, though, is even worse; it reddens and inflates, providing a contrast to his dark, shaven head and the whites around his dark green eyes. — I’m real enough, he gasps, — this rod is in your girlfriend’s head.
In my mirror, while at the same time trying to keep my eyes on the dusty, winding track that they ridiculously refer to as a road, I see a blade come tearing out of her face. Panic sets in as I realise that the vehicle I’m travelling in is a structure now indivisible from my own body and we’re dipping and flipping over, rising upwards in a shuddering rush into a buzzing wall of light. I’m gulping frenziedly at air which is so thick and heavy it feels like water in my lungs. I hear the shrieks of a large, predatory bird soaring past me; so close to my head I can smell the diseased remnants of carrion from it. I regain some sense of control over the vehicle only to find that she’s gone and Jamieson is sitting in the front passenger seat with me.
—It was getting a tad crowded back there, he smiles, gesturing behind us to a trio of Japanese men in business suits who are occupying the back seat. They are excitedly snapping with cameras and speaking in a language which I can’t make out but which doesn’t seem to be Japanese.
This is totally fucked.
Is Sandy the best guide in all of this?
DEEPER
DEEPER
DEEPER
Yes.
I’m starting to feel happier. The deeper I get, the further away from them I get, the happier I feel. Sandy Jamieson’s expression has changed. He is reassuming the persona of a loyal friend and guide rather than that of a sneering adversary. This means I’m back to where they can’t get to me: deep in the realms of my own consciousness.
But they keep trying; even from in here I can feel them. Trying to stick another tube up my arse or something similar, something which constitutes a breach of my personal no no can’t have this … change the subject, keep control.
Control.
Sandy
DEEPER
DEEPER
DEEPER- - - - - - - - - - -Holy Cow! Sandy exclaimed as an unwanted Marabou Stork flew past the passenger window. I knew that it was our bird, but pursuit was difficult, as I had little control over this vehicle. The bird was impossible to follow in flight, but later on we would endeavour to locate its nest on the ground and destroy the beast. As things stood, however, we were coming down slowly, with a strange hydraulic hiss, towards the surface of this tropical, forested terrain.
—I’ve absolutely no control here, Sandy, I defeatedly observed, pulling at levers and pushing at buttons, but to little avail. I threw my hands up in exasperation. I wanted to stay up here. It seemed important not to land.
—Any biscuits left, Roy? Sandy asked eagerly.
I looked at the packet on the dashboard. There were only three left which meant that the greedy blighter had scoffed most of them!
—Gosh Sandy, you’re a Hungry Horace today, I remarked. Sandy gave out a high, clear laugh. — Nerves, I suppose. I don’t particularly want to land, but at least this place might have some proper tuck.
—I hope so! I said.
The craft descended implacably, coming down over what at first seemed to be a small settlement, but which appeared to be expanding continually beyond our line of vision until we saw it as a giant metropolis. We were hovering down into this old stone colonial building which had no roof; only the jagged remnants of glass around the periphery showing where one had been.
I thought that our craft would never squeeze through the gap and braced myself for collision. However, its dimensions seemed to alter to fit the shape it had to go through, and we touched down in a rather splendid hall with some interesting gothic stonework. This was obviously some sort of public building, its grandeur hinting at more affluent times and its poor state of maintenance indicative of a more sordid and less civic present.
—Do you think we’re allowed here, Sandy asked shakily.
—I don’t see why not. We’re explorers, aren’t we, I told him.
As we got out of our car (for this was what the vehicle now seemed to be, a simple family saloon car) we noted the presence of many people, wandering around aimlessly, and taking little notice of us. Some broken glass crunched under my feet. I started to feel more than a wee bitty paranoid, thinking that the natives would perhaps blame us for breaking the roof. While we were innocent, circumstantial evidence could certainly be weighted against us by an unscrupulous and malevolent set of officials in a corrupt regime, which to a greater or lesser extent meant any regime. I had absolutely no intention of getting back into that vehicle, nor, evidently, had Sandy; engaged as he was in the removal of his backpack which contained half our supplies. I followed his lead and swung my own pack over my shoulders.
—Strange little performance this, I noted, turning to Jamieson, who was surveying the scene with increasing distaste. Two white men walked straight past us, completely ignoring us. I was just starting to entertain the possibility that we were invisible when Sandy roared, — This is preposterous! I am a seasoned explorer and a professional footballer! I demand to be treated in a sporting manner!
—It’s okay, Sandy, I smiled, placing a comforting hand on my friend’s shoulder.
This outburst was certainly effective in registering our presence, but only at the expense of generating hostility from some of the citizens present. In particular, one band of youthful roughs were sizing us up.
Gosh and golly.
Damn and fucking blast.
Then I felt something - - - - - - coming
AH FEEL SOMETHING AH FEEL IT BUT YOUSE CUNTS CAN FUCK OFF AND DIE CAUSE YOUSE’LL NO GIT AYS IN HERE YA CUNTS
DEEPER
DEEPER
DEEPER - - - - - - -Let’s scarper Sandy, I nodded, noting that the mood of the mob had turned sour and - - coming up - - oh fuck I’ve lost control again THESE CUNTS’ FAULT, LEAVE AYS ALANE and now I feel the stabbing beak in my arm, it can only be the Marabou Stork but it’s my injection, it’s the chemicals, not ones that dull and chill my brain, not ones that make me forget because with these ones I remember.
Oh my God, what dae ah fuckin well remember …
Lexo said that it was important that we didnae lose our bottle. Nae cunt was tae shite oot; eftir aw, the fuckin hoor asked fir it. She’d’ve goat it fae some cunts anywey the wey she fuckin well carried oan and the fuckin fuss she made. Aye, she goat slapped aroond a bit, but we wir fuckin vindicated, British justice n that. She wis jist in the wrong place at the wrong time n anywey, it wis aw Lexo’s fault …
… change the subject … I don’t want this. I want to keep hunting the Stork. The Stork’s the personification of all this badness. If I kill the Stork I’ll kill the badness in me. Then I’ll be ready to come out of here, to wake up, to take my place in society and all that shite. Ha. They’ll get a fuckin shock, when they see this near-corpse, this package of wasting flesh and bone just rise and say: — Awright chavvy! How’s tricks?
—Awright son!
AW FUCK! THIR HERE. ALWAYS FUCKIN HERE. ALWAYS ASSUMING I WANT THEIR FUCKIN PRESENCE. DAE THEY NO HAVE FUCKING VISITING HOURS HERE?
My father. Nice to see you, Dad. Please, continue, while I doze.
—How ye daein? Eh? Well, that’s us in another final. Disnae seem two whole years since the, eh accident, but enough ay that. Another final! One-nil. Darren Jackson. Ah didnae go masel mind. Tony wis thair. Ah wis gaunny go, bit ah nivir goat a ticket. Saw it oan the telly. Like ah sais, one-nil. Darren Jackson, barry goal n aw. Tony made up a tape ay the commentary, like ah sais, a tape eh made up. Eh Vet?
—Aye.
—Ye goat the tape then?
—What?
—The tape, Vet. Ah’m askin ye, ye goat the tape?
—Tape …
—Whit’s wrong, Vet?
—Thir’s a Jap ower thair, John.
—It’s jist a nurse, Vet, jist a nurse. Probably no even a Jap. Probably a Chinky or somethin. Eh son? Jist a nurse ah’m sayin, son. Eh Roy? Eh that’s right son?
FUCK OFF AND DIE YOU DAFT AULD CUNT
—A nurse …
—Aye, the wee Chinky nurse. Nice lassie. Eh son? Lookin better the day though, son. Mair colour. Like ah sais, eh Vet, like ah sais, Roy’s goat mair colour aboot um.
—They nivir git it. Every other perr bugger gits it, bit they nivir git it.
—Eh?
—AIDS. Ye nivir see Japs wi AIDS. Here wuv goat it. In America thuv goat it. In India thuv goat it. In Africa thuv goat it. Oor Bernard might huv it. No thaim, though. They nivir git it.
—What the fuck ye oan aboot? Chinky nurse … nice wee lassie …
—Ken how? Ken how they nivir git it?
—Vet, this husnae goat nowt tae dae wi …
—Cause they inventit it! They inventit the disease! Soas they could take over the world!
—You fuckin stupit or somethin?! Talkin like that in front ay Roy! Ye dinnae ken what the laddie kin hear, how it effects um! Like ah sais, ye fuckin stupit? Ah’m askin ye! Ye fuckin stupit?
MUMMY DADDY, NICE TO SEE YOU IS IT FUCK DON’T WANT TO SURFACE DON’T WANT TO GET CLOSER TO YOUR UGLY WORLD GOT TO GO DEEPER, DEEPER DOWN, GOT TO HUNT THE STORK, TO GET CONTROL
DEEPER
DEEPER
DEEPER - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -Jamieson.
We’ve somehow given the baying mob the slip and find ourselves on the edge of a run-down shantytown. A huge, festering garbage dump lies alongside a now poisonous lake. Malnourished children play in its squalor. Some of them come over to Sandy and myself, begging without really expecting any results. One little boy, a wild-looking creature with a face as brown as dark chocolate, stares intently at us, never averting his gaze. He is wearing nothing but old, dirty blue shorts and a pair of worn shoes without any socks.
—I say, Roy, what an extraordinary looking creature, Sandy smiled.
—Yes, a funny little thing, I said.
The little boy gave a loud, long laugh and suddenly poured out quite an extended speech. I couldn’t understand a bloody word of it.
—Bantu, I suppose, Sandy said sadly. — Sounds all very splendid and lovely, but I can’t make head nor tail of it!
We gave them some coins and Sandy produced a small bag of sweets. — If we only had a ball, I could do a bit of coaching, get a scratch game up, he said wistfully.
I looked up at the blinding sun. It had been relentless all day, but soon it would retreat behind the green hills which rose up over the Emerald Forest. This was a beautiful spot. This was … my thoughts were distracted by some shouts and the sound of the rattling of tin against the compressed clay track. Jamieson was expertly shielding a Coca-Cola can from the rangy limbs of a group of the local Bantu children. — There you go, you little blighters … it’s all about possession, he told them.
He was forever the sport.
While Sandy’s interest in sports coaching and the development of youth was touching, we had more pressing matters to consider. Our vehicle had been left behind in the civic hall, neither of us caring to travel in anything quite so unreliable. — We need transport, Sandy, I told him, — our Stork must be nesting around here somewhere.
Sandy signalled for the kids to disperse. One tyke, our funny little creature, glared at me in a sulky way. I hated to be the spoilsport, but there was business to take care of.
Sandy crisply and clinically volleyed the can into the rubbish-infested lake, then looked at me and shook his head sadly. — This is not going to be quite as straightforward as you think, Roy. The Storks are dangerous and formidable opponents. We’re alone and isolated in hostile terrain, without any supplies or equipment, he explained. Then he looked at me with a penetrating stare, — Why is slaying that large Marabou so important to you?
Damn and fucking blast.
This made me stop to consider my motives. Oh yes, I could have gone on about the spirit of the hunt. I could have produced a welter of damning evidence of the carnage that these despicable beasts can perpetrate on other wildlife and game; on how they can upset the entire ecology of a region, how they can spread pestilence and disease through the local villages. Certainly, such reasoning would have struck a chord with both Sandy’s sense of adventure and his humanitarian principles.
The problem is it wouldn’t have been true. Moreover, Sandy would have known that I was lying.
I cleared my throat, and turned away from the blinding sun. Feeling a shortness of breath, I felt the words about to evaporate in my throat as I prepared to speak them. I always seem to feel something sticking in my throat. I cough, miraculously finding strength, and carry on. — I can’t really explain, Sandy; not to my own satisfaction, so certainly not to anyone else’s. I just know that I’ve met that Stork before, in a previous life perhaps, and I know that it’s evil. I know that it’s important for me to destroy it.
Sandy stood looking at me for a few seconds, his countenance paralysed with doubt and fear.
—Trust me on this one, mate? I said softly.
His face ignited in a beautiful, expansive smile, and he gave me a powerful hug which I reciprocated. We broke off and gave each other the high-five. — Let’s do the blighter! Sandy smiled, a steely glint of determination entering his eye.
Another two small black children from the football game approached us. Their clothes were in tatters. — Homosexual? One young boy asked. — I suck you off for rand.
Sandy looked down at the crusty lipped urchin. — Things may be bad little one, but selling your body to the white man is not the answer. He ruffled the child’s hair and the boy departed, skipping across the path back down towards the settlement.
We moved on by foot, carrying our backpacks and heading out of the village towards the other side of the lake. The wind had changed direction and the smell from the rubbish was overpowering in the hazy heat. Ugly bugs of varied sizes swarmed around us, forcing us to beat a hasty retreat along the path. We ran until we couldn’t go any further, although I must confess that was the royal ‘we’, for Sandy, as a professional sportsman, had quite an edge on me in fitness and stamina, and could probably have stuck it out a bit longer.
We set up camp with our provisions, enjoying a feast in a shady glade by the more picturesque side of the lake. We opened our packs to examine their contents.
—Mmmm! Pork pie; homemade of course, said Sandy.
—And what’s this … golly, it’s a cheese! How enormous. Smell it, Sandy, it’s enough to make you want to start eating straight away!
—Gosh, I can’t wait to get my mouth around that, Sandy smiled, — And that homemade bread! Can’t we start?
—No, there are new-laid boiled eggs to begin with, I laughed.
—Gosh, all we’re missing is some homemade apple pie and ice-cream, Sandy smiled, as we tucked in to our feast. Then, suddenly inspired, he turned to me and said, — I’ve got it, Roy! What we need is sponsorship! Somebody to fund this Stork hunt. I know a chap who’ll sort us out with provisions. He runs the Jambola Safari Park, access to which is a few miles’ trek on the west side of the lake.
I knew instantly whom Sandy was talking about. — Dawson. Mr Lochart Dawson.
—You know him?
I shrugged non-committally. — I know of him. Then again, most people know of Lochart Dawson. He sees to that.
—Yes, he has a flair for self-publicity, does our Lochart, Sandy said, his tone implying an affectionate familiarity. I then recalled that Sandy mentioned that he’d previously been in the employ of Dawson.
Sandy was correct about the self-publicity; you just couldn’t keep Dawson out of the news. He was currently planning on expanding his park by taking over an adjacent leisure reserve. Whether in the long term Dawson actually envisaged any animals in what he described as the ‘superpark’ was more open to conjecture. He had made his money in the development of property, and there were more profitable uses for land in this region than a Safari Park. Nonetheless, Dawson could be useful.
—We’d have a smashing time at old Dawson’s, I said eagerly.
—I’ll bet he’s got enough food to feed an army! Sandy agreed.
Suddenly we were interrupted by a chorus of frenetic squawking. We looked back, and I saw them. Although one or two social groupings could be evidenced, they were largely standing in isolation from each other, in the rubbish by the lakeside. Some squatted on their breasts, others paced slowly at a short distance. One large devil; it must have had a wing span of around eighty and weighed about nine kilos, turned its back to the sun and spread its wings, exposing those spare filamentous black feathers.
The beast’s throat patch was reddish; it had scabs of warty dried blood on the base of its large, conical bill; its legs were stained white with dried excrement. It was the large, bulky scavenger-predator known as the Marabou Stork. More importantly, it was our one.
—Look Sandy, once again I felt my words dry in my throat, as I pointed across the lake to the mountain of rubbish and the large bird.
The sheer evil power of the creature emanating from its deathly eyes shook us to the marrow.
—Come ahead then, ya fuckin wide-os! It squawked.
I felt sick and faint.
Sandy looked pretty fazed.
—Look Roy, we need more hardware to take on that bastard. Its bill must be razor sharp, containing the venom and poison of rotting carcasses: one scratch could be fatal. Let’s see Dawson. His resort was once plagued by these beasts, but he found a way to sort them out.
THESE BEASTS ARE KILLERS. THEY ARE INTERESTED ONLY IN MAYHEM. THEY CARE NOTHING FOR THE GAME …
Like yir Ma sais, that’s us sayin cheerio. See ye the morn though son. Ah’ll be in in the morn. CHEERIO ROY!
Aye, aye, aye. He’s always so fuckin loud. Ah’m no fuckin deef, ya cunt! Sometimes ah just feel it would be so much fuckin easier tae just open my eyes and scream: FUCK OFF!
—The min-it choo walked in the joint dih-dih, I could see you were a man of dis-tinc-tyin, a real big spender …
What the fuck is this? Ma. She’s finally fuckin blown it.
—… good loo-kin, so ree-fined …
—What ur ye daein Vet? Whit the fuck ye playin at?
—Bit mind they sais John, mind they sais that ah could sing tae um. The doaktirs said. Ken, wi the music hittin a different part ay the brain. That’s how wi bring in the tapes, John. Ah jist thoat this wid mean mair tae the laddie, likesay a live performance. Mind eh eywis liked ays singing Big Spender whin eh wis a bairn?
—Aye, well music n singin, that’s different like. Different sort ay things. That’s jist singing you’re daein. Ye couldnae really call it music, Vet. Like ah sais, ye couldnae really call it music.
—Bit ah could git Tony tae play the guitar. Make up a tape ay me singin Big Spender, fir the laddie’s cassette player, John. Ah could dae that, John.
OH FUCKIN HELL, GOD PRESERVE US …
I could tell that my Ma was upset, and they had another blazing argument. I was relieved when they departed. So fuckin relieved. Even now they embarrass me. Even in here. I’ve nothing to say to them; I don’t think anything of them. I never really had, besides I was anxious to get back to Sandy and our pursuit of the Stork. I hear a different voice now though, a sort of fluffy feminine voice, the voice of Nurse Patricia Devine. —That’s the visitors away now, Roy.
Her voice is soft, mildly arousing. Maybe I’ll get a bit of love interest into my little fantasy, a bit a shagging into things no no no there will be no shagging because that’s what caused aw this fuckin soapy bubble in the first place and I’m being turned over in my decaying organic vehicle, and I can feel the touch of Patricia Devine.
Can I feel her touch, or do I just think I can? Did I really hear my parents or was it all my imagination? I know not and care less. All I have is the data I get. I don’t care whether it’s produced by my senses or my memory or my imagination. Where it comes from is less important than the fact that it is. The only reality is the images and texts.
—There’s nothing of you, she says to me cheerfully. I can feel the frost in the air. The staff nurse has given Patricia Devine a dirty look for making a negative comment in front of the veg. Me who used to weigh thirteen and a half stone, too. At one time I was heading for Fat Hell, (Fathell, Midlothian, population 8,619) with a fat wife, fat kids and a fat dog. A place where the only thing thin is the paycheque.
Now I can hear that ‘Staff’ has departed leaving me with the simply Devine Patricia. Patricia is possibly an old hound, but I like to think of her as young and lovely. The concept adds quality to my life. Not a lot of things do at the moment. Only I add the quality. As much or as little as I want. If only they’d just fuckin leave ays tae get on with it. I don’t need their quality, their world, that fucked-up place which made me the fucked-up mess I was. Down here in the comforts of my vegetative state, inside my secret world I can fuck who I want, kill who I please, no no no nane ay that no no no I can do the things I wanted to do, the things I tried to do, up there in the real world. No comeback. Anyway, this world’s real enough to me and I’ll stay down here out of the way, where they can’t get to me, at least until I work it all out.
It hasn’t been so easy recently. Characters and events have been intruding into my mind, psychic gatecrashers breaking in on my private party. Imposing themselves. Like Jamieson, and now this Lochart Dawson. Somehow, though, this has given me a sense of purpose. I know why I’m in here. I’m here to slay the Stork. Why I have to do this I do not know. I know that I need help, however, and I know that Jamieson and Dawson are my only potential allies in this quest.
This is what I have instead of a life.
I grew up in what was not so much a family as a genetic disaster. While people always seem under the impression that their household is normal, I, from an early age, almost as soon as I was aware, was embarrassed and ashamed of my family.
I suppose this awareness came from being huddled so close to other households in the ugly rabbit hutch we lived in. It was a systems built, 1960s maisonette block of flats, five storeys high, with long landings which were jokingly referred to as ‘streets in the sky’ but which had no shops or pubs or churches or post offices on them, nothing in fact, except more rabbit hutches. Being so close to those other families, it became impossible for people, as much as they tried, to keep their lives from each other. In stairs, on balconies, in communal drying areas, through dimpled-glass and wire doors, I sensed that there was a general, shared quality kicking around which we seemed to lack. I suppose it was what people would call normality.
All those dull broadsheet newspaper articles on the scheme where we lived tended to focus on how deprived it was. Maybe it was, but I’d always defined the place as less characterised by poverty than by boredom, although the relationship between the two is pretty evident. For me, though, the sterile boredom outside my house was preferable to the chaos inside it.
My old man was a total basket case; completely away with it. The old girl, if anything, was worse. They’d been engaged for yonks but before they were due to get married, she had a sort of mental breakdown, or rather, had her first mental breakdown. She would have these breakdowns intermittently until it got to the stage it’s at now, where it’s hard to tell when she’s not having one. Anyway, while she was in the mental hospital she met an Italian male nurse with whom she ran away to Italy. A few years later she returned with two small children, my half-brothers Tony and Bernard.
The old boy, John, had got himself engaged to another woman. This proved that there were at least two crazy females in Granton in the early sixties. They were due to be married when my Ma, Vet (short for Verity), reappeared in the lounge bar of The Anchor public house. As Dad was to remark often: Ah jist looked acroass n met yir Ma’s eyes n the auld magic wis still thair.
That was that. Vet told John she’d got the travelling out of her system, that he was the only man she’d ever loved and could they please get married.
John said aye, or words to that effect, and they tied the knot, him taking on the two Italian bambinos whom Vet later confessed were from different guys. I was born about a year after the wedding, followed about a year later by my sister Kim, and my brother Elgin, who arrived a year later again. Elgin got his name from the Highland town where John reckoned he was conceived.
Yes, we were a far from handsome family. I suppose I got off relatively lightly, though I stress relatively. While my own face and body merely suggested what people in the scheme would, whispering, refer to as ‘the Strang look’, Kim and Elgin completely screamed it. ‘The Strang look’ was essentially a concave face starting at a prominent, pointed forehead, swinging in at a sharp angle towards large, dulled eyes and a small, squashed nose, down into thin, twisted lips and springing outwards to the tip of a large, jutting chin. A sort of retarded man-in-the-moon face. My additional crosses to bear: two large protruding ears which came from my otherwise normal-looking mother, invisible under her long, black hair.
My older half-brothers were more fortunate. They took after my mother, and, presumably their Italian fathers. Tony looked a little like a darker, swarthier version of the footballer Graeme Souness, though not so ugly; despite being prone to putting on weight. Bernard was fair, slim and gazelle-like, outrageously camp from an early age.
The rest of us took ‘the Strang look’ from the old man, who, as I’ve said, was an A1 basket case. John Strang’s large, striking face was dominated by thickly framed glasses with bottom-of-Coke-bottle lenses. These magnified his intense, blazing eyes further. They had the effect of making him look as if he was coming from very far away then suddenly appearing right in your face. It was scary and disconcerting. If you were in possession of a Harrier Jump-jet, you could have chosen either his chin or forehead as a landing pad. He generally wore a large brown fur coat, under which he carried his shotgun when he patrolled the scheme late at night with Winston, his loyal Alsatian. Winston was a horrible dog and I was glad when he died. He was instantly replaced by an even more vicious beast of the same breed, who also rejoiced in the name Winston.
I later had cause to be less than pleased at the first Winston’s demise; the second one savaged me badly. I was about eight, and watching a Superboy cartoon on the television. I decided that Winston Two was Krypto the Superdog and I tied a towel to his collar to simulate Krypto’s cape. The dog freaked out and turned on me, savaging my leg so badly that I needed skin grafts and walk with a slight limp to this day … only now I don’t walk at all.
I feel a spasm of hurt at that realisation. Remembering hurts.
—Dinnae tell nae cunt it wis Winston, Dad threatened and pleaded. He was terrified in case they took the dog away. I said it was an unprovoked attack by some of the strays which congregated on the wasteland adjacent to our block. It made the local paper and the Tory council, who hated spending the snobby ratepayers’ money on anything to do with our scheme, grudgingly sent an environmental health van over to round up the savage pack-beasts for extermination. I spent four months off the school, which was the best part of it.
As a kid I did the normal things kids in the scheme did: played fitba and Japs and commandos, mucked about on bikes, caught bees, hung around stairs bored, battered smaller/weaker kids, got battered by bigger/stronger kids. At nine years old I was charged by the polis for playing football in the street. We were kicking a ball around in a patch of grass outside the block of flats we lived in. There were no NO BALL GAMES signs up, but we should have known, even at that age, that as the scheme was a concentration camp for the poor; this like everything else, was prohibited. We were taken up to court where my mate Brian’s dad made a brilliant speech and embarrassed the judge into admonishing us. You could see the polis looking like tits.
—A fuckin common criminal at the age ay nine, my Ma used tae moan. — Common criminal.
It’s only in retrospect I realise that she was fucked up because the auld man was away at the time. She used to say that he was working, but Tony told us that he was in the jail. Tony was awright. He battered me a few times, but he also battered anybody who messed with me, unless they were his mates. Bernard I hated; he just stayed in the hoose and played with my wee sister Kim aw the time. Bernard was like Kim; Bernard was a girl.
I loved catching bees in the summer. We’d fill auld Squeezy detergent bottles with water and skoosh the bee as it sucked at the nectar on the flower. The trick was to train a couple of jets on the bee at the same time and blast it to fuck, the water weighing down its wings. We’d then scoop the drenched bees into a jar and then dig little prison cells for them in the softer material between the sections of brick at the ramp at the bottom of our block of flats. We used ice-lolly sticks as the doors. We had a concentration camp, a tiny Scottish housing scheme, for bees.
One of my pals, Pete, had a magnifying glass. It was great getting a shot of it. I used to like to burn the bees’ wings, making them easier prisoners. Sometimes I burned their faces. The smell was horrible, the smell of burning bee. I wanted the glass. I swapped Pete an Action Man that had no arms for his magnifying glass. I had earlier swapped the Action Man fae Brian for a truck.
I was embarrassed when any of the other kids came roond to the hoose. Most of them seemed to have better hooses than us, it was like we were scruffs. That’s how I knew the old man was in the jail, there was only my Ma’s wages for doing the school dinners and the cleaning. Thank fuck my Ma did the dinners at a different school than the one I went to.
Then my Dad came back. He got work in security and started daein the hoose up. We got a new fireplace with plastic coals and twirly things inside a plastic funnel which made it look like heat rising. It was really just an electric bar fire but. My Dad was a wright at first; I remember he took me to Easter Road for the fitba. He left me and Tony and Bernard and my cousin Alan in my Uncle Jackie’s car ootside a pub. They bought us coke and crisps. When they came out they were pished from drinking beer and they got us pies and Bovril and mair crisps at the fitba. I was bored with the fitba, but I liked getting the pies and crisps. The backs of my legs got sair, like when my Ma took us tae Leith Walk tae the shops.
Then I got a bad battering fae my Dad and had to go to the hospital for stitches. He hit the side of my head and I fell over and split it on the edge of the kitchen table. Six stitches above the eye. It was barry having stitches. The auld man didn’t understand that it was only clipshers I put in Kim’s hair. — It wis jist clipshers, Dad, I pleaded. — Clipshers dinnae sting.
Kim just gret and gret like fuck. She wouldnae stop. It was only clipshers as well. Just clipshers. It’s no as if it was bees. They have these pincers at the back, but they dinnae sting. I think Devil’s Coach-Horses or Earwigs were their real names.
—Look at hur! Look what yuv fuckin well done tae yir sister ya silly wee cunt! He gestured tae Kim, whose already distorted face twisted further in contrived terror. The auld man thumped me then.
I had to tell everyone at the casualty that I was mucking aboot wi Tony and I fell. I had headaches for a long time eftir that.
I remember once watching my Ma, Vet, scrubbing the tartan nameplate on the door of our maisonette flat. Somebody had added an ‘E’ to our name. Dad and my Uncle Jackie went around the stair cross-examining terrified neighbours. Dad was always threatening to shoot anybody who complained about us. Other parents therefore always told their kids not to play with us, and all but the craziest ones complied.
If the neighbours were terrified of my Dad and Uncle Jackie, who was really just Dad’s mate but we called him ‘Uncle’, they were also pretty wary of my Ma. Her father or grandfather, I could never remember