GUILT TRIPPER Read online

  “Come on then, tell me!”

  “I’d been plucking up the courage to finish the relationship months before your mother fell ill. Then I postponed my actions because of the stroke. I stuck with you for another six, hard months…and they were hard because I was forcing myself, trying to convince myself it was right so as to avoid hurting you any further. So don’t you dare call me selfish! You’re not the only person who makes sacrifices you know!”

  “So it was all a lie then?”

  “No! But I couldn’t put up with your ugliness any more.”

  “Oh thanks.”

  “Not physical ugliness, ugly personality traits…traits that were destroying me.”

  “Go on,” Danny’s voice was quavering now with emotion.

  “Your stubborn inflexibility on love is reflected in your politics, your morals, even in your art for God’s sake. Your all or nothing crusade…well, it’s not natural…it’s suffocating! At first it was really attractive. I was a young drama student and your views helped me to view the world differently — something essential to my acting that I’m forever indebted to you for. But as your opinions kept going round on a loop, while the rest of the world was changing all about us, you started becoming a parody of yourself. You had all this anger at the human race and it was caught up in a non-productive, vicious cycle. Put bluntly, you were a miserable bastard and you were making me miserable too. I mean this in all honesty Danny: it disappoints me that you haven’t changed.”

  There was a long silence. Judith tensed up, mindful not to make any noise which might betray her eavesdropping.

  “So why did you go with Bob then?”

  “Some of what you say is true, of course. But again, only you could portray positive things in such a negative way. Yes, Bob’s ambition and success are important to me. We’ve been together for eight years, not because of ‘love’ but because we’re compatible. We share needs and aspirations. We can travel together. See, Bob’s not an absolutist like you. He doesn’t shout at me because I state an opinion he doesn’t believe in. We have dialectical conversations. We work together...You know, Danny, you’re a very intelligent man, but there’s no beauty in being right all the time. I mean, why is it that all your wisdom is so negative? Most of us ignorant people go hunting for goodness among the horror, but you already know there’s no goodness and so you search for horror to bolster your case.”

  There was an intense silence before Ingrid spoke again, trying to mitigate any upset she’d caused. “Will you come inside for a lemonade or something?”

  “No, it’s best I get off.”

  “You’ve got to move forward…start being positive… come on, eh?”

  Judith removed her heels and tip-toed downstairs, wincing at the crackling sound made by grains of chipped stone beneath her feet. Outside, she went to get a well-earned cigarette from her handbag, only to discover that she’d left it in the party. When she returned, she found Danny encircled by old friends in the kitchen, where he cut a startling contrast in his market clothes. However, everyone seemed genuinely delighted to see him, but refrained from being too demonstrative, due the presence of Bob. The latter stared down at the floor, which was understandable considering the circumstances. Being forced to stand with his former best friend, whose girlfriend he’d stolen, must have been excruciating.

  Judith weaved her way to the far corner of the kitchen and reclaimed her handbag from near the ice filled sinks. On turning round again she jolted. A dark haired, brooding character called Herman was leering at her from the periphery of the circle surrounding Danny, oblivious that he was himself under surveillance. Among the babbling crowd over his shoulder, a small, skinny girl with long, red curly locks stared at him in a sort of obsessive trance, until the sound of exploding glass brought the whole party to an abrupt halt. Seething with jealousy at the attention being lavished on his rival, Bob Fitzgerald had hurled a champagne flute at the architrave of the door, showering those in its vicinity with small pieces of glass, before barging out. Of course, Ingrid ran after him and neither would be seen again that night. They’d booked into a plush hotel in town until the Monday anyway, so as to recover from their hangovers while the cleaners tidied the apartment.

  CHAPTER: 3

  The following Tuesday morning, Judith took the roof down on her Aquarius blue, Volkswagen Beetle and started for home, driving in warm sunshine, across the city centre’s sloping gridiron of fine Victorian buildings. Coming out along Duke Street in the East End, she passed the Great Eastern Hotel: a homeless hostel in a former garments factory, six sandstone floors high and thirty windows long. Around its front steps, a dozen young men wearing jogging trousers, matted fleeces and baseball caps were congregated, smoking cigarettes and drinking from a can of strong beer, a one legged character among them on crutches. While passing, Judith did a double take. A bespectacled figure in an old brown suit had just come out of the doors and was making his way down the steps through the huddle, sucking on a roll up cigarette. She slowed down until he drew level then cruised alongside him.

  “Dickens?”

  Dickens stopped to stare into the now stationary vehicle, then, realizing who it was, rolled his eyes and carried on. Judith felt sorry for the guy because of the condescending, if not downright nasty manner in which the Oran Mor crew had treated him. He’d obviously taken great offence to their mocking and, she reckoned his rudeness now was due to him associating her with them. So, feeling guilty, she gave it another go and cruised alongside him once more.

  “Dickens, can I give you a lift somewhere?”

  Dickens stopped dead in his tracks, turned, tugged on his roll-up then sighed heavily, filling Judith’s face with Old Holborn tobacco smoke.

  “I’m on my way to Herman’s – to do his garden,” he said glumly, like a sulking schoolboy.

  The mere mention of this name seemed to paralyse Judith with fear.

  “Err…I can err…I can drop you there,” she replied, hesitantly.

  Dickens climbed into the car, which now had a hooting traffic jam behind it. Following his directions, Judith drove across the River Clyde to a leafy part of Pollokshields, where sandstone villas and Baronial mansions stood set back from the road. On learning that Herman had already left for a hospital appointment, she accepted her passenger’s invitation to a cup of tea and followed him into a seven bed-roomed, blonde-stone gothic pile, complete with conical roofed corner turret. While he made drinks in a kitchen the size of most people’s apartments, she perused the sepia photos on the oak panelled hallway walls, where she was a little perturbed to find all twelve were of Bob Fitzgerald singing.

  Dickens led the way out through some French doors to a wrought iron table and chairs on the terrace, carrying bone china crockery on a silver tray. While he poured the tea, Judith wiped the creases from her white cotton summer dress then sat down to admire the olive and emerald green stripes of the long, sweeping lawn.

  “I suppose you want to know how I came to be at the Great Eastern?” Dickens asked, perceptively.

  Judith shrugged her shoulders, embarrassed by his insight.

  It transpired that Dickens had been abandoned as a baby and spent his formative years in care. Since then, if he wasn’t backpacking or sleeping in a tent, he’d resorted to the hostels. He’d spent the previous summer dossing in the Scottish Highlands and, on his way back to England, had wandered into Glasgow and a little bar called The Mitre. The place was packed with arty types from all over Scotland, who met there every six months to discuss their ‘movement’. Dickens had merely been an anonymous onlooker, but people kept enquiring about what he did and where they’d seen him. He’d never been noticed before without deliberately courting attention, so for people as important as writers and painters to see value where he felt there was none, was flattering. It was the night he’d first seen Bob Fitzgerald, stood alone in the corner, perusing his fellow artists with disdain. On spotting Dickens, though, he’d made a beeline for the drifter, who, desperate n
ot to jeopardise this newfound attention, had introduced himself as a writer. Indeed, from that moment on, Dickens had been masquerading as a man of literature, hence the nickname which he only now recognised as Oran Mor sarcasm. Writing, he’d thought, was the easiest way to fit in. Anybody could pick up a pen, whereas painting and music took years to learn and he couldn’t afford the equipment for photography.

  Dickens had deluded himself that these artists could be like the family he’d never known, with Bob as a father figure. But, he told Judith, he should have learned long ago that such things never could be, having made the same mistake time and again throughout his thirty years — working on a fairground, running with football hooligans and even living with new-age travellers.

  Dickens explained how he’d never had time for his carers. He’d constantly run away from homes in search of unconditional love, or at least people to want him for who he was, not simply because he was the vehicle to a pay packet. Paradoxically, though, he was constantly pretending to be somebody he wasn’t in order to attract that love. For example, he reckoned he’d never enjoyed violence, but was always the first one into fights at football matches, often at the expense of a broken nose or rib, in order to impress the older, ‘top boys’. He reminisced about their post combat hugs of approval.

  “And it’s exactly the same now, pretending I’m a writer so they’ll like me.” Dickens pulled the rimless glasses from his big, beaklike nose and skimmed them into a nearby pear tree. “There’s absolutely nothing wrong with my eyesight — I just thought it gave me a bit of a WB Yeats look.”

  Judith was grateful for this light relief, laughing away some of the embarrassment that confidantes often have to endure.

  “As you’ve probably noticed, they’ve all sussed me out,” Dickens continued. “Some bastard must have told them where I live. You should have seen the way they used to treat me when they thought I was the next Alasdair Grey, compared to how they mock me now. I’m a laughing stock.”

  “No!” Judith grabbed Dickens’s hand across the table to reassure him, even though she knew he was right.

  “As soon as possible, I’m leaving Glasgow for good.”

  “But why throw it all away just when their getting to know you for who you really are…the thing you claim to want above all else?”

  “Yes, I want people to like me for who I am, but these people only like you for what you’ve got. No, the more they get to know me the less I’m respected.”

  She couldn’t argue. Their lack of respect for Dickens was written in neon lights for everyone to see.

  “How come you’re doing Herman’s gardening then?” Judith asked, trying to change the subject.

  “So I can raise the funds to get out of here. If I do all the flower borders he’ll give me a hundred quid.”

  She scanned the expansive lawn. It was a big job.

  “Do the two of you talk much?”

  “Talk? Herman?” Dickens pulled a bewildered expression. “Herman talks to nobody.”

  “Not even to Bob?”

  “Not even to him.”

  “Then how come he hangs around with him? I mean, how did they meet?”

  Dickens shrugged his shoulders, “I’m damned if I know. Herman used to turn up very occasionally at Oran Mor to see Bob, who always looked embarrassed by the guy and got him out of there pronto. Ingrid and the other girls were petrified of him, coz he used to just sit in silence, staring at everyone. Then, all of a sudden, he and Bob became inseparable. Wherever Bob goes Herman’s there, even though it pisses the others off…To be honest I think he’s a bit of an imbecile. He’s only got this place coz it was inherited from his parents.”

  Just then, somebody appeared behind Judith. She turned to find the redheaded girl from the party standing on the terrace, looking extremely nervous.

  “Oh…I’m really sorry to disturb you…I’m err, I’m looking for Herman?” She spoke with a trembling, honeyed Surrey accent.

  “He’s not here at the moment,” Judith replied. “Is there anything I can do?” She asked this because the girl looked so perturbed, haunted even. “Would you like some tea?”

  As the girl put the palm of one hand against her stressed brow and shook her head, a tear ran down her left cheek. Judith shot up immediately to put an arm around her slight, quivering frame. As she did so, Dickens gave them some privacy, taking off up the garden on a motorized lawnmower, sucking on another roll up.

  Once Judith had got the young girl sat down at the table and given her a big hug, drying her tears for her with a hanky, she began opening up.

  “At the party I couldn’t quite grasp where I’d seen Herman before. It wasn’t until Sunday afternoon that it suddenly hit me.” The girl stopped talking, seemingly reluctant to carry on.

  “What? What suddenly hit you?” Judith probed.

  “This is a little awkward for me. Promise, promise, promise you won’t tell anybody what I’m about to say.”

  Judith took both of the girl’s hands with her own. “I promise.”

  “Last year, I spent a night trying to be a prostitute…I can’t believe I did it, but I had no money and was determined not to ask my parents for any help. You see, I’m trying to divorce myself from them, from their ideas, from their expectations…from everything, so that I can finally be my own person.” At this point she made a limp hand gesture, dismissing the tangent she was racing off on. “I say ‘trying’ because in the end I just couldn’t go through with it. I got into a car with some guy, but when we pulled up at Glasgow Green for the business, I sprang out of the passenger seat and ran as fast as my legs would carry me.” She gripped hold of Judith’s arm as if pleading to be understood. “That same night, one of the girls was beaten almost to death. I was the last person to see her out of a wheelchair.” She raised her eyebrows ashamedly. “She was getting into a Mercedes — with Herman. I came round to confront him myself… thought it best to get his side of the story before doing anything rash.”

  “Why don’t you just ring the police?” Judith asked, confounded.

  “Would you if it meant the whole world thinking you were a prostitute?”

  “There’s no need to tell them that and, besides, you’re not are you?”

  “Oh, and you think that’ll make any difference to some defence barrister? By the time they’ve finished with me I’ll be Madam Whiplash.”

  “But what if he does it to somebody else?”

  Sighing deeply, the girl took a phone from her jeans pocket.

  “You’re absolutely right. It’ll be good to get it off my conscience once and for all. That’s one of the things I wanted to talk to somebody about. It’s been bad enough keeping this to myself for so long, but now I know who it is – Christ!”

  The police said they’d send someone round to the girl’s apartment within the hour and Judith agreed to go along and provide moral support. Before leaving, she went down onto the lawn and said farewell to Dickens, though kept him in the dark concerning their intruder’s revelation.

  “Thanks for the tea. I’m really glad I met you.” She gave him a warm hug and kissed him on the cheek. “I love you Dickens.”

  This was said in a platonic way, but it was obvious that Dickens, so starved of affection all his life, saw something there that wasn’t.

  Judith’s new acquaintance lived in a one-bedroom apartment in Mount Florida, on a steep street of blonde sandstone tenements, whose bow windows created a wonderful ripple effect. Judith had assumed it was in the process of being redecorated, until the occupant confessed it had never looked any different in the two years she’d been living there. The walls were bare but for the odd stubborn patch of patterned wallpaper, and there were no carpets, just rough floorboards. Indeed, the only décor in the living room was an old chintz patterned couch and a portable TV on top of a crate. Nobody would have guessed that this pasty girl, called Angie, was the daughter of wealthy parents down in London; her father a City hedge-fund manager; her mother a novelist. But this
was because she’d divorced herself from them and their middle class ways, intending to plough her own path, free from accusations of ‘privilege’ every time she achieved something under her own steam. Not only had she changed her surname by deed poll, but turned down a place at Oxford University — where both her parents and her two elder sisters had graduated with first class degrees — for Glasgow instead.

  Angie told Judith all this in the three hours it took for a Detective Chief Inspector to arrive. He introduced himself, but the women were too stressed by his accusatory stare to comprehend his name. Once he’d confirmed that Angie did indeed want to talk about the attempted murder of a Miss Carina Curran, he gestured for her to take a seat alongside Judith, as if he owned the apartment. Once she got started there was no holding her. In fact, on several occasions he had to ask her to slow down. He wasn’t taking notes, just listening with blank inscrutability. This caused Angie to keep repeating herself, in the futile hope he’d acknowledge that what she was saying was being heard or, more importantly, believed.

  CHAPTER: 4

  Judith left Angie’s shortly after the detective. Her travel schedule ruined, she thought she may as well visit Danny, whom she’d been ringing to no avail ever since the party, worried about his feelings in the wake of Ingrid’s appraisal on the landing. Having driven back across town and into the more neglected side of Glasgow, she turned onto the field of flattened earth, where she caught her first sight of thick grey smoke, billowing from somewhere among the derelict tenements up ahead. Reaching the junction for Danny’s street, her way was blocked by a police squad car, parked across the road, blue light flashing. Kids on bikes were hurtling into the street unobstructed, so she abandoned her vehicle and jogged behind, towards the dark mist and deep buzzing sound of fire engines. Reaching the outer ring of what must have been fifty onlookers — many dressed in black — she heard an exasperated voice through a loud hailer, repeatedly imploring people to move back. Standing on tip-toes, she caught her first glimpse of violent flames, but it was impossible to tell from which part of the building they were coming exactly because of the smoke, and so it took another whole minute before her worst fears got confirmed. It was Danny’s apartment.