1. On The Buses

"Don't let her kiss you."


"Sorry?"


"Don't let her kiss you!!"


"Why not?"


Karen looked at me like a mother telling her son why he shouldn't stick a screwdriver in an electrical socket.


"Just don't. She'll have you for breakfast."


"Breakfast is an important meal" I said, before smugly turning to look out the window of the bus.


"Yeah, but you've got no idea who she has lined up for lunch and dinner."


"Oh c'mon........... I'm a big boy. Besides, who says she's that interested in me. She seems like a decent sort. Funny, clever, unconventional. Not my sort at all.............."
"If I was a bloke, I'd go for her" she said absently.


I raised an eyebrow and turned the other way, staring at an Asian woman trying to get her buggy and children down the stairs from the top deck and off the bus, a queue of impatient, uptight citizens silently cursing in her wake. I stared at the floor and counted cigarette butts, then looked up again.


"Makes you a lezzer then" I said, not quite as under my breath as I had intended.


The force of her hand on the back of my head took me by surprise and my forehead took a whack against the steel bar that constituted the back of the seat in front. I stared daggers at her as she took her turn to look smugly out of the window.


"Violence is most unbecoming of a lady" I said weakly


"Tell it to a lady then, you little tit!"


My stop arrived soon after and I got up to leave in silence. Karen gave me the finger and a placid smile as I descended the stairs.


Her way of telling me to 'take care'.


It was much appreciated.

2. Sex & So On...

The taxi eventually arrived and we left the night and the 3am chill of the city centre behind us. I sank down into my seat as Elaine gave the driver our destination, then she sank back with me, her head dropping to nestle on my shoulder. After a few minutes, I felt her lips and warm breath tracking up and down and from side to side on my neck, starting work on me again . I pulled away slightly and looked at her apologetically.

"Easy there missus!"

"Aw! I thought you liked that." she said, looking slightly baffled.

"I do, it's just........" I trailed off and looked out the window. After a few seconds I turned to look at her again with nothing more than a shrug and a sigh.

"I understand. Not here" she said with a nod. "Look, it's ok Jim. Just relax, we've got all night....."

With that she put her head back on my shoulder, and stared ahead, as our Turkish taxi driver sped through south side streets that were almost totally unfamiliar to me. He said nothing, save for an inquiry about whether we should turn left or right at one point, but beyond that he gave nothing away. Good for him, not enough taxi drivers had their verbal diarrhoea in such good check.

"So, how far now?" I asked her absently.

"Five minutes pet" she replied, squeezing me reassuringly.

I felt a strange mixture of comfort and embarrassment at her response. I hadn't been called 'pet' since I was about seven years old, yet there was something about the dream-like chaos of the past two hours that had set me a little on edge and her serenity was beginning to put me a little more at ease. I squeezed her back and I stared dead ahead into those green-blue eyes. We slowly and discreetly fell into each other and all remaining memories, tension, and bad karma I had been carrying started to drift away into the aether.

The cab crested a rise in the road and Elaine broke away, sat forward and pointed out to the driver where she wanted us dropped off. We fished about for cash to pay the cabbie, then clambered out onto the damp streets of Rutherglen. I only had a the vaguest idea of where we were in relation to any place I knew. I recognised nothing of my surroundings as we walked to Elaine's flat and I concluded that I had left any sense of direction I possessed behind me, somewhere at the bottom of Union Street.

I didn't mind. Where I was going, I wouldn't need it.

3. Rude Awakenings

"Jim, eyes open love"

A gentle pressure on my shoulder and a soft voice in the pre-conscious fog. I ignored it.

"Jim! C'mon, You need to get up"

The voice had hardened a little. Still calm and patient, but I knew who it belonged to now. I felt Elaine's weight on the other side of the bed and I turned to watch her. The room looked cluttered but homely, though I'd had little time to take any of it in the previous night when the two of us had stumbled into into bed, haphazardly undressing as we went. Route one stuff. There were interesting body parts to be explored, a crazy, insanely passionate tangle of limbs that didn't sort itself out for a good half hour.

She had her back to me and was sliding on some garment or other. My brain was still in neutral, and would be for at least another hour.

"Where are you off to?" I said, trying not to sound desperate or worried.

"Nowhere just yet" she said without looking up from what she was doing. My eyes followed her in the half darkness as she walked round the end of the bed towards the curtains, opening them with a quick jerk. The light streaming through the window punched a hole in my half open eyelids, scorching the image of the window pane and the rest of the room onto the back wall of my brain, so that it remained in negative when I blinked or closed my eyes.

"Now, can you move that lazy arse of yours and come and have lunch with me?"


"I'm not sure" I croaked. "I think you may have shattered my pelvis last night"


______________________________



An hour later we were huddled in the little perspex shelter next to the bus stop. I didn't need to be anywhere, but Elaine was working at 4pm in some shitehole pub in the city centre. I wanted to be back in bed with her, wrapped in those strong arms and legs, buried in blankets and body heat like any sane man would. Instead I was waiting on a bus that seemingly wasn't coming, as the wind and rain hammered against our flimsy hiding place.

"Is this bus usually late?" I asked, trying not to sound too narky.

"It's probably broken down somewhere" she replied, giving me a weak smile and firing up another Silk Cut.

"Sorry, it sounds like I can't wait to get away from you" I replied sheepishly. "It's just the rain and wind, I'm not really dressed for the weather".

I must have been staring a bit too longingly at the giant fake fur lined parka she had on.

"C'mon Jim, it's hardly you, is it?" she smirked, looking down at the coat then back up at me. Her long red hair framed her smiling face under the hood and made her look like a member of some long lost clan of Irish Eskimos. I wondered how Eskimos dealt with crappy weather. Maybe they just hung out in plastic boxes that smelled of urine, waiting for the No 25 bus like the rest of us.

"If you're cold, I could give you a wee heat" Elaine whispered lecherously as she put an arm around me.

I tried to put my arm around her, but it felt odd and uncomfortable as we perched upon the thin grey rail that passed for seating in the shelter. I let my arm drop and felt slightly more awkward than usual. She sighed and took a draw of her cigarette, blew out a stream of grey smoke at the ground, then looked back at me with an air of bemusement.

"Not in the mood love?"

I didn't answer, just stared at my shoes and at the never ending whirl of leaves, crisp packets and carrier bags that gusted around us and under our feet. I felt Elaine's hand lightly on my shoulder .

"Look, it's ok Jim, I know what you're going to say"

I heard the low deisel growl of a bus approaching and noticed she had got up to signal it down.

"Not here" I kept thinking


"Just, not here................"

4. A Civil Exchange

I stared through the smeared streaks of grime on my unloved, unwashed front windows and out at the start of another bright, cold and frosty December morning. I enjoyed these high pressure winter days, they made a fine change from the bleak, grey, windswept look that seemed to be highly fashionable at this time of year.

I absently ground my athletes foot on the hard edged base of the breakfast table. The athlete didn't seem to mind, so I pleased myself and continued staring into the middle distance, sipping on a mug of sour tasting instant coffee and admiring the strange beauty inherent in the electricity sub-station opposite my flat, resplendent in it's coat of barbed wire encrusted fencing.

The phone rang and evicted me rather brutally from my reverie. It's nice to be wanted. I wandered over and picked up the receiver. Karen's voice came hurtling out at me like a pack of startled wildebeest .

"Oi! Fuckface!" she yelled. I held the phone away from my ear as she continued to shout good natured insults at me.

"Darling, you really know how to come on to a guy" I oozed in mock sophistication.

"Ha! I came onto you about five years ago Jim, but you didn't seem to notice"

"I can't think why..........."

"Your loss bawjaws. Talking of ham fisted attempts at romance, how did you get on with the bint from Belfast?"

"She's from Dublin" I said, slightly testily. Karen picked up on my annoyance.

"What's wrong with Belfast? Lovely town, great folk.........."

"Nothing at all....." I said trying not to sound defensive. "For a start, Dublin and Belfast are in seperate countries, though don't tell that to the men in balaclavas. And then there's the small matter of accents..... It's a matter of accuracy to be honest..........."

"Aye, ok," she butted in "The dyke from Dublin then. Doesn't sound as good though. So, how was it? DID YE PUMP HER?"

"That's between me and my therapist" I countered.

"Hah! So she pumped you? I thought she would" Karen was laughing now. "She raped my poor, defenceless wee baby, the bitch!"

I waited for her to stop hooting like a loon. It took a good minute or two, but I patiently bided my time as her hilarity slowly ground to a halt.

"Can you keep it down a bit?" I said, my patience starting to wear paper thin. "I don't mind your neighbours knowing what I get up to, but I can do without mine giving me funny looks on the landing........."

"Everyone gives you funny looks Jim. I thought you'd be used to that by now...."

I thanked her for her honesty, then filled her in with a brief and slightly euphemistic outline of my evening with Elaine. Karen listened intently for once, then asked the obvious question.

"So, are you seeing her again?"

I wasn't sure on that score. Elaine hadn't phoned me, I hadn't phoned her. She seemed to like me, but I couldn't help feeling I'd done my level best to scare her off with my painfully stand-offish behaviour. The brief silence was enough to give Karen her ammunition.

"Aw, you didn't, did you? I can see it now. A night of passionate banging, and then 'Captain Romantic' goes and fucks it all up the next morning with his cold fish act. I know what you're like Jimbo, I've sen you in action!"

I blushed furiously, and whilst I knew Karen couldn't see me, I knew she'd detect the admission of guilt in my voice. I decided to cut the conversation there and then.

"Fuck you!" I sneered.

Karen gave a benevolent chuckle and rang off with a promise.

"Remember, I've got her number too. If you don't call her in the next hour, I'll phone her myself and tell her you're gay."

"Why don't you go the whole hog and pretend to be my mother?" I shouted after her.

The line went dead and I put the handset down. I shrugged, mainly for the benefit of my shadow on the wall, then wandered back to my previous vantage point. The crisp blue sky was still there. The white skin of frost glinting in the sunlight was still there.


Unfortunately, so was my athletes foot.

5. A Friendly Warning

The places you find yourself in when you're hiding from the rain.......

I was nursing the remnants of my pint and hoping the rain would ease off enough for me to at least wade my way back to the underground station. A look out of the front door told me I'd probably need water-wings and my rubber duck. I cast a weary eye around the near deserted bar. Was it a bar? Maybe it was a bistro. It had a whiff of seediness to it, combined incongruously with a charming, if pointless attempt to propel the place in an up-market direction. The continental cuisine and over-priced Czech lagers couldn't quite cancel out the yellowing wallpaper, the 'half & half' supping gadgies and Sidney Devine on the jukebox. 'New manager' I thought to myself....

When a large red faced guy in chef's whites burst from the back shop into the bar in a roar of sweaty, rampant fury, I was all but ready to shrug and say "Ok, so it's a Bistro!".

He seemed to be scanning the room for his prey. My eyes met his and I knew in an instant that he'd found it. A fat, raw looking forefinger, decorated with a blue elastoplast and trembling ever so slightly, was jabbing in my direction.

"You! Cunt! I'll kill ye! Am gonna fuckin kill ye!" he growled in a hoarse rasp.

I was standing by this point, and I instinctively recoiled, colliding with my barstool. Somehow my left foot went between the spars of the stool and in my haste to no longer be there, I found myself doing what probably looked to any passing ice skating enthusiast, like a drunken Double Lutz. There were however no score cards being held up as I came to rest on the stained, threadbare carpet. I felt a few dull aches, a friction burn on my right cheek and not a little embarrassment as I disentangled my legs from the now broken chair. I looked up from my prone position and once again remembered why I'd given up frequenting bars on my own. Bad things kept happening to me, and this was as bad as it got. Cookie was standing over me now, his face boiling with the kind of rage that would induce aneurysms in most normal human beings. This guy wasn't normal though. He was at least six-two, and was filling out into the 'double wide' sizes. Lying on my back on the floor like an upturned cockroach, he looked bigger than God.

"Fuckin porkin ma wee sister ya shitebag!! Am gonnae cut ye tae ribbons!!"

I had no reason to doubt him, standing as he was with what looked like an out sized and doubtless very sharp Sabbatier kitchen knife in his right hand. He didn't look like he was going to use it to cut us all a nice piece of birthday cake. I badly needed to get up and run for it, but my 'Fight or Flight' instinct was seemingly out having a fag break. Since I was going nowhere, I whimsically decided I would waste my last few seconds on this earth feebly attempting to find out who this madman was, and why he wanted to kill me to death.

"Hold on mate" I stammered. "You've got the wrong guy!"

He said nothing. I waited for the cliche police. When they didn't arrive, I tried a different gambit.
"C'mon, this isn't a good idea. Don't want blood on the carpet, do we? The cleaner'll throw a fit"

This set something off in him and he sank to his knees, just at my shoulder. I could smell the sweat and the rancid, unmistakable parmesan stench of unwashed genitals. His fly was open.

I fought back the urge to make some feeble joke concerning oral sex. He'd have done one of two things, neither of them pleasant.

I held my breath and looked up at him. He looked a little calmer, but he also had the knife raised in his hand. One cancelled out the other.

Suddenly, the knife plunged towards me in a stop-motion blur. I closed my eyes instinctively and flinched as it crashed down about an inch from where my right ear had been, close enough to embed the dull thud in my subconscious for all eternity. His face closed in on mine and muttered the immortal words that I shall never forget, and on occasion, quote with pride.

"If I ever see yer face, or hear my sister utter your name, I'll hunt ye down, cut off yer bollocks and make you wear them as earings."

With that, he lifted himself away from me and stormed back towards his lair. The knife was still vibrating slightly in the floor. I breathed out for the first time in about two minutes, but it had felt like half an hour.

A pair of hands lifted me to my feet, though my legs weren't exactly up to speed on the deal and buckled a little, giving me the demeanour of a drunk being helped out at closing time. I turned round and noted that the face looked reasonably human and friendly. That would do for now, at least until I was back within the walls of my safe European home.

"C'mon pal, I think you need to be anywhere else but here right now."

"Took the words right out of my mouth mate"

The guy looked at me, half with pity, half with curiosity.

"You dippin' the big man's sister then?"

"He seems to think so....." I replied vacantly. We were heading towards the door now. Once outside, I confided in my new ally.

"So what's his problem?" I asked, as nonchalantly as was possible for a man who had just been invited to inspect the quality of a madman's legalised chib collection.

"Last guy that went with his sister got her pregnant and fucked off into the night" he said, looking me straight in the eye.

"People and their secrets, eh?" I muttered distractedly. The bizarre new slant on my relations with Elaine hadn't really sunk in yet, but I knew there would probably be questions, denials and tears before bed-time when I brought it up with her. I also wondered how the missing link knew who I was. Was it all coincidence and mistaken identity? I looked up at the now clearing skies and smiled. "A good omen at last!" I declared.

I thanked the guy for his help and made my way back towards familiar territory. After the terror of the previous five minutes, I wasn't quite sure what that was anymore, but I was just happy to still have all my body parts intact. For a few seconds back there, I thought I'd be attending fancy dress parties as Van Gogh for the rest of my life........

6. Nocturnal Conversation

In the darkness we lay, feeling the coolness of the sheets, staring at the ceiling, only barely touching.

There was only the sound of the clock on the wall as it plucked it's way through another minute, like someone patiently trying to light a cigarette with an empty bic lighter. Forever.

It barely filled the void of silence. I considered reaching out to the battered old boom box at the side of the bed and flicking on the World Service at low volume, hopefully to listen to a discussion about the mating habits of Barn Owls or a documentary about cheese. It never got that far. Elaine rolled over and I felt her against me for the first time that night. It felt good.

"Umm....I spoke to your brother today......" I ventured, unable to hold it in any longer

She returned to her original position.

"Jim, I don't have a brother" she said eventually with an air of mild annoyance and confusion.

This was awkward. I wasn't exactly sure where to go next with the topic, but I ploughed on regardless. Like Magnus Magnusson, I had started, so I would finish.

"It was random. I was in a pub, The Stables I think, hiding from the rain and he came out of the kitchen cross eyed with rage, saw me, threatened me with a knife and told me to stay away from you unless I wanted to aquaint my balls with the meat slicer in his kitchen."

"Not very good at following orders, are you?" replied Elaine, with the slightest glint of a smirk in her voice."

"Yeah, my mother realised early on that the best way to keep me out of harms way was to tell me to talk to strangers and always play near water. Anyway, what I really want to know is how he knew who I was..."

Elaine sighed wearily. "Ok. First up, if he's who I think he is, he isn't my brother. I used to work with him and we were fairly friendly, but it got to the point where he wouldn't leave me alone. It was quite charming at first, but it got creepy quite quickly. I got out, but I'd keep seeing him in odd places, keep feeling his hand on my shoulder in bars and clubs. He seemed to mean no harm, just felt very protective towards me, so I let it go. My guess is that he saw us together in town, and when you happened to pop into his workplace for a swift half, he went a wee bit mental"

I looked quizically at her, eyes adjusted to the darkness now. It sounded fairly plausable, but I decided not to bring up the pregnancy issue the bar regular had mentioned. That way madness lay. At the very least, madness could wait a while longer to make it's entrance.

"Any more of these crazies from your past you haven't told me about yet?" I asked wearily.

"Who knows....." she trailed off.

There was a brief silence as she gathered her thoughts.

"It's an occupational hazard for gorgeous Irish barmaids I suppose", said sighed, before turning to me, licking my cheek then going to sleep.

God knows we weren't normal.

I liked that....

7 - Human Repellant

Fuck, I hate the Germans.


Benji looked at me through the pint glass in mid slug.  He paused, swallowed and laid it down again.  His features had gone from a sedate, bovine boredom to a pinched accusatory scowl in jig time.   I had grown to enjoy the expression of outrage on peoples faces in the past year.  I wasn't sure if it was my rite of passage into premature middle aged cynicism , or a perverse delayed reaction to my mother's death.   I was not filled with much hope for the progress of humanity or my own good self.  Maybe the two parties could meet up some day and hold a cheese & wine, swap children & talk about our wives.......

Or something like that.

Benji's still a touch aggrieved, God rest his soul.  Didn't realise he was so ethnically sensitive.  Must be that Bavarian blood on his fathers side, the part of his soul that dresses for his girlfriend in lederhosen & a string vest.  He wants to know why I have it in for the Germans.  I could tell him I'm three sheets to the wind and have no control over what comes out of my gob, but settle on telling him I'm of militant Belgian stock and will never tire of berating the descendants of men in funny helmets who twice invaded my nation from the east.

It felt good rubbing this kitty against the grain of his fur.

The truth is a slightly more elusive beast.  I hated nobody, except maybe loud precocious children, salesmen & laid back 'don't give-a-fuck' types who make a living kicking yr arse for not giving a fuck.

I hated those pricks!

Well, I don't really hate the Germans.  I just hate it that they gave so much work to town planners in this country.........  Have you been to Clydebank?

Benji was ignoring me now.  He was fidgeting away with some vile social communication device that might as well have been a fucking Tri-corder from Star Trek for all I knew or cared.  I had lost all trust in mobile phones since they had gone 'on-line'.  I had just got used to Internet being the new TV, without having to deal with mobile phones being the new Internet.  Maybe it was a straight fight now between Ouijja Boards and tin cans on strings to be the new mobile phones and we'd soon all be playing jungle drums to order a Chinese takeaway.

Then Benji was gone.  I had barely noticed him leave, I had been so absorbed in my own thoughts.  This is what happens when you socialise with folk you really don't like that much in the first place.  You dread their company and actually feel your soul corrode when they're sat in front of you verbally defecating on you from a great hight for what feels like the remainder of your life.   When the topics of discussion are as banal as those discussed in your average weekly womens supermarket magazine, it can be hard to tell when the spell has finally been lifted and the hopeless pricks have fucked off.......

I scanned the bar and hoped I'd find someone new to annoy.  Girls in frocks their Grandmothers would have rejected as deeply unfashionable on VE day, cunts in oversized NHS style designer specs, skinny 3 & 3/4 length pastel coloured 'slorts' and espadrilles, and ....................My father.

Sweet Gene Vincent!

The thought of going up to the old man and asking him why he was hanging out with a bunch of tadgers in a West End bar never occurred to me.  Instead I slunk gracelessly from my table and made for the door, hoping I failed to attract any attention and that the cold winter air would revive me enough to take stock of the situation.  In fact,  the sharpness of said winter air took me by surprise.  There had been a nip in the air when I parked my arse with the purpose of getting banjoed three hours earlier.  By 9pm, it was positively fucking Siberian.  A clinging frost held to all objects stationary for any longer than an hour.  Parked cars, window panes, lamp posts,  pavements and possibly a number of beggars that had failed to find refuge from the permafrost in time, as it spread like a virus cross the city.

Things had been going badly for a while now, but I was in a new rut of despondency.  As usual in these positions, I began to think of Elaine and started missing absolutely everything that was no longer in my life.  If feeling sorry for yourself had been a Government subsidised Olympic sport, I'd be a national hero.

Sadly, It wasn't.  I was of interest only to those whom I owed money.