Espedair Street

NINE

I sniffed my fingers; they still smelled of rubber, or lubricant, or whatever the hell it is makes condoms smell the way they do. Betty hadn't always been so doubly cautious; it was only during the last year— as stories about AIDS multiplied faster than even the disease — that she'd started using the damned things. I'd washed my hands at least once since last night, but they still smelled. I wondered if anybody else would be able to smell it.

I lay in bed. It was raining; another rainy Saturday in Glasgow. Hail and snow mixed in with the rain, and a ragged-clouded sky between the showers. Rick Tumber was due to arrive tomorrow. I thought about getting out of the city again, but couldn't think where to go.

Edinburgh? I hadn't been there for a year or so and I'd always liked the place. Or maybe I could get a booking at one of the hotels in Aviemore and have a terribly festive and maybe even snowy Christmas there. But I didn't feel like it. I have a very old-fashioned attitude to Christmas; I try to ignore it. This is an old-fashioned Scottish attitude, of course, not an English one.

It's changed here too now, largely thanks to TV and a combination of very expensive toys, saturation advertising and the tyranny of a child's tears, but even I can remember when most people would work Christmas day to get an extra day at Hogmanay. All changed. But I still hate Christmas. Bah and humbug and all that.

I didn't want to stay and see Rick Tumber, but I couldn't be bothered getting up and going. Even the fact it was raining was enough to put me off. Anyway; McCann and I usually investigated a few pubs on a Saturday night, and I hadn't said I was thinking about going away. It would be bad manners to pullout now.

I sniffed my fingers again, thinking about Betty and wondering whether I felt like heading down to the crypt to guddle about in the studio. There were a few jingles and potential themes I could work on, but I didn't really feel very enthusiastic. Rain beat against the windows of the tower bedroom. I turned on the TV monitor and looked at the dull grey views of the various doors and walls. God, it looked depressing.

Wes did eventually rig his house for vision as well as sound. People stopped coming to see him after a while; maybe that was what he had in mind all the time. I did screw Jasmine, and we both found it a thoroughly disappointing experience. We tried a few more times but we just didn't match. She took the chauffeuse uniform with her when she went off to front a punk band; I counted myself lucky she hadn't taken the car as well. Last I heard she was married to a car dealer, had two kids and lived in Ilford.

I peered closely at the monitor when I switched to the Elmbank Street camera. There was an anorak-covered figure struggling through the rain with an overloaded shopping trolley out there, and it looked suspiciously like Wee Tommy.

The shopping trolley was loaded with white cylinders.

I got down to the door just as he rang the bell.

'Aw, hi there, Jim; ye all right, aye?'

'Fine. Come in.' He came in, dripping rain from anorak and trolley. 'Tommy, why have you brought a shopping trolley full of' — I looked closer— 'whipped cream containers?'

Tommy had about a hundred of the pressurised cans all jumbled in the trolley. He had. enough whipped cream there to cover a small building with the stuff. Tommy hung his anorak up and stood looking down at the rain-spotted white cans. 'Laughin gas,' he said, in a conspiratorial tone. I shook my head.

'This is whipped cream, Tommy. You wanted a dentist's, not the dairy section of Tesco's.'

'Na, na,' he said, picking one of the containers up. 'There's gas inside here too; the stuff that pushes the cream out. It's laughing gas; nitric oxide.'

I took a can from the pile in the trolley and inspected it. 'What? You sure?' I found the ingredients label; sure enough, the propellant was nitrous oxide. Inez, Dave, Christine and I had had some laughing gas once, in Madrid I think it was. Very odd stuff.

'Aye, I'm sure. One of ma mates said his brother read about it in Scientific American.'

'Good grief.'

'Want tae try some, eh?'

'Mm, not particularly, but don't let me stop you. Come on into the body of the kirk.'

The space heater was on at full blast, filling the folly with its booming white noise. I'd put on some Gregorian Chants to compete with the sound. Tommy and I sat in a couple of the CRM chairs, just far enough downwind from the space heater not to overheat. Tommy had taken his black socks and black jumper off to let them dry; he draped them over the shopping trolley we'd brought up the steps from the vestry. He selected a can of foam. 'Ah'm really sorry about the dug the other day, Jim,' he told me, shaking his head and compressing his lips. 'That dug was right out of order, so it was. Ah'd a skelped it, but it wouldnae have done any good.'

He didn't add that it would probably have eaten him if he had.

'It's all right,' I said. 'I cleaned everything up. Don't worry about it.'

'Well, it's back with ma uncle now, so Ah reckon we're safe from it now. Unless his piles act up again, of course.'

'Well, of course.'

'Sure you don't want one of these?' Tommy offered me a whipped-cream container. I shook my head.

'I'm trying to give them up. Do you want a drink?'

Tommy thought about this. 'Aye; Ah'll take a wee voddy, if that's all right, Jim.'

I brought a bottle of Stolichnaya and two glasses. There had been a brief hiss while my back was turned. When I got back to the seat, Tommy was pressing down the top of the cream can and frowning. 'Get anything?' I asked. He shook his head.

'No much.' He put that canister on the floor and took another one, raising it to one nostril and then pressing the nozzle button. He jerked back as a small blob of foam squirted up his nose. 'Ah, ya bastard!' I tried not to laugh as he leant forward, blowing his nose.

'Try bumping the base a bit first,' I suggested.

Tommy tried that with the next one, and avoided getting a nostril full of foam. The hiss of gas was still very short, though. He smiled ruefully and reached for another container.

'Where did you get all these, anyway?' I asked him.

'I've got a pal works in Presto's; he's been stashing the odd can from the boxes as they come through, ye know? Got them out tae me today cos of the Christmas rush, 'nat.' He snorted from another can, then put it down too. He giggled, experimentally, then looked at me as though waiting for a reaction. I shrugged.

'Anything?' I asked.

'Nup. Don't think so.' Tommy started taking the containers out two at a time, bashing them on the carpet-covered stone floor and snorting from both at once. He went through about twelve of the cans that way, then sat back, breathing hard and looking a little odd. He tried giggling again.

'Now?' I asked him.

'Bit light-headed,' he said.

'Oxygen high,' I told him.

'Is that what ye get from them?' Tommy looked at another can. 'Well, Ah dinnae feel smashed.'

'No, you still look glazed.'

Tommy looked at me, then giggled again, then started laughing. I sat back with my vodka for a moment or two, decided it hadn't been that funny and reached for a couple of the cans.

The truth is, I don't know if the damn cans worked or not. Wee Tommy and I sat there, telling each other jokes and laughing and giggling, but for all I know it was just suggestion, and the minuscule amounts of gas in the canisters had little or no effect. We laughed because we thought we ought to.

I've seen people fooled into thinking Capstan Full Strength cigarettes were joints, accept speed and paracetamol as cocaine, and not notice that their drinks have been watered down until they're practically alcohol-free. It all depends what you're expecting, what you've been told to believe in.

Tommy left to go and sign on, leaving me with a shopping trolley full of dud whipped-cream cans. I guess the folly, with its bulky stacks of Comecon produce, seemed like an appropriate resting place for the massed containers. Full of 'product'. That's what the cans say. They're full of whipped 'product'. Not 'cream' or 'milk-derived froth', or even 'tacky white gunge bearing a vague resemblance to something that might actually have come from a cow', but 'product'.

Product. Jeez, the buzzword of the century. Everything's 'product'. Music is 'product'; product produced by producers for the industry to sell to the consumers. I don't think anyone has quite had the nerve yet to refer to paintings as 'product' yet (except as a put-down, perhaps), but it must be on the way. They'll quote the works of dead painters on the stock exchange. Picasso's blue-chip period. Gilt-edged frames. We put a value on what we treasure, and so cheapen it.

I felt like sitting there, amongst all my Eastern Bloc goods, feet up on my CRM chair, the space heater filling the folly with throaty white noise and the comforting trace-smell of paraffin, and finishing off the bottle of Stolichnaya by myself... but instead I went down to the crypt and footered about with some of my appallingly expensive musical equipment, tinkering with ideas that would probably end up as advertising jingles, or themes to movies that were never quite as good as their trailers promised.

I met McCann in the Griffin. We always meet there on a Saturday night; we Go Out, we Do The Town. We even dress up; I have been known to wear a tie, and what would pass for a suit. For some reason, I wore just those things on this occasion.

I had no idea this would lead to disaster .

'You're lookin smart, Jimmy.'

'Appearances can be deceptive,' I told McCann.

'Whit dae ye want?'

'A half and a half,' I said, and suddenly wondered why a half-pint of heavy and a whisky isn't just called a 'One', or a 'Whole'. Maybe they are, somewhere. McCann returned through the crowd with the drinks; the Griffin was busy and noisy. I brushed some sleet and snowflakes off my coat.

'This you gettin yerself tarted up fur this man comin ta morrow?'

I looked at McCann over my beer glass. I had almost forgotten that Rick Tumber was coming tomorrow; working on music for any length of time has that sort of effect on me. I shook my head. 'No,' I said.

'Oh. Where are we goin tae go then?'

I thought. McCann looked moderately presentable himself. I was in a sort of restless, challenging mood that made me want to do something I wouldn't normally do, go somewhere I wouldn't normally go. 'Somewhere different.'

McCann looked thoughtful. 'Ma boay,' he said, referring to his son, who is about twenty and has earned his father's undying scorn by joining the army, 'wiz tellin me aboot one of they fancy nightclubs, last time he wiz here. Place called Monty's. Just aff Buchanan Street.' McCann looked at my battered but still echoingly stylish handmade Italian boots, and my newly cleaned greatcoat, then pulled one slightly frayed shirt-cuff down from under his jacket sleeve. 'They might let us in.'

'A nightclub?' I said, grimacing. I've never liked these places; they're better up here than they are down in London, where they tend to be full of noisy, mannered, ill-mannered, over-privileged people I'd normally pay a great deal of money just to avoid, but even in Glasgow I object to paying outrageous amounts of money to drink suspiciously bland cocktails in the sort of place where people go to be seen.

'Just fur a look,' McCann said. 'The boay wiz sayin that wan o the wa's is glass; like an aquarium; there's a big tank full a fush behind it, an a mermaid swims aroon inside.'

'Oh, good grief.'

'Or we could do the clockwork orange pub crawl.'

'What?' I glared at McCann. The Glasgow underground runs in a circle. The trains used to be red and have leather upholstery and wooden interiors; they creaked a lot and had a smell you never forgot; nowadays they're wee plastic-looking bright orange things, and they've been nicknamed the clockwork orange. The associated pub crawl involves travelling right round the tube circuit, stopping at each of the fifteen stations and walking to the nearest pub for a pint and a whisky (or a half and a half, if you're some sort of cissy). McCann and I have been going to do this for at least a year, but we haven't got around to it yet. 'This is hardly the weather for it,' I said.

'You decide then,' McCann said, shrugging.

The mermaid in the room-sized tank looked vaguely familiar, but if I had ever seen the girl before, I couldn't place her.

A young blond waiter brought our drinks. This was a relief; I'd been afraid that the mermaid in the wall-tank would be just the beginning, and the whole club would be planned around some agonisingly literally worked-out theme based on mermaids and mermen, or the sea, or something equally awful.

It wasn't; it was just a posh bar with an atmosphere somewhere between a private library and a lively gentlemen's club; shelves full of books, a deep carpet, rather nice wooden tables with leather tops, and a surprisingly young clientele (or maybe I'm just getting old). The ceiling fans, whirling gently under a black roof, were something of an affectation, especially in December, but I'd seen a lot worse.

Not a laser or a fog-bank of dry ice or a flashing light in sight. The drinks were only breathtakingly expensive, not coronary-inducingly dear, and McCann seemed pleased we had a table where we could see the mermaid, who had long black hair and large breasts. The aquarium filled most of one wall of the club, and teemed with bright fish swimming between pillars of rock and coral; tall green fronds waved above a floor of golden sand.

'That's a bonny lassie,' McCann said, watching the tank avidly.

'I hope she's not the only reason you wanted to come here,' I said, drinking what certainly tasted like a full-strength Manhattan. McCann had been going to ask for A Long Sloe Comfortable Screw Up Against The Wall, but changed his mind when he saw we were getting a waiter rather than a waitress, and got a Killer Zombie instead.

'Not at all.' McCann looked disgusted with me. 'Ye don't think Ah wanted tae come here just tae ogle some poor exploitit lassie forced tae dress up like half a fush tae earn a crust, dae ye?'

'Hmm,' I said. 'No, I suppose not.' In fact I wasn't sure about this at all, but I couldn't be bothered arguing. Apart from anything else, the mermaid looked quite happy in her job. She didn't look cold, none of the fish in there with her appeared hungry, and she was smiling in a non-air-stewardesslike way when she dived down from the unseen surface, waving at people at nearby tables. Also, she wasn't likely to be molested by the customers unless they'd brought along a frogman's outfit, or a sufficiently large explosive charge to breach the tank's glass. As for being exploited ... who wasn't? Would McCann have been happier if she'd been working at a supermarket checkout, or clattering away at a typewriter in some office?

I've known people who dressed in Savile Row suits and Gucci shoes and were still complete bastards, so what in hell's wrong with looking like half a fish? Dammit, we'd dressed up to come here; McCann and I had had to conform to some sort of code, to have any chance of getting into a place with bouncers on the door .

Even when I was Weird, when I was The Man In The Black Coat With The Greased Back Hair And The Beard And The Mirror-Shades, I was dressing up; that was still a sort of uniform, because it became expected of me, and that's what makes the difference, that's what makes a uniform a uniform, not official rules and regulations... jeez, the number of kids I've seen dressed exactly the same as each other who've said they dress the way they do to be 'different'.

Ho ho.

'Ma roon, want anothir wan?' McCann said suddenly. I looked at my glass. My God, that had gone down quickly. I was comfortably settled in a large leatherish easy chair. We'd agreed just to call in here for one drink and then go somewhere else, but it was cold and sleety outside, and... what the hell. I had enough cash. I could always lend McCann some if he ran short. Probably end up going for a curry later, I shouldn't be surprised.

'Aye' I said. 'Same again. Easy on the ice.'

We had a few more drinks. McCann became convinced the mermaid was looking at him when she smiled and waved, but then just as he was talking himself into going up to the glass and waving back — maybe holding up his address or a note asking what the girl was doing after work when she'd found her land-legs again, or asking her if she needed help out of those wet things the mermaid left the pool; McCann watched with dismay as her scaly blue plastic tail disappeared through the mirror surface of the pool.

'She's gone,' he said.

'She can't,' I told him, 'stand being apart from you any longer and she's gone to get dressed to come round and ask you what a nice Marxist like you's doing in a capitalist clip-joint like this.'

'Aw, shit,' McCann said, ignoring me and dipping his head down to the table top to look up through the glass to the surface of the pool.

'Still after a piece of tail,' I said, shaking my head.

'Aw, come back, hen,' McCann groaned from the table top.

Hen? I thought. From fish to fowl in less than a minute. God, that was fast evolution. I looked round the busy bar. Actually, I knew how McCann felt. There were some good-looking women in the place, and I was lusting after several of them at once. One, standing at the bar, one foot on the brass rail, reminded me a lot of Inez. The same hair, roguishly tangled and perfectly kempt at once; the same long back and easy stance; definitely the same backside. The woman at the bar was wearing light-brown trousers. Inez wore jeans and trousers a lot, too. There was nothing wrong with her legs (though she thought there was), but her bum was just fabulous.

I signalled to one of the waitresses, stared at the woman at the bar, and thought about Inez. Ah Jayzuz, Inez, Inez; my bitch in britches, my salop in salopettes. I think she was the only one who ever really hurt me, just because I eventually did believe that it might last. It never crossed my mind, before or after, that a relationship I might have with a woman would prove permanent; I always assumed they were either taking pity on me, were merely satisfying their curiosity, or had made some uncharacteristic mistake in a moment of weakness.

I saw myself as the sort of guy who gets women on the rebound, if he happens to be in the right place at the right time; it was close to inconceivable that I might form a relationship entirely on my own merits. Even when sheer weight of numbers seemed to disprove this theory, I just assumed that a proportion of the women who'd thrown themselves at me, or hadn't run off screaming when I threw myself at them, were only doing it because I was famous, a Rock Star. So I never did expect too much, and thus was never grossly disappointed. Maybe I was trying not to get into something that might remind me of my parents' God-awful running-battle of a marriage, but if so, it wasn't deliberate. I just always assumed that I was an unattractive git who'd be picked only once all the nice guys had been spoken for .

But Inez slipped in under my guard. I don't know if she had her own assumptions — about permanence and making a home, maybe — and these assumptions were somehow stronger than my rather casual, unfounded premises, so that I absorbed hers, and was slowly, osmotically, virally, taken over... but however the hell it worked, however she became part of me, it hurt when she tore herself away.

Hell, I didn't really mind that she'd been screwing Davey (but was that why I later went with Christine, to avenge myself?); what annoyed me was that they'd been doing it so long and hidden it so carefully. And it stopped, after that night when they were caught in the strobe lights. That was, crazily enough, even more worrymg.

I wouldn't have minded having a good excuse to diversify myself a little bit, with Inez there to come back to, and I'd have been equally happy for her to have the same freedom. Ah, those wonderful days when the worst you had to worry about was VD, or, in my case, a paternity suit. Inez and Davey could have gone on if they liked; I wouldn't have sulked. I could have handled it, I swear. But instead they both vowed never to do it again, and I was left with a nagging sense that it shouldn't have mattered that much in the first place.

Actually, to this day I think we were largely right about relationships, and I still think there's far too much of a fuss made about both sex itself and any fidelity associated with it... but these are not the times to shout about that too much, I guess.

'Same again?' I nudged McCann. He drained his glass, nodding. I looked around for the waitress I'd signalled earlier. I couldn't see her. I caught the eye of a waiter cruising nearby, and ordered a double round. This seemed like a wise precaution if the waiting staff were becoming as lackadaisical as the continuing absence of the waitress suggested. I considered whether perhaps she'd thought we'd had enough to drink already and had deliberately avoided us, but this was quite out of the question as we were both still fairly sober.

'Ah'm away fur a pee,' McCann told me. I nodded. He seemed to have a little difficulty standing up, but he does have a bad leg from an accident in the yards when he was an apprentice, so that wasn't really surprising. I went back to contemplating the girl with the fabulous bum. She really was like Inez. I'd seen her face by now, which was quite different from Inez', but everything else about her was right.

Maybe I should go up and see if she'd ever been a fan of Frozen Gold; she was talking to a couple of guys, but neither of them seemed to be all that close to her; I might — what was I thinking of? I put my glass down, frowning at it. Perhaps I had had quite a lot to drink. I usually only started thinking about accosting women and telling them I had been a famous rock star right at the end of an evening, mercifully shortly before the stage of total oblivion.

Dammit, I felt pretty good. It wasn't fair of God or evolution or whatever to make drink so pleasant when it does you so much harm. I decided to slow down a bit; cocktails can be misleading.

McCann came back to find me staring, mystified, at six large glasses full of drink. 'Did ye get some fur me too?' he said, sitting.

'Ordered twice,' I explained.

'Ah know that; ye ordered two roons; but ye've got three.' I scratched my head.

'Waitress,' I said. Apparently I had ordered another round from that waitress, after all. I couldn't remember this, but it was the same waitress, and the right drinks, and she insisted I had ordered it, so...

'Ye daft bugger,' McCann said, and attacked the first of the waiting triad of Killer Zombies. I shrugged and sighed, then launched into a Manhattan, vaguely wondering whether some cider ought to be included in the recipe, to make the connection with the Big Apple more obvious.

Maybe not.

The woman I'd seen at the bar was still there. Other foot on the brass rail now. Bum still glorious. Soft curvings. Peaches and apples and buns and bums, I thought, wandering. God almighty, women look so good. How do they do that?

I stood in a bathroom in Jamaica once, naked, doing bodybuilder poses in front of the mirror for a laugh while Inez took off her make-up. I sucked in my belly and clasped my hands under my ribcage in that sort of over-and-under grip body-builders use, then swivelled on the ball of one foot and put one leg out to the rear, flexing the muscles on my arms. Inez sloshed water over her apricot scrub. I held my pose for a few seconds, looking at my patchy brown-white nakedness, then relaxed, and stood facing the mirror and shaking my head at my reflection. I looked myself up and down.

'You know,' I said to Inez. 'When I look at the male body -' naked, especially — I wonder how on earth women can take men seriously.'

Inez looked up for an instant, and made a snorting noise. 'What makes you think we do?' she said.

I hope I looked suitably hurt.

'Doan't you fuckin give me that shit, sonny!' McCann shouted.

I was jerked out of my reminiscences. My eyes were still focused on the bit of the bar where the woman with the wonderful rear-end had been, but she'd gone. McCann was turned away from me, arguing with somebody sitting to our right. I was sober enough even then to think oh-oh.

I looked over. McCann was face-to-face with a young man wearing glasses. 'Ah, away home, ye old fool! Don't...'

'Less aw this "old", ye wee basturt! Don't you fuckin call me "old"!'

The young man with the glasses turned to his mates, nodding back towards McCann. 'Fuckin calls me "sonny" then tells me not to call him "old"!' His two pals shook their heads. I could tell McCann was seething. I glanced around; a few people were looking at us, but so far the whole place hadn't started going quiet — always a bad sign — and the horizon was still clear of bouncers. The place was crowded and noisy enough to cover a minor verbal skirmish. Still time to get McCann away quietly.

He sat forward, wagging one finger at the guy with the glasses. 'It's that sort of stupit, defeatist attitude like yours that plays right intae the hands of that fascist bitch!'

I tugged at McCann's sleeve, but he ignored me, and with his other hand wiped his mouth free of some spittle. 'Aye, an dinnae you smile like that an look at yer mates either, laddie; Ah know whit Ah'm talkin aboot, which is mair than you do, Ah'll tell ye! Fuckin coalition... coalition?; just anuthir fuckin disaster fur the wurkin class...'

'Ach, away ye go ...' The young guy waved his hand dismissively at McCann. I tried to pull him round to look at me.

'McCann...' I said. McCann fended me off with his elbow; I still had a grip of his sleeve, and the shrugging motion he made pulled one side of his jacket off, showing his shirted shoulder beneath.

So it was my own fault, I guess. Because (a) it must have looked to the young guy as if McCann was taking off his jacket for a fight, and (b) I pulled back at McCann's sleeve again (and noticed that the place was now going quiet, and that there was a large person in a dinner jacket making full speed through the parting sea of heads and shoulders towards us), and when McCann shrugged and pulled again, and looked half-round towards me, I was distracted by the bouncer steaming at full tilt towards us — with another now in his wake — and slackened my grip on McCann's sleeve.

His arm, released, shot forward, and his fist connected with the face of the guy with the glasses. Hardly a punch at all; barely enough weight behind it to knock the guy's glasses off. In a less fraught situation we might have dealt with it, explained it, apologised, bought the bloke a drink, had a more sensible and measured discussion about the merits or otherwise of coalition governments...

But no; instead, pandemonium.

The bloke with the glasses reeled back a bit, more surprised than hurt; his two pals stood up and the nearest one reached over and swung at McCann, landing a smack on the man's head which lost some effect because it was at maximum range. McCann reared up and leaned forward, bringing the man who'd hit him well within reach; a left hook floored him; or at least tabled him; he went flying onto a table full of drink and rolled onto the laps of some shrieking girls.

The man with the glasses was down on the floor, looking for them. I grabbed McCann from behind, under the oxters. This was partly to stop him hitting anybody else, and partly to drag him out of the way of the second pal of the bloke still scrabbling around on the floor; this guy — bearded, red haired — threw their table out of the way and charged at McCann.

The table he threw caught the second bouncer right in the balls. I thought these guys all wore cricket boxes, but this one certainly didn't. He folded. The first bouncer was right in front of McCann; I hadn't seen him. I was still holding McCann under the shoulders, pulling him back so hard I was starting to fall over; I could feel the chair behind me starting to tip and slide, but there was nothing I could do about it.

The bouncer put his hands out towards McCann's lapels. I had a sudden image of McCann having reverted to his old habits without telling me, and of the bouncer burying fish hooks in his fingers... but he didn't get the chance; McCann, arms trapped, used his legs as we fell back; one foot came up and cracked the bouncer under the jaw. He fell, we fell, and the guy who'd cracked the other bouncer in the goolies dived straight through the gap between us, right into the heavy wooden back of another chair.

I rolled over on the floor as McCann wriggled free and jumped up. People were shouting and screaming and grabbing coats and drinks; some were leaving. The bearded guy was on his feet again and squaring up to McCann, while the guy with the glasses was getting ready to punch him from behind. I kicked a fallen table over at him, which distracted him. One of the bouncers was making weak moves to get at McCann and the other man. The guy with the glasses threw himself at me.

Things were getting out of hand.

I fended the guy off with one hand, deflecting him across an area of clear floor; he rolled across the carpet and skittled a couple of men over. I looked round to see McCann holding a chair over his head, back to the glass wall of the mermaid pool. The guy with the beard had found a fire extinguisher from somewhere; he heaved it at McCann, but it missed and slammed into the glass behind him.

I half-expected the wall of glass to smash and fill the whole place with water, but it didn't happen. McCann retaliated with his own heavy artillery, chucking the chair back, catching the bearded man across one arm. Another bouncer made a flying rugby tackle at McCann, but hadn't allowed for the reaction from throwing the chair; as McCann went back against the glass, the bouncer shot across his bows and rammed a table with his face.

Somebody crashed into me from behind; I fell over one of the bouncers. A foot caught me in the ribs and something landed on the side of my face; I jumped up, swinging wildly with both fists as people piled out of the place around me and bottles, glasses and chairs flew about; one glass went spinning up to disintegrate against a ceiling fan, showering the place with splinters.

McCann was in the centre of the room again, trading punches with a bouncer at least a foot taller than him. Somebody bowled into me and I ended up on the floor once more; a table crashed down, narrowly missing my head; I punched a guy swinging at me with a champagne bottle — those things are heavy, let me tell you — and struggled up again.

One of the ceiling fans — the one hit by the glass, I think — took a direct hit from a bar stool and fell; it dropped almost to the floor then jerked to a stop on its flex, bringing a shower of black and white plaster flakes crashing down. Incredibly, it was still slowly spinning, and the blades scraped rhythmically over the arm of a chair and the shard-covered surface of a table.

McCann leapt up and butted his bouncer, flooring him. I ducked as somebody threw a glass at me from an emergency exit.

There weren't very many of us left now; everybody seemed to have left. The bodies on the floor outnumbered those of us left standing. I saw four or five black-suited figures gathering behind the bar, and turned to McCann — dishevelled, and bleeding badly from the side of his head — to tell him to get out, but saw the man with the beard coming up from behind, a broken glass in his hand.

There wasn't time to shout, but McCann must have seen the look on my face; he turned and caught the guy's hand, punched him in the belly, sending him back against the glass of the tank, cracking his head against it, then went to butt him.

Maybe the blood from McCann's cut forehead had got into his eyes, I don't know. He didn't seem to see the bearded man slide unconscious down the glass and onto the carpet; McCann's head went swiping forward and crunched into the plate-glass wall of the pool.

It cracked. There was a noise like a rifle shot, and I thought for an instant that it was the sound of McCann's skull splitting, then a line flicked up the glass wall, from top to bottom, and a thin, hissing spray of water leapt out at McCann's legs and torso.

He swayed, dazed, and his legs started to go.

I ran up to him, grabbed him as he slumped and got one of his arms over my shoulder. I half-knelt, then lifted and straightened, pulling McCann up again. I turned for the nearest exit.

The four or five bouncers at the bar had become six, including a small, very angry looking guy who I suspected was the manager.

They weren't behind the bar any longer; they were standing in a rough semi-circle in front of us, and three of them were holding pickaxe handles. A fourth one held what looked like the long lead weight out of a sash window. Number five slid a knuckleduster onto his large right fist.

The manager was armed only with a cigar and a look of quivering, apoplectic fury.

I wanted to swallow, but my throat had gone dry. McCann stirred, drew himself upright and wiped some blood from his face. The hiss of escaping water filled the bright space behind us with white noise. The still-spinning ceiling fan scraped laboriously across table and seat arm, grating on fragments of glass and highlighting the silence in the empty club with a hesitant beat like brushes on a snare drum.

The manager looked at us. McCann took his arm from over my shoulder. A frightened-looking waiter closed an opened emergency exit. The bouncers moved just a little closer. Another got up from the floor, coughing. The manager looked round at him, then back at us. The backs of my legs were wet; either I'd pissed myself or the leak from the pool was soaking my trousers. McCann stooped suddenly and came back up brandishing a lager bottle. 'Never mind, Jim,' he whispered throatily, 'we'll sell ourselves dearly.'

'Oh, Jesus,' somebody moaned.

I think it was me.

'Youse,' the manager said, pointing at me and McCann with his cigar just in case we thought he was talking to the bouncers, and seeming to have some difficulty controlling his voice, 'are go an tae regret this.'

I wondered if they'd let us go if we told them we already did.

The bouncers took a step forward. McCann snarled and without taking his eyes off them, flicked his arm back, smashing the lager bottle against the glass of the pool. The hissing sound didn't alter.

I was listening desperately for the sounds of approaching sirens, but there weren't any, just that hiss from behind, and the scraping of the dangling, lopsided fan, like the noise of a nonautomatic record-arm at the end of a record.

McCann brought the jagged-ended bottle back round in front of him and brandished it at the bouncers. They just smiled. The three with the pickaxe handles hefted them. The manager turned away. McCann's hand holding the broken bottle was shaking.

'Wait!' I shouted, and reached inside my coat with my right hand.

Everybody froze.

It took me a second or two — as I fumbled inside my jacket pocket— to work out that they thought I might have a gun.

It crossed my mind to try and carry on the bluff, but I knew it wouldn't work; they'd have to see a gun, and I didn't have one. I found what I was looking for and pulled them out.

Charge cards.

I flourished them at the manager. He shook his head once and turned away. The bouncers looked angry and started forward.

'No!' I screamed. 'Look; this is a platinum Amex card! I can pay!'

The bouncers hesitated; the manager looked round again, then came forward. 'Whit?' he said, then grimaced. 'What?' He said, more carefully. I gulped, waved the bits of plastic fiercely.

'Platinum! I swear! And the Diner's Club; they'll confirm... just call them up. I promise; just ask. There's a number you can call, isn't there? Just ask them! Please! This wasn't our fault, honestly, but I'll pay for it! All of it! Just call up! A couple of minutes; if they don't say it's all right you can let these guys do anything you like to us, but just ask, just call up!'

The manager looked unimpressed. He looked around the deserted, shattered club. 'Do you realise how much this is goan tae cost?'

'I can afford it! I swear to God!' I tried not to shriek too much. McCann was taking no notice. He was trying to stare down three of the bouncers at once, and growling every now and again.

'See that windae, on that pool?' The manager said, nodding behind us. I didn't take my eyes off him, but I nodded. 'That windae alone cost twenty grand.'

'Call it thirty! ' I shouted, and gave a sort of anguished, hysterical cackle. 'Say fifty for the lot!'

The man looked as though he was about to spit at us, or just shake his head and walk away and leave us to the bouncers, but I took a very tentative step forward, and with one hand outstretched, offered him the cards. He peered at them, then did shake his head, snatched the plastics from my grasp and headed for the bar. 'Don't let them move,' he muttered. The bouncers relaxed fractionally and just stood looking at us. I suddenly knew how a dying wildebeeste feels, surrounded by vultures.

'There's no point in this,' McCann whispered hoarsely from out of the side of his mouth. 'Might as well get it over with now as later.' He rocked forward on the balls of his feet. I heard myself whimper; I grabbed him by one shoulder, still not taking my eyes off the bouncers, who were looking very alert again.

'Oh God, please don't do anything, McCann,' I pleaded. 'Just wait a minute, will you? Please?' McCann shook his head and growled, but didn't do anything else. I could hear the manager talking somewhere behind the bar.

The next couple of minutes passed with a glutinous slowness. The hiss of escaping water behind us didn't change, and the slow four-beat scrape of the wrecked fan seemed to drag time out like entrails from some sacrificial victim. The carpet under our feet slowly soaked with water from the pool behind us. The bouncers were starting to look impatient.

The manager came back.

My heart beat in time to the fallen fan, shaking my whole body. Felt like you could have heard it in London. The manager looked ill. Pale. I looked down at his hands. He was holding my cards, and an Amex voucher.

A wave of relief swept through me with the intensity of an orgasm. 'Mr Weir?' the manager said, clearing his throat on the words. I nodded. 'Will you and your... friend come with me , please?'

My knees almost gave way. I felt like crying. McCann started, and looked at me disbelievingly. One of the bouncers stared at the manager. The little man with the cigar shrugged, nodding at me and holding up the Amex card. 'Yer man here could buy the whole fuckin club...' he said. He sounded tired, almost sad.

'With either card.' McCann dropped the broken bottle and stared at me, open-mouthed.

'What did we say? Fifty thousand?' The manager bit on his cigar, seemed to hesitate. 'Plus VAT,' he said, as though swearing. I thought about quibbling, but didn't. The bouncer who'd got the table in the balls right at the start of the fracas had recovered and was leaning beside me on the bar as I filled out the Amex voucher (I checked the figures carefully; Jesus, even I hadn't filled one out for this much before).

'That's amazin,' the bouncer said, dabbing at a small cut on his forehead with a napkin. 'Ah've got all your albums, know that?'

I re-checked the voucher, nodded. 'Oh, aye?'

'Aye; Ah went tae all yer concerts at the Apollo; an that wan at Barrowlands, remember?' I nodded. 'An the two in the Usher Hall; seventy-nine, that wiz, aye?'

'Eighty, I think,' I said.

The big guy nodded happily. 'Aye; Ah used tae think you guys wiz great. An you were really brilliant; you used to write the songs, didn't ye?'

'Some,' I said, finally signing away fifty-seven and a half grand.

I glanced over at where McCann was sitting on a bar stool, one of the waitresses sticking a plaster onto his head. He was looking at me with an expression I couldn't read.

'Na; you wrote them all, didn't ye?' The bouncer by my sideinsisted. 'Aw those other names were just fur a laugh, were they no?'

'Well,' I said, noncommittally, and left it at that.

'Oh, here, wait a minute,' the bouncer said, with the look and tone of somebody who's just had a really good idea; he disappeared round the side of the bar. The manager was inspecting the voucher I'd signed. He'd already had me confirm the name and address of my lawyers, which the Amex people had given him as the place they sent my statements to, but he was still suspicious.

The bouncer who'd been a fan came back with an album. One of ours. Well, in a way; it was Nuggets, the God-awful-titled collection of album off-cuts and not-quite-good-enough attempts at singles that ARC put out after we'd split up. It was a poor album; the best thing on it was a high-speed punk version of 'Long-Haired Lover From Liverpool' we'd done as a joke one very drunken night in Paris. I'd disowned the LP when they brought it out, and still had arguments with Rick Tumber about it (and especially about that title; Nuggets, I ask you).

'Hey, Mr Weird, would ye sign this, aye?' The bouncer looked enthusiastic, grinning happily.

I sighed. 'Sure.'

McCann had had the nerve to order another drink; he slurped noisily at a lager and scowled at me. My earlier euphoria at not being turned into a mewling heap of pulped flesh and broken bones had evaporated. The bouncer with the album looked at my picture on the cover, looked at me, and grinned boyishly. ' Aye, ye can see it's you. That's amazin. You just back here visitin, aye?'

'Aye,' I said, getting off the bar stool and handing the manager back his pen. He took it and put it in his inside jacket pocket, along with the carefully folded Amex voucher.

'Hey,' the bouncer said, looking serious all of a sudden, 'Mr Weird, I was really sorry, ye know? Tae hear about...'

'Yeah,' I said, quickly. 'I know. I don't like talking about it ... sorry .' I shrugged, looked down. He patted me on the shoulder.

'Aye, 'sokay, Mr Weird.' He sounded sincere. Jesus, I thought. Six years; six years ago it happened and people still talk about it like it happened last week.

I gave the guy a weak smile and walked over to McCann. 'You okay?' I asked him. 'Ready to go?'

McCann nodded. He finished his lager. We made our apologies again, shook hands with the bouncers (they were getting five hundred each; there were no really serious injuries, so they were happy enough), then we left.

We walked in silence through the smirring rain and sleet to West Nile Street, where I hailed a taxi.

'You really who they said?' McCann asked, standing outside, the taxi as I held the door open for him. His wee, grey eyes stared into mine. There was still some dried blood on his face.

'Aye.' I looked down at the dark, glistening road, then back to his eyes. 'Yes, I am.'

McCann nodded, then turned on his heel and walked away.

I stood there, still holding on to the cold handle of the opened taxi door, and watched him go. Sleet curled on gusts before the slabs of light from shops. Headlights and rear lights moved above the rain-bright roads, and the streetlights seemed to wear little flowing capes of rain and snow, swirling cones under the orange lamps.

'Haw, Jimmy!' the driver shouted. 'Sgettin cold in here; you gettin in or no?'

I looked at him, a white face in the darkness.

'Aye.' I climbed in and closed the door.