Harley11

‘Look at that guy’s shoes!’ Fiona squinted, her nose pressed against The Work’s sheet glass window and had a dose of the giggles, as if it was her that had been taking drugs. Not that she ever would. She didn’t believe in that kind of thing. She was quite happy with the odd vodka and coke. Besides, Finlay didn’t like it.

The shoes were a pair of tiger skin winkle pickers look-alikes that would have made Rumplestilskin tear himself in two with envy.

Mary hauled Fiona back from the window. But it was too late. His eyesight wasn’t as bad as hers. He banged on a car roof that had slowed and got in his way, as he crossed Kensington Church Street.

‘Fuck sake girls where you been? I’ve been looking for you.’ His accent cut through the loud music like a handsaw and pushed him up alongside other working class cheerleader’s of the Glasgow tenement block. But it didn’t matter what crowd he was placed in, he had the knack of standing out, like a vision of Jesus hugging Hitler in the Holy Temple of Jerusalem at Yom Kippur. His businessman’s white shirt stretched across his body, taut as a mainsail in a winter gale. He stood, comfortable in himself, between Fiona and Mary, until black silence spread like tar.

‘Food,’ said the barefooted man, who cheerfully pushed between them and banged down a plate of rice and bean sprouts.

‘You hungry?’ Mary tried half smiling at Fiona.

Tight lipped she nodded her head.

‘What about you Uncle Paki?’

There were whisperings of church and home in the eyes-down demure way Mary spoke. That’s what her old Ma called him. Mary called him Uncle Soupy, when she was younger, shortened to Soupy, because his name was Souter. His mother was Italian and lived just around the corner. Even though his skin was pale as the crescent moon, his own da’ christened him Paki, or Blackie, depending on the day of the week.

Paki stopped searching through his pockets for his fags for a minute to look at the plate. ‘I can’t eat that fucking foreign shit.’

‘Well I think it looks delicious.’ Mary picked up a floppy bean sprout and chewed on it, before picking up the plate and flouncing down at one of the tables, nudging aside a couple with her bony hip to make space in at the no man's land of the wall.

Fiona’s bum found the seat across from her, elbows placed expertly on the straw-knitted tablemat, propping her head up and smiling, like a chair vaulting Olympiad. ‘I think I will have something after all,’ she said, smiling again, as if it was contagious.

Paki looked from one girl to another. Some people thought he was a bit thick. He allowed people their assumptions, but if they mouthed them he knocked their teeth out. But he still wasn’t sure about girls. He searched in his pockets for fags, but his hand only found sunglasses, which he balanced on the bridge of his nose and looked over them. The two girls had their backs to him and were nattering away, ignoring him, so that he felt he was back in Mrs O’Dea’s class in primary school. He grabbed the arm of the nearest kaftaned customer, whip- lashing him up short, in front of him.

‘Where’s the fucking phone hairball?’

‘It’s over there man.’ He pointed beyond the crowd in front of him, to the back of the café.

The girls were dusting the air with fag smoke and seemed engrossed in their conversation. They didn’t even know he was there. He searched through his pocket for change, his tiger feet moving through the crowd, his shoulders working like a line back’s, pushing aside the unwary, and daring them to meet his shaded gaze.

‘Scram,’ said Fiona, jumping up first. The door to the café tinkled as they barged through it, but, to them, it seemed as loud as a foghorn on the Dalmuir canal at midnight. Their shopping bags nipped heels like terriers, as they click-clacked on shoes, that weren’t worn in enough, as they ran as quickly as their spikes could carry them to the tube station.

‘Phew. That was close.’ Mary found a seat and lifted the other passenger’s suitcase so that Fiona could sit down.

‘I almost peed myself,’ Fiona whooped, bent over holding her sides, looking at her reflections, as the tube sped and stopped, and started, into the cool darkness like a carnival ride.

‘How did he find us?’ Mary patted her sympathetically on the knee, bringing her back down and lit up two Sobrane- that she’d taken to smoking in London, because the different colours-blue, pink or green with gold filters- made her more elegant.It was like smoking sparklers.

‘I might have phoned Findlay.’ Fiona couldn’t look at her, she was waiting for Mary to ask ‘when? She gazed at a little child that was weaving his chubby little hands in and out of his mother’s hair. ‘I might have mentioned where we were staying.’ She took a deep drag of smoke and held it in her lungs until it almost hurt. ‘I’m sorry,’ she breathed out.

‘Come on.’ Mary grabbed at the bags and at her friend’s coat as the tube slowed. ‘This is our stop.’

They barged and breanched their way the crowd like breakwater, their feet hitting the hotel lobby at the same time.

‘You get all our stuff. I’ll get the money.’ Mary banged down the concierge’s bell, making it play Morse code.

‘David.’ Mary spoke in a clipped tone. She ignored the purple bruising on his eye. ‘We’ d like to withdraw our money.’

David took an eternity to nod, as if he already knew that, searching beneath his desk drawer for the set of keys he needed, took even longer.

Fiona appeared out of breath at Mary’s side. ‘Somebody’s ransacked her room.’

He looked up, the evidence of her words on his face. ‘How much was it again?’

‘£902’ said Fiona and Mary at the same time.

‘£902?’ He licked his lips.

Fiona looked in her bag for the receipt, but Mary’s eyes didn’t leave his. ‘It’s up to you,’ her voice dropped and dripped sweet regret, ‘or I can make a phone call.’

He snatched at the keys and was soon back the money neatly packaged in hundreds. ‘Do you want to count it?’

‘No, we trust you David.’ Mary flicked, croupier style, two ten pound notes out of the bundle. ‘That for you David, for all your troubles.’ He voice caressed him like a kiss.

His voice echoed down the ornate ceilings of the hallway as they left. ‘I’m getting the sign changed. “No coloureds, or Irish, or dogs.” To“No coloureds, or Irish, or dogs, or Scots. And definitely no Glaswegians.” And I’m going to underline the last part in red pen, because when you’re not being crazy you’re being violent. And when you’re not being violent you’re plum crazy.’