Lucky2

The phone was lying about the living room in bits. My experience of phones was standing in the phone box with a metal coat hanger, bent out of shape, and a 2p. The coin was to put in the little silver metal cup, to encourage other coins to come out and join it. I’d learned my lesson. Phones always let you down. I didn’t care about them; thought they were a waste of hard-earned money, and couldn’t imagine why anybody would want to have one. They were just like one of those tagging device, with a nagging voice. Only you didn’t need to pay for one of them. But I hated to see waste. And the good thing about mobile phones is they are as easy to put together, as they are to throw away. The thingmy bit goes with the other thingmy bit and that leaves the other bit. I didn’t even have time to draw on the deep breath of satisfaction, before the phone rang.

My phone conversations usually follow the pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake nursery rhyme pattern. But it was difficult to make out what he was saying at first, because he was swearing so much, and calling me a wee bastard. I waited it out at first, thinking maybe it was the catalogue man looking for his money, or worse the Provey man, offering another loan. But my mind was making quick calculations:

18-22 years old;
wearing a mixture of primary colours, because he didn’t want to stand out; purple, the neutral Switzerland colour of shell suits; and white trainers; with some gold coins on his fingers, because he wanted to blend in and stand out at the same time.

‘Is that you Bob?’ I said.

‘No you’re Bob,’ he said.

He was a bit slower that I thought, so I pictured him as a Drumchapel man.

‘What is you want Bob?’ I said, because I knew his name wasn’t Bob and, intuitively, that would annoy him more that it should any non-Bob.

It was just one of those nuisance phone calls that always happen when you’re buttering the toast, or peeling the potatoes, or minding your own business. It was all those things at once and to the power of 53 (an unlucky number):I’m going to kill you, rape your wife, rape your dog and smash up your car, type of call; which was fine, but I was pretty busy. Before I had time to tell him that I didn’t have a wife, or a dog, or a car, and I was going to kill him, rape his wife and dog and wreck his car; he switched roles.

‘Is that you Bob?’ he said.

He’d been growling in my ear for about five minutes, which is quite a long time, when you’re trying to make macaroni and cheese and you've run out of cheese. I’d got him all-wrong. He sounded as if he was from Dalmuir. I probably knew him.

‘No, it’s not Bob,’ I said, ‘who is this?’

I could hear him breathing, as if he’d run out of breath, on the other end. ‘How can I give you your grand if I don’t know your name?’ I said, using logic as a cold tool, but it would probably have been better if I’d just called him a tool, and hung up.

Instead of saying it’s Geordy Davenport, he said, ‘did you know Tottsy?’

‘Aye,’ I said.

‘Dae you know his brother Pitzy?’

‘Aye,’ I said.

‘Well, dae yeh know his cousin Rab Morrison?’

‘Aye,’ I said.

‘Well, I’m Rab Morrison’s brother’s pal, but I’m related to Tottsy. And I better get that money or I’m goin’ to kill you’.

‘Ok, I’ll get back to you,’ I said, in my best phone voice.

The phone rang again, almost immediately. I pulled it apart. Young Bob had the right idea, leaving it in three bits. He wasn’t as daft as I thought.

Anybody else would have left it, but I didn’t throw money at the bookies, to prove I’d common sense. The first thing not to do was ask Bob’s mum, Cassie, what the fuck her son had been up to.

The next thing not to do is phone someone you’ve not spoke to for about two years, because the first thing they always bring up is you still owe them a measly £65, which seemed a bit petty, even for a robber.

And the last thing you shouldn’t do, because it really is the first, and you’re just putting it off, is phone George Elliot. It wasn’t easy getting his number. It cost me the promise of paying back £65, but George Elliot was a one-stop shop. He helped control the tide of things that swept into town, and who got swept back out again, so in a way it was money well spent, even though I hadn’t paid it.

‘How you doin’ big man?’ said George, when I phoned him, not at all phased, as if it was normal for someone that hadn’t spoken to him since we’d both worn football shorts that were too big for us- as if he was expecting the call.

I told him about the phone call I’d got earlier and how it was related to Tottsy.

‘Aye,’ he said, ‘that pair of pricks were trying to sell cocaine’.

That explained everything. I could imagine young Bob and Geordy Davenport standing with their hats low over their eyes, their ponchos keeping off the smirry-rain, holding the reins of their mules, as they waited for the Renfrew Ferry to take them across to Clydebank and flood the place with illegal substances.

‘Aye, they were cutting it up with all sorts of shite,’ said George, sniffing.

He, of course, had access to the more pharmaceutically pure product. You couldn’t go into a pub toilet, for a shite, now, without people barging in and sticking things up their nose. It was a wonder anybody with left with a septum, as it was cut with all kinds of crap: talcum, sleeping- tablets, ice-cubes, bits of carpet.

‘What about the money young Bob owes?’ I asked. ‘I could probably get a Provy Loan’.

‘What’s a Provy Loan?’ then George laughed, as if he remembered the Provy man and his triplicate signed for cheques that you could only spend in some shops. ‘Nah,’ he said ‘they’re robbers. Hang on.’ I could hear him talking to someone in the background. ‘Right,’ he said, ‘leave it with me and I’ll phone you back’.

The phone rang a few times, but it was just those ‘I better get my money or your dead kind of calls’.

‘Ok,’ said George, when he called, without any preamble, ‘it’s sorted. That wee bastard thinks because he’s related to Tottsy he can do anything. But we’ve got his phone records here. He’s just a wee grass’.

A grass, or police informer, was the lowest form of pond life. He’d need to stand on the shoulders of a convicted paedophile to draw breath.

‘What do I do then, do I phone him, or what?’ I asked George.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ said George, ‘I’ve already phoned the wee prick’.

My legs were shaking when I sat down on the settee. Cassie was calm and poised in the kitchen, washing the dishes, but there was a fracture beneath her frozen beauty. I was lucky to have her, but wasn’t sure I should tell her everything. I took apart the mobile phone and accidentally trod on it. Shame that.