That’s Your Lot

Gary went to the shops and replaced the padlock. He got an extra key cut for the back door, and put them on a keyring that looked just the same as the old one. Linda didn’t suspect a thing.

Everything was going to be all right. Linda had been a bit funny with him since the perving incident with Teresa, but with regards to the keys, everything was going to be all right.

Then, a few days later, while Gary was looking out the bedroom window upstairs, he saw a guy cycling about outside in the street. There was something about him that Gary didn’t like the look of.

The guy wasn’t wearing cycling clothes. He was wearing denims and a jacket, and he wasn’t wearing a helmet. That would usually be unremarkable, because you don’t have to have all the bright clothes and a helmet to ride a bike. But usually, the only people you saw without a helmet were younger guys on a BMX. But this guy was about 30 years old, and he was cycling on a mountain bike that looked dodgy. The bike looked featureless, it was completely black with no logo, like it had been spray-painted black. And why was that? Because it had probably been knocked, and probably by the guy himself.

The guy went up the street, past the house. But when he got a few doors up, he doubled back.

Gary stepped away from the window to look out the side of the curtain, so that he couldn’t be seen. He saw the guy look at a few houses, which gave Gary some relief, because it didn’t look like the guy had an interest in Gary’s house in particular. But as the guy cycled past Gary’s front gate, he turned his head quickly to look at the living-room window. And he kept looking at it, even as he passed the houses further down the street.

It was him.

He was the man with the keys.

Gary knew what was coming. It was at that point that Gary thought that he really should tell Linda. He should tell Linda the fucking truth. He should tell Linda that he was sorry, he was so fucking sorry, but he’d left the keys in the padlock around the back, and now there was a guy casing their house. They should go to the police. They were about to get everything stolen.

But it would cost a fortune to get that lock replaced.

And it wasn’t just that either. It was the fact that he caused it. And then lied about it. Plus he’d left the house unoccupied, with the lights off and curtain open, knowing that they could have had their computers stolen. Plus there was the thing with Teresa. Him and Linda had been heading for the rocks ever since that happened, and he could have turned it around with a truthful explanation, but instead of that he just let it happen.

A couple of days passed, with no sight of the guy on the bike. But Gary knew the guy was out there, just biding his time. All it would take was one more night away from home.

‘We’re going through to my mum’s and dad’s tonight,’ said Linda.

But he made every excuse to not go.

He told her he didn’t feel well, his head was killing him. But she said he could just take a couple of painkillers and lie in bed when he got there.

He told her that he didn’t like her dad, which was partly true. He told her that he didn’t like the way her dad patted Gary’s belly almost every time he went over, making a comment about Gary ‘putting on the beef’. But Linda just told him to get over it, or say something back, or lose weight.

He told her that he didn’t like her mum either.

Gary and Linda fell out, and she went through to her mum’s and dad’s by herself. He felt bad, but there was no alternative, none that he could think of.

He slept in the house that night with every light on. He balanced a brush against the patio door in the kitchen so that it would fall over and hit the tiles if the door was opened. He tested it and it made a clatter that he could hear from anywhere in the house.

The night passed with no break-in, and Gary waited for Linda to come home the next day, but she texted him to say that she’d be staying for not one night but two.

Gary saw the guy on the bike again while she was away, this time cycling down the path behind the house. Gary could only see the top of the guy’s head, but he saw the head slow down near his gate, before speeding up and cycling off.

He felt like phoning the police, but he didn’t. It was just too late now.

He could have just phoned them or gone over to the station and asked them to keep things confidential. It might have been enough for the police to get a description of the guy. They might have known who Gary was talking about and paid the guy a visit, which would have scared the guy off. He’d maybe get the keys back.

But he didn’t do any of that. He just wanted it all to go away.

When Linda returned, she said she was going to sleep on the couch, in the living room. She reckoned that was her and him finished.

He could’ve just told her then. He could have told her that he left the keys in the padlock out in the gate, that he wasn’t shagging Teresa next door or looking at her or whatever it was that Linda thought was going on. He could have said he was sorry for leaving the house unoccupied, and hope that she understood why he lied.

He may as well have just told her the truth, if she reckoned that was her and him finished. There was nothing to lose. But he didn’t. He still had hope that it would work out somehow.

Then, one night, while he was lying awake upstairs in bed and she was sleeping downstairs in the living room, he heard the brush hit the tiles.

If there was a time to come clean, that was it.

Everything worth stealing was in the living room. The telly, the stereo, and probably the tablet. All the stuff worth knocking was in the living room, and the burglar probably knew that. They probably learned all about that in jail.

All he had to do was run downstairs and chase away the burglar.

But then Linda would ask questions, and she’d see the look on his face.

Trophies

Martin was a cobbler. But like most cobblers, he didn’t just mend shoes. He cut keys. He did engravings. He engraved things like trophies and medals and nameplates for doors. People could either come in with the nameplates to be engraved, or they could pick one of the ones he had for sale on the shelves.

He also had trophies and medals for sale, which sat on the shelf above the nameplates and door knockers. It made the wall look like something you’d see in a football club, like a trophy cabinet. Martin used to make a joke about it with customers who were in to get their shoes fixed.

They’d point to their shoes and ask him, ‘Are you able to fix this? Is that something you do?’

And he’d say, ‘I do that. And you willnae find anybody better. Just look at my trophies!’

But he didn’t bother making that joke anymore.

The door beeped, and in walked a customer. Martin gave him a quick look up and down. Right away, he didn’t like the look of the guy. A possible thief, thought Martin. The guy looked shifty. It was the way he didn’t walk up to the counter to be served, but instead chose to hover around the things nearest the door.

Martin would get cunts like him in now and then. It was a busy street outside. They’d come in and hover about. Martin would turn his back on them for a second, then he’d hear the door beep and the guy would be gone. They’d have grabbed something from the rails, something worthless, like a packet of heel protectors. Martin could sometimes tell what they’d grabbed because they’d have grabbed the item off the rail so quickly that it would cause the remaining packets on the rail to swing.

And that’s what this guy was like. Hovering about. He didn’t look like he was browsing. If a person was browsing, they’d usually browse around just one type of item. They’d maybe browse around the items for doors, like the door knockers and nameplates, or browse around the trophies and medals ‒ but they’d never drift from the door items to the trophies, like this guy was doing. Nobody ever came into his shop for a nameplate and a trophy, it was either one or the other.

This guy was a thief. He was just waiting for Martin to turn his back, then he’d grab something shiny, and out the door he’d go. He’d be off with the heel protectors, thinking that they were made of solid gold, and he’d go around the pubs trying to sell them.

‘Can I help you?’ asked Martin.

That was the line that normally caused these cunts to leave. They’d say nothing in reply, like they hadn’t heard you, then they’d leave a few seconds later when they realised there was no way you were taking your eyes off them.

The guy looked at Martin and said ‘Yeah’, in that posh way. He played with his fingers, like an awkward teenager. It could be that he wasn’t a thief, but just shy, and he didn’t know how to ask for what he wanted. You couldn’t be sure, though, not yet.

The door beeped as another man entered the shop. He was wearing denims and a suit jacket, and was pulling a shoebox out of a large paper bag. Martin didn’t like two people in the shop at the one time. The guy with the shoebox was less likely to be a thief than the first guy, but he couldn’t ask the first guy to leave.

‘We’re shut,’ said Martin.

‘Shut?’ asked the man, looking at the other guy. ‘But …’

‘I said we’re shut.’

The man didn’t like the attitude. ‘Fuck off, then.’

‘You fuck off.’

The man opened the door and left. The other guy decided to leave as well, slipping out before the door closed over.

Good. Fuck off. Pair of cunts.

You know, he used to joke about all the trophies on the wall being like a trophy cabinet, like he’d earned them. It was obviously a joke, but these cunts wouldn’t even crack a smile. But see seriously? All joking aside? He fucking deserved a trophy, for the cunts he had to put up with in there.

New Life

Alan had gathered all his mates and a few family members at his flat. His girlfriend Lisa was there as well. It was a surprise. There was going to be an announcement, he said. Not even Lisa knew what it was about. It wasn’t his birthday or anything.

They came into the flat, smiling and asking questions. They were to be there at 7 p.m. Some of them had asked what they were to wear, but Alan had told them that it didn’t matter. Just wear what you want, it was nothing fancy, they weren’t going out clubbing. It was just an announcement.

‘What do you mean when you say you’re going to make an announcement?’ asked Lisa throughout the week.

‘Just wait, you’ll see,’ said Alan.

Alan seemed more upbeat lately than he had been for quite some time. Whatever the announcement was, it was good to see him like that. Lisa wondered if it was a new job, but would he really get everybody around just to announce that?

Everybody arrived and chatted for a few minutes while Alan took their coats and got them drinks. Alan’s best mate Steven said it was like one of those murder mystery weekends you hear about, but Alan said it was going be nothing like that, don’t get your hopes up.

They were enjoying it, though. Steven said he liked it, whatever it was, and Alan said he did as well. It was exciting and he was glad he came up with the idea.

Alan walked into the middle of the living room where everybody was, and stood on the rug in front of the telly. He cleared his throat in the jokey way that a person does when they want to make a speech.

‘Oh,’ said Anne, another one of Alan’s pals. ‘Here it is.’

‘The announcement,’ said Lisa. ‘At last.’

She really didn’t know what this could be. It could only be a good thing. All of this was a good thing. Alan rarely came up with an idea by himself, but it wasn’t his fault. He’d been struggling for a while, with everything.

‘So,’ said Alan. ‘Here it is.’

He looked nervous. Lisa asked him if he wanted to sit down, but he said that he was fine. He was just trying to think of how to get this across, the thing he had to say.

‘So,’ he said again. ‘As you know, I’ve had … no, in fact, first of all, thanks for coming, everybody, let me just say that first.’

‘You’re welcome, mate,’ said Steven.

Alan nodded and got back into it.

‘Right,’ said Alan. ‘So, as you know, I’m prone to getting a bit down.’

The happy atmosphere in the room subsided. The smiles were still there, but their eyes were no longer smiling. They began to realise that the thing that Alan had to say was a bit more serious than they first thought.

He turned the wrist of his right hand around to face everybody. There was a scar on it. ‘And you all know about this.’

Lisa looked at everybody in the room, and saw that they were becoming uncomfortable. Chris, one of Alan’s cousins, turned his head away to look at the wall to his side, even though there was nothing there of interest.

‘Alan,’ said Lisa. ‘What is this?’

‘It’s fine,’ he said. ‘It’s fine. It’s all right, everybody.’

He smiled at everybody until he got a smile back. Then he continued to talk.

‘You all know about it,’ he said. ‘I’ve spoken to you all. You know how hard I’ve tried, you know I’ve tried everything. Pills, counselling, everything. I’ve tried everything. And it worked, for a while. But there I was again. On Monday, I think.’

This was the first time that Lisa had heard anything about Monday. ‘There you were again what?’ she asked. ‘What happened on Monday?’

Alan took a deep breath and just came out and said it. ‘I was about to kill myself.’

‘Jesus,’ said Steven.

‘For God’s sake, Alan,’ said Cheryl, sympathetically. She gave Lisa’s back a rub.

Lisa put her face in her hands and was instantly in tears.

‘I was up at the Erskine Bridge,’ said Alan. ‘I walked all the way up there. Took me over an hour. I walked all the way up there and I was going to throw myself off. And I knew that if I did, that was it.’

He looked at his wrist.

‘No going back this time,’ he said. ‘You step off that bridge, it’s over. No ambulance, no rushing to the hospital. You step off there, and it’s over. Doesn’t matter how much you change your mind on the way down, it’s over.’

‘Shut up,’ said Lisa from behind her hands. ‘Just shut up.’

‘We better leave,’ said Cheryl to everybody else, standing up. ‘We should go. Come on.’

‘No,’ said Alan. He looked at everybody and smiled. ‘Because this is what I want to say. I’ve got something to say. I swear this will be the last time that you’ll hear me talk about this. Will you hear me out?’

Cheryl looked at him and everybody else. Lisa looked up from her hands and waited for Alan to speak. Cheryl sat down and started rubbing Lisa’s back again.

Alan had been standing on the rug, but now he felt like sitting. He pulled over a small table that was behind him, then he sat down on it and began to speak more quietly. He realised that although he was feeling good, he was potentially causing pain to the others, so he didn’t smile, even though he wanted to.

‘I don’t know why I want to die,’ he said. ‘I don’t really know. But I know that I don’t enjoy my life. I’ve gone too far into a life that I don’t like, and I just want it all to end.’

He looked at Lisa.

‘But as I was up there on the bridge, it dawned on me that I didn’t want to end my life, not completely. I just wanted to end this one, if that makes sense. I think I could enjoy life, if I was somebody else.’

‘Then be somebody else,’ said Lisa. ‘Do whatever you want. Leave if you want to. I’d rather you were somewhere else than here and wanting to jump off the fucking …’

She broke down again. Cheryl gave her back a rub and kissed her head.

‘I thought about that,’ he said. ‘I thought about it on the bridge. I thought about just running away. Just getting some money and getting on a plane and going to Canada or somewhere and starting again. But that would cost a ton of money. It would cost a serious ton of money, and I’d have to find somewhere to live and get my head around it all and think about all the forms and, oh, I don’t know. There’s always something. There’s always something.’

He rubbed his head.

‘I want to stay here, but I just want everything to be different. I want to be home, but with different faces and places, doing different things with different … I really don’t know. I know that it all sounds like it won’t change a thing. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me now, but it made sense to me when I was up on the bridge, and I’m not going to go back up there to try and remember. I told myself I was going to do it and that’s why I asked you here and I’m going to do it. I have to.’

‘Do what?’ asked Steven. He looked at Alan’s hands to see if he was holding a razor, in case Alan’s plan was to cut his wrist or his throat, right in front of them all. But there was no razor.

‘Please don’t feel bad,’ said Alan. ‘But I told myself that if I don’t then I’d end up killing myself and I’d never see you again anyway. You’d lose me anyway.’

Anne didn’t get it. She looked at Lisa and she could see that Lisa didn’t get it either. Neither did Cheryl or anybody else. Anne looked to Alan and said, ‘Alan, I don’t think anybody knows what you mean.’

Alan took another deep breath and tried to remember how much sense it made on the bridge, then he said it.

‘After you leave here tonight, you don’t know me. After tonight, my name will be Craig.’

There was quiet in the room as they thought about what he could mean. Steven asked, ‘What do you mean? You’re changing your name?’

‘No,’ said Alan. ‘Well, aye. But not just the name.’ He took a breath and tried to keep it simple. ‘After tonight, I’ll be a guy called Craig.’

Before they left, Alan told them the best way to go about it all. The technicalities. The dos and don’ts. He’d thought it all out.

Lisa was heartbroken, and asked him if he was joking. She wanted him to tell her he was joking. She said it must be a joke and she wouldn’t go through with it, but he explained again that it was either this or he was going up to that bridge. If they spoke to him again, he’d be found the following day, floating face down in the Clyde, and that was a promise.

They left, and for the following couple of weeks, they never saw him.

Then, they did.

They started to see him around. They’d get a glimpse of him, then he’d be gone for a month. He’d be passing by as a passenger on a bus, or he’d be seen coming out of a building or getting into a car. Lisa had never seen him herself and wanted every detail about who he was with and what he was doing.

Anne saw him in a park. He was with a group of people, studenty types. One of them had a guitar, and they had a tightrope tied between a couple of trees. They were people like that. They were the type of people that Alan used to laugh at, but Anne said he looked like he was having a good time.

Steven saw him in a club. Steven was with a lassie he’d just met, a lassie he’d got dancing with. She said she wanted to introduce him to her mates, and she led Steven towards a table. One of her mates was Craig. Steven and Craig had said ‘Pleased to meet you’ to each other, like it was the first time they’d met. Steven stood around for a minute, to pretend that everything was normal, then he told the lassie that he had to go to the toilet. He took a detour to the cloakroom, got his jacket and left. It was too much.

Lisa was worried that she’d never see Craig again after that, that he’d move away or be found face down in the Clyde like he promised.

But then she finally saw him, in Lidl.

There was something different about him. Nothing much, but something. His hair was a bit longer at the top than the last time she saw him. The denims he was wearing were a darker shade of blue than he usually wore, but that was nothing much. He was wearing a jumper, and that was something.

He walked past her, but she didn’t look at him, not directly. She watched his reflection on the metal edge at the front of the shelf. He might have turned his head to look at her, but she couldn’t be sure. Then he was gone.

She saw him in there again a week after that. And then a few days after that.

The last time she saw him, he walked around the aisles for ten minutes, but then only left with a couple of packets of crisps.

The next time they were in, she would smile at him.

Or she might just go ahead and talk to him. She thought it would be all right, because it wasn’t like she’d be talking to Alan. She wouldn’t be talking to him as Alan. She’d be talking to Craig. She liked the guy. And you read things about supermarkets, about how that’s where some couples first meet.

Moustache

There was an explosion.

Frank had been walking to the job centre. To get there, Frank would usually leave his house and stay on that side of the street for ten minutes, walking past the tenements, past the community centre and the factory. Then there would be more tenements, and when he reached those, he’d cross over to the job centre.

It was when he reached the factory that the explosion happened.

When it happened, in that first instant, he didn’t know that it was an explosion. He didn’t know if it was something that had happened inside him, like a heart attack or a stroke, or something that had happened outside his body, out in the open. Whatever it was, the combination of the sound and the force made him fall on his side and bang his head on the ground.

His eyes were shut and his ears were ringing. He couldn’t see or hear anything, but he could smell dust. It reminded him of whenever he walked past the flats over in Finnieston, the ones that were being demolished, and the dust that blew onto the street. The smell told him that the thing that had happened hadn’t just happened to him, it was no heart attack. He knew that when he opened his eyes, he was going to see something.

He opened them slowly and narrowly, so that the dust he could smell wouldn’t go in his eyes.

He looked in front of him. Through the dust he could see that it was like half the factory and the surrounding tenements were lying on the road. There were twisted sheets of corrugated iron, there was broken glass and broken window frames. Strewn across the road were building bricks from the factory, and large blocks of sandstone from the tenements. The scene looked like a sandcastle that had been kicked across a beach.

There had been an explosion at the factory.

Frank checked himself, his arms and legs, and saw they were intact. He looked towards the rubble in front of him, and waited for the dust to clear.

It was quiet. He thought he had been deafened, but he realised he wasn’t when he heard the first scream. People had been shocked into silence. But after the first scream, others began to follow.

There was a rumble, then the sound of something crashing to the ground, either a building or part of one. People screamed and shouted again. A mix of women and men.

Frank looked at his arms and legs again and gave them a squeeze, to double check that they were fine. When he was sure that they were, he got to his feet, and began to walk diagonally across the road.

A few people ran past him, some heading the way he was heading, and some heading back the way he came. A guy in his forties, around the same age as Frank, emerged from the dust. He had blood on his head. He stopped to look Frank up and down, then he rubbed his eyes and carried on walking.

Frank walked forward towards the sounds of people shouting, people speaking, or the sound of anything moving, anything that sounded like it was being moved by somebody trying to free themselves from the disaster.

He heard the sound of a female voice, and he began jogging towards it. He found a woman lying underneath one of the sheets of corrugated iron. She was wearing a blue coat, that was either light blue or looked light blue because of the dust. The sheet she was under didn’t look like it had either hurt her or pinned her down. She was crawling away from underneath it.