Republics of the Mind Page 2
There was Gav, who when he got married they stripped him naked, sprayed his balls with purple dye and drove him through the tiger section tied to the bonnet of a Land Rover. There was Annie up at the restaurant who stood up on a table at a Park disco one night and challenged all the white hunters to arm-wrestling. ‘White hunters!’ she snorted, meaning the guys who drove the zebra-striped Land Rovers in the cat sections. ‘Think ye’re in the fuckin Serengeti or somethin.’ Nobody took up the challenge.
Once there were two year-old lion cubs that had been taken off their mother to be trained for the circus. They turned on a guy called Andy who’d gone into their cage to play with them, to impress Annie, and Annie went in after him and dragged him out, beating the cubs off with her handbag. Andy had an artificial hand because he’d lost the real one years before in some accident. Eck claimed he’d blown it off making a bomb. ‘Whit wis he daein that for?’ Jimmy asked. ‘Dinna ken,’ said Eck. ‘Maybe he wis gonnae blaw up the oil pipeline tae England or somethin. He doesna like fowk talkin aboot his haun by the way.’
Eck and Jimmy were out on the randan and Eck was playing pool with a guy he knew called Iain. Jimmy was chatting to this lassie that was with Iain, he’d seen her around before and quite fancied her. She was impressed by the fact that he worked at the Park.
‘It must be brilliant, workin wi the animals and that. I love animals.’
‘Aye, it’s aw right,’ said Jimmy casually. You didn’t want to be too enthusiastic, sound like a wee boy. Anyway, it wasn’t that great. ‘The pay’s shite,’ he said. ‘Thirty-nine pound for a fifty-four hour week. I could maybe get somethin else but I’d miss bein ootside.’
‘Is it no dangerous?’ she said. Her name was Carol. She worked in Boots in the new shopping centre. She had short dark hair and bright red lips and Jimmy bet she’d look great in one of those white chemist’s coats.
‘Naw, no really,’ he said, playing it dead casual still. ‘No unless ye’re stupit.’ He thought of the game he and Gav had been playing the week before. You parked your Land Rover behind the male lions and let them sit dozing for a while, forgetting you were there. Then when there were no punters about one of you had to run out and boot the nearest lion up the arse and get back to the Land Rover before it woke up and came after you. Gav did it first. Then Jimmy had to do it. As soon as he kicked the lion he heard Gav starting up the motor and backing away at top speed. Jimmy nearly shat himself catching up with him, then they couldn’t stop laughing for half an hour. The funniest thing was the lion never even stirred. They’d have been in more danger from Murray if he’d seen them at it.
‘These lions are fucked,’ said Gav. ‘There’s nae fuckin lion left in them.’
Jimmy said, ‘Did ye ever see that film about the Stones at Altamont? When they hired the Hell’s Angels tae act as security and peyed them in beer?’
‘That wis responsible,’ said Gav.
‘Aye,’ said Jimmy. ‘Well, things are gettin a bit oot o haun, and Mick’s up on the stage tryin tae cool it, he’s gaun, “’Ere, which cats wanna fite?” I tell ye, it wisna these yins onywey.’
‘These cats widna fight wi fuckin dugs,’ said Gav.
‘Aye, it’s pretty safe,’ Jimmy said to Carol, ‘if ye’re no daft.’ She was looking at him admiringly. He glanced over at Iain and Eck at the pool table. Iain was a big bugger. Jimmy said quietly, ‘I could take ye roon some time. I could say ye’re ma sister and get ye in for free. Take ye aff the road, right up close tae the lions and that.’
‘Could ye?’ Her eyes were wide open. ‘I’d love that.’
Later, when he went for a piss, Iain followed him into the gents. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘jist in case ye wis thinkin aboot it, keep your fuckin paws aff Carol, aw right?’
‘Hey, I’m jist oot for a bevvy,’ said Jimmy.
‘Ye think ye’re somethin special, you and Eck,’ said Iain. ‘Workin oot at that glorified zoo. Carol said ye were gonnae show her roon. Well, ye might fool her but ye dinna fool me. Tae me ye’re jist a pair o jumped-up sheepshaggers.’
‘Hell, man,’ said Jimmy as he went to wash his hands, ‘I ken ye lost at pool but dinna tak it oot on me, aw right?’
Behind him he heard Iain moving. He turned round quickly, expecting to have to fight, but Iain was heading for the door. Probably going to check on what Eck was up to with Carol. Jimmy shook his hands dry. Time for them to move on to the next pub. The lassie must not have a brain, telling Iain that. He’d be as well staying clear of her.
Jimmy understood that the Park was a charade, but he resented a guy like Iain who knew fuck all about it criticising it. You shouldn’t criticise things you knew nothing about. What was it he’d said? A glorified zoo? What would that be? A zoo without cages. Ah, well, he would know about that right enough. They all would.
When Murray came back with the monkey he found he had a bigger problem on his hands. Eilidh had to lie crumpled up in the stall all day – there was no way she could be moved with the public around. After the Park closed, Murray got Jimmy and Eck and a couple of others to stay on so they could shift her.
‘Where’s she gaun?’ asked Jimmy.
‘Doon tae the mink ferm,’ said Murray, ‘where else? Eck, you can get on tae it the morn’s morn.’
While Gav was backing the trailer in Jimmy said to Eck, ‘Whit’s he on aboot? He’s surely no wantin ye tae cut her up?’
‘Dinna ken, Jim,’ said Eck. He wouldn’t look Jimmy in the eye.
‘Christ, man, she’s fuckin rife wi gangrene. She should be gaun in the incinerator, no bein fed tae the lions.’
‘I’ll tak a look at her the morn,’ said Eck. ‘Noo piss aff. I’ve things tae think aboot.’
That was odd. Eck had never deliberately had a thought in his life, to Jimmy’s knowledge. Now apparently he was having several at once.
Jimmy never saw him all the next morning, which meant he was probably at the mink farm. On his dinner hour Jimmy jumped on the bike and hammered it down there. He found Eck in the big rubber apron, holding a long knife and surveying Eilidh, who was stretched out on the concrete floor of the meat-room. But it wasn’t the Eilidh Jimmy knew. This was Eilidh in her socks just. All the skin was stripped off her, apart from four wee socks above her hooves. Her severed head lay on the floor a few feet away. The flayed corpse was bloody and stinking, parts of the meat were a grey-green colour. ‘You were right,’ said Eck, ‘there’s nae wey the cats can eat this. We’d kill the lot o them.’
‘So whit’s the idea?’
‘The idea wis,’ said Eck, ‘tae sell the skin. It’s worth quite a few bob if ye can tak it aff in a oner. Trouble is, wi that wound she had, there a fuckin great hole in it. Nae bloody use at aw.’ He had the skin stretched out on the floor, and had been scraping bits of meat and gunge off it. Now he began to cover the inner side of it with handfuls of salt from a big sack, rolling the skin up and rubbing the salt well into it, packing the skin into a tight bundle.
‘So whit’s aw this for?’
‘Murray wants it.’
‘Murray wants it?’
‘Aye. How? It’s nae big deal.’
‘It’s obscene.’
‘How? She’s deid. Nae sense in wastin it. Canna sell it wi thon big hole in it, so Murray says he’ll hae it.’
‘Whit for?’
‘How dae I ken? For his hoose, probably. For his front room. Hey, imagine his new chat-up line: “Right, doll, want tae come back tae ma place and make love in front o a big roarin fire on ma giraffe?”’
Jimmy laughed. ‘He could have one end at the fire and the ither ablow the jawbox in his kitchen. So they could wash up efter and no get their feet cauld.’
‘It’d be great for a lobby-runner,’ said Eck.
Eilidh’s guts were piled up in a heap on a big flat board. Eck said, ‘Here, this stuff weighs a ton. Gonnae gie me a haun tae lift it in the skip?’
Between them they dragged the board out of the meat-room and over to the skip which
doubled as an incinerator. Getting it up to shoulder-level was hard, the guts shifting their bulk around on the board. But they managed to heave it over the edge and let Eilidh’s entrails slide down into the bottom of the skip. They landed on top of a wee monkey corpse.
The smell was very bad. Eck chucked in some diesel and half an old bale of straw and put a match to it. ‘I fun a deid dug in here last week,’ he said as they backed away from the stench. ‘Some fowk’ve nae respect.’
Then he said, ‘Listen, Murray doesna ken this yet. He’s gonnae go mental when he finds out, in case onybody else does and he gets the blame for no lookin efter her properly. Eilidh wis pregnant.’
He took Jimmy through the meat-room to a second, smaller room at the back. On the concrete floor lay a miniature version of the skinless Eilidh, eighteen perfect inches from head to tail. The neck was curved and graceful even in death. There were two round swellings which would have been the eyes. The delicate, tiny trotters – they weren’t big enough to be called hooves – were already formed. The pink skin had a pattern of red lines beneath it, outlining just where the brown and white patches of the coat would have grown.
‘A while tae go yet,’ said Eck. ‘I cut it away frae the sack. It might no hae lived – wi Eilidh bein how she wis – but it looks healthy enough tae me. Funny, did ye ever see the male shaggin her? If we’d kent aboot this the vet might hae wantit Eilidh treated different.’
‘I didna think the male had a shag left in him,’ said Jimmy. ‘Murray should hae kent, but. The fuckin vet inspected her – he should hae noticed.’
‘Murray kens fuck aw aboot animals,’ said Eck. ‘He’s nae fuckin empathy wi them at aw. If he could get away wi it he’d be as bad as fuckin Maxton. And the vet’s a fuckin waster. I tell ye, Jimmy, you and me are mair in tune wi the fuckin animals in this Park, you and me feedin them ither animals, than the fuckin so-called management.’
* * *
Jimmy always thought Eck had something on Murray, some kind of hold on him. It just shows how wrong you can be. Eck must have tried it on too hard with the Eilidh thing – maybe Murray felt threatened with what Eck knew about it. Well, anyway, he called Eck’s bluff. Two weeks after the skinning of Eilidh, Murray drove down the mink farm road one afternoon, switched off his motor two hundred yards short, coasted in and caught Eck kipping in the hay with a Louis L’Amour book over his face. First warning. Eck should have realised then that Murray was after him, he should have been on his guard. But Eck wasn’t like that, he couldn’t wise up. Within the week Murray had hauled him up for not cleaning out the meat-room properly, being late in for work again, and taking an extra ten minutes on his dinner. That was the one that finished it.
‘I’m sittin on the pan,’ says Eck to Jimmy in the pub that weekend, ‘I’m sittin there evacuatin the premises afore gettin back tae ma work,’ – he was covering for Jimmy that day at the giraffe-house, it being Jimmy’s day off – ‘and the cunt comes in and hammers on the door. “Is that you in there, Eck?” “Aye, Murray,” I says, “I’m jist digestin ma dinner.” “Well,” he says, “when ye’ve digested that, digest this: ye’re fired. Ye can get your books at the office.” “Aw come on, Murray,” I says but he jist batters on, “Dinna fuckin argue wi me, Eck Galbraith, I’ve had enough o your fuckin mooth.” Then I hear him on his radio calling the office, so every other bastart with a radio can hear him. “Mary,” he says, “Mary, will you make up Hector Galbraith’s wages, whatever he’s due, he’s finishing up the day. He’ll be along for them in twenty minutes.” The bastart. He says, “Oh, Mary, mind and take off the ten-pound sub he owes us.” I’m stuck on the pan cursin him for aw I’m worth an he jist goes, “Wipe your erse, Eck. I doot I’ve wiped the smirk aff your face awready.”’
And that was Eck. He’d been there as long as anyone could mind. Jimmy still sees him when he goes for a beer sometimes, but it’s different: Eck works behind the bar in the Red Lion. He doesn’t take a drink when he’s on duty and he doesn’t like talking about the Park. Jimmy left of his own accord, a year later, and got a job with the Post Office. One time in the pub Jimmy said, ‘D’ye mind the day Eilidh died?’ but Eck just looked at him and said, ‘Whit aboot it?’ so Jimmy said, ‘Doesna maitter, Eck.’ But Jimmy minds it all right, and so does Eck.
Four days after Eck was fired, Murray remembered about the meat-room, how there was nobody looking after it anymore. The lions and tigers were needing fed again. This time they’d no choice – they had to haul some sheep out of the freezer and hope for the best. This was because of the state of the meat-room – nobody had touched it since Eck went, and it was near the end of May. That summer was a hot one – not as hot as ’76, but it was doing its damnedest. Murray sent Jimmy Sanderson and Dave Maxton down to clean up.
When they pulled the big sliding door back at first they didn’t understand what it was falling on their heads. Then the smell hit them and they understood. The floor, the walls, the door were crawling with maggots, big fat white bastards like polystyrene chips that exploded when you stepped on them. In the middle of the floor, where it dipped down towards the drain, lay a heap of wool and decomposing meat that had once been three or maybe four sheep, it was hard to tell. It was oozing black blood and heaving with maggots and cockroaches. The pair of them backed out gagging, shaking and slapping at their heads.
‘I’m no fuckin daein this,’ said Maxton. ‘Get on the radio tae Murray and tell him we’re no fuckin daein it.’
Jimmy held the radio out to him. ‘On ye go, Dave,’ he said. ‘You tell him.’ He knew they’d be doing it. They both knew. If Murray could get rid of Eck he could get rid of anybody. That was it really. They were stuck. They didn’t have great prospects in front of them. They had to take what they were given.
The Plagues
This is a dream Leonard once had:
Seven fat cows come up out of the river to graze. Then come seven lean cows, all skin stretched on bone. They come out of the river and they eat up the fat cows.
What did it mean?
It was odd because it was a boss’s dream, a rich man’s dream, and Leonard was not rich. It was someone else’s dream that had somehow found its way into Leonard’s head. There was fear in the dream, and guilt.
Also, it was a warning, which a rich man would probably ignore.
Years later. Leonard had a job but not because he could interpret the boss’s dreams. He worked in a bookshop, behind the till. But he didn’t do dreams, the boss’s or anybody else’s. It was enough to cope with his own. That is, if they were dreams at all, which he doubted.
It was this problem with the frogs. In the past they had never bothered him because he couldn’t see them, but lately they’d been appearing everywhere. It wasn’t as if he hadn’t always known they were there, waiting, but for a long time they were quite invisible to him. If he spent the evening at home, they stayed out of sight. He knew they were moving behind the plaster of the walls, or down in the street, or congregating in unimaginable numbers in the canal, but they were impossible to see. If he went out, though, well – as soon as his back was turned they would emerge. He would be walking down the street on his way to the pub, and a black taxi, seemingly empty but with its For Hire light off, would pass him before he had gone four hundred yards. Below the level of its windows it would be loaded with frogs, ready to pour out and occupy the flat until his return. Parked cars that he passed would be teeming with the buggers, but if he looked through their windows he would see nothing, all would be still.
He remembered a poem from his childhood about walking the pavement and how the bears would get you if you stepped on the lines. Walking to the pub was like that, only with frogs. They were too quick and too numerous for him, but he knew they were there. And now, lately, they’d been getting bolder. They didn’t hide from him as they once had. He’d hoped he would get used to them, but it was impossible when they were in such numbers. He couldn’t help being anxious about them. Anyone would be, in his position.
Thinking back, he reckoned the loch must have been an important breeding ground. At a certain time in the spring hundreds of frogs gathered under the banks in a kind of mass orgy. For a while after that, there would be nothing except the spawn filled with black life-dots, sago lapping in the weeds. Then, one day, he would go up there and find that the spawn had turned to tadpoles, and that the tadpoles were changing too, and all around the loch tiny frogs, no bigger than his thumbnail, were leaving the water. Thousands upon thousands of them. The track around the loch was so thickly covered that he could not avoid treading on them with every step he took. And if the sun was out and the day hot, hundreds of their tiny bodies, dehydrated and blackened, would be stretched on the grass and rocks. It was suicide for them to be moving away from the water on such a day, but it seemed that they could not help themselves, they moved away relentlessly, driven by something of which they had no knowledge or understanding.