There's Only One Danny Garvey, page 12
When the little girl went missing, reporters and television crews descended on the village. I was too young to know why, but it was exciting. Libby shouted at me: ‘That could’ve been you!’ Her anger making it seem like it was somehow my fault. As years passed, I convinced myself that she’d said ‘should’ve’.
And then sometimes, as a teenager, I wished it had been. I contemplated the odds of Louise-Anne having been lifted out of the existence she had, into one that was better, happier. And I envied her for the life I imagined she now had.
I just wanted to see her. I can’t explain why.
‘Is Nancy in?’
Her disappointed mother looks me up and down. Still evaluating me, perhaps. She turns, saying nothing. But pulling the front door closed. Through an inch-wide gap, I hear her shout from deep within the house. ‘Somebody at the door,’ she confirms. She knows my name, but presumably won’t use it.
‘Danny?’ Nancy acknowledges, but with upward emphasis on the surprise at me being there. No clue given to whether it’s a pleasant one or not.
‘How are ye?’ I ask. We’re at eye level although I’m a step down.
‘Fine. You?’
‘Aye. Good.’ I struggle with opening lines.
After an awkward silence, she says, ‘Look, Danny, it’s no’ the best time just now, y’know?’ I nod robotically, although I don’t know. ‘Mam’s actin’ up a bit.’
‘Send her tae her room, then,’ I suggest. Nancy looks at me strangely. ‘Ah wis jokin’,’ I feel the need to add.
‘Nancy!’ The shout from the rear of the terraced house reverberates.
‘Right!’ Nancy replies. ‘Ah’m comin’! Jesus Christ!’ Nancy turns to me. ‘Had a bit ae a barney, me an’ her. Things are on edge.’
‘Listen, ye fancy goin’ for a walk, or somethin’?’ I ask. ‘Sure she’ll let ye out for a wee while.’
‘Depends what the somethin’ is,’ she replies. There’s the faintest hint of a smile.
‘Em … ah dunno. A coffee, maybe?’
‘Jesus … on a Sunday, round here? You’ll be lucky.’
‘Aye. S’pose. Sorry.’ I just wanted to see her.
She hesitates, unsure of what to say next.
‘Look, ah’m out the back. Damo’s puttin’ up a tent,’ she says. ‘Ye could help him, if ye like?’
I sigh, and fear that she heard me, but it was from relief. Nothing negative.
‘That’d be good. Aye.’
Nancy leads me through from front to back. Her mother glares at me. The feeling that their argument was about me is hard to dispel.
‘Ignore the mess,’ Nancy says, although I spot none; certainly not in comparison to the Steptoe’s Yard of Higgy’s accommodation.
‘Hi Damo,’ I say, waving through the back door.
The boy looks up. It’s the first time I’ve seen him without the helmet on. Here, at home, where he feels safe. Where he needs no protective armour.
‘He talked about ye last night,’ Nancy says.
‘That right?’ I reply.
‘No’ he didnae,’ says Doreen, dismissing her daughter.
‘Let it go, Mam!’
‘Couldnae get him tae sleep. Right out his routine, he was.’
‘Okay, Mam,’ says Nancy.
‘Boy needs his routine, that’s aw ah’m sayin’.’
‘Mam!’
I go outside, to their back garden. Leaving them to their disagreement.
‘It was a great game, eh, Damo?’ I say.
The boy nods. He doesn’t look up. ‘A wee statto,’ he says.
I laugh at this and then watch him, fascinated as he lays out the metal tent poles in exact order; the hooks all facing the same direction, like twenty glinting question marks lying in the grass.
‘Want a cuppa?’ asks Nancy from the kitchen.
‘Eh, aye. Go on then.’
‘What dae ye take?’
‘Milk. Two sugars.’
‘Strong colour?’
‘Aye,’ I reply, ‘like American-tan tights,’ and she laughs at the thought.
—Schmeichel, Laudrup, Ravanelli, Shearer, Juninho, McManaman, Redknapp, Beckham, Gascoigne, Gullit, Zola, Vialli. My new uncle. He says bad words.
Damo puts the canvas down and strolls over. He points at something to the left of me. We’ve been joined in the garden by his mum, with the teas. And by our suspicious chaperone.
‘Schmeichel, Laudrup, Ravanelli, Shearer, Juninho, McManaman, Redknapp, Beckham, Gascoigne, Gullit, Zola, Vialli,’ he says. I look left and he has them lined up along the windowsill. Left to right, blond goalie to Chelsea’s bald Italian striker.
‘What a team, eh?’ I say.
‘Need a defender,’ Damo says, quiet and as monosyllabic as John Motson. I smile at him, but his expression never changes.
‘Aye,’ reaching into my pocket. ‘Maybe this yin’ll help out, then.’ I hand him another figure; Rangers captain, Richard Gough. ‘It’s Richard Gough. He’s a great defender, eh?’
‘Christ … what did ah tell ye?’ says Doreen. She tuts. I’m puzzled. Nancy sighs.
Damo’s hand reaches out, but Nancy’s intercepts. ‘Danny, stop buyin’ him these things.’ Nancy takes the figure before Damo can.
‘Ah … sorry, it’s just a wee …’
—Need a defender.
‘Richard Gough,’ says Damo.
‘Sendin’ him signals. Confusin’ the wean,’ says Doreen loudly.
‘Look, ah appreciate ye takin’ him yesterday, ah really do…’ It’s an officious tone. Coming from a different person than the one I was with last night.
‘Richard Gough!’ Damo repeats, a little louder this time.
‘Look what ye’ve done now,’ says Doreen. ‘Ye’ve upset him. Just like yer brother … bloody swannin’ in…’
—Need a defender!
‘Mum! Gie it a bloody rest, will ye? Christ’s sake!’
‘Nancy…’
‘Richard Gough, Richard Gough, Richard Gough…’ Damo is now shouting. Anger in his eyes. ‘Richard Gough, Richard Gough, Richard Gough, Richard Gough!’ Screaming it now.
—I need a Richard Gough fuck defender! Gough. Defender. Fuck, fuck, fuck! Cunt! Cunt! Yer a fat cunt, McIntosh!
‘You need tae go,’ insists Doreen. She’s angry. With me for being there. With Nancy for letting me into their world.
‘Richard Gough, Richard Gough…’ Damo picks up a tent pole and hits his mum with it.
‘Hey!’ I shout at him.
—Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Cunt!
‘Don’t shout at him,’ screams Nancy.
I take the pole away from the boy. Nancy wraps her arms tightly around her son, who is now writhing and yelling like he is possessed.
‘Thanks for that!’ says Doreen as I pass her. ‘Thanks for nothing!’
I’m walking through their house towards the front door. Away from a commotion that I had unwittingly created.
I just wanted to see her. I can’t explain why.
I am shaking. Angry, or ashamed? Hard to tell. I stumble over a fence. Tear my shirt on it. Cursing this village and the neurosis it represents. Down a back street and through a long, narrow unlit close. A short-cut away from where other people might be.
‘You’re Danny Garvey, int’ ye?’ A drunken, slurred voice from the other end of the darkness. I hesitate and begin to move back in the other direction. ‘S’awright. Ah’ll no’ bite ye, son.’ The man follows me; his voice quiet and pitiful. The face advances far enough into the light for me to see it. The ravaged, pock-marked surface a vague resemblance to someone I once knew. ‘Ye don’t know me, dae ye?’ My head hurts. A battering might be a release.
‘Ah … sorry. Naw. Ah don’t.’
‘Ah’m Scud. Scud Meikle,’ he croaks. ‘Ye dinnae have a coupla quid ye could spare?’
The door opens. It shakes me out of my torpor. I’ve been sitting in the darkness in silence for over two hours. Nick Cave’s The Boatman’s Call is still turning, the aggravated needle grunting over the run-off grooves. I stopped crying an hour ago.
‘Jesus Christ, Danny,’ says Higgy. I’ve apparently given him a fright. ‘Whit ye doin’ here, yersel’, in the darkness?’ He’ll see the scattered, crumpled tissues and think I’ve been wanking.
‘Nothin’,’ I reply.
He sighs. ‘Yer mam wis askin’ for ye. Hopin’ ye’d go up later this week,’ he says.
I don’t reply. He’ll know something’s wrong.
‘Danny? What is it? Whit’s up wi’ ye, son? Is it Raymond?’
‘Why did ye no’ tell me aul’ Jock Reid played for the Bridge?’
I had no close friends at primary school. No circle of shared acquaintances. And no-one I’d have brought back to Libby’s house under any circumstances. Even my football team-mates were merely a supporting cast for a ninety-minute performance. And in the small village context, I was content with that. And when I left to go to a secondary in a much bigger catchment area, my confidence off the pitch couldn’t match up to the level I could reach on it.
Perhaps it was inevitable I’d find someone like Scud Meikle to fill the gaps. I met Scud in 1979. I was twelve. He was a couple of years older. The shift in my relationship with Raymond began around that time.
That first conversation with Scud had gone somethin’ like this:
‘Fuck ae you lookin’ at?’
I wasn’t looking at anything, so I said nothing.
‘Hey, ah’m fucken talkin’ tae you, ya wee prick.’
I stayed silent, so he punched me. A dead leg was the result. I began to cry.
‘Ya wee fucken wean,’ he said, then leaned back in the seat, his work apparently done. Fifteen minutes passed.
‘Ye got any sweets?’ My leg wasn’t dead anymore, but it still wouldn’t be running away from this latest challenge. His tone was different now, less threatening, so I spoke to him.
‘Just these Fruit-tellas,’ I said.
‘Fuck it, they’ll dae.’ He took the ones that were left in the wrapper.
‘Ta.’ He leaned in a bit. ‘Don’t think ah’ve seen you before. Whit’s yer name?’
‘Danny. Eh, Danny Garvey.’
‘How auld are ye?’
‘Twelve an’ a half.’
‘Are ye a Jungle Jim?’ He could see that I had no clue what that meant. ‘A Tim. A fucken Cafflick. Fuck sake, man.’
‘Eh, naw.’ I’d never been asked this question before. Never anticipated it being asked in a Protestant school.
A door under a large, ticking clock opened.
‘Garvey. Get in here. Now.’ Mr McMillan disappeared as quickly as he had appeared. I didn’t move.
‘Better go in there,’ said Meikle. ‘You’ve fucken had it, pal. He’s a complete cunt.’ He folded his arms and smiled at me. Mocking my fear. ‘Meet me at the gates at half three. Ah’ve got somethin’ tae show ye.’
Ah looked back at him and nodded. The door slammed behind me.
He showed me a belt that he had stolen from a teacher’s desk. He made me hold out my hands as he used it. He told me to call him ‘Scud’. Everybody else did, even his da.
Scud’s family were from Cumnock. His house was close enough to walk to, but far enough from Barshaw that Raymond wouldn’t easily find out. Scud ruled the little gang I became part of. He invented dares. Daft things like running at full pelt to reach the rope swing to cross the river – that one always saw me waist deep in the water. Springing out from behind the stone walls of the Barshaw Bridge, hoping that no traffic was approaching from the blind side. And repeatedly slinking up to Auld Jock Reid’s house with a paper bag filled with Scud’s fresh shite, to be set alight and left on the doorstep before chapping the old man’s door and bolting out of sight.
Scud Meikle noticed me. He paid me attention.
I had known him less than six months when he attempted to jump over eight of us on his Raleigh Tomahawk. I was positioned at the end of the line. The rear wheel landed on my arm and broke it. I told Libby and Raymond I’d fallen off my own bike, being chased by bigger lads who’d subsequently stolen it. It was partly true. The bike did get stolen. It was just the circumstances surrounding the theft that were made up.
I couldn’t play football for six weeks. Raymond suspected something unusual had happened, but I told him nothing. I didn’t want him knowing anything about the secret life outside of our village that I now had.
Three weeks later, Scud Meikle tied me to the fencing around the old Barshaw dump. I hadn’t sung the ‘Aul’ Jock Reid’ song loudly enough, according to him. A young woman out walking her dog found me. I had my back to the metal. A bike padlock around my neck pinned me to the uprights. The fire brigade was called to cut through the chain. Scud’s name was all over my cast – in more ways than one. I had no option but to tell Raymond how it happened. I exaggerated, naturally. I was prone to that back then.
The following day, my brother marched through the Cumnock woods dragging me behind him.
‘One ae you fucken clowns called Scud?’ he said.
A head appeared out of the den. ‘Who wants tae know?’
‘This the cunt?’
I nodded my head timidly.
Scud stared at me. ‘Who’s this fucken dweeb? Yer da?’
As he rose, my brother burst forward and down and stabbed him in the side with a kitchen knife he must’ve had concealed up his sleeve. It was a deep slash, but it didn’t result in as much blood as I thought it would. The colour drained from Scud’s face. A deeper shade of colour spread across his white T-shirt. He started making these strange moo-ing noises. Like a distressed cow stunned by the slaughterman’s sticking blade. All the while, Raymond stood motionless and expressionless. But I have to admit I was excited by it … that power, and the impact it could have.
I didn’t visit Raymond for the twelve months he was in Polmont Young Offenders Institute. In fact, despite the seven years he has subsequently served, tomorrow will be the first time I’ve ever see him in detention.
Three
Nancy
The bus from Glasgow’s Buchanan Street Station empties three-quarters of its passengers onto the pavement of a normal residential street in Riddrie. It has taken a journey travelling on three of them to get here. I understand why Nancy doesn’t bring Damo. The building sense of dread is bad enough for me, although that may be more to do with seeing my brother for the first time in over a decade.
The determined band of prison visitors wait. We get our names approved and ticked. We wait some more. Gradually, the group thins out as the more experienced deal with the searches and questions with calm efficiency. It’s a foreboding place, obviously, and its atmosphere makes me want to confess.
I’m the last to go through. I spend the final seconds wondering if I could just leave. Just disappear back through the public entrance. Would that attract more suspicion? Would they drag me back in and subject me to a more intimate examination? I have nothing to hide … well, nothing physical. But I don’t want to be here. I feel sick with anxiety.
I’ve no doubt Raymond doesn’t want to be here either. He is serving nine years for grievous bodily harm. Almost four years ago, he waited in the dark shadows outside a Galston pub, followed an intoxicated man home, and as he staggered into the shadows, around the side of a windowless gable, attacked him. He battered his victim so badly that he was in an induced coma for six weeks.
A case of mistaken identity. The man wasn’t the one who had terrorised Libby, assaulting her in her own home. Raymond had reached out in desperation. Rocco Quinn agreed to testify that my brother hadn’t been the initial aggressor. The lack of counterargument meant Raymond’s sentence was reduced from fourteen years. He remains in Quinn’s debt.
I walk timorously through three guarded doorways, CCTV recording every move. And there he is. In a hall of regimented desks, looking like they’ve been set out for a school exam. He’s sitting in the centre of the smoke-filled room. The centre of attention. Just as he always was. The nut around which every lever pivots. The key square in an expanded game of noughts and crosses.
‘Well, here he is, boys … the junior league Walter Smith!’ Everyone has turned around. Looking at us. Studying my awkward reticence. ‘Took ye? Fuck sake!’ he shouts.
‘Ah’ve been busy,’ I say, quietly. Hoping the looks have stopped. That everyone has focused back on their own business.
‘Yer late, tae,’ he adds. ‘Ye never used tae be late. Remember aw they times ye hassled everybody, shoutin’ that ye couldnae be late … or ye’d get dropped for the next game?’ I look around. Some still stare. ‘’Member?’
‘Aye. Ah remember.’
‘So, what happened last month then?’
‘Jesus, Raymond … ah missed the bus, aw’right? Gonnae drop it, eh?’
‘Fuck sake, Danny boy. I’m just rowin’ yer tail, son,’ Raymond says.
‘How’s things, then?’ I ask.
‘Fine. Same aul’, same auld.’
‘Can imagine.’
‘Can ye? Can ye really?’
‘Ah didnae mean it like that.’
‘Ye seein’ Mam regularly,’ he asks, changing the direction, but not the attack.
‘Aye,’ I lie.
‘Are ye fuck!’ he replies. ‘Higgy says ye’ve been twice.’
‘Aye, well.’
‘She’s fucken dyin’, ye know that, don’t ye?’
‘Well, obviously,’ I spit back. ‘But ah cannae fucken dae anythin’ about that, can ah? Ah don’t have a miracle cure.’ These words, I regret them immediately. Thoughtless.
‘Ye can gie her a bit ae comfort, though, in her last few weeks, ya selfish wee bastard!’
I look at my shoes. Shuffle uncomfortably in the plastic bucket seat I’m sat in. ‘Look, maybe ah should come back another ti—’
