SCHEMIES AND JAMBO CUNTS

by
Megan Hall

Okay, I admit it. I was curious. Sometime after it had just come out on paperback, I tore through the pages of �Trainspotting�, and decided that maybe Edinburgh was the place for me? It was visualised in my brain, the streets, the buildings, people, dialect, and climate. It was time for a change, time to escape Tadcaster for good. Shunning the junkies, pissheads, and losers in a smalltown backwater, I exchanged them good and proper for a better class of junkie and pisshead; Edinburgh�s version.

For the first time in my life I lucked out, after finishing college and spending a year tarting up dollies in Petergate windows, an extended arm of friendship fell into my lap, golden and pink encrusted, from the heavens of Leith Walk. A part time job was offered to me on Princes Street � ShopTop, what a joy.

I didn�t leave Tadcaster under any storm of glory, it was a right fucking mess, as usual, I only leave a place under a whirlwind of failed love, new love, broken hearts, or misplaced desire. This time I�d done it proper, a 6 week romance with the town fuckwit. The biggest and most beautiful black eyes you could ever see, but Alan, well, he was bright � but even the Tad pissheads thought he was a loser. Now that�s saying something. We would laugh, all day, all night, in his Dad�s flat above the butchers on the High Street. His Dad was half blind and prone to occasional acts of random violence. We broke into his bedroom one night, pissed and tripping, his Dad had a collection of beard trimmings from his razor, all collected in a biscuit tin next to his bed. With enough beard trimmings dating back for at least 5 years. I wanted to vomit; we cried with laughing so much that I nearly pissed in my socks.

His Dad�s kitchen was the dirtiest man-cooking room in the north. An inch of chip fat on the surface of the cooker, dishes crusted with food welded on, bags of rubbish filled with pizza boxes, flies everywhere. Alan would despair, even more at the shit encrusted toilet and greasy nicotine walls that covered every inch of the flat.

We�d spend days down the pub, drinking lager, playing darts, he�d tell me how he was going to �really become something one day�, and how it was only a matter of time before he got a job. But that day never came. He kept scrounging off his Dad, slobbing round the flat, watching porn, thinking big ideas, going nowhere fast.

I knew it wasn�t going to last, there�s this theory of mine, the 6 week rule, if you can make it past 6 weeks with a boy, then you�re in with a good chance of lasting. By that point you know if they�re a twat, what their habits are, if they can fuck, feed your brain, make you feel good. On the 6th week I knew it was time to tell Alan that it was time for me to leave Tad for good.

We�d spent a night rolling round on the banks of the river, drinking cheap beer and necking ecstasy at an 18th birthday party in a tent with house music DJs. We walked back along the river to the cottage where I lived. As the sun rose over the straw fields, it burnt through the sky like a flood of bleeding clots tearing at the blanket night stars overhead. We lay upon the straw bales, round and ten foot high, as a flock of 6000 Canadian geese dive-bombed us from the first glares of daylight. We looked across to the woodland, trying to spot elephants and giraffes, wolves, and armadillos, escapees from the imaginary Tadcaster zoo. I knew it was time to go. But felt bad about telling him.

Sat in my little bedroom the next day, with damp sheets, fairy lit headboard and a stack of dusty records, I broke the news; �Alan. I�m sorry. But I�m moving to Edinburgh�.

He cried, threw a paddy whack, begged me to stay, threatened to kill himself, then kill me, then kill my family. I rolled the eyes, lit a fag, cranked up �Keep On Keeping On� by N.F Porter on my Pioneer deck, and showed him the door.

He flung himself down the stairs, and shouted at my Dad �Why won�t she love me!!!�

Dad pissed himself laughing, and after he left, we lit the log fire in the living room, both of us cackling �Thank God that daft bugger won�t be bothering us anymore..�

After the chaos, and with some money from Dad in my carpet purse, I moved to Scotland. Officially the coldest place on earth (well it certainly feels like that at 8am wearing a skirt and no tights). Jack Frost would cling onto the back off your calves with superglue strength. 59 layers, three pairs of socks? No matter how much you wrap up it�s the wind that gets you in the end; the hard Arctic gales, burning at your skin, biting the fingertips with razor blades.

I got myself a little bed to sleep on, in a flat underneath the American embassy off Leith Walk. My beautiful gay friends let me sleep on their floor. It was a pump up bed, and they let me sleep in the corner of their bedroom. All I took with me was two ballerina cases, a bag of shoes, and two guitars. I lived on next to nothing, and worked at ShopTop doing the window displays. At lunchtime I would sneak up to the top floor and swindle a cut price scone cream tea, sitting with the white haired Edinburgh gentry, looking out across to Marchmont.

One afternoon, sat on my break, mouth full of cream and strawberry jam, wrapped in my leopard print coat, one of the floor staff who sold dodgy suits to middle aged men came and sat with me. His name was Jimmy. He was about 27 I think, and had one of those really broad Edinburgh accents. It was all �Ken� this and �Ken� that, �Heed� �Jaycket�, all the rest. Turned out that he was from Leith, and he took pity on me being in a new city all on my own. Before meeting him, my nighttimes had been spent at either CC Blooms (honestly, the fucking worst music I have ever heard in a gay bar), the Newtown Inn (a Bear Pub, with a Bear Pit in the cellar), Blue Moon Caf� (where all the bohemian lesbians hung out), or at The Arches listening to head fuck techno.

Jimmy told me some stories that made me like him, how he had gone travelling and ended up living with a Bedouin tribe for 6 months, drinking yaks blood in the desert, walking barefoot for months. How he was just so fucked off with this dead end job, he just wanted to escape, and did it mostly through getting off his face.

Jimmy took me down Leith, and he used to take me to little spit and sawdust bars, buying me pints of lager until I couldn�t stand up anymore. He had a mate called Mikey, Mad Mikey. He had a look of Klaus Kinski about him, apart from one eye was permanently shooting out, like a deranged Highland lizard. He mumbled a lot to himself, the rest of the time he was borderline tourettes, shouting at everyone in the pub, the whole pub ignoring him. He used to sell me low grade hash, and he was a Hibs fan (alongside Jimmy). They would take me down all the Hibs drinking holes, and sometimes down to Easter Rd on a Saturday afternoon. I became the little northern mascot.

Scotland was oppressive; I kept getting the feeling that as soon as you opened your mouth, if you were English then you were fucked. Like at a bar, you�d order your drink, and the bar staff would just wander off. Cheers. I hate the fucking English too. I am one. But I�m northern.It�s different. We�re not really English. We�re the Yorkshire Republican Army. We hate Londoners even more than you do.

Not that this made a difference, though down in Leith, it was the only place I felt accepted, I felt at home amongst the green scarves, they took care of me, got me fucked up, loaded, arseholed, kept up the spirit. It�s so cold up there that the only way to take your mind off the weather is through complete and utter annihilation of the senses.

Jimmy became my only friend in Edinburgh, and the gay boys � well I think they thought that there was something going on..

�Why does he keep coming round here? He�s horrid. Look at his shoes, those shoes need some work. And the clothes, god, can�t you find a better class of man? There are some lovely boys in Edinburgh, you just go to all the wrong places!�

I�d laugh with them, then secretly think that it really didn�t matter what someone looked like on the outside, it was the heart that counted.

One night we went on a bender, sank loads of booze, me, Jimmy and Mikey. As an honour, Mikey took us back to his flat in Leith for a smoke. He was like a Begbie character, not as violent, but a rough bastard, and the flat, Jesus, the worst I�d ever been in. We sat in the living room, it was freezing, no heating, just a plug in heater in the centre of the floor. No carpets, broken furniture, wallpaper hanging off the walls, dishes dating back decades crusting on the tables and kitchen sides. The toilet, it had never been cleaned. It didn�t have lid, or a seat, it was grey ceramic, with sick splatter all up the sides of the pot. I went for a piss, and hovered above it, trying not to retch, Jimmy waited for me in the living room.

He gave me a handful of tablets - Valium; and I crashed out on the sofa, with my little bag of records covering my body. We�d been to Fopp and I�d bought Street Sounds 1, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five � we put on �The Message� on the little record player in the corner. I wore a grey fur Afghan coat, a pair of Siberian knitted gloves, frayed indigo Levis and Adidas gazelles covered in mud. The Vallies kicked in, and I flopped into semi-consciousness, staring the ceiling, glad that I was living the high life. The authentic Scotland experience.

I woke at dawn, the flat didn�t have any curtains; just a few dirty towels hanging from the rail. Jimmy was staring at me. He stroked my face, and kissed me on my forehead. I was only 19, way too young for him. That night I�d told him that I might have to go back to Yorkshire, I had �27.52 left in my bank account, and that I didn�t have much time left. It really ate him up; he was upset that I might be gone soon. That night in the City Caf�, drinking with him in the window seats, he had begged me to stay. He said that I was the only reason he was working selling suits, that just seeing me every day, smiling, laughing, gave him reason to work.

His eyes said it all, though his lips couldn�t express the feeling. He was trying to say how much it all meant, the past few months of us being friends, maybe that he wanted it to be something more? He kept repeating himself �I just got to tell you, that�well, you know you don�t have to go�not now...you can stay if you want?�

I didn�t want to hurt him. Part of me knew that he might have had a bit of a crush on me. Maybe it was my fault for being too much of a �man�s woman�, it bites me in the arse time and time again, being too nice to the boys. Asking for trouble.

�Jim. I�ve run out of money. I�m freezing, and drunk, and it�s time for me to leave. I�ve got nowhere to live, believe me, Yorkshire is the last place I want to be right now, but I need to return for a while at the very least�

Jimmy looked to the floor, he ran his fingers through his tousled hair, put his hands across the fur on my coat. He was so gentle. The first time any man had ever been that gentle with me. His touch was soft, and inside his head, I knew that he loved me, but couldn�t say it. Through the haze of midnight Valium a light shone from within him. No man had ever loved me before. This was the first cupid kiss. In a dirty shack in Leith, from a drunken Hibs fan who had travelled the world.

�I�ll never see you again will I?� he whispered.

I looked into his brown eyes, pressed my fingers across his furrowed brow.

�No, I suppose not�

We rolled around on the sofa for a while, our tongue tips licking the edges of each other�s teeth. It felt good to be wrapped in somebody that actually liked you. It felt different, the sensation of tenderness, from an older man who should have known better.

After a few minutes I looked over to the back of the room, and could see Mikey stood in the corner watching us. I didn�t say anything, but pretended not to see him. He rocked from side to side, in his bomber jacket, and supped from a crumpled lager can. Mikey observed the moment, and perhaps the whole conversation.

�Yer fucking slag..� he mumbled, and walked off into his room.

Jimmy turned his head.

�You alright? What did he just say?�

�Oh, don�t worry about it Jim, I think he�s just pissed�

We pulled our clothes back on, and in the early morning light I stumbled up from Leith to pack up my cases.

At Waverley Street a few days later Jimmy came and met me to say goodbye. He stank of booze, you know that five day drinking bender kind of smell that radiates from every pore causing a grey sweat to appear like a film on the skin. I kept thinking of how it was only a few months back that I had hot footed out of Tad, fleeing crazy Alan, and hoping that Edinburgh would offer me some kind of hope. How I was going to end of back there, living in a cottage, chopping wood every morning to light a fire to get a bath. No telephone, damp sheets, my half disabled father reciting York City scores from 1962-1968 every morning. The joys of Minster FM, brown malt clouds piping from the Smiths towers; a head full of desire for the bright lights of the city � the dreams of any place but Tadcaster causing sleepless nights and long winded days�all this awaited me on my return. Maybe the midnight phone calls from Alan would stop, but people in the town would still ask why I failed, and how come I came back so soon.

This time, it wasn�t going to take so long, I was leaving Scotland for better things. For a new life. For Leeds. It didn�t occur to me that Leeds would offer nothing but a drugged up 28 months, in a flat block peeping over Little London Towers, trapped in a job I hated, with the most depressing architecture in Britain. At that moment, Edinburgh seemed like a stupid idea that went wrong. Yet more wasted time, if not for the undeclared love and Tenants fuelled laughs with the boys from Easter Rd it could well have been written off as a stupid book that made me want to go places.

� Megan Hall
Reproduced with permission

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