Craig Robertson - Random

After that I had eight months at home, looking at walls and going up them. Then I went to work for Cammy Strang driving a taxi. It worked for me, I guess. They called me mate. Or driver. Sometimes they’d call me pal or buddy. When the booze or the pills or the anger or just the sheer fact of living in Glasgow got to them, they’d call me things that really weren’t very nice at all.

People flit in and out of your life when you are a taxi driver. Few of them ever register on your consciousness, they are just shapes and voices and half-arsed directions. They are demands for receipts and hands reaching out for change. They are threats to your upholstery and assaults on your opinions.

It suited me. They weren’t real people so you didn’t have to have real conversations with them. If pushed you had the traditional taxi conversation and all you had to give were the traditional taxi answers. It was an old game.

‘Been busy the night, driver?’

‘What time you been on since?’

‘Time you on to?’

‘Long shift that, eh?’

‘You into the fitba?’

‘Who do you support?’

‘Aye, but who do you support?’

‘Aye? Very good. But who do you really support though?’

‘Aye, fair enough. Rather no say, eh? Nae worries. I’m a Rangers man maself.’

‘Been busy the night, driver?’

Aye, I’ve been busy. Busy driving drunken wastes of space like yourself home. Busy shipping deadwood out to deadtown. Busy listening to shite. Busy thinking. Busy gliding through neon and never wondering about the creatures passed in the night. The only thing that could conceivably interest me about anyone I drive is that they might be next. Any one of them.

Glasgow seems a much smaller city at night. Smaller and deader, brighter and greyer, emptier and scarier. Streetlight tunnels to nowhere and bogey men that go stab in the night.

Drive a taxi in Glasgow and you see its people at their worst. Never, ever, at their best. Dead men drinking. Drunk men barely walking. Drunk girls barely capable of talking. Every cliche you can think about this city you see in the back of a cab. ‘Been busy the night, driver?’

Sometimes, just sometimes, the shapes in the back of the car said things that made me listen.

Late as it was, he was still in a suit, tie yanked to the side and down. His eyes were booze red in the rear-view mirror and he was howling of the stuff. He could more or less stand still in front of Central Station and was capable of walking to the door so that was something.

‘Awrite, mate. How you daein? Springburn. Croftbank Street. Been busy the night?’

‘Not too bad.’

‘It’s fucking jumping in the toon. Must be keeping you gawn.’

‘Aye, busy enough.’

‘Time you been on since, driver?’

‘Just a couple of hours.’

‘Cool. Bit wasted masel. Gid night though.’

‘Aye, good.’

‘Workin’ in the morning in aw. Ah fuckit, ah’ll be fine. Here, d’ye read aboot that lawyer that got kilt?’

Just a slight pause.

‘Aye.’

‘Fucksake. Killin lawyers, what’s it comin tae? Ah well, wan’s a start, eh?’

Silence.

‘Ah said like wan’s a start, know what ah mean?’

‘Aye.’

‘Fuckin’ lawyers, shower a bastards, man. Screw you for every penny you’ve got. Here it’d be good if the cunt that kilt this wan’s gonnae start knocking them aw aff. Know what ah mean?’

‘Aye.’

‘Wan’s a start. What d’ye think? Gangsters that did it? Fund oot in the middle uh naewhere like that.’

‘No idea.’

‘Stands tae reason, man. What the fuck was he daein oot there onyways? Shady if ye ask me. Got gangsters written aw o’er it.’

‘Aye, maybe.’

‘Makes a change fae some stupid wee ned getting hiself stabbed ah suppose. An they say a change is as good as a rest. Gae the cunt a medal that’s what ah say. See the fitba last night?’

‘No.’

‘Guid game, man. Never a penalty though. No way, no how. Who’dye support yersel?’

‘No really into football.’

‘Aye bit who dae you support?’

‘Partick Thistle.’

‘Aye? Who dae you really support? Bet you just say Thistle to any drunk that asks you, eh?’

No shit, Sherlock.

Another night a couple got in. Middle-class types, middle-aged. Picked up at the Theatre Royal on Hope Street and heading for Milngavie. Take a pound out of the cliche bank. They were both half cut and squabbling, none of it any interest or business of mine until I heard the name. Tuned right in then.

Him. ‘But Jonathan was a good guy.’

Her. ‘Jonathan was a prick.’

‘Oh, come on, the guy is dead.’

‘Doesn’t change the fact that he was a little shit. Treated Becca something terrible. I am sure he was cheating on her for years.’

‘He’s been murdered for Christ’s sake.’

‘Yes, and I’m sorry about that. Actually, I’m not sure I am.’

‘Gillian!’

‘Oh, come on, David. He would have sold his grandmother for a tenner and he would have probably fucked her as well.’

‘Christ sake! Look keep it down, and anyway you don’t know he cheated on Becca.’

‘Ha. No? Your precious friend Jonathan would have shagged a barber-shop floor. You know that full well. Don’t think he didn’t try it on with me.’

‘What?’

‘Oh grow up, David. Of course he did. The way he was I’d have been insulted if he hadn’t.’

‘You didn’t…?’

‘Oh, fuck off.’

‘That’s a no?’

‘You shouldn’t have to ask.’

‘No, of course not.’

‘It’s a no.’

‘OK.’

‘Do you think that maybe…?’

‘What?’

‘Do you think maybe Becca did it?’

‘What!’

‘Or had it done? It makes sense. If you were doing what he was doing then I’d have you killed too.’

‘Jesus Christ, Gillian!’

‘I’m just saying, and take that by way of a warning. I never did like the number of times you two went to Rotary together.’

‘Gill…’

‘Oh, shut up. It’s the next on the left, driver.’

Something about the night makes people open up. Alcohol probably. Driving through the city with a complete stranger at the wheel. It’s like talking into the mirror. But sometimes, sometimes I wished they would just shut the fuck up.

It is like the city is whispering at you. All babbling away at once, the way crazy people hear voices.

‘When you on till? Working again tomorrow? Been doing this long? My wife left me. I hate my job. Read about that murder? What team do you support? Been busy the night? I’ve been waiting an hour for a fucking taxi. See what happened to that lawyer? Terrible night, eh? What time you been on since? I hate this weather. This traffic is murder, isn’t it? Did you read about that murder? Did you read about that murder? Did you read about that murder?’

‘Been busy the night, driver?’

There was a girl from school. Jill Hutchison.

My first love.

So corny but nothing truer. First time I’d felt it and it threw me big time. I couldn’t understand what was going on. Every time I saw her, my stomach turned over and my thinking went wonky. Stammer, stutter, smile, sweat and scarlet. I couldn’t put sentences together properly. I talked complete and utter shite when I most wanted to talk sense.

Didn’t know what it was at first and when I worked it out, I wasn’t impressed. If this was love they could keep it. Couldn’t help myself though. For all I couldn’t understand what was happening to me, it wasn’t hard to work out why.

She was amazing. Beautiful. Smart too. Sweet and funny. She made my head spin. Long, lush black hair and fiery brown eyes. Her smile killed me.