Long Time Dead (Gus Dury 4) by Tony Black Page B

guess at the name of the drinker. Had a vague recollection of writing a story on a shooting in there some time ago … Writing stories, holding down a job, was all the dim and distant past. I’d been burning my bridges for so long there was no way back for me with so many people. Call it the drink, depression, self-pity, whatever. I’d screwed over so many folk I was in danger of having no one left. Now another man had died; holy Christ, what was happening here?
    Debs had said it. She’d made the prediction long ago that I’d end up alone and bitter, cursing the world, blaming everyone and everything for my mistakes. Roaring and ranting. Not even choosing my targets any more. Blasting. Just blasting. She’d seen the future, and it wasn’t bright. Thing is, that was a long time ago. Funny how the past catches up with you.
    Called over the barman – squat beer gut with a shaved head and a star tattooed on his neck – said, ‘Pint. Chaser.’
    Got a nod. All it took. Places like this, the chat’s minimum, if uttered at all. Another couple of scoops and Beer Gut would be over with a nod at the pumps and we’d be away. There’s a comfort in this kind of interaction, if you can even call it that; people will say these types of joints are for the lonely. They’re wrong. They’re forthe seriously fucked off. The beyond lonely. People who are lonely crave company; people who hole up in spit-and-sawdust drinkers are after the opposite. Knew I was. I was looking for complete anonymity. If I could excoriate my skin like a snake I would, shed the lot, all identity with it. The past. The mistakes. The lost dreams. The heartache. The loss … Christ, I’d shed the lot.
    The drinks came. Tanked them. Couldn’t even look at the barman. He took the hint, said, ‘Same again?’
    I nodded at my empty pint glass.
    My mind was all over the place. I knew where it should be: on the case. Each time I thought about it, the tweed Hod had bought me itched; I could feel those business cards weighing heavily in my breast pocket. But the straight road had long been a stranger to me. There was a place in my head, a cold spot … the kind that people refer to when they say that bloke has something dark in his locker. I did indeed. Could pinpoint it. Was the size of a football pitch, bigger maybe. Did I feel sorry for myself? Did I ever.
    My mind went back, further back beyond the recent hurts …
    I’m to be married; Debs is happy. For the first time in an age I see her start to thaw, smile again. It has been so long. She … we … have been through so much.
    ‘Look at the way it sparkles.’ She holds up the diamond in the engagement ring to the window. The rare blasts of Scottish sunlight – scarcer than hen’s teeth, as my mam always says – alight on the diamond, the rays dissemble, spread and fill out. It’s beautiful. It says happiness.
    ‘God, it does … You wouldn’t think something so small could shine like that.’
    Debs smiles. ‘It’s beautiful.’
    My throat tightens. I feel welled up with emotion. I want more than anything to make her happy. I put my arms around her and hold tight. We have a chance, I can sense it. The bad times are behind us now; this is a fresh start.
    We collapse onto the bed, giggling.
    For a long while we just lie there, looking at the diamond and smiling. I’m overwhelmed that something so simple can create so much happiness. Debs’s eyes hardly blink; she’s blissed out.
    ‘I’ll never take it off,’ she says.
    ‘Oh, no?’
    Her face hardens. ‘No … never. The day I take it off, it’s over!’
    I know she doesn’t mean it, it’s just one of those things people in love say to each other, the kind of words they use to try to communicate the incommunicable. We both know there are no words for how we feel. It’s written in the sky …
    I sit up, lean in and kiss her.
    Debs sits up beside me. ‘Time for me to go. Got to get back to work.’
    She smiles as I stand up, puts out her