Fiction

Published or unpublished, these works remain my copyright. I’m happy for you to read and enjoy them, but please do not copy or reprint without my permission.


. I Am The Egg Man

‘I Am the Egg Man’ is my first novel, as yet unpublished. It is a rites of passage novel, telling the tale of Martin Freeman, a 17-year old pupil from Bathgate in the 1960s. In his last, unhappy, summer before he goes on to university, he has a vacation job in a Hatchery. Here, he meets the enigmatic Kane who befriends him, opens his mind to many things and furnishes him with the watchword, “Life is all about changes and how you deal with them.” Martin experiences love, sex for the first time, loss and death. He also takes a nightmare trip on LSD, and has an unforgettable incident with his Auntie Mary.
In this extract, he tells us about the McEldowneys, the family next door:

Zoob McEldowney was a fat and balding man, who smoked like a lum, drank like a fish and, evidently, fucked like a rabbit, because he had sired a litter of young McEldowneys upon their dam, the staggeringly unlovely Morag McEldowney. Morag was a hogshead of a woman, whose body had been bloated by regular pregnancies. She had a commodious bosom, which she allowed to go untrammelled by any form of support, a stylistic mannerism unusual at the time. Her ponderous breasts lolled and rolled around under a large, greasy top in the summer days. She affected a skimpy wrap-around print skirt which hid most of her puffy legs.

“I wish she’d wear a bloody brassiere,” said my father, looking out the front window one day.

“I know. All that … stuff … walloping around under that old Sloppy Joe," said my mother. "It isn’t decent.”

“I don’t know about decent. It isn’t bloody bonny. Morag the bloody Toerag.”

“A decent woman would know better.”

“Mind you, I don’t know where she’d get a bloody brassiere big enough. Bloody great heefer.”
Zoob McEldowney had never had a job since his paper round in the 1930’s. Morag likewise did nothing except drop a whelp every odd year. They considered life more than meat and the body more than raiment.

“Teach you how to live, these people. Neither work nor want,” said my mother.

There were something in the region of eight or nine junior McEldowneys, many of whom were girls.
They worked in Woolworth’s, or the TCC, or the killing in the chicken factory.

The boys were Jason and Simon. Simon McEldowney was the youngest, aged 14. He wore National Health glasses with extremely thick lenses that my mother called ‘milk bottle bottoms’. He had buck teeth, which forced his top lip upwards in a permanent goofy smirk. He wore wellies all the year round and also affected a skipped bunnet with ear-flaps, summer and winter. He was, of course, deranged. My father called him Tojo.

But the piece de resistance was Jason. A couple of years older than me, he was as gay as a stripy party-frock. He minced when he walked, lisped when he talked and sat down when he peed - at least, according to my father. Of all the execrations he heaped upon the McEldowney family for being workshy, illiterate, uncivilised, ungodly and unhygienic, he reserved the best for Jason…

This evening, Jason accompanied me down Livery Street, across Waverley Street, down Avon Road and around Balbardie Crescent until we got to our respective gates. My father was standing at the front window, watching. As we sat down to our tea, he brought the subject up.

We ate sitting at a small formica-topped table in the kitchenette, which my mother called the ‘scullery’. At every meal, the table bore the salt and pepper in plastic dispensers, a bottle of HP sauce, a plate of plain bread slices halved and spread with Stork margarine, a large brown teapot, and a plate of teabread for afters. My parents loved teabread and couldn’t understand why I did not.

“Have a German biscuit with your cup of tea, son.”

“No thanks.”

“A fly cemetery then, or a cream cookie.”

“They’re too sweet, Mum. Thanks all the same.”

“God knows,” said my father. “What the hell’s wrong with a bit of sweet after your tea?”

“Nothing, Dad, if you like that. I’m just not too keen on they things.”

“That’ll do me. Bloody weirdo.”

“Well, have a pancake, son. They’re not sweet.”

“No thanks.”

“There’s a Bloory Band in the biscuit tin, then?”

“No, honestly.”

“Do you not want something with your tea?”

This conversation, or a slight variation on it, had taken place at every mealtime, seven days a week, since I was ten. This evening differed only in the topic of conversation my father raised.

“Was that that Nancy-boy you were talking to, when you came in?”

“Jason? Aye.”

“What do you want to talk to that Jeannie Wullocks for?”

“He was just asking me if I had a job for the summer holidays.”

“Oh? What did you tell him?”

“I told him aye. I’m at the Hatchery. He just asked what it was like, as a job.”

“Pass me that plate of bread, Dad, please,” said my mother.

“Job? What would he know about jobs?”

“He works in the wee sweetie shop in the evenings.”

“Aye. He would. He’s a wee sweetie himself. How any man that calls himself a man can parade about like that is beyond me. He’s an abomination. That’s what he is. An abomination.”

“What do you mean, Dad?” said my mother.

“I mean he’s a bumboy.”

“Not at the table, Dad, please.”

“There’s no point in being mealy-mouthed about these things. Our son is seventeen now.”

“I don’t see what that’s got to do with it.”

“He has to know about these things.”

He looked at me.

“I take it you know what the sin of Sodom is? One of the four sins crying to heaven for vengeance. The cities of the plain were destroyed with fire and brimstone. And you know why? Buggery – pure and simple.”

I could feel my toes curl in my shoes with embarrassment.

“Dad!” my mother gasped in shock.

“No, Mum. He has to know.”

“Well, Dad. That is your department. But I don’t want the sin of Sodom served up with my stovies thank you very much. Now, let there be no more talk like that until we have finished our meal. We did say Grace before Meals, you know. Bless us o Lord and these Thy gifts…? For any favour, let’s keep our meal a family affair.”

“Fair enough.”

“Good. Now, son. Would you like something to finish off your tea?”

“No. And you can rest assured” - I turned to my father – “I do know what the sin of Sodom is; and if there’s any worries at the back of your mind, you can relax. I’m not a Jeannie Wullocks. I like girls.”

There was a silence, whilst my father finished his stovies.

“Well, that’s something at least,” said my mother, lifting her plate and carrying it to the sink, “thanks be to God and His Blessed Mother. Now - a wee jam puff, Dad?”


2. Redemption

‘Redemption’ was started as ‘I Am the Egg Man’ was being finished. I wrote them together for a while, although they could not be more different. Possibly that helped in the writing of both. This description of ‘Redemption’ is pinched from my agent’s website.

“John Newlands was born in Bathgate in 1737 and he died in Jamaica in 1799. Little else of any substance is known, other than the fact that he left money in his will to endow a free school in the parish of Bathgate. This became, after many years of disputing the terms of the will, Bathgate Academy.

Newlands had made a fortune in Jamaica from slave-trading and sugar-planting. Every year in June, Bathgate celebrates the bequest with the annual Procession, formerly known as ‘Newlands Day’. When it rained on this festival, as it often did, the townspeople used to call it ‘darkies’ tears’. They were under no illusion about how Newlands had amassed his fortune.

Redemption is a novel based on those facts; a novel of encroaching evil in the vein of Heart of Darkness.

“In this extract, the ship’s surgeon, James Corbet, having sought John Newlands for many years, finds him on the point of death in his Jamaica home:

Newlands presented a sight that Corbet never thought to have seen this side of the grave. The head on the pillow was little more than a skull: bald with a few remnants of white, wispy hair. His skin was sallow, leathery and covered in blisters. His eyes, sunk far back in their sockets, were without feature; a uniform discoloration of yellowish white. His nose was sharp and bony; his lips ulcerated and cracked, oozing a meagre, grey film of mucus. His cheeks had sunk so deep that they provided little more than membranous connections between his cheek and jaw bones. He was, as he himself had suggested, a living corpse.

His last effort at speech had exhausted Newlands. He said nothing for thirty seconds, then summoned up his strength again and said,

“Sit ye doon, Corbet. Ye’ve nae objection tae keepin’ a corp comp’ny?”

“None in the world, if that is your wish.”

“It is.”

Corbet found a chair by the window and brought it by the bed. Sitting down, he scrutinised the dying man more professionally and with more care, now that the initial shock of seeing him had abated. Newlands seemed to know what he was doing.

“Bonnie sicht, eh?”

“Not so, I’m afraid.”

“No like I looked as a laddie. Back in Bathkit.”

“Not at all, John.”

“Aye. Well, medical man, whit ails me?”

“It’s difficult to say with certainty. I must confess I have never seen a condition like it. Sufferers from Yellow Fever exhibit some similar symptoms but in a considerably moderated state. I am minded to venture the suggestion that what afflicts you does not stem from physical illness alone.”

A gruesome rattling from his chest indicated that Newlands was amused.

“Is your brother being treated for his condition with any medicine?” Corbet asked of Robert, turning round to that individual and addressing him thus.

“Indeed. John has been bled – copiously bled with the lancet. He has been treated with leeches and cupped. And he has had several calomel purges. There is a liquid medicine here …”

There was a brief pause whilst Robert Newlands crossed the room to a heavy oak table and returned with an apothecary’s phial. Corbet accepted the bottle from him and uncorked it, sniffing judiciously.

“Fowler’s solution,” he pronounced.

“I believe I have heard the physicians use that term,” agreed Robert Newlands. “What precisely is it?”

“Fowler’s is a one percent solution of Potassium Arsenite. It is commonly used in the treatment of many illnesses, including malaria and Yellow Fever, as are Donovan’s solution and de Valagin’s solution. It is the solution of a powerful toxin.”

“Is it efficacious?”

“Toxins can, occasionally, do good for the body. If administered in sufficiently palatable doses.”

“In this case?”

“You can see how efficacious it has been in this case,” said Corbet.

He intended no irony but the figure on the bed began its gruesome rattling again. Then the breathing stopped. Corbet’s heart quickened and he leant forward, but he could see that that projection of thyroid cartilage in the being’s throat, commonly called the Adam’s Apple, was moving regularly, as if the body’s lungs were slowly and painfully reinflating and, sure enough, within thirty seconds, the stertorous breathing recommenced. Newlands breathed stridently for a few seconds before he continued.

“Aye, James Corbet. You know a bit mair than maist. Whit wid ye venture is wrang? Forbye whit ye cry physical things?”

“I am at a loss.”

“Corbet, this is the devil’s work ye see afore ye: a man forsaken b’ God.”

“No-one, John Newlands, no matter how heinous their sin, is forsaken by God. Only ask of His mercy and He will tender it. When the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness that he hath committed and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive.”

Again, the grim, snorting rattle indicated a disdainful amusement.

“Hi, aye. Like ye say. But they’re words, Corbet. Cheap words. Ye have nae idea how heenious my sins are. Nae conception.”

“Nevertheless…”

“Aye. Nevertheless. An’ how wud ye suggest I ask God’s mercy?”

“John has been harping on this string for some days now…” ventured Robert Newlands.

“Whae asked ye?! Eh? Whae asked ye?”

The creature’s wheezing voice soared to a querulous, screaming hiss that emptied him entirely of air, so that he spent the next few moments fighting to regain breath, his chest heaving appallingly as he did so. Corbet started from his chair to help, but was restrained by Robert Newlands. Gradually, the dying man brought his shuddering breathing under control.

“Away wi’ ye, Rab; away wi’ ye.”

“John…”

“Away. I want tae talk tae Corbet. If I need ye, Corbet can call ye.”

Robert Newlands drew himself up in some affront and strode from the room. A silence sank on the pair left behind the closed door, a silence that Corbet found in no small measure disconcerting. That cessation of breath that Corbet had remarked earlier occurred again, and again it took half a minute for Newlands to resume the harsh gasp of breathing. Then he spoke again.

“I wahnt tae make mah peace wi’ God. Help me.”


3. Reptiles

‘Reptiles’ is a love story. Alistair Coull is the Head Reptile Keeper at Edinburgh Zoo. His assistant, the young Kim Fisher, is politically active in many fields. The story takes place in the year 2005, when the G8 summit in Gleaneagles was marked by demonstrations in Edinburgh:

The din was appalling, an implacable throbbing assault on the ears. The stale evening pounded with it. Whistles, shrill and relentless, shredded the air. The drums of the Infernal Noise Brigade pounded and blattered like misfiring hearts. Hundreds of harsh voices screamed “Scum! Scum! Scum!” unremittingly. Within the narrow confines of Rose Street, the sound rebounded from the tightly packed buildings and set up an echo that amplified and looped the sound in a terrifying acoustic spiral. Directly before the protestors, behind a stockade of transparent shields, riot police three rows deep, stone-faced and grim, stood and eyed their adversaries. Behind them, like a futuristic nightmare of knights in armour, were two lines of mounted police, also in riot gear, their horses’ eyes protected by transparent perspex visors.

The girl in the shemagh stood among the protesters, a black hood over her head and the black and white patterned Arab scarf tied bandit-style around her mouth and chin. The press of angry and righteous young humanity shrieking abuse at the police hemmed her in tightly on both sides, the air was fetid with sweat, but she was not intimidated by this. Rather, the opposite. She derived a powerful sense of shared identity and common purpose from the proximity of her fellow demonstrators. The front line of their cohort, immediately before and around her, consisted mainly of young people clad, like her, entirely in black and with black hoodies or black balaclavas concealing their features from the scrutiny of the law enforcement officers opposite.

Hers was one of a forest of arms repeatedly swaying and pointing at the police, whooshing towards their enemy like a hail of arrows. All the while they roared “Scum! Scum! Scum!’ at the tops of their voices. The battle line of policemen never flinched, never returned the abuse, never took their eyes from the activists. The heavy and unmistakeable pulse of a helicopter’s rotary blades battering the air was added to the mayhem. Across the lines, she could see police dog-handlers behind the cavalry. The dogs leapt and twisted on their chains, obviously adding their howled and snarled hatred to the commotion but, of course, she could not hear them.

The chant changed to a rhythmic “Fuck the police! Fuck the police!” And then she was aware of activity behind her and a young man ran forward until he was level with her and hurled a brick towards the opposite lines. A cry went up from the ranks of police – “Missiles!”. The brick clattered against a shield and the thrower dissolved back into the crowd. There followed a flurry of people as they dug up the cobbled setts of the street with all manner of improvised crowbars. The air was instantly and alarmingly full of heavy missiles – cobbles, paving slabs, bricks, planks and spars from bread pallets – obviously discovered behind one of the shops – and a pair of supermarket trolleys hoisted awkwardly and heaved towards the police. Now there was room for movement by her as her colleagues either ran forward, lobbing projectiles, or swayed out of the line of fire. She picked up a dropped lump of masonry and cast it high in an arc over the heads of the demonstrators at the police.

The commotion increased in intensity. Nobody had stopped the piercing shrieks of the whistles, the heartbeat pounding of the drums or the throat-ripping bawling of insults. The bolts and brickbats of stone and rock showered down on upturned riot shields with a vicious drumming.

And then the police jogged forward. And, in a heartbeat, charged.

The rioters turned and fled, screaming, yelling, laughing hysterically, bumping each other into walls, falling, scrambling up and over each other out of Rose Street, pursued now by the riot police, all like rats scurrying down an alley, out towards South Charlotte Street and the open green and grey of the Square. The first line of police smashed into and among the tailenders of the crowd, laying about them as they charged, breaking heads and thumping shoulders. One bearded man collapsed to his knees under the impact of a baton blow, blood coursing down his brow. The girl was shoved by a black-clad protester, as she ran, into the North Lane off the main thoroughfare of the street. She landed heavily on her side and turned to watch the chase flash by the mouth of the lane. Panicking, she scrabbled up to her feet and ran to rejoin the torrent of humanity in its mad rush out into Charlotte Square.

But the van of the riot police had surged forward, trampling one or two laggards underfoot, ignoring them and pressing on after the majority of the rabble towards Charlotte Square. She ran lightly into Rose Street again and was overrun by a huge policeman in riot gear, charging after the quarry. He barged her heavily with his shield and sent her spinning backwards into a shop doorway. Her heels scuttered once or twice with the impetus of the blow and then she tripped and smacked her head on the stone doorway. She lapsed into unconsciousness …


4. Jack McCracken

Jack is my Bathgate Private Eye. I have a strong weakness for the hardboiled detective style of Hammett, Ellroy and, pre-eminently, Chandler. The Jack novels are my affectionate, spoof version of these great writers. There are three Jack novels: Dangerous Conceits; Night’s Black Agents and The Thoughts of Love. A fourth is under way. The titles reveal one aspect of Jack’s personality – his absolute love of Shakespeare. There follows an extract from the second McCracken novel, 'Night's Black Agents'. Jack has heard a rumour that the dentist, Sandy McConochie, may have killed his wife and he heads off to the surgery for a looksee:

I thought it was high time I had my ivory castles checked out. McConochie had his practice on Marjoribanks Street in Bathgate. This is one of the town’s grander streets, running from High Hopetoun Street past the old Academy to Kirk Road, and is full of grand Victorian villas with stone balconies, crow-step gables and other gingerbread, in private grounds walled off from the plebs. It was in one of these imposing structures that Sandy McConochie drilled ‘em and filled ‘em. I had no idea what the man looked like but I wanted to see if he seemed the kind of geezer who would ice his old lady for a hundred capital M’s.

I put on my coat and walked up Academy Street to Marjoribanks Street in watery sunshine. It was pleasantly quiet and I enjoyed the stroll. McConochie’s place was a stone villa with a modern storm-porch tacked on to the front. The gardens were generous and the drive full of cars. Tablets on the wall declared that there were three dentists in the practice: McConochie himself, graduate of the University of Aberdeen; R. Johnstone, graduate of the University of Edinburgh, and B. Harte, of the University of Glasgow. Three dentists; a rich practice. Whatever they were turning over a year, it wasn’t alfalfa. Plenty of the long, folding stuff in here.

I went in. The waiting-room was empty, but redolent with the smell that always pervades these places – cloves or surgical spirit or whatever it is. Three doors, with surgery numbers on them. Only one closed, Number 3. The high whine of a drill zeeping through from behind it. A dowdy, middle aged receptionist with a face as hard as a mole spanner asked if she could help. She was a Bathgate type: the sort who misses the steamie because it’s harder to know everyone’s business without it, but manages anyway.

I asked if I could have an appointment for a check-up with Mr. McConochie.

“Are you one of Mr. McConochie’s patients?”

“No, I’m not. I’m just looking for a new dentist. My last one died.”

“I’m sorry. Mr. McConochie is not taking on any new NHS patients at the moment. His list is full.” And she favoured me with a smile as sweet as a lemon.

“Damn. That’s inconvenient,” I mumped.

Just then the door of Surgery 3 opened and a young woman came halfway out, then paused and turned back to say something. Side on, she was easy on the eye, her bust pushing her tunic out and her waist allowing it to drift back in, in a most acceptable manner. Her hair was black, short and cut in a feathered style. She wore a tight, knee-length skirt that, with her high heels, accentuated the line of her shapely legs and the curve of her backside. My interest was piqued.

Then she turned and allowed her face to shine upon the reception area. I was deafened by the rumble of a thousand keels on slipways and the splash of their hulls hitting water.

She stalked quickly and noisily in her heels over the stone floor and into another surgery.

“I know that girl,” I said to the bertha behind the desk. “Isn’t that Bessie Smith?”

“No,” said the receptionist. “That’s Brogan Harte. One of our dentists. Our youngest dentist.”

“Harte…” I mused. “Not one of the West Calder Hartes? Tam Harte’s lassie?”

“No, no,” purred the receptionist indulgently. “Brogan lives out on the Edinburgh Road. Here in Bathgate. Nothing to do with West Calder.”

“Oh. By God, but she’s Bessie Smith’s spit. Anyway. You were saying about Mr. McConochie?”

“Oh, that his list is full at the moment. He’s not taking on any new patients.”

Brogan Harte came back out and clipped over towards where we stood. Face on, it was a cartoon moment. The background dissolved. As she oozed in my direction, I heard that horny liquorice-stick glissando that starts Rhapsody in Blue. A riot of love-hearts burst above my head with a noise like a hundred kisses. My eyes boinged out on springs. Maybe this was the reason Sandy McConochie killed his wife. Hell, I would have killed her for a night with this dish.

She walked behind the desk and bobbed down to find something on a lower shelf. The motion did not detract any from her allure. The skirt slid tighter on her thighs. I gave a sharp and involuntary squawk, like a startled parakeet. She looked up at me and I felt faint. Her eyes had no right to be so big and blue. Nor should her mouth have been quite so sensuously wide and full-lipped.

“Sorry,” I said to her and the old duck, and cleared my throat. “Catarrh.”

Brogan Harte smiled at me, obviously scoring me as a bolter from the local bughouse and went back to her searching. The receptionist returned to our previous conversation.

“So, I’m afraid I can’t offer you an appointment with Mr. McConochie.”

“Hmm?” I said, turning my head reluctantly in her direction.

“His list being full.”

“Oh. Right. Damn. What’ll I do?”

“I’ll take him on my list, Lettie, if he likes,” chirruped Ms. Harte, straightening up with a piece of paper and giving me a wholesome smile.

“Have you still got room, Brogan?”

“Aye. Room for one or two standing,” she joked.

I was struck by an inappropriate jest of an anatomical nature, which I did not share with the ladies.