The Word Cloud

I have a Thriller/General Fiction piece I would like others to critique. If anyone would like to get a critique in return I'd be more than happy to do so.

Let me know... ?

Hi Bikerjob, I've never critiqued a piece before but if you're game......I'll have a go!

Thanks Jay - here's Chapter 1


Chapter 1 – the homecoming

Aulay Mackay opened the door and stepped into a blend of stale beer, old men and fried eggs. The Stushie, a pub on Glasgow’s south-side, served all-day breakfast. In the gloom were two booths, one for Eddie Curren’s inner-circle the other for hangers-on.

“Hi, Uncle Eddie and you other wasters.”

Eddie’s disciples gave Aulay a nod or a smile.

“Here,” said Eddie patting the seat next to him. “You sit here, Aulay.”

“No’ today, Eddie. I’m off to the bookies. You fancy a bet put on?”

“I’m all right the-now. Put a tenner on Bloody Nose in the 3:15 at Ayr. She’s worth a sniff, son.”

Eddie Curren downed his whisky, pulled in his seventy-three year old frame and eased his way round the booth. He patted his pocket for the makings.

“Let’s light a fire, Aulay.”

Eddie signalled for another round of drinks before bursting into the daylight. It was nine o’clock in the morning. Both men rolled their own.

The Stushie sat alone, her neighbours bulldozed to make way for the M74 as it sliced through Polmadie on its way to merge with the M8 in the city centre. The pub’s survival was down to an architectural quirk above the false ceiling; it gave The Stushie a Grade-A listing and the new motorway had to move sideways. The surrounding tenement streets, Aulay’s streets, were gone, replaced by concrete and tarmac which let the wind blow.

“How you finding being back then?” Eddie asked as they huddled together to light up.

“No’ bad. Everything’s the same but different, you know?”

“No, son. Last time I was abroad... was for your Uncle Harry’s wedding... in Edinburgh.”

Aulay had joined the army on his eighteenth birthday. Seven years on he was now a civilian yet still taking orders. He didn’t like it but the Spooks had him by the short and curlies.

Looking across at the new motorway they watched the nameless commuters. Sometimes the cars moved.

Eddie took a long draw. “You getting anywhere with what I asked?”

“If Kenny Finlayson’s making any moves, I’ve no’ seen them.”

“I don’t trust the bastard, Aulay. He’s been sniffing around too long and she’s still young yet, doesn’t understand these things. I can’t let her-”

One of Eddie’s cronies sauntered along pulling his fags out. Eddie raised an eyebrow and the man turned into The Stushie with a, “See youz inside, eh?”

“I can’t let her do this,” Eddie went on. “She’d never live it down.”

Aulay thought [ I’d ] should replace the [ She’d ] in that last statement. Eddie was pasting woodchip over his own cracks.

“When I hear something, Eddie, I’ll let you know.”

“I know, son, but... I’m no’ a good worrier.”

A trace of menace? The stakes were high. Even for Aulay who was one of the True-Ones. Long past the deference of Eddie’s followers, Aulay looked him square in the face.

“Anything at all, I’ll give you a bell.”

“I know, son.”

“Stay sane, Eddie.”

Aulay headed for the bookmakers. Eddie was wrong. Bloody Nose was a nag. His money was going on Rotund Relative, a dead cert.

***

Later that day Aulay followed a black Citroen into one of those oddly shaped developments which had sprung up since he’d been away. Pale coloured bricks, a mix of expensive houses and flats with ordered parking behind shiny metal railings. When Kenny Finlayson entered a house in the middle of a terrace, Aulay slipped his car into a space down the street and dialled Eddie’s number.

Three hours later it was getting dark when Eddie’s Chrysler 220 swung in and launched into the back of the Citroen with a good thump. The little car leapt forward, its rear end crumpling. The lull lasted a second or two before other cars, as if in sympathy for one of their own, joined the Citroen’s wailing. A concerned member of the public made his way over as Eddie got out, leaned on his unmarked bonnet and lit up. Twenty feet from the Chrysler the man coughed, checked his watch and walked away. Glaswegians can sense a ‘situation’ in their sleep.

Time ticked on and nothing happened. Aulay wondered if the secret lovers had sneaked out the back door.

A kafuffle at the corner; two heavies dragged along a dishevelled Kenny Finlayson. Kenny was getting levered into the back of the Chrysler when a terrace door opened. Shaz Curren, hair a shambles, stockings torn, blouse buttons in the wrong sequence, tottered down the steps waving a pretty .22 special at her dad.

“Leave Kenny alone you auld bastard, what gives you the right?”

Eyes closed, Shaz fired off a couple. There was the high-pitched crack you get from small guns. Eddie didn’t move. Shaz fired a few more. After a second hollow click, Aulay watched his first girlfriend drop the gun, sit on the pavement and howl. Sliding down the seat, Aulay reversed out and drove away. He never saw Eddie fall.

***

When Shaz made her entrance into the world, Aulay was two days old and they shared a cot in the maternity ward of the Southern General. They grew up in the same tenement, glued together until Shaz went to University and Aulay took the Queen’s shilling.

His first trips home were intense, a mix of sex and clinging on. Then, the day before shipping out for his second stint in Iraq, Aulay phoned his mum and she dropped the big one.

“Oh, and dear, Shaz is seeing a nice boy from Yooni, Francis something, I think, from Coatbridge.”

Aulay sank into a dark hole where Francis-Shite-Bastard threw a bright light onto his last home leave. Shaz’s mood, she’d been distant, different. What happened? At first Aulay blamed the barren waste of the text message. Going on-line had worked for a while but there’s no spark when you know the person on the other side of ether-ville. The phone sex had been great until the novelty wore off, after a fortnight. In the depths, Aulay remembered what the old hands had said. A long distance love affair takes work. What made him think Shaz would sit by the fire while he played the hero?

For the next few years Aulay didn’t return to an empty Glasgow. He spent his leaves drinking vodka as he chased Shaz look-a-likes round the Costa del Sol, or was it the Costa Brava?

After a dodgy tour in Afghanistan, he took the three months they gave him and crossed America by iPod. The New York shop assistant recognised his type and pre-loaded the pocket juke-box with American-sad-classics. The songs reeked of longing, loss and betrayal. He wasn’t alone. Still, it was ages before he stopped putting the light out with, ‘night night, Shaz-babe’.

When he came home this time, he found Shaz and her current Shite-Bastard in trouble with her dad. Not where he’d recommend anyone spend too much time.

***

Aulay, dressed in black, walked through Craigton Cemetery. Two square miles of Victorian decay where the older gravestones lie buried in the weeds. He knew every road, track and path. It’s as close to ‘countryside’ as he’d ever got. A playground until he and Shaz were old enough to appreciate its isolation. Happy days.

“Hi Shaz, how you doin’?”

“No’ bad, Aulay. Howz you?”

“Fine. Good day for it, eh?”

“Aye.”

The greeting manoeuvres were a struggle and the stinging sleet didn’t help. They were standing by Kenny Finlayson’s grave in the grizzled scene from countless films, or filums as they say in Glasgow. A gray slab for a sky with two gravediggers huddled under a tree, eager to fill in the hole and get to the pub. The smell of fresh soil drifted from under green plastic sheets.

When the sobs came, Aulay wasn’t surprised, Shaz’d been busy. Three days after she’d shot her dad in the leg, her boyfriend died in a hit and run, apparently. Hospital bed or not, Eddie Curren could still organise things.

The sleet changing direction to horizontal reduced the mourners to Aulay, Shaz and Irene Finlayson, Kenny’s stricken mum. The story goes that the teenage Irene went camping and hooked up with an American sailor out of the Holy Loch. Introduced to Jack Daniels, Irene woke up in her tent naked, sore and no Leroy. Nine months later, young Kenny arrived.

“He wasn’t a bad boy,” said Shaz.

Aulay knew Kenny Finlayson through conversations. He drank in the Pandora, did a bit of trading at the Barras Market and could plaster a fine wall, for cash.

“When Da’ first found out he hauled Kenny in...” Shaz paused for more sniffling. “But Kenny wouldn’t listen, figured Da’ was ancient, past it. I tried to end it, believe me, but Kenny kept coming.”

Aulay ignored the pun.

Shaz was looking at him but seeing something else.

“He wasn’t blazin’ saddles, Aulay, in or out the scratcher. He was cute and good fun and... know what I mean?”

Aulay nodded. Shaz was enjoying Kenny until something better turned up. He’d been guilty of doing the same but Shazs are hard to find.

“I should have tried harder,” she said. “A part of me used Kenny, me with my educated liberal bollocks. I used him to stick two fingers up at Da’ and... fuck me, Aulay, I got the poor bugger killed.”

More sobs came. Aulay felt a bit guilty himself, but hey, he’d get over it.

Kenny didn’t deserve to die. Looking at Shaz, you could see why he’d risk it. Think Uma Thurman with or without the sword.

***

Aulay and Shaz did all their early fumbling together. Not just sex, all the adolescent stuff, booze, drugs, theft and extortion. They kicked vandalism after one night, neither of them got it. The thieving was small time, shoplifting mostly and that stopped when they started working in Woollies at the weekends, where stealing was a perk.

The extortion was more of a scam. Shaz developed early and they’d charge 50p for a look, a quid if you wanted her to jiggle them about. A fanny flash? Never.

There was the one exception. Johnnie Smote saved up for months and Aulay had to agree. For the big bucks he’d a sneaky suspicion Shaz’d go behind his back.

A trembling Smote turned up at the usual place. The tenement’s bin-store didn’t have a roof but the walls were high enough to prevent any gawkers from the third floor looking in for free. It didn’t smell too bad.

“Right, Smote.” Aulay put authority into his recently broken voice. “Here’s the rules. You need to stand there and no’ move, nothing.”

“For forty quid I want ten seconds worth,” squeaked The Smote.

“Fu-”

Shaz broke in. “Smote, you’ll get three seconds.”

With The Smote struggling and tears nearby, Shaz switched to a softer tone.

“Kneel down, Smote. You’ll get a better angle.”

If Shaz’d told The Smote to eat his thumb, he’d have asked, ‘Which one?’

Shaz surprised them both when she turned, lifted her short skirt and bent over. Aulay watched The Smote explode before the gateway to heaven swung into view.

***

Smiling at the memory wasn’t the most diplomatic thing to do at a graveside. Shaz elbowed him away.

“You findin’ anythin’ funny here, Aulay?”

“Sorry, Shaz, got stuck in a memory there. Look, let’s get out of here before we drown.”

The sleet had matured into a biblical deluge. Shaz waved at the unseeing Irene Finlayson. They turned and left Kenny’s mum alone with her grief.

“You fancy a wee drink then?”

They’d reached the cemetery gates, by the war memorial where Aulay used to chase the screeching Shaz to the top. His mouth was dry. Would she?

Her green eyes looked up. “I was sloshed when I shot Da’, you must have heard?”

Aulay nodded.

“I wanted Kenny to go out on a high, had it all planned, our last time together. We drank champagne... the big cheerio. I borrowed a house from this girl at work...”

Aulay waited.

“How the fuck did Da’ find us?”

Aulay tucked his guilt behind shrugging shoulders.

“My brain’s gone, Aulay. Let’s get a bottle and go to your place. We’ll shag for Scotland.”

How could he refuse and anyway, he was safe. Aulay was white.

Hi Bikerjob, I've just been informed my house completion is taking place earlier than expected and so I will be moving on Wednesday. Happy to critique but it probably won't be until the New Year now (if a jobs worth doing... and all that!)
In the meantime, you might want to move this piece to the General Critique section where everyone will be able to see it and comment.