The Cutting Room Read Online Free PDF

against the
    tree in front of me. How old? Fourteen? Sixteen? He was
    wearing the current uniform of shapeless sports gear. White
    cap, white top, blue sweat pants. I think of him as a ghost. A whey-faced spectre. He had found a short cut on that road we all travel. His head was nodding, falling forward gently, then just as gently straightening, as if the weight of his head and gravity together were too much for him. Jellied. Gouching.
    Glazed eyes seeking mine.
    `Looking for business, Mister?’
    `No, son. Not tonight.’
    He stepped back to his post, passive, as if he had forgotten me already. Junkies and whores are used to waiting.
    I crossed the street and slipped into the park. The dawn
    was beginning to slink in, black drifting to grey. I took the hump-backed bridge over the Kelvin. The rain was heavier
    now. I could hear it against the rush of the river. Damn it, I was going to be soaked. Christ, only the desperate would be
    here tonight and, while I was desperate myself, it wasn’t
    desperate company I was seeking. I veered right and took a
    turn round the fountain. It had been erected as a tribute to the man who brought fresh water from Loch Katrine to the city of Glasgow. It stood there dry, derelict and neglected. Rain,
    beating an irregular tattoo against the rubbish, gathered in its trough, graffiti sprayed across its statuary and enamelled
    zodiac plaques. I examined the most recent legends. God is
     
    Gay, SEX Credit cards accepted, Nicholson bangs monkeys. Well, Nicholson, I thought, I’ve been there. Sometimes you just
    have to make the best of things.
    I turned my back on the fountain, walked past the kids’
    playground and towards the duckpond. Litter lined its border, shreds of the day. Crisp packets, juice bottles and no doubt not a few condoms. Everywhere I could sense decay. The
    pigeons were roosting on a skeletal willow poised above the
    water. Grey, tattered feathers fluffed out to protect them
    from the rain. Winged rats.
    A figure moved ahead of me, breaking from the cover of
    trees, into the no man’s land of the pathway, light-coloured jacket unveiling him against the earlymorning shadows.
    `Good man,’ I whispered to myself, `wear white at night.’
    He walked towards the war memorial. The sculpted kiltie
    rested above the lists of dead boys’ names, gazing towards a world without wars. He paid us no mind. My quarry turned
    his head slightly, making sure I was on his trail and I knew we were going to be fine. He led me up a pathway towards a
    bench sheltered in the lee of a tree. My eyes had adjusted to the darkness. When he turned I saw a well-set man of around
    thirty. I couldn’t make out his features entirely yet. Don’t let him speak, I thought walking towards him, making eye
    contact. His right hand was in his pocket, I thought I could make out the bulge of his erection. I was so close I could hear his sigh, smell the faint odour of beer on his breath. I reached out, meaning to touch him, and he took my arm in a firm
    grip:
    `You’ve got something I want.’
    The words were close enough to a menace. I tensed, and
    my free hand formed into a fist. Then he was on his knees and it was the usual routine.
     
    I was fishing around for a condom in my pocket - it’s only
    etiquette to reciprocate - when I heard it. The earsplitting, propeller clatter of the spy in the sky. Light flooded the park.
    My new friend ran towards the top path and out towards the
    deserted office quarter of Park Circus. There were footsteps everywhere around me, enchanted shadows made whole,
    men fleeing across the grass and the scree of the pathways, and there I’d been afraid of not getting a click. I turned to run in the direction of Woodlands. There was a gate by Caledonia
    College I could scale at a leap. Then there was a hand on my shoulder and a torch in my face and I knew the game was up.
    We were a sad crew, the half-dozen of us in the police van.
    After we’d each been cautioned for lewd behaviour