Stuart David

PEACOCK'S TALE

Homeopathic whisky—that was the latest brainwave. It had crept up on me earlier in the day, and by late on I didn’t see how it could possibly fail.
       So there I was, sitting at the kitchen table, working out the profit margin on one part spirit to three million parts water, when the sound of the wife screaming stopped me dead in my tracks.
       It was a scream and a half, as well. A right blood-curdler.
       Then she starts shouting on me, “Peacock… Peacock! …”
       And the brainwave went up the spout for the foreseeable future.
       I shot through to the living room, half expecting to find her lying underneath something, or at least sitting with something sticking out of her, but she was as right as rain when I got there. She was sprawled out on the couch with her feet up on the coffee table, watching one of her daft stories on STV and pointing at the screen.
       “You’re on the telly!” she was shouting. “You’re on the telly, Peacock!”
       “I thought you’d been murdered,” I told her, but she wasn’t listening.
       “Look!”
       But I couldn’t see anything. I couldn’t even work out what the fuck she was watching. It seemed to be some daft Scottish detective thing. I thought she’d maybe gone a wee bit mental.
       “What are you talking about, Bev?” I asked her. “How can I be on that, hen?”
       “Just watch,” she said, “You’ll be back in a minute. You’re in it.”
       So I sat there for about twenty minutes, watching this dooley tanking about Edinburgh in the rain, and just when I was getting ready to go back to my wee idea she starts shouting again, “There you are! Look, there you are. It’s you.”
       And she turns round to look at me, the wee face beaming.
       I was at my wit’s end. I really thought she’d lost it this time. The guy she was pointing at didn’t bear the slightest resemblance to me. He was about twenty years older for a start, all kind of knackered looking, with fucked up hair and scary teeth.
       The bastard didn’t even have a moustache.
       I was just getting ready to phone the doctor, to see if I could convince him to make a wee house call, when all of a sudden the detective boy fires into this restaurant where the scary-teethed guy is holding court, and the detective throws a glass of red wine all over him, and he says- are you ready for this? he says, “Ladies and Gents, I give you— The Peacock.”
       And the wife grabs a hold of my arm and she starts just about shaking the life out of me.
       I was stunned.
       “You’re famous!” she shouted.
       And the more I watched of the thing the more it looked possible that this jakey on the telly was supposed to be me. They had him cast as a wee bit of an ideas man, he was something of a sharp dresser, and- into the bargain- he was in at just about everything, a right rogue.
       “What is this anyway?” I asked the wife, and she said it was something called Rebus. I’d never heard of it. Mind you, I’ve never heard of half the shite she watches, so that didn’t really mean anything.
       “Is it popular?” I asked her and she said it was, then she told me to shut-up in case she lost her place and missed out on something important.
       So I shut up. I just kept quiet for a while and watched the story unfolding. And the thing was, the longer it went on, the clearer it became that this Peacock guy was more than just a bit of a rogue. He turned out to be a right evil bastard, in at all kinds of things I wouldn’t have touched in a million years. And by the time it finished I realised I was sitting on a wee idea that made the thing I’d been footering about with earlier in the kitchen seem like chicken feed.
       “I’m going to sue them,” I told the wife, as she snapped it off. “Defamation of character.”
       “You certainly didn’t come out of it well,” she said, and she looked a wee bit shocked. I could see the defamation was already beginning to kick in. Even with her. She was giving me some right funny looks and she seemed to be wondering if I really had pulled some of that shady stuff from the show at some point in the past.
       I picked up the paper and had a look at the telly page, to see if there were any clues about who was behind the fiasco, but all it said was:

Rebus. New episode: ‘A Question of Blood.’ Ken Stott stars as the hard-drinking Edinburgh-based detective in this gritty drama.

       “Who writes it?” I asked the wife, but she only shrugged.
       “I just watch it,” she said. “But I’ll tell you who would know.”
       I hoped to Christ that she wasn’t going to say Billy Smail, but she was.
       “Billy would know,” she said, and I groaned.
       Billy fucking Smail. The brother-in-law. And the trouble was, I knew she was right. If anybody knew who was behind this thing it would be him. He’s all over the writing business, but right at that minute he was the last person in the world I wanted to talk to. In fact, he always is.
       “We’ll be seeing him tomorrow anyway,” the wife said. “You can ask him then.”
       Talk about a bombshell. It took me a good wee while to find my tongue again after that one, and when I did all I could manage to say was, “What do you mean?”
       “He’ll be at mum and dad’s tomorrow,” she said. “Him and Marianne, they’re both going to be there as well.”
       “How do you mean “as well”?” I asked her. “Who else is going to be there?”
       “Us, you idiot.”
       It was all going just a wee bit too fast for me, and I didn’t even think I wanted to keep up.
       “When was this arranged?” I asked her, and she laughed.
       “Don’t tease me Peacock,” she said. “I know what you’re doing.”
I was glad that one of us did.
       “How?” I said. “What am I doing?”
And then she hit me with it. And all thoughts about homeopathic whisky, and Rebus, and defamation, and suing some idiot blind, disappeared right out the window.
       “You’re trying to pretend you’ve forgotten it’s my birthday tomorrow,” she said. “But I’m onto you. So stop acting it.”

There’s never a good time to hear a sentence like that, not unless you really are just fucking about and you’ve secretly got the whole thing under control. But the wife could hardly have chosen a worse time to spring this one on me because, at that particular moment, tomorrow was—strictly speaking—only six and a half minutes away. And when it comes to birthdays, she’s always been a wee bit of a stickler for doing things by the book.
       She came across to where I was sitting and squeezed into the chair beside me, and she started playing with my hair.
       “What did you get me?” she asked. Then she told me not to answer. “No don’t,” she said. “Let me try and guess for myself.”
       She closed her eyes and bit her bottom lip, and while she couldn’t see me I took the opportunity to let my face relax into the expression of horror I’d been straining to keep off it. I watched a wee frown popping up on her brow, and her tongue moving about from side to side, then a smile slowly spread across her face and the eyes flew open again.
       “Oh my God!” she shouted. “You did, didn’t you? You really did, Peacock.”
       And there was the scream again. Right in my fucking ear this time.
       “Oh, I can’t believe it,” she said. “You’re an absolute star. I should’ve known it.”
       And she jumped up out of the chair and hit me with yet another bombshell.
       “You got me that kitten,” she said. “Didn’t you?”
       And I’ll tell you what, they were fair falling thick and fast now. I didn’t even know what kitten she was talking about, but I could see it was pretty close to putting me in the shit, whatever kitten it was.
       “Oh, Peacock,” she said. “Can I get it now. Can I? It’s nearly midnight. It’ll be my birthday in five minutes. Can I get it now, Peacock?”
       My brain was whirling like a dynamo but nothing much was happening. There didn’t appear to be any wee ideas coming to the surface, and I just kind of stared at her.
       “What’s its name?” she said, pushing in beside me again. “Has it already got a name or can I give it one of my own? How about Snowy? Oh I’m so excited I think I’m going to pee myself.”
       She rushed off to the bathroom and I put my head in my hands. I knew I had to think quickly. I knew there must be something in there somewhere, just waiting for me to make contact with it, and it turned out I was right. By the time she came back I’d managed to get something together, and it looked pretty good, considering.
       “Okay,” I said. “Listen to me, hen. I’ll tell you what I’ve done here. I left the kitten in with Jinky downstairs, so’s you wouldn’t know about it. He’s been looking after it for the last couple of days for me. So you get yourself a drink, and I’ll nip down and grab it, okay?”
       She started giggling.
       “Go and get that drink,” I told her, and she headed towards the kitchen.
       “Can I call it Snowy?” she asked me.
       “You can call it whatever you like, hen,” I told her.
       “Snowy. I’m going to call it Snowy.”
       “Okay. On you go. I’ll be back up in a minute.”
       She disappeared for a few seconds and then she popped her head back round the door.
       “Peacock,” she said, and I nodded.
       “What is it?” I asked her.
       “Tell wee Jinky I was sorry to hear about him and Laura,” she said, and I nodded again.
       “I will, hen,” I told her. “I will.” Then she disappeared for the second time, and I headed for the door.

It was a two-parter, the plan. And the second part of it depended on wee Jinky being compos mentis, which was quite a lot to ask considering the state he’d been in for the past few days. His fiancée had pulled the plug on their wedding with just a week to go, and the wee man had taken it pretty hard. He still didn’t look too clever when he came to the door. He had a duvet wrapped round his shoulders and a hankie up at his face, and it was pretty clear he’d been bawling his eyes out a few minutes beforehand. Still, he was all I had, so I had to take my chances.
       “I need your help, son,” I told him, as he stood there wiping his nose, and he didn’t say a word. He just held the door open to let me in and led the way through to the kitchen.
       “What are you after?” he said when we got there, and I told him he’d been looking after a kitten for me.
       “A wee fluffy white thing,” I said “For the wife’s birthday. Like a wee ball of cotton wool.”
       He started looking about the kitchen, then he put his duvet down on a chair and rubbed his nose again.
       “Have you got it?” I asked him.
       “Peacock…” he said.
       “Come on, Jinky,” I told him. “It’s not hard, son. You were looking after a kitten. Have you got that much at least?”
       “But I don’t remember.”
       “You don’t remember what?”
       “The kitten.”
       “There was no kitten, son. That’s the point. That’s what I’m trying to tell you here.”
       He sat down on top of his duvet and put his head in his hands.
       “I don’t think I can handle this,” he said. “It’s too much, Peacock.”
I had the feeling he was about to turn on the waterworks again, so I went to the toilet and gave him a chance to pull himself together. I didn’t want him embarrassing himself in front of me like that, and I took my time in there. When I got back he was boiling the kettle and setting up a couple of mugs.
       “Sorry about that,” he said. “I got a bit confused, I think. What is it that’s happening here again?”
       I took a deep breath and sat down at the kitchen table.
       “The wife thinks I got her a kitten for her birthday,” I said. “That’s all. I don’t know how the idea got into her head, but I had to think pretty quickly up there. She wanted it right away so I told her you were looking after the thing, and now I’m going back up there to tell her you went out this afternoon and left the window open, and when you came back it was gone. Alright?”
       “I what?”
       “You went out and left the window open.”
       “Jesus Christ, Peacock…”
       “Are you with me now?”
       “So it’s my fault the thing went missing?”
       “Aye. Well, up to a point. It’s really my fault for being daft enough to leave it with you in the first place, but that’s the general idea.”
       “Thanks a lot,” he said. “You’re a real pal.”
       “So if she asks you…”
       “Aye, aye. If she asks me I went out and left the window open.”
       “That’s it, son,” I said. “You’re a lifesaver.”
       “Are you wanting any milk in this?” he asked me.
       “In what?”
       “In your coffee.”
       “I better not,” I told him. “I’d better get back upstairs. She’s up there waiting for the kitten.”
       “Just stay for a wee while,” he said, but I shook my head.
       “I’m sorry, son. I’ve got to get up there.”
       Then a wee idea occurred to me.
       “Listen to me, Jinky,” I said. “Have you cancelled the stag night yet?”
He shook his head.
       “That’s good,” I told him. “I’ll tell you what, we’ll still go through with that, right? Don’t tell anybody else the wedding’s off, and I’ll get them all there and you’ll have a right good night.”
       He stared at me.
       “I don’t think I could handle that,” he said.
       “Of course you could,” I told him. “No problem. I’m your best man, right?”
       He looked at me.
       “Am I right?”
       He nodded.
       “Right. So I know what’s best for you, then. I know what you need. Trust me, son. You’ll have a rare time. And it’s the least I can do for you after this.”
       He picked up the duvet and I started making my way to the door.
       “Stay for that coffee,” he said, and I told him that I wished I could.
       “I really do,” I said, “But I’ve got a crisis on my hands here. I’ve got to get up there and sort it out.”
       I stepped out into the close and then something occurred to me. “Hang on a minute,” I said, just as he was closing the door, and he looked at me with a wee bit of hope in his eyes. “Have you ever heard of a guy called Rebus?” I asked him, and he thought about it for a minute.
       “Him that knocks about with Tony Dowds?” he said. “The guy that got his mother-in-law pregnant?”
       I shook my head.
       “Never mind, son,” I told him. “I’ll talk to you about it later. But remember what I said about that stag night.”
       And as I headed for the stairs, I asked him to wish me luck.

The wife just about knocked me over when I got back up there. She came running out of the living room and just missed me, then she started jumping up and down in the hall. She was so excited I almost didn't have the heart to go through with it, but when she saw the look on my face, and realized I was empty handed she started to calm down.
        "What's happened?" she asked me.
          I put my head down.
        "What's happened, Peacock. Tell me. Is everything alright?"
          "There's been a wee bit of a mishap, hen."
        "To wee Jinky? Is Jinky alright?"
        "He's fine, hen. He's fine. Well, he's in a bit of a state. But apart from that he's fine."
        "So what's happened? Where's Snowy?"
        "Well that's the thing. Don't get too annoyed at the wee man, he's not thinking straight. But he went out for a wee while this afternoon, and he left the window open, and when he got back..."
        "Snowy was gone?"
        "That's it."
        "Do you think she'll come back?"
        "I don't know. I don't think..."
        "Maybe she will."
        "Well... But don't get too angry at Jinky. He's having a hard time, Bev. It's probably my fault. I shouldn't have left it with him, knowing the state he's in."
        "It's not your fault, Peacock. It was a wonderful thing to do for me. And I think she'll come back. I know she will. In fact, I'm going to put a saucer of milk out on the front step for her just now. That'll bring her back. I know it will."
        She threw her arms round my neck and gave me a big kiss on the cheek, then she ran to the kitchen and started clattering about in there. By the time I had the jacket off she was rushing past me with her saucer of milk and heading out into the close. I grabbed a beer and went to stand at the window.
       You should have seen her down there. She put the saucer on the step and then she sat down beside it. She clapped her hands a few times and then made this wee pout, and I could tell she was making what she thought was a sound that would attract a kitten.
        You should have seen her.
        It would have broken your fucking heart.

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