Members only

[fiction]

On Friday nights I lock up at six and nip round to Janine’s on the scooter. Janine’s a dirty wee scoundrel who thinks I look like Euan Macgregor and she flirts and protests but we usually get down to it eventually.

Afterwards I light a cigarette for the two of us and we talk awhile about her dreams. She wants desperately to be an actress in the RSC – but this is Edinburgh and I tell her it’s hopeless, that dreams are for losers, and that she should get a job in Sainsbury’s and keep with me. She gets irritated when I tread on her dreams and tells me I should go. So I scoot round to Frankie’s for 9pm – two-piece cue strapped over my back in its leather case.

You’ll find Frankie’s Snooker & Pool Hall in a backstreet behind a dim pub nobody goes to – if you’re not from Edinburgh you’ll never have heard of it. I leave the scooter in the carpark and cruise in. Jock (the Clock) puffs his fag at the entrance below the flickering sign (FRNKIS): ‘alright Jock’. He appraises whoever it might be and croaks something insane.

The regulars are at large. Young Cecil stoops over the fruit machine, walking stick by his side, dribbling his pint down his chin. Fucker Burke’s at the dart board. Bruntsfield Fats prowls in a sharp suit and cheesy suede shoes looking for a frame of straight pool – not my game – and Big Monty, Tony the Church and The Welshman prop up the bar, waiting for punters to get a card game going with.

Round here they call me ‘The Scholar’ – it’s not such a long story. I came down to Edinburgh from the Highlands a couple of years ago for art college. I always thought when I was wee I’d be a doctor but I ended up an artist – and a shite one at that. I can’t draw, paint, sculpt or take photos. But as I see it you don’t have to do any of these things to get by as an artist.

I mostly work with what they call ‘found objects’ – stuff I pick up from skips and building sites. Stick it all together and there you have it – voila – art. The boys at club seem to think I’m some sort of Michelangelo as I throw off art history references now and then. I’ve only got two actual references but I recycle them and it seems to do the trick. I tell them that Van Gogh was a nobody until he died and I tell them that Picasso was a right cunt but that that doesn’t mean he was a bad artist.

And forgetting the telly, I’m also the best snooker player any of them have ever seen. I’m the no1 at Frankie’s. The Scholar is numero uno.

Friday’s my night – just out of college and I’m sizzling. I get to the table and it’s swift and unconscious. I snipe and knife and cut anything in – I don’t mean to brag but it’s otherworldly. I could give you thirty points and sink you on yellows alone. The boys in the club know this. If you are at all handy as a snooker player and you reside in Edinburgh you are aware of this. Some of the geezers in Glasgow are aware of it too.

This is where the hotshots come in – the poor things that slot the jazzy long ones with a wink to their birds. These are my fish, I reel them in. Then I net them and bash them on the heid to make sure they’re deid.

I’ll give you an example: Wee Davy. Aye, Wee Davy was a puffed up little pansy who thought he was the next Ronnie O’Sullivan. His cue action was pretty sharp and he could pot – but if you’ll excuse the pun he lacked balls. Wee Davy shouldered into Frankie’s one Friday night and placed a fifty on the bar. He ordered an 80p coke.

The boy Liam, the bartender, looked over to Table 4 – my table – and I gave him the nod. ‘Go through the back,’ he says to Wee Davy.

I wrapped up on Table 4 and walked through to the members only room. Fab place if you’ve got the talent: single table, baize like an ice rink, leather seats round the walls and a wee personal hatch through to the bar.

Wee Davy was already practising as I entered. ‘I’m Davy,’ he says.

‘Aye? What we playing for?’

Wee Davy reckoned he was worth fifty quid a frame and I wasn’t in the mood to argue. I let him win the first one, and the second – and I made a pretty show of putting up a fight. I’d hooked him. We pushed it up to a hundred a frame – cash on the table. Wee Davy popped out to the bank machine.

When he got back, an audience had gathered. Along the right wall it was Tony, Fucker Burke, Young Cecil, Gettis, Jock (the Clock), Big Phil and Johnny Hummingbird. Along the left sat McBride, The Welshman, Deek Chisholm and Crooked Andy the Milkman. The boy Liam had closed the bar early to take up scoring and refereeing duties. When Wee Davy got back from the Cashpoint I think he nearly shat himself. But he was game – he was sure he would win. I’d netted him.

Five frames, hundred each, I said. He nodded. I ordered a double Glenlivet and placed it down by Wee Davy’s coke.

I won the toss in the first and let Wee Davy break off. He made a cock of it and slapped the blue full in the face on his way back up. From there I made a forty-six break and it was as good as over. The second was scrappier – I made a twenty, he made thirty and so on until I beat him on the pink ball. I made an eighty break in the third and that’s when Wee Davy really started to sweat. The fourth and fifth he was all over the place and bang – seventy-three and a hallmark century to finish in the last. The lads were roaring. Five hundred quid. It’s pure pleasure being at the snooker table when the shots you picture in your mind are all happening. The best place in the world.

Wee Davy didn’t show his face in Frankie’s ever again. That was a special evening but, on the whole, most nights it’s all pretty elementary – twenty quid here and there. I’ve been known to play cards with the boys on a really slow night.

A lot of the time I finish up around midnight and buzz round to Melanie’s who keeps her doors open late. I spend half an hour or so chatting her up with my art banter and give her what she wants, so to speak. Afterwards, when she falls asleep, I pad out and shift round the city for a bit until I run out of gas.

The days are slow at art college. I sit and watch the ladies most of the time which brings me a sort of tranquillity. There’s this one lass Georgina whose a proper surprising talent. Her corner’s stuffed with sketchbooks and canvases resting up against the walls. She spends full days concentrating on a shadow or a speck in her airy pastel scenes. She’s right posh and I’d love to get her into bed. But she’s got a wee thin lover with greasy locks who flits in and out from time to time who’s most likely a poet or something. Maybe I’ll invite him down to Frankie’s for a friendly. There’s a few girls I fancy at the college right enough. But then again I’ve been screwing the pottery tutor in the kiln room on a weekly basis, so I shouldn’t grumble.

I’ve told you about one of my greatest victories so I’d better share my worst defeat. Well, I was round at Vicky’s for a backrub one evening when I got a ring from Bruntsfield Fats. He was all jittery so I said I’d catch him down the club in an hour. I said to Vicky that I’d read her novel manuscript soon, but that I had to get away sharp because there was an emergency of great importance. She wasn’t happy but I thanked her anyway for the backrub and left.

I swerved round to the club to meet Fats who was in a right state. He’d got wind of a busload of English on their way up to Edinburgh looking for a war. They’d decamped from the Home Counties and rallied at Carlisle to wreak havoc in snooker and pool halls in the Borders. They’d made a laughing stock of the Borders boys he said – Melrose Joe had snapped his lucky cue in a rage – and they wouldn’t stop he said until they’d punished every last cueman in the country. Now they were on their way to Edinburgh looking for a rumble. Fats was sweating like a pig. I kept my cool and asked for the details.

There were ten or twelve of them he said. The head man was a bastard called Cutter Kim who could play with both hands. Fats was saying he was one of those Chinese prodigies. But you can’t trust Fats, he’s a born gambler, a liar that can’t help but exaggerate the truth. That’s not to say I wasn’t curious.

The story was they were laying siege to The Ball Room on Monday, The Angle Club on Tuesday, Diane’s on Wednesday, The Corn Exchange on Thursday and last but not least Frankie’s on the Friday. I said to Fats I’d be waiting and that they’d picked the wrong evening to mess with The Scholar!

As you can imagine, I put in some fairly serious hours at the practise table that week. I wasn’t about to be shown up on home turf, especially by the English. Straight shots, cuts, dinks, swerves, right hand side, left hand side, topspin, screw, deep screw, rest shots, massé, my safety game – I honed everything up. I made consistency a throbbing muscle. I was all concentration – steel focus dripping out my eyes.

To relax I used to go round to Janine’s for an hour or two at the end of the day. She’d picked up a bit-part in Rebus, or Taggart or something, and was in a state of mild ecstasy.

On the big day I was icy like Paul Newman and went for a late lunch with Kate. As the evening drew in, I wrapped myself up in the dream of the city – the theatre of the buildings and the streetlights and the rush of people and all that. I was buzzed. She was talking about her first violin or something, in a ring cycle (?) at the Playhouse that night and about how I was absolutely going to love it. She gave me a fancy ticket with a backstage stamp and told me to dress nice. She paid for the food which was sublime. I kissed her on both cheeks like the French do. Didn’t bother saying I wouldn’t be there.

I got to Frankie’s at seven and hit Table 4 to get my arm going. The English were arriving at nine. The club was full of talk and excitement which I tried my best to ignore. We were all nervous. Everybody knew what was coming. I stuck my face into the baize and eased into my rhythm. It was The Scholar vs. Cutter Kim and nothing else. Me and Cutter.

Now here’s the fucking rub. The kick. This is where it all goes mental. The English arrived on time right in a tight little huddle and everybody was just staring, just trying to pin Cutter Kim. Now, Cutter Kim’s a scary bastard right? Plays with his eyes closed right? Wrong. Aye, that’s where you’d be wrong. Cutter Kim, ladies and gentlemen, was a BIRD! No jokes. I shit you not. A card-carrying, cue-wielding female. She played with both hands, she had a reputed high break of 132 and she’d scared two shades of shite out of Scotland’s snooker fraternity. Nobody could believe it. And I’ll tell you what – I fucking laughed in her pretty wee face. I couldn’t help it.

She didn’t move a muscle, didn’t flinch. Everything went silent and everybody was throwing glances around like nobody’s business.

I broke the silence. ‘Right then,’ I said – ‘let’s go.’

The boy Liam shut the doors and served about fifty drinks. Everybody flocked into the members only room. Fuck the Playhouse, this was the only place to be in Edinburgh this Friday. All eyes were on Cutter Kim as she knocked in a few practise shots. I tell you she was some player. She moved like a pro.

‘OK,’ she says, ‘I’m ready to play, who’s first?’

I let her go a few frames with Gettis who’s a tight safety man to see how she’d cope. See what I was up against. He’s an intimidating presence round the table is Gettis, stands right behind your back and breathes down your neck. And sure enough he put her in all sorts of trouble. But Cutter Kim matched him shot for shot and when he let her in she cleared up every time. She was no chump. I’ll tell you what as well she looked really good, I mean physically. Stout arse, silky skin and those eyes. Those eyes could do some damage.

Once she’d finished with Gettis, she went to the bar and slurped down a Malibu & Lemonade. Some of the boys went a few rounds with the other Englishmen and it was all sort of fifty-fifty come midnight. Cutter was just sitting there straight faced, polishing off the Malibus. It was pretty impressive. I walked over.

‘You and me darling,’ I said.

She stood up and wiped her mouth. Best of seven. No money involved between me and her – she wanted it that way. But the punters were going bonkers. I reckon five grand changed hands that night.

I chalked up a storm and broke off in the first and left the white ball up against the top rail. But I’d stuck a red in the open which she could see. Silence. She didn’t take it on but she hit the safety shot sweet as a nut. I returned the compliment and so on and vice versa for five minutes until she pinned me right in behind the brown. Lucky. I nudged off the pack on the return and left a cut in the middle which she sank and then she was off like a firework – up to the blue smack bang into the reds and in for a seventy break. The English were clapping away. I spotted Fats in the corner chewing his hand. But I kept the focus. I had known this was going to be a fucker of a game.

The second frame was mine. I took it carefully, resisting my natural flow, lining everything up carefully before each strike.

In the third she let me in after a brutal kick. But it didn’t seem to phase her. My clearance was superb.

2 – 1. In the next she spotted a mad plant and finished up plum on the black. Ten reds ten blacks and everybody was thinking she might make a maxi, but she missed a stinker into the middle against the nap. Everybody was behind her on that shot – maybe even me.

We shared the fifth and sixth frames. This match was going all the way.

By then it was two in the morning. I felt the press of a nation on my shoulders. I felt the back-slap of men everywhere. I felt the wee boy in me.

It was a twitcher from the off. The walls were closing in and I knew I was gripping my cue too tight. I broke too hard with far too much side and was lucky to bop the green and finish near the pocket. So tense man. So tense. She dumped the white down the other end and sent a red up to the baulk end. There was a cut on to the left corner but I turned it down in favour of the safety shot. And this was the right shot. But I clipped it thick and left it for the middle. Fucking tragedy. She made a difficult thirty break and left me in a tight little spot behind the yellow. And what do you know, I butchered it and fluked a red. It wasn’t pretty. I waved my hand up like a good boy but inside I was fucking ecstatic. The English boys were in turmoil thinking it was all over. Far from it. The table was solid. Every shot felt like the 147 black. But I silenced everything and got to frame ball. Jabbed at it. Choked.

Cutter Kim made a noble clearance.

I don’t want to talk about the boys’ faces, the English cheers, the scraps in the carpark. I just don’t.

Outside in the rain, I sat on my scooter and played that match ball in my mind perfectly twenty or thirty times. You shouldn’t do that – just forget about the mental gymnastics and get on with your life. Anyway, I was just about to nip round to Tracy’s for a midnight snack when I got a tap on the shoulder. It was Cutter Kim. ‘You’re good Scholar’, she says, ‘but you found it hard playing against a woman, didn’t you?’

‘Did I fuck,’ I said.

She asked if I would take her back to her hotel on the scooter. Score.

We spent the night together – it was fun. I asked her if she’d stick around for awhile. Not a chance. She was off sharp on the bus to Dundee to teach some other poor Scot a lesson.