Scottish Widows by Grae Cleugh

Author:Grae Cleugh
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: OBERON BOOKS Ltd

Blackout.

Music.

4. ‘you are my sunshine, my ONLY SUNSHINE’

Music off. Lights up. ALEX, a man of 63, is lounging on a ship’s deckchair. The sun is beating down and he is wearing light clothes and sunglasses. Behind him and attached to a back wall is a lifebuoy with the name ‘CLUB APOLLO CRUISES’ on it. Beside him is a small table with a ridiculously camp-looking cocktail on it, umbrellas, straws etc. ALEX has short hair or a shaved head and a good-size moustache. He is gay.

ALEX: Until I met Jack, I had never had it up me. I was what you’d call a sexual novice. Relatively speaking. I’d had it off once or twice at the bars, right enough, and there’d been a few late night jaunts up to Queens Park. Who says nothing exciting ever happens on the south side? But for the most part, I was an innocent. I was young then, of course. Scared too. This is when it was still illegal. Just. Which made it dangerous. And exciting. Sometimes I wonder if it was more fun when you were still breaking the law. Once you could just go out and pull like everybody else, it definitely took some of the thrill out of it. I can say that, I suppose. I never spent a night in the jail. Dreamed about it, oh aye, but never did.

I always liked the older men. They were my fantasy. Don’t know why, they just were. I think I liked the idea of being taken in hand, as it were. Anyway, there were plenty of them around. Even in those days. In the parks. In the bars. Most were married, of course. You’d notice the white mark where they’d taken off their wedding ring for the night. You could have a kiss and a quick fumble with them, aye, but it was never going anywhere. None of them were ever, ever going to leave their wives.

Jack was different. Not married, for a start. Didn’t need to be. He had something about him. A confidence. A self-confidence which meant he didn’t feel the need to hide behind a wife or a girlfriend. I first saw him in the Duke of Wellington. In Argyle Street, it was. Might still be there. Unless they knocked it down. Not the most salubrious of pubs. Spit and sawdust. But full of older men. This one Friday, I go in and as was always the case there, soon as you walk inside, everybody turns to see who it is and check you out. Some weeks you’d go in and there’d be some quite handsome types. Other times it was like walking into the bar scene in Star Wars. When I go in there that night, I take a good look around and there’s this one chap catches my eye. Never seen him before. Place had a lot of regulars so whenever anyone new was there – fresh meat they used to call it – they’d stand out a mile.

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