Free The Cutting Room by Louise Welsh

changed
     
    into such a stinking ulcer on the face of green Nature,
    The poet says unto thee, `Splendid is thy Beauty!’ Arthur Rimbaud, `L’Orgie parisienne’
    THE VOICE ON THE telephone had been flat and accentless.
    The precision of someone speaking a foreign language perfectly.
    `Yes,
    Leslie said you would call. How does five thirty suit
    you? He’d given me the address and hung up with, `Fine, see
    you then.’
    Simple. A date with a pornographer. A man who knew
    about the snuff setup.
    Pornography is a versatile industry, it moves with the
    times. When the first caveman discovered he could paint on
    walls, using dyes fashioned from earth and ash, another dirty
    little Homo erectus saw the chance to draw a bare naked lady. In the days before photography, paintings, etchings, drawings of every imaginable vice existed and, of course, as soon as the camera came on the scene the industry expanded with delight.
    The advent of cinema inspired undulations viewed in porno
    picture palaces across the globe. Video closed most of those cinemas, but who cared? There was money to be made. In
    every high street there is a video store where, for a couple of pounds, you can rent your own show. Of course, there are
    always some whose tastes are difficult to satisfy and for them there are quiet little shops away from the main drag, hidden palaces of strange delights. It’s as if the everyday shopper doesn’t see the dreary storefront, the unwashed window that
    displays nothing, nothing at all. But if you are sympathetic, if you have the motivation, you can be in any town, any city, in the world, a stranger on your first day, and it will sing to you.
    Some people run from Grandma’s house, they long for the
    bite of the wolf.
     
    The A to Z revealed the address to be in an alleyway off the far end of West Nile Street. It was the end of the afternoon; the sky hung dark and heavy, like a lid on the world. I could feel the heat of the day stored under my feet in the sticky tar pavements. Intimations of summer, or environmental disaster.
    A trickle of sweat drifted down my spine and I worried
    my shirt might stain.
     
    I set off along Argyle Street, dodging between schoolkids
    and stacks of cardboard boxes littered with rotting vegetables.
    Three Sikh pensioners sat, smoking and gossiping, on wooden
    chairs arranged on the pavement outside a grocer’s shop. One of them said something in his own language and the group
    chuckled. `Bloody Sair Heids’ muttered a harassed woman
    arcing past them, catching her loaded shopping bag against my
    shin. The old men’s laughter followed me. I didn’t mind;
    people had done worse than laugh.
    Outside the funeral directors, black-edged traffic cones
    reserved a space for the dead. As I passed the aluminium doors scrolled up, revealing the loaded hearse within. Seagulls
    squabbled on top of a telephone box, hovering, flapping their broad wings, cawing half-human screeches, orange beaks
    dipping with dainty derision, pecking over something rank.
    Their presence inland confirmed the approaching storm. A
    vein on my temple started to throb.
    Ahead of me an old man crept a creaking wheelbarrow
    along the pavement. Derelict factories were under demolition near the quay and he’d collected low-quality scrap, the kind younger, fitter scavengers would ignore. I drew level, took in the rusted cart, his dusty suit, the stoop of his back, and felt the man with the scythe at my elbow. Maybe I wanted to
    dismiss Death. I should have known better.
    `D’you need a hand?
    He hunched further over the barrow, quickened his pace
    and hissed, `Fuck off. It’s mine. I found it, away and get your own, you fucking bastard.’
    `You’re an ungrateful old git.’ I reached over and rattled a bit of distorted metal. He cringed, bravado gone, dropping his prize, glancing up at me once, covering his head reflexively with his arms, but not before I had seen the yellow spread of fading bruises across his face. `It’s