Loved the old lady nicotine, did Sharon. She had such a sweet voice, like a choirboy or something, but she hated classical singing, said it was a loada shite - she wanted a rockier, bluesier sound. And she loved the fags, the image, the blue smoke in low bars, a' that. Sucker for black an' white films, a romantic at heart. My Sharon.
Aye, well, it wasnae meant to be I spose. I met her when I was working behind the bar in the Charlotte Square Hotel – a nice posh place, one of the better jobs I've been fired from. I'd just given up smoking, weaned masel off, cold turkey, nae patches, nae gum, fuck aw t'help. It wasnae easy but wee Sharon made it ten times harder. In more ways than one, y'ken?
She was the lounge singer on Thursdays, ye know the drill, old jazz standards wi' the house band, or on slow nights just the awd fossil on piano, a pinch o' Billie, a snatch o' Judy and a sprinkling of Eartha and the bus-pass crowd think they've died and gone tae heaven.
I used to mix her a Dirty Martini when she had her break an she'd sit at the bar in her golden dress, aw sequins and cleavage, or the red one that showed off her pins, an we'd have a natter. Soon enough she'd stick around even after her set was over, an I'd feed her freebies when the boss wasnae looking. And then I started to walk her home, cos she didnae want tae pay for a taxi and the streets at that time o' night, especially going back to Grassmarket where she lived in a tiny one-bed flat under the eaves, were no' safe for any woman, let alone a stunner like her.
And when we got back there … well, let's put it this way. There were about seventy-five steps up to her flat and we didnae make it past step twelve. She was a woman of appetite, all right. God knows, she still is.
Ye ken what folk are like when they've given up the baccy, aye? Doesnae matter if it lasts a month or a lifetime, they're all over ye telling ye how much better they feel, how it's changed their life, given ye advice and pamphlets and recommendations an' that, till even if ye're already smokin' a fag ye want another one?
Well, I was like that. Worse than a fuckin' Christian. After we'd shagged for maybe the ninth or tenth time – on our third night together, in fact – when she rolled back an' lit up her Superking I actually leaned across and took it out her hand.
She sat up, her breasts spilling over the tangled sheets.
"What are ye playin' at, Jamie? Gi's it back!"
"It's killin' ye, Sharon," I said in that fuckin' sanctimonious, pious, sorrowful way people do, like ye're a bad dog who's shite on the rug. "An' it's no good for your singin' either."
She narrowed her eyes at me until they were like wee glints of broken glass on top of a wall.
"That's my business," she said, and snatched it back. The next morning when I woke up, she was gone and there was a long brown scorch in the bedclothes.
But I wouldnae leave her alone. I just went on an on an on – really determined to do her some good if it was my last act on earth, which as ye can imagine, it came close to being. I bought her the Allen Carr book for her birthday – she didnae like that, I can tell ye. Good job I got her the gold earrings she wanted as well, or else I wouldnae be talkin to ye now. I left the patches an the gum out in obvious places – well, ye know the drill.
And what d'ye know – it worked! At least for a wee bit. Although honest to God as I'm standing here, I wish it bloody hadn't. What happened was she got a chest infection – nasty, those thick explosive coughs that sound like ye're firing a gun at a brick wall. Aye, like that. An' her doctor told her it could ruin her voice – not just roughen it, y'know, but totally wreck it.
So I'm her quitting buddy, and I come up with a great idea. We're still in the honeymoon period y'ken, cannae get enough of each other in the bedroom an aw that. So I take some time off work to look after her, an I dose her up with the gum and the patches an I bring her the cough medicine an the box set of Sex an the City, an I leave her on the living room sofa all curled up an I say,
"There y'go doll. I'll just be in the kitchen wi' the paper an if you feel like you want a smoke, yell out an I'll take your mind off it."
Well, give it an hour or so and she did. Want a fag, I mean. So I'm straight in there with my masterplan – I didnae even try to talk her down, I just started kissing her and before ye know it our clothes are off and ciggies are the last thing on her mind. And instead of a post-coital cigarette, she was that knackered she just fell straight asleep. The perfect solution, I thought.
For a month or two – and Christ, what months they were! – my method brilliantly. As long as we made love whenever she felt the urge, her nicotine cravings were beaten back. She got better, I got the envy of all my friends, and we got up to some pretty hairy shenanigans in the most unlikely places. I think we must have christened every close in Edinburgh by the time the Festival came around.
It was the Festival that did it, y'see, an I can't say I'm surprised. It's no just theatre, you see, there's thousands o gigs, thousands o bands, everyone's drinking round the clock and doin the maddest things, ye cannae stand the pace – at least, I couldnae. Sharon, on the other hand, had a booking every night an often two or three or four even on the same evening, all over the city, New Town an Old, from big hotels to the dodgiest dives you ever saw.
An, like I say, she had an appetite – an no much willpower to curb it, unless I was around. Ad I couldnae always be around – likesay, I just didnae have the strength to keep it up. To keep up, I mean.
She never came home smellin' of smoke, I'll gie her that – or not her own, anyway, only other people's, that faint pubby tang. I'd broken her addiction to nicotine for good an aw, God help me. It was when she came home at eight, nine in the morning – when she didnae come home at all, for a night, a couple o' days, a week – that I started worrying. And when I found out what she'd been up to, it all made a grim, horrible sort o' sense.
She'd been a twenty a day girl, you see – and she still was. Only it wasnae cigarettes any more – it was blokes. Sex. She craved it like a old lag craves snout. I'd cured her of one addiction and given her another one, and this time the demand far outstripped the supply, at least where I was concerned.
Last time I saw her she looked radiant – healthy, flushed wi' endorphins, every muscle in that lovely wee body toned like an athlete's by hours every day of solid shagging. Even her voice has improved – I go an watch her on the circuit now, for old times' sake, an sometimes just because I hope … never mind.
She's a loyal girl, an more tae the point she'd never come back to me. She's used me up, just like she does wi' her other boyfriends, at least for a while. This was a year ago an I'm only just recovering masel. They don't last long but by God they have an incredible time while they're wi' her. And I spose I should be glad that she's happy. All's said an done, she's a lovely lass, an I'm sure she'll cut down eventually – cos if she doesnae she'll have tae move tae Glasgow.
And you know the worst thing about it? The absolute fuckin' joke of the whole thing?
What wi' all the stress of it – the exhaustion, an losing ma job, an having to find somewhere else to live after she kicked me out – I've started smoking again. Dinnae talk to me about irony, son. Been there, done that.
Oh, that's very kind of ye – I seem to have left my pack at home, and I must admit I could do wi' one.
Cheers, pal. I thought ye'd never ask.
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