GUILT TRIPPER by Geoff Small Read Free Book Online Page A

things.”
     “Maneuver?”
     “She jumped in the
cab one night and I deliberately dropped her at Oran Mor where I knew you’d all
be. Then I promised half-fares in future, to guarantee we maintained contact. Knowing
how you’re always seeking an audience to witness your lifestyle — The
Fitzgerald Dream — I was confident she’d be embraced by the gang. She was my
eyes and ears without realizing and, the more I revealed about myself to her,
it was inevitable she’d mention me to Ingrid and, hopefully, be the catalyst
for a reunion. The rest, of course, is history — though I never imagined she’d
also precipitate your downfall.”
     Realizing that she’d
been used as a pawn in their squalid feud, Judith felt sick.
     “Danny, you know me.
I’d never deliberately hurt anyone,” Bob pleaded.
     “Yes Bob, I do know
you and you’re a spiteful, jealous brat…Look what you did to me! You only
noticed Ingrid because everybody else was raving about her beauty. Once you
knew she was universally valued, like that gold ring on your finger, you had to
have her and resented a poor man enjoying what you felt entitled to. If you
could only get her on your arm, you thought, you’d be guaranteed more of the attention
you craved but didn’t have the charisma to generate it yourself without going
via people’s hi-fi systems. To you she was just another accessory, like all
those ridiculous things you spend your money on. You’ve never been able to
think for yourself, have you Bob? I used to think that the wrong people had all
the cash, but now I’m not so sure. I think wealth is probably God’s
compensation for people who have no imagination.”
     “Yes, like self-righteousness
is God’s compensation for being poor.” Bob retorted.
     There was a hiatus
before Danny chirped up again. “The point is I loved Ingrid as a person, not as
an object. I loved her fresh, open mind. I connected with her like no one
before or since.”
     “Crap! Ingrid was
your opportunity to inflict on someone else what you’ve had done to you. What
were you at the time, thirty one? She was the perfect disciple — just eighteen
years old, intelligent and naïve. At Last, you had a captive audience to
rehearse your mother’s brainwashing on…somebody to make you feel the big man.”
     “The way people who
bought Squeaky Kirk records where a captive audience for your egotistical
whining you mean?”
     “Yes.”
     Everything suddenly
fell silent. It seemed that Danny had been fazed by Bob’s uncharacteristic
humility.
     “Prison’s done you
good Bobby. Being forced to mix with the great unwashed has given you some
character. You know, when you burst in tonight you actually made me laugh for
the first time I can remember — that Che Guevara line and so forth. You
wisecracked your way in here with all the insecurities and bravado of a young
NED…a real person instead of the old, self-loving prick. Humour is born of
adversity and I think you’ve encountered it for the first time in your life. Even
addressing Fin as ‘Pinhead’ was positively affectionate compared to the way you
used to ignore him.”
     “Hah,” Bob laughed. “I
had nothing to do but stew over my existence in that prison. What you said
about my mother and nobody being good enough for me could almost have come out
of my own head. Do you know, that four months inside was the first time I’ve
ever really relaxed. It provided some peace and perspective. My whole life’s
been a torment Dan, trying to be better than everyone, like she always told me
I was. Of course, with dad away a month at a time on the oil rigs and her
shielding me from him whenever he was home, I’ve grown up unable to accommodate
criticism. That’s why I flew into a rage when that whore attacked my music. Did
you know she used to be a classical cellist? I hated it when she told me that. You
see, Dan, I’m the archetypal goldfish in a liqueur glass. That’s why I consort
with