Death is a Welcome Guest: Plague Times Trilogy 2 Read Online Free Page B

opened them again. Getting out of the bath was not easy and Magnus fell twice, but eventually he managed it and unlocked the bathroom door. Johnny Dongo was on the other side, his face beaded with sweat, his shirt unfastened to reveal a view of bony, white sternum.
    A wave of fellow feeling washed through Magnus. They were all human and alive in the dawn of a fresh day. Who cared what Johnny got up to with his Dongolites, as long as everyone loved each other?
    ‘You’re a good man, John.’ He clasped Johnny’s elbow. ‘A good man. You want a bit of advice?’
    ‘No, I want you to piss off,’ Johnny said, pulling his arm free.
    But Magnus had seen death that day and needed to share how important it was to live, while you still could.
    ‘No one gives a fuck that you’re a poof, especially not me.’ He put a hand on Johnny’s elbow and squeezed. ‘You go for it, man, fuck all the boys you want while you’re still young enough to get a lumber.’
    Johnny Dongo pulled Magnus close. Magnus opened his arms, ready to receive Johnny’s embrace. He had liberated him. Sex was sex and nothing more, whoever you had it with.
    The comic whispered, ‘If you call me a poof again, I’ll kill you,’ and smashed his forehead into the bridge of Magnus’s nose. There was a moment of pain and blindness. Magnus’s face was warm with blood and there was a fire klaxon sounding in his head. He grabbed a bath towel and held it to his nose.
    ‘That is what is known as a Glasgow kiss.’ Johnny turned to look at the Dongolites rumpled together on the couch. ‘Did I tell you my dad was Scottish?’
    ‘You did, John, yes,’ one of them replied, his voice soft, as if he feared he might be next.
    Johnny said, ‘Trust nae cunt, son,’ in an accent that would pass muster on Sauchiehall Street. He squatted next to Magnus who was crouched in the bathroom doorway, the bloody towel still clutched to his face, and ruffled his hair. ‘Can you guess why I gifted the gig to you, Mags? Because you’re an ideal warm-up man, no one has to worry about the crowd peaking too early. As my old dad would say, you’re never going to set the heather on fire. I’m happy to have you on board, but don’t take fucking liberties. Now piss off out of here.’

Three
    Magnus turned into a lane by the side of the hotel and leaned against the wall, head tipped back in the hope that gravity would help stem the gush of blood from his nose.
    The hint of light he had seen reaching through the curtains was merely a nicotine dawn. It was a while since anyone had punched Magnus, but the pain was part of his body’s memory and it recognised and embraced it. Just as it had the time Murdo McKechnie ‘accidentally’ kicked a football into his face in P3. And on the night Rab Murchison decided Magnus was a ‘bloody nancy boy’ and smashed L O V E then H A T E into his ‘poof nose’. And on the only occasion his father had punched him. That last one he had deserved.
    He felt his face swelling and realised that there was a good chance it would be him, and not Johnny Dongo, who would need an understudy tomorrow.
    ‘Fuck!’
    Magnus spat a stream of blood and mucus on to the ground. He took off his jacket and shirt, held the shirt to his face and zipped the jacket over his naked chest. Blood was still running down into his throat from his ruined nose and he spat again.
    He felt in his pocket for his wallet to check he had enough money for a cab, but it was empty. Magnus shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans and drew out the crumpled fiver dusted with coke. He already knew what had happened. He had followed a routine formed by years of dodgy, shared dressing rooms and taken his valuables on stage with him. His money and debit card were in the pocket of his sharp blue suit, zipped in its garment bag, still slung across the couch in Johnny Dongo’s hotel room.
    Magnus slid down the alley wall and squatted on his haunches. He could probably face the humiliation