I didn’t need the doctor to tell me that my shit was fucked up. It was the first symptom, the one I ignored for a couple of months in the hope it would go away by itself. Just a silly phase I was going through. And then when I noticed, on a rare long hard look in the mirror, that I’d started to go yellow, under my eyes, it was time to let someone else check on me.

The doctor looked under my tongue, prodded me twice on what was now a tender spot on my back and said he’d pass me on for a scan. I would need to attend the big hospital in the city, the new hospital, the one that looked like the future. I’d moved out of the city a few years ago, gone to a small town on the coast, to get away from some memories. Although I still commuted in three times a week, on the train line that followed the shore south before looping around and up through the flat lands to Glasgow, it gave me distance. I had a vague plan to buy a boat this year, just a small boat, one I could manage on my own, to spend time out on the water, get away from the land completely at weekends say. Get away from everyone else. I’d have to see.

When they rang through to give me the appointment they also told me that they’d only know if they could complete the scan on the day itself. The radiotracer - the mysterious substance they would inject me with, what they started calling ‘the product’ - was only made once a day, and had to pass some tests before they could use it on us humans, and then only for a short time before it lost its magic powers.

You must attend the appointment, they said - but there’s a chance you could be sent home without the scan.

And what then? I asked.

Then you’re at the back of the queue again.

Fuck’s sake, said my inner cynic.

My doctor seemed to think I needed this test quite quickly… do I get any priority as I’m an urgent case? I asked.

You won’t be any more urgent than anyone else in the queue, they said.

So now I’m in a metaphorical boat, with a load of equally unfortunate souls. While I was aware it might only be hastening a delivery of bad news, I was glad when I arrived for the scan they told me the morning’s run had been a success. The product was there and it had passed its induction. A relief, at least one less hospital appointment to worry about. I didn’t like any hospital. I don’t think I’m that keen on the future either.

They put me in a small room, I stripped down to a gown and my socks, and the radiographer attached a cannula to my left arm; a dangling tube with a tap he’d be back to inject the product through when it was my turn.

Just sit here and do nothing, he said.

I’m fine with that.

When he came back in a bit later, he held an incongruous wooden box, and inside the box was a wee lead coffin, containing a fat syringe with the product.

I’m curious, I said - especially now with the lead there, and you in your apron and gloves and me only in a gown… how radioactive is this?

Well… - he stopped to think.

I imagine he had the real numbers in his head, wondering how he could make sense of them to a layman. I blustered on, all nervous energy at being in a hospital, and having someone to talk at.

Is it like a hundred transatlantic flights? I asked - One of those day trips they do now at Chernobyl? A year living in Cornwall?

Aye, he said - it’s about a year living in Cornwall.

Cornwall. The gently radioactive foot of England, pointing its toes out into the Atlantic. I’d never been to Cornwall.

He injected me with the product, and hurried out of the room, they’d fetch me in forty minutes. Forty minutes to sit and think about what all this might mean. When they fed me, head first, into the big white tube of the scanner, its room all bare walls, cold floor and fluorescent glare like science fiction, I was alone with my thoughts for another half an hour. The soundtrack a low background hum of technology, sleek as mercury. It’s okay. I’m used to being by myself these days. Then a voice came through, across the ether, from a hidden control room, to say they were switching over to MRI now and it would get loud. Don’t be alarmed. But it was a surprise - like being at the dry centre of a washing machine, somehow distant, the rhythmic banging as if I was outside the fire exit of a nightclub, back in the days when I went clubbing, the nineties heyday. When I met Herself.

After a minute or two the noise was nearing hypnotic and I almost could’ve nodded off. I’m an easy sleeper, even if I have all the reasons in the world to not be. When it finished, after a minute of lying quiet except the odd beep, they walked me back to the room with my clothes. Half-blind without my glasses, I felt dazed.

Drink plenty of fluids, the radiographer said to me, as he signed me off for leaving - it’ll help to flush the tracer out of your system.

Can I go to the pub? I asked.

Sure why not, he said. - Might as well be there as anywhere else, have a few pints. When you go to the toilet, try to use a trap, and flush while you’re pissing. And then again afterwards.

Okay, I said. - Grand. That all? I asked.

Don’t get too close to anyone else, he said. We recommend you stay away from children and pregnant women, if you can.

Way ahead of you, pal, way ahead of you there.

There was a pub in the city that had opened after I moved off to the coast, and I’d been thinking about a visit for a while. They had a whisky list to rival any posh hotel lounge, but it was a regular bar like almost any other around the centre. When I reached The Parting Glass I saw from the chalkboard on the pavement outside that Springbank 18 was the day’s special.

Hard to get hold of any Springbank, I thought. It’s a sign.

Of course it’s a sign, it’s a fucking chalkboard, said my cynical half.

Still, it was what I ordered when I reached the bar, and a pint of stout. Plenty of fluids, it’s always good to follow what the physician says, even if your inner voice scoffs: aye, like that pint’s going to fucking help us.

The girl behind the counter was up a ladder retrieving a bottle from a high shelf when I first walked in, it was like a library of scotch back there. The bottle of Springbank was in easy reach on the back bar.

This won’t be here past today, she told me, pushing a curl of pink hair behind her ear. - The aficionados will be in after work.

She used a wee metal measuring cylinder for the whisky, poured it into a proper tasting glass, and left the measuring cylinder perched on top of it for any drips to fall in, then positioned the bottle behind them, with the label facing forwards, and went to pour the pint.

“Did you get your photo?” she asked when she came back.

“Photo?”

“Aye, most folk take a photo of the glass and the bottle so. For their socials, like.”

“Oh right, nah, I don’t do any of that. Thank you though.”

“No problem,” she said.

I paid, in cash still fresh from the machine. Wasn’t too bad, considering. I know what Springbank 18 can go for. I looked through the whisky price list, the little black book propped up on each table and there were some other malts that really raised my eyebrows, and from my green leather bench seat across the pub I could see them all up behind the bar, all that liquid gold. You know there’s more value in the whisky held in bond in Scotland than there is bullion in the bank vaults down in London? Another reason for us to get shot of that place.

# # #

I didn't want to say the words. Didn’t even want to think the words. I’d been waiting for the moment where they’d say, you’re alright - this was all a false alarm. Something else. Nothing to worry about. You're way ahead of me, I'm sure. I knew it wasn't going to be good news when there was also a nurse with a box of tissues sitting in her lap when I went back to see the consultant. Some say it’s like the air has been sucked out of the room when they finally tell you, but I’d been here, or close enough, before.

Is your wife not with you? he asked.

Obviously not. No, she's not. I thought I could say she hasn't been with me for a while or that she's always with me, both are true, but a shake of the head was all it needed.

I think both the consultant and the nurse were disappointed I didn't break down. They obviously don't know me. So here's two of the words I'd avoided: pancreatic cancer. And if you're ahead of me there, then you're already ahead on the next one: terminal. It nearly always is. At least I'll avoid many more hospital trips. Did I tell you how I don't like hospitals? I know no-one does, but I've done my time. I've put in my hours. My time fetching tiny cups of water, swapping platitudes in the ward kitchen, sitting in an uncomfortable chair by a high tech bed, being on nodding terms with all the nurses. I’ve put more than enough money in the parking meters.

I have health insurance, I said - From work. That do me any good here, anything else we can try through them?

Where I worked, health insurance was one of the perks to attract the talent, the big earners, and they had to offer it to everyone - even the drones like me with regular jobs, only there to keep the hive running. I’d had it for ten years and I’d never used it.

Deep breath - here’s something I’d buried, but it came up to the surface while I was sitting in the pub the other week. Work covered me on the health care plan, and I paid the extra out of my wages to cover Herself too. The money could’ve paid for us to go on half a holiday each summer, but I didn’t want her to go without any cover I had, we’re in this together. When she changed jobs, a little step up, the new place offered her a similar plan, so I stopped paying the extra on mine. Herself got her own diagnosis within ten months and the health company said nothing was covered yet, nothing within the first year. A pre-existing condition. Even though it wasn’t. And then we didn’t have the time to take even half a holiday. If I’d known, if we’d known, if we weren’t at the age where we kidding ourselves that we were still bulletproof, invincible, didn’t realise we were turning the corner into Sniper’s Alley, I’d have kept paying the extra myself so she was covered for anything and everything. Insurance, it never seems to be there when you need it, but they’ll always take the premiums. We would’ve been better off spending it on lottery tickets every month instead. Although nothing would’ve saved her, nothing they’ve invented yet. I try not to dwell on it.

Er… well… - stalled the consultant. - We do offer private care here, and we’re the best in the country, I’d say, but we would do everything we could for you on the National Health Service anyway. I’m afraid it is terminal.

Terminal. Weren’t you fucking listening?

I was. I just hoped somehow there was a way to throw money at this and make it go away. Maybe instead it was time to think about that bucket list day trip to Chernobyl. It didn’t sound like I was going to manage a year in Cornwall.

The consultant had explained it to me, the radiotracer - the product - was a kind of sugar, and as the cancer cells were the hungriest it went to them. He stepped through images on a screen, a slide show of cross-sections of my body, black and white, almost abstract, like oil spreading on water. Then a shape lit up the screen, all white, bright as a searchlight in a night sky. The pancreas. In one of the leaflets the nurse gave me, it described the typical pancreas as weighing about the same as a pack of playing cards. A strange comparison. I never did have any luck with cards.

I was reading the leaflet when I was back in The Parting Glass again, I’d taken a full day off work for my morning appointment, hadn’t told them what it was for, I never got through my holiday entitlement as it was. I’d only bought a pint this time but after I put away the leaflets I flicked through the little black book of prices instead. This got me thinking, and thinking made me thirsty. My pint looked lonely on the table there. I sauntered across the muted tartan of the pub carpet to ask what they recommended as a lunchtime malt for a man with nothing better to do of an afternoon. There was a bottle of it handy. I ordered another one a while later, one for Herself, a parting glass.

The only people I really needed to break the news to were the ones at work, and to the girl in HR at first. I’m so so sorry, she said. This was the first time she’d had to deal with anything like this. She was new, we were a young company, I was one of the oldest employees. Scotland’s a world leader in video games development, maybe appropriate we’re good at something like a sport you can play while sat in on your own with the lights off, just you and fizzy drinks and a big bag of crisps. I liked the job and the company well enough, but I’ve always thought the games themselves were a waste of time. Maybe not so much now the online versions gave a few kids a chance to make a career of playing them while others watched. I’ll never understand that myself.

Behind her neat white teeth and big round spectacles, the kind considered old fashioned until recently but now a part of the uniform of youth, I could see the HR girl was concerned for me. She was also thinking ‘at least I’m getting the experience of this’ and how it will look good when it comes up in her next appraisal or job interview. Glad I’m still some fucking use.

I asked her if my notice period applied, given the circumstances, as there didn’t seem to be any real reason for me to stick around now. She advised me to stay on, pointed out there was a Death in Service benefit. I’d joked about it in the past, with Herself: I was more use dead than alive, I’ll clear the mortgage for you, and leave enough spare so you can go on a cruise. A big boat, see the world, that’s the thing she would’ve liked. At sea but with no chance of being splashed. Now, well, there was no point, no-one I’d leave it to.

They’d have to sign me off sick, on full pay, said HR, when the symptoms really began to show, when it became too much, but what then? No distraction, nothing to do, a slide into palliative care and see out the days on my Netflix subscription. A quick look at my watch list would confirm my obsession with films centred around bank heists. They’ve long been my favourites. And they all raise the question - how would you pull one off? Now there’s not many banks around, and no real money anywhere, what would be the best place to hit? The tougher question - could you put a gun to someone? I couldn’t. I don’t know where I’d find one either. So, I think in the end, if it came to it, I’d be looking at some kind of inside job.

I gave my notice at work anyway, they let me go within the week, and I kept an eye out as pubs are usually looking for staff. I’d worked as a barmen in my student days, it won’t have changed much, it’ll keep me busy and serve up a few people to talk to. I saw The Parting Glass advertise a position straight away, all they wanted was reliability and an enthusiasm for single malt, if that’s not oxymoronic, and I had both of those covered.

Working in accounts and payroll meant I had access to everyone’s documents and here’s where I had a stroke of luck. One of the original programmers, an old timer like me, knocking on fifty, had left recently to go travelling for a couple of years. I had all his bank info, address, NI number, everything to hand over when you start a new job - I’m not sure it counts as fraud if all the pay would go to him, and after the government had their cut. We even had the same first name so I wouldn't get caught out there. I took copies of all his documents away with me on one of my last days. After I’d left my old job, I shaved my head to the bone, trimmed my beard to match his goatee - it didn’t suit me, I don’t think it suits anyone - and I looked more than enough like a photocopy of the photocopy of his passport. No-one would give it a second glance. Around Glasgow, all us middle aged men look the same, pasty, a wee bit overweight, bleary eyed. And we’re all called fucking Graham.

# # #

So I was working at the pub within a week of enquiring about the position. On my first shift I was paired with the girl who’d served me the Springbank a month or so ago, she didn’t remember me from then. Why would she? The other side of the bar is all the same. A parade of punters. That was how it felt to me too after a couple of weeks. I’d cleared out from my house on the coast, I didn’t need my walks in the evening light and the sight of sunsets anymore, and started renting a small flat in the city. Not that there was much to clear out, I lived a bare and frugal life over the last few years, apart from my big TV and the stereo. The last thing Herself bought for me was a clock with a loud tick, to hang on the bedroom wall.

You’ll have no trouble dropping off, still, she said, but this is something to get you up and out every morning. I know you, there’s no way you could lie there and listen to this.

Her way of haunting me. I left the clock behind.

The new flat was close enough to The Parting Glass for me to walk there, and nearly all I did was sleep, work and build up my cupboard of supplies for when I’d need them, when I’d be housebound.

It was always busy enough in the pub to fill my thoughts when I was on shift. I listened in as customers asked for recommendations from the regular barstaff. After maybe a week I realised there were only around five different questions anyone ever asked, and it was easy to pause as if you had to think about it, to make them feel unique, before coming back with the regular answer, our bestsellers. The only one recommendation that changed was when anyone asked “and what’s your favourite?” to which the answer would be a bottle we knew only had one dram left in it at best, sat on the shelf for too long, and we wanted to replace it with a fresh one.

It was easy to upsell the American tourists. Cheerfully telling them you only live once, you might not be here again, it’s not the same if you’re not drinking it in Scotland. Everyone went easier on the Canadians, even if they came in with the “I’m as Scottish as you ” attitude. Nah, you’re not, but at least you’re not a yank, we’ll guide you to the cheaper and less well known stuff. The ones we really hated were the loud English, the plummy ones, who tried to make out they were experts. You might be, you don’t need to come into our fucking house to tell us.

Another common trick was to talk any young American students into buying the peated flights - the real taste of the Islands, we’d say, out West from here. Proper whisky, a legacy of being hidden from the Customs man, and the flight was at least four glasses of them at a time. Far too much for their childish palates - they were always the ones to leave within the hour and the drinks near untouched. The stronger ones - Laphroaig and Talisker especially, the real medicinal malts, all iodine and smoke and salt air - barely even sniffed. And this lead to our other ploy - we didn’t pour those back in the bottle, of course not, instead they all went into a demijohn we kept low behind the counter. Even if they had taken a sip, most of these were near enough the strength of surgical spirit, we didn’t have to worry about a germ or two, and as these drinks for staff only were taken from the tap at the bottom, anything slipped in the top had a long time to slowly arrive and be fully assimilated by the time we drank it. We called this the Megadram, and we’d all have at least a shot or two at the end of a shift. We’re Scottish, we’re not putting good drink down the drain.

I enjoyed the work, it wasn’t too taxing but I started to feel more tired as the weeks went on. I asked the younger staff to go up and down the ladders for me, and in return I often stayed back to help whoever was locking up. I offered to do as many of the late shifts as possible until they trusted me enough with all the keys. I was ready to put the rest of my plan into action.

Every morning I’d toss a coin a few times, to take some of the responsibility, the liability, off my own head. Put it in the hands of fate. So the day arrived, the day when it came up heads five times in a row in the window of opportunity I gave the coin, and the coin gave me the excuse. I’d already found my getaway vehicle, and left it crashed in an empty lot around the corner from the pub. A supermarket trolley I’d fitted out with an array of plastic tubing, each one big enough to take two whisky bottles, then lagged with as many ragged shopping bags as needed to disguise it all and make it look like the work of a mad tramp who didn’t have anything or anyone else in the world. It’s not fucking far off the truth. And after I should have closed up that night, alone, I pushed the trolley up a ramp I’d made from bit of old plywood and into the bar and loaded it up with the best bottles. Went for the vault, and cleared it out. Then I locked up as usual, posted the keys back through the door and wheeled the trolley round to the flat, took it straight inside and shut the world out for good.

I didn’t worry about the police. It looked like an easy case for them until they realised they were chasing someone on the other side of the world, other Graham, having his own midlife crisis in a hut on a beach in Thailand or wherever, with his new tattoo and his hippy beads. I’m sure he’d have a solid alibi. And then the cops would be looking for anyone who was selling all these bottles on, a limited market there, even in Scotland, if you wanted to get rid of all of them at once. I had no intentions of making money, this was my exit plan, I was just going to stay here.

I finally lived out a vague daydream I’d long held - could I pull off a heist. You might argue it was more akin to a shoplifting spree than a bank job, but if I bothered to tot up the numbers involved you’d be impressed. Of course I felt some guilt about stealing all this from the landlord of the pub, even if I’d only met him once. He didn’t deserve it, but I had checked they were covered by the insurance company for something like this. They can fucking pay for once.

Also, I was going to be careful with my stash of liquid gold. I’d written a long note detailing how the whisky was relatively safe, and they’d get back whatever was left after I was done. I didn’t know how long I would last and I hoped I’d taken enough to see me through to the end. I wasn’t going back out to find any more. I’d set up a scheduled email to be sent every day to my old work, unless I deleted it each morning, so they’d find me when I was gone. Sometimes I thought about not cancelling the email, to see how many days it went out before they did come and look, see if anyone cared, but there was no way I wanted to risk spending the last of my days in prison or handcuffed to a bedframe in a hospice. Don’t see how that would benefit anyone. Even if the pub didn’t want to sell the bottles again, I hoped they’d at least be used for the staff party of the century. The final megadram. A toast to this Graham.

So what have I learned? Life'll kill ya… if you hang around for long enough. The trick is to beat it to the punch. Time to watch a film and enjoy today’s mid-morning livener - I’ll have a flick through the little black price list, I threw one into the cart on my way out of the pub, to help me keep track. There’s a bottle of Speyside with a Sauternes cask finish I think will slip down well. Sláinte Mhath.

Yeah, fucking right.

BIO: After two decades of working in TV in London and elsewhere, A.J. O'Toole has moved to a village in the North West of England to work on short fiction and a novel. He has recently had stories published on Trash Cat Lit and New Flash Fiction Review, and can be found at @scribblerotoole.bsky.social and ajotoole.substack.com

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