Shuggie Bain

by Douglas Stuart

  Agnes mimed, Is she asking for me? and tried not to look too desperate.

  Leek sighed. “Look, Caff, do you want to speak to Mammy? Sober. Mostly. Sad. I suppose. OK. I will. OK. No. I understand. Suit yersel. Thanks.” With that, he hung up the phone.

  Agnes’s hands were out in front of her; she hadn’t realized she had been grabbing until the line went dead. Leek just shrugged and spoke mostly into the carpet. “She was too upset to talk.” He rubbed at his sore jaw. “They had South African boerewors for dinner. On a stick with bits of fruit. How boggin’ is that?”

  Seventeen

  Her body hung off the side of the bed, and by the odd angle Shuggie could tell the drink had spun her all night like a Catherine wheel. He turned her head to the side to stop her choking on her rising boak. Then he placed the mop bucket near the bed and gently unzipped the back of her cream dress and loosened the clasp on her bra. He would have taken off her shoes, but she wasn’t wearing any, and her legs were white and stark-looking without the usual black stockings. There were new bruises on her pale thighs.

  Shuggie arranged three tea mugs: one with tap water to dry the cracks in her throat, one with milk to line her sour stomach, and the third with a mixture of the flat leftovers of Special Brew and stout that he had gathered from around the house and frothed together with a fork. He knew this was the one she would reach for first, the one that would stop the crying in her bones.

  He leaned over her and listened to her breathing. Her breath was stale with cigarettes and sleep, and so he went to the kitchen and filled a fourth mug with bleach for her teeth. He tore a page from his “Popes of the Empire” homework and wrote in soft pencil: DANGER! Teeth Cleaner. Do not drink. Don’t even sip by accident.

  He heard the front door close gently. Leek would be late for work again. He was always reluctant to leave the protective cocoon of his bed; under the covers his day still had an unspoilt quality to it. Shuggie peered through the crack in the curtains and watched his brother’s sloped shoulders inch along the road. The first of the miners’ children started milling towards the school. The boys who arrived early to play football in the concrete playground were the same ones who made rings around him and shoved him when they got bored. Shuggie found her blue biro and went through his homework jotters like a bookkeeper, adding her name in a flourish, Mrs Bain. It looked odd now.

  The clock radio was still flashing plenty of time till he could slip in unnoticed to morning Mass, so he turned back around on the stool, clasped his hands, and waited patiently. The dresser was neat and orderly, as she liked it. When she didn’t have the shakes she would empty the little jewellery box and make sure she wiped each piece, regardless of its worth. Sometimes she lay all the trinkets out on the dresser table and they played jewellery shop. She would let him make up new combinations for her, lay out selections of earrings with complementary necklaces. It had been easier before she had pawned the loveliest things.

  He watched her reflection in the mirror, her sleeping back heaved up and down. Shuggie uncapped a bottle of mascara and rubbed the black ink into the grey cracks in his school shoes. Then he took the wand and drew it under his eyelashes. The fine lashes stood out beautifully from his face. Agnes rose from the bed like a fairground skeleton. He tried to push the brush back into the tube, but it wouldn’t go, and so he slyly slid the mascara down the back of the dresser.

  But Agnes wasn’t looking at him. The ebbing drink had made her bounce to her feet, and she was standing stock-still at the side of the bed with one breast half-hanging out of the black bra, which itself was hanging out of yesterday’s clothes. Then she sank to the side of the bed, like she was kneeling for bedtime prayers.

  Her boy must have left for school. She knew he had been standing there watchful as a trapped ghost, but when she opened her eyes he was gone. Lifting herself, she sat on the edge of the bed, the pail of water between her knees, and tried to quiet the pulse that was beating in her flushed face. The boak rose in her chest, and she strained over the bucket, arching her spine like a choking cat. She pulled the thread of memory tentatively towards herself and began gently looking at all the pictures her mind had tied to it. She saw the chair, the clock, and the empty house. She saw herself walking from the kitchen to the living room to the kitchen again and then on her knees scraping dust from the skirting board with her fingernail. She saw the clock again and then the lights of the scheme came on, the curtains were undrawn, and the boy home from school.

  Beyond that, her mind jumped like washing flapping on the line. There was the telephone and a taxi, there was the bingo and sitting alone. There was drink and drink and no win and drink and no win and the woman next to her asking if she was OK and Agnes asking her if she had any weans and the woman saying no and turning away. There was a taxi home, not with Shug, and stopping at the dark mouth of the closed pit. She could almost see the taxi driver’s face, and then she was screaming and choking on his aftershave, and then there was only panic.

  The boak rose; it came out in a violent, red-faced torrent. Spittle covered her hand, the side of the bed, and the black leather bag on the floor. Holding the sticky hand off the edge of the bed, she lay back on the pillow and pulled in gasping breaths like she was drowning. Timidly and tenderly she slid her dry hand across the sheets and down between her legs. She pressed lightly on herself and felt the new soreness there. Then she was sick again.

  It was a while before she could summon enough strength to sit up. How badly she wanted a scalding bath, but a half-empty meter meant the bathwater was only tepid. There in the shallows she could see the red bruises on the insides of her thighs and the black, pancake-size welts that looked as though the flesh was dying underneath the cream of her skin. The water soon chilled, and she was shivering as she dried herself and put on a clean jumper. It was all she could manage to put hairspray through her hair and some blue powder on her eyes, and then she sat down in the armchair, frozen as a regal waxwork.

  She still didn’t move when there was a light cheerful knock at the door and the sound of long nails clawing a desperate greeting. “Ag-niss! Ah-g-niss. It’s only me.” Jinty McClinchy was already standing by her chair by the time she asked, “Can I come in?” She looked down at the frozen woman and sucked in through her teeth with a squeaky laugh. “Oh, hen. You look like ye’ve taken a good soaking. I have be-en there. Ah can tell ye.”

  Of all the Pit cousins she was the only one who smelled of heavy night cream and Elizabeth Arden perfume. She donned a knotted heads-carf in the sun and liked flat comfortable shoes for her child-size feet. Jinty wore a Saint Christopher medal, and she always swore on the Bible when she was judging you. If the drink made Agnes melancholy and regretful then it made Jinty sharp and needling. She liked to sit and put the world to right, telling people where they went wrong. Two lagers down, and her little eyes would narrow like those of a fussy judge in a jam-making competition. She was a shrew, and it was said she had been papped from every house in the scheme.

  Jinty was shaking her head pitifully at Agnes. “Shall ah put on a wee bit o’ dry toast?” She was taking off the floral headscarf.

  Agnes nodded in silence, the edges of her mouth unable to hold a polite smile for long. Jinty took herself into the kitchen, and although the bread was laid out next to the toaster, Agnes could hear her nosing into every cabinet looking for drink. When she couldn’t see the top shelves she would jump, jump, jump, like a giddy little dog, her flat sandals slapping on the hard linoleum.

  After some time, Jinty came back with a single piece of hard brown toast. “Was it a bad night, hen?” she asked, in her high, childlike voice, her eyes already scanning the room.

  “Yes.”

  “Aye, well, hen. Ah cannae stop long. Ah cannae stop long. Ah just came round for a drop of tea. Things to do, ye see.” She took off her coat and sat down expectantly.

  Agnes tried to set the plate at the side of her chair, but her hand shook and the dry toast fell to the floor.

 
“Dear, dear, dear. Look at the state o’ ye. That’s a terrible state to get yersel into.”

  Agnes lifted her hands to her face. Her head was sore, her arms were sore, and her body felt like it was bruised all over.

  “Well, now. Well, now. Ah hate to see ye suffer.” Jinty looked at her out of the side of her eyes and sniffed. “Ah don’t suppose ye have any in, do ye?”

  Agnes knew that Jinty already knew the answer from her search of the kitchen cabinets. “I think there is a last can under the kitchen sink. In a bag, behind the bleach.” Her head was swimming.

  Jinty sniffed. “Shall we have a wee taste? You know. Just to get ye right?”

  Agnes nodded, and Jinty, with creaking knees, sprang from the settee and near skipped through to the kitchen. She found the can as easily as Agnes knew she would and returned with it and two rinsed-out tea mugs. She put the mugs on the table and with a little finger pulled the ring on the Special Brew. The can bubbled foam as she expertly poured half in each of the mugs. She took a white finger and ran it around the lip of the empty can and then popped it in her mouth as though it were whipped cream.

  “Oh, that’s nice,” she moaned quietly. “Ah suppose we could just skip the tea and have this.” Her eyes slid to the side. “Ah wouldn’t be doing this, mind, but ye look like ye are in a right state, and ah hate to see any of God’s creatures suffer.”

  As if it were a dolly’s tea party, Jinty lifted a mug with two little hands and offered it to Agnes. Agnes took the mug, put it to her mouth, and took a small sip. The boak groaned inside her. She took another and out of habit set the mug down on the far side of the chair, hidden and secret.

  Jinty lifted her mug and took a mouse’s mouthful. She made a happy sound and took another and then another. The two women didn’t speak again until the mugs were almost drained. Agnes felt the lager push the boak back into her belly; the shaking in her bones grew quieter. She ran a hand over her tender thighs and started to feel angry.

  Sip-sipping away, Jinty could see the empty bottom in sight. “Aye, well, ah cannae stop long.” She took out her hanky and wiped her lipstick off the edge of the empty mug. “Would another wee one make ye feel any better?” she sniffed.

  Agnes nodded feebly.

  Jinty’s scheming eyes narrowed. “Ah didnae see any more under that sink of yours. You’ve no got another secret planking place, have ye?”

  Agnes thought about the usual places, behind the immersion heater, the top of the tallest wardrobe; she shook her head.

  “Oh! Well, ah cannae stay anyway,” said Jinty sadly, the fine lines around her mouth pinched. “But just look at ye. Ye look like you might die if ah left ye now. Do you have a couple of pound, mibbe? I suppose ah could run up to the wee shop.”

  Agnes reached down the side of the seat and took out her purse. It was empty but for chewing gum wrappers. Her mind went to the driver and the taxi and the dark Pit, and she felt the bile rise in her again.

  “No’ even a wee bit left from your Tuesday Book, hen?” asked Jinty sadly.

  Agnes shook her head.

  Jinty McClinchy shifted nervously in her seat like she had the itchy piles. She looked at Agnes and looked at the empty mug. Finally she sighed, and then she sniffed, “Well, let me see what’s in ma purse, eh?”

  With a heave the tiny-boned woman lifted her big leather bag off the floor. She sat it on her small lap and almost climbed in it. Agnes heard keys and coins moving around at the bottom, and then there was a sweet watery thud, as Jinty drew out three cans of warm Carlsberg. “You can pay me later.” Jinty opened a can and repeated the delicate pouring and the waiting and the licking of the foam from her small white finger. Only when they were starting the third can did they start to feel like themselves again.

  “I was at ma daughter’s last night. You should have seen the state of that house.” Jinty wiped the end of her nose with her old hanky. “I look after an idle bastard with a rotten liver, and ah can still keep a clean house.”

  “How is the new baby?” asked Agnes, only half-interested.

  “Aye. Fine, ah suppose. She loves the thing as much as you could,” Jinty said dispassionately. “She’ll get more off the benefits now of course. Ah telt her she should set a little aside and hire a cleaner. Filthy. Honestly, ah look at her sometimes and ah don’t know what ah have raised.” Jinty was getting worked up. “There was dust that thick on her skirting board. She looks to me as if to say, ‘Mammy, can you no help?’ and ah just turned to her and said, ‘I have raised my children. I. Am. Done.’” The woman made a cutting motion in the air.

  Agnes nodded sadly. She would have loved a house full of grandchildren. She would have loved a house to be full again of her own children.

  Jinty went on. “Gillian’s eldest called me Granny the other day. I nearly had its wee tongue out. I wouldn’t mind, but his other granny makes him call her Shirley, so ah wasn’t going to be the only old bitch at Christmas.” She picked up her drink and studied Agnes over the top of her mug. “Here, what are ye so quiet for?”

  “Me?” asked Agnes. “Nothing.”

  “Agnes, ah might be a lush, but you are a bloody liar.”

  The women sat in silence and tanked the rest of the can. Eventually, Agnes asked quietly, “Jinty, if I tell you something, would you keep it between us and not tell a soul?”

  The woman’s eyes shone like beads. She crossed her heart with a finger, except she missed and crossed the wrong side. “On my life.”

  “I had a bad blackout last night.” Agnes then told Jinty the story of the bingo and the taxi and the driver pulling over into the Pit mouth. She lifted the sleeve on her jumper and showed Jinty the finger marks the rapist had left in her white skin.

  The little woman tutted and shook her curly head. “Bad bastard. To do that to a defenceless wummin. What is this world coming to? The way people take advantage of each other. That widnae have happened in our day. They would have caught the swine and ridden him through the Trongate on a fence.” With a knuckly finger she motioned the sharp fence rail going right up the man’s arse. Jinty took her hanky out and wiped her nose. Then she took it and wiped the shop dust from the top of the last can. The women looked at it mournfully. “Is there no way you could get a couple of pounds?”

  Agnes watched the last of the golden liquid pour into the mugs. In her mind she shook the telly meter, the gas meter, and the electric meter, and they were all empty. “No,” she said sadly.

  “Is there one of your men friends ye could phone?”

  Agnes thought about the bruises on her body. “No.”

  Jinty sat quiet for a minute savouring the last of the golden liquid. “How about giving that fella a phone?” she asked. “Ye know, the wee fella with all the long hair in the back.” She mimed the curly mullet that was popular with footballers and pop stars. “Ah heard he’s no short of a bob or two and that he likes a good drink.”

  “Who?”

  Jinty thought for a moment. “Lamby. Aye, that’s it. We could gie him a phone.”

  The cousins of Pithead told everyone that Iain Lambert was a coal miner whose wife had left him high and dry just before the closing mine delivered the final blow. With no woman to spend the pitiful severance on, he had kept it hidden under his bed. When the other miners drank it away or used it to feed and clothe their growing broods, Lamby still sat on his nest egg and went out and got a part-time job repairing rented tellies. The cousins said Lamby was a lonely and dull man who was not made for the romance novels. He had got himself a trendy footballer’s mullet but still looked like an undernourished teenager. Despite his being nothing in the looks department, these same women brought him plates of burnt potatoes with grey meat and bowls of frozen broth. The cousins said he was a good man who kept himself to himself and that after the mine shut he proved himself to be a worker still. They fed him bits of leftovers, knowing that his Pit severance could have fed their weans for a year or more.

  Jinty chimed in again. “We could have a we
e party. Just the three of us.”

  Agnes looked at the emptying mug and felt the panic rise. She nodded.

  Jinty was up on her quick feet like a startled cat. She pulled the phone book from the vinyl telephone table and, licking her little fingers, flicked till she came across the Ls. She read aloud. “L. L. Lambert. Mister C.” Jinty checked the address and, sure it was Lamby, went and dialled his number. She cleared her throat as the phone rang. It was lunchtime on a Thursday, but a man’s voice came on the phone.

  “Oh hello, Lamby,” she said, in her best accent. “It’s wee Jinty here. Aye, that’s right . . . I live on the other side of the scheme. You will know ma John. I used to go around with Mhari McClure. Aye, that’s right.” She paused. “Mhari? She got into a terrible state on the Valium, aye. Ah know, it is a right shame. She was a lovely lassie as well. Last time I heard she was working Blythswood. Aye, well, but for the grace of God, eh? But you know there is a big difference between enjoying a quiet drink and selling yourself for a prescription, don’t ye think? Sad it is. I was there when she started that Valium nonsense. Aye, awful it was,” Jinty sniffed.

  “Anyway, ah was giving youse a wee phone because I wanted to see if you wanted to stop by ma pal’s house for a wee drink,” she paused. “Aye, it is a bit early, it is. It’s just she is a lovely lassie, and I have been dying for the pair o’ ye to meet. Aye, Agnes Bain. Aye, that’s right, puts you right in mind of Liz Taylor, a bit paler though.” Jinty smiled excitedly into the living room; she motioned for Agnes to paint her face. “So, will ye come? Guid! Lamby, I hate to ask. Do you think you could be a real pal and bring a wee carry-out with ye? Aye. We’re a wee bit short. Aye, she is lovely. Keeps herself immaculate, smart talking . . . Aye, we’ll have a wee party. Just bring six cans and a wee half-bottle. Oh, and then whatever you would like to drink for yourself. Remember, it’s the house near the corner.”