Shuggie Bain

by Douglas Stuart

  She held a lacy pair of underwear out to him, it had a sateen gusset in the front, but the sides were all lace. She was pinching the side seam. “What do you think of these?” she asked. “I think maybe they are too low on the hip, a bit old-fashioned maybe?”

  They reminded him of something. Shuggie glanced from the under-pants to the white lace curtains hanging over the window. She followed his gaze. “You cheeky sod!” But she wasn’t angry, she leaned against him and threw the knickers in the discard pile. “That settles that!”

  Shuggie picked up an old white bra. He stretched it and listened to the elastic groan and snap. “I bet Leek could make a catapult out of this. I could put in all the McAvennies’ windows with five lumps of coal.”

  Agnes uncurled his fingers from it and threw it back into the discard pile. “I’d never be able to live it down.”

  “What are you doing this for, anyhows?”

  Agnes held a negligee up to her face, suspending the silken fabric just below her eyes, and moved it back and forth, like one of Sinbad’s mysterious harem. “I just need to get organized.”

  “Why bother? Father Barry taught us that the only person that should see your underwear is you.”

  “That Father Barry, he’s a right good time. If you must know, I’m having a night out”—she leaned into him conspiratorially—“except in the daytime.”

  “With the taxi driver? You’re not going to let him see your under-pants are you?”

  She laughed and flicked the small button of his nose. “Aye, with my big gingerbread man. And for your information, no, I’m not going to let him see my underpants.”

  He had been so excited to show it to her. Since he had picked her up in the hackney he had alternated between saying, “you’re gonnae love it” and “I hope you’re gonnae love it,” every few minutes. Eugene drove them down roads Agnes had never seen, and at first she had been sad to see they were angled away from the city. She had been hopeful that they were going for a nice lunch in the town or, better still, an afternoon show at the King’s, and so she had dressed for that.

  Now they stood looking at the deep gouge in the earth, and Eugene scratched the back of his neck in consternation. “Fuck, I’m gonnae have to carry you.”

  The mud crept over the black heels, she threatened to topple at any moment. “But what if you drop me?”

  He peered into the deep gorge. “Och, don’t worry. Ye’ll die quick.” He lowered on to one knee in the muck, like a knight, and presented his back for her to climb on to. Agnes delicately hoisted up her skirt, as high as it would go, not minding that he should see her thighs but careful not to expose the clumsy, thick gusset of her black stockings.

  She wrapped her legs around him, and he lifted her easily. It was very dangerous going down; there were some slick steps embedded into the earth, but deeper down the steps eroded and the path was blocked with collapsed boulders. Eugene held on to the side of the gorge and took it slowly. Several times he had to put Agnes down and climb ahead and then help her over some obstruction. They were both breathless and filthy when they reached the bottom.

  The gorge that they stood in had been carved from thousands of years of slow-moving water. The lazy river that ran there was rust red, the water collecting millennia of red sandstone sediment. It looked almost like watery blood, and it made Agnes uneasy. The red walls towered overhead, undulating and twisting with the slow will of the river. In the centre was a large sandstone deposit that stuck out into the water like an altar. Although the gorge widened at the bottom it narrowed towards the top and was overhung with trees and moss. When she looked up she could hardly see the sky. Eugene was beaming.

  “The devil’s pulpit,” he said proudly. “Smashin’, int’it?”

  Agnes stood on the balls of her feet. Her heels pitched and stuck into cracks in the rock. “Well, I can tell you were a miner.”

  He was running his hand over the sandstone and moss, caressing it like he had missed it. “The first time we came here was with ma faither. Hardly anybody knew about it then. He’d set up a wee deckchair, open a few cans, and let us spend hours laughin’ and roarin’.” Eugene was looking around, remembering the good times. “The water is freezin’, but our Colleen used to love swimming in it. She had such long legs, she could easily beat any of us in a race.”

  Agnes frowned at the blood-red water, she tucked her evening bag under her armpit. “She must have looked like Carrie at the end of the day.”

  Eugene bent over, he scooped a handful from the burn. “No, no! You can drink it, fresh as anything. Look.”

  He held the water up to her lips, but she put her hand to her chest and shook her head. Almost instantly she wished she had just drunk the water. Eugene looked crestfallen then. He wiped his wet hand on his trousers. “That was stupid of me, eh. What was ah thinking bringing a wummin with your manners to a place like this?”

  “No. It’s just not what I had expected.” She ran her hand across the red sandstone, trying to pull from it the warmth of his memories. “I suppose it’s been a while since either of us were at the courting?”

  “Does it show?” Eugene rubbed the dust from his brogue on to the back of his trouser leg. He dug a piece of red rock out with his thumbnail. He squeezed it tight, till his knuckles blanched white. “I was only a lowly miner, but ah bet if we squeeze this long enough it’ll make diamonds.”

  Agnes laughed. She unclasped her evening bag and tilted it towards him. “Why didn’t you say so? Now you’re talking!”

  When two German tourists came down into the glen he carried her out of the earth again. This time she wrapped her whole self around him and deliberately held her lips close to the pink skin behind his ear. Eugene had a plan for the day, and whatever form it took, she was determined not to spoil any more of it.

  He drove them to the Campsie hills, it was a boggy walk to the far side of the hills, but this time she did not complain. They sat on the far side of the green slopes and looked out over the distant city. He had packed an old tartan blanket, and without her needing to ask, he sat between her and the howling wind and unfolded the food he had prepared.

  It was a simple spread, hearty and plain. There were thick cheese sandwiches, in which the cheese was cut in a width equal to the bread, a whole farmer’s punnet of large red strawberries, and a catering-size tub of sausages he had grilled at home. What it lacked in flair it made up for in bulk; he had prepared enough food for an entire shift of miners.

  “How much did your wife used to eat?” she asked.

  “Aye, I suppose she had a fair appetite.” He let her laugh at him, and Agnes was reminded again of his goodness. Eugene pulled a noose of lager from his sports bag. “You don’t mind, do ye?”

  She picked mud from her skirt. “Please. Be my guest.”

  He offered her a choice between a pint of milk that looked warmed through and a party-size bottle of fizzy juice. She pointed at the fizzy ginger, and he decanted it into a thermos cup. “What do you drink when you dinnae drink alcohol?” He looked truly perplexed. It was a general question, not meant just for her.

  But Agnes took it the other way. “Mostly the tears of my enemies, and when I can’t get that, tea or tap water.”

  At that, they had a high-spirited slàinte! From where she sat, she could tell the lager smelled that familiar loamy, curdled smell, and she suddenly regretted letting Eugene sit upwind. She picked at a cheese sandwich; the cheese was good, a bright tangy cheddar. Agnes had to pick at it in birdlike pieces in case the thick butter would lodge the bread behind her dentures.

  “Is it no good?”

  “No, it’s delicious,” she said. “I was just thinking, I can’t remember the last time anyone made me something to eat.”

  “Oh, my, how they’ve been neglecting ye.”

  She held her arms out wide and laughed. “Dear God. Thank you. That’s what I’ve been saying!”

  “Well, I can make cheese pieces, and ham with salad, when ye have it in. I can open
a tin by maself, and ah can even boil a soft egg.” He tilted his chin with boyish pride.

  Agnes crossed her heart and swooned. “Mister McNamara, where have you been hiding all this time?”

  Maybe later he would tell her how he had snuck the food for their picnic into his own house like a teenager with a bag full of contraband. He would tell her some other time how that morning he had made the thick sandwiches on a cutting board he had taken into the locked bathroom. He would tell her about his daughter Bernie and her prying ways, but later, much later. It could all wait, he didn’t want to spoil her lovely day.

  Agnes covered her mouth with the back of her hand and yawned. Eugene laughed, and then he did the same. “Aye, the night shift’ll get ye like that.”

  “Look at us in the daylight. Creeping about like a pair of nocturnal creatures.”

  Eugene took a mouthful of lager. “Well. Ah’m just glad of the work. Even if ah have to stoat about like a, like a . . .”

  “Well, like a stoat,” Agnes offered.

  “Missus, did ye just call me a weasel?”

  “Other men, yes. But no, never you. Mind you, I absolutely love ermine. You can probably make a lovely coat out of stoat fur.” Agnes yawned again and turned to face Glasgow. It seemed far away now, a clustered grey mass sitting in a verdant valley. They watched the afternoon sun rake the city from between low clouds. “Can we stay out here long enough to see the lights?”

  “If ye don’t freeze, aye, why not.”

  As if the weather had been listening, a cold wind blew over the fells then, and it made her wince as it buffeted her hair. Eugene opened the wall of his body and patted his big chest like it was where she belonged. She was too elegant to crawl. So Agnes stood, teetering on her black heels, and crossed the blanket to lie against him.

  She closed her eyes as he folded his arms around her and held her safe. They sat that way for a very long time, not speaking, as they watched the slow gloam fall over the city. She was warm in his embrace, and she leaned back and trusted in the solidness of him. He rubbed the coldness from her shins, and she watched the freckles on his fingers as they slowly traced the sharp bone in her knee.

  When he kissed her neck gently, she closed her eyes again and happily forgot all about the promise not to show him her underwear.

  “Wake up!” She shook him violently. The boy peeled his eyes open. She stood over him with an armful of dark clothes. She leaned in and whispered excitedly, “Get dressed! We are going on a grand adventure.”

  He was still half-asleep as Agnes dragged him along the Pit Road and out of the scheme. Here, in the middle of the night, the peatbogs were pitch-black, and everything was silent but for the low gurgle of burn water and the song of bog toads. Since Eugene, it all seemed less ominous to her now, less of a sucking black hole meant to keep her stuck. Now she laughed as Shuggie whined, and she marched, cajoled, and dragged him along in the darkness, never breaking her happy song: Ah beg yar parhdun, ah never promis’t yo-hoo a rose garh-dun. In her spare hand she swung a half dozen black bin bags. In one of them something metal and heavy clanged noisily about, something like tinned lager.

  When they reached the fast road to Glasgow they snuck past the petrol station until they were under the shadows of the oak trees that lined the motorway. She watched the wide road for a break in the traffic, and then they darted out to the island in the middle of the carriageway. Like fugitives they crouched under the cover of some thick, jagged bushes. Agnes was giggling as she tipped up the black bin bags and out fell a shovel and a set of small gardening spades.

  “Right, we have to be quick,” she whispered, hacking at the soft mulch with the little spade. “We are not leaving till we get Every. Single. One.”

  Shuggie lay on top of his bed still dressed in his burglar’s best. He chewed his lip as he thought about the red-headed man who had been kissing his mother and had put a song back on her lips. He wanted to ask Leek about it, but his brother had disappeared under the hillock of his bed sheets and the boy knew better than to rip him from his dreams. He padded across the carpet and pulled back a flap of curtain.

  What he saw made no sense at first. Outside the window the grubby council garden had been transformed. The small plot that was once brown dirt and waist-high grass was a waving ocean of colour. Dozens of healthy, fat flowers waved in the breeze: peach, cream, and scarlet roses, all dancing and bobbing like happy balloons.

  He went outside into the clear morning and gathered up any petals that had already fallen from the roses. When he stood up, the five McAvennie children were already hung on the wooden fence like wind-blown carrier bags. They gawped, slack-jawed, at the sea of pretty flowers, breathing heavy through open mouths. “Where’d ye get them?” screeched Dirty Mouse, the middle of the girls.

  “I don’t know,” Shuggie lied.

  “Well, they wurny there last night.” A ring of chocolate cereal scum already framed her mouth. Her mousey hair was matted at the sides and pointed westwards down the road like it was giving directions on a windy day.

  “Maybe they just popped up,” he answered. “Like magic.”

  The mouth-breathers laughed, a deep slow laugh. Francis, the eldest, stuck his hand over the fence and plucked a whole head off a white rose.

  “Hey!” shrieked Shuggie, sounding more like a shrew than he would’ve liked. “Please, don’t do that.”

  The boy climbed higher up the fence, until the topmost railing stuck in his thin belly. “Who’s gonnae fuckin’ stop me?” he threatened.

  “It’s just, they’re not yours to ruin!”

  “They’re no yours either, fuckwit,” spat Dirty Mouse, giddy with the promise of a fight. She was half Shuggie’s age and already had the better of him.

  “Ye think they just grew overnight?” asked Francis.

  “Maybe.”

  “Jesus Christ, you’re a wee poofy dafty,” said Dirty Mouse, baring her sharp baby teeth in a grin. The McAvennies laughed and bounced on the fence, shouting in chorus, “Wee poofy daft-eee, Wee poo-oofy dafty.” Their voices rang down the quiet street louder than any ice cream van chime.

  “Ye like willies and bums,” said Francis. “Ma mammy said to stay away fae ye, in case ye try and put yer finger up my arse!” The children bounced violently on the fence and clawed at him. They took turns spitting into the garden, arching high and spraying the boy and the plump flowers. One by one, they peeled off the fence and laughed all the way back across the street. Once inside their gate, Dirty Mouse turned and then waved quite happily.

  Shuggie watched them soldier in through the front door. He pulled the arm of his black jumper over his knuckles and wiped the spit from his face. As soon as he did, he regretted it. Colleen McAvennie was at the window smoking, her arms folded across her thin body and a sharp smile plastered across her sunken, tea-coloured face.

  All the windows were thrown open, and the cassette deck played on the sill. Agnes stood amongst her roses in cut-off denims and an old cotton top, whose straps she had pushed down so as not to ruin the lines of her sunburn. That summer had been unusually hot, with a series of long, dry days all strung together and a clear sun that rewarded enthusiasm with the threat of heatstroke and blisters.

  Agnes whirled as though dancing with an imaginary partner. “Get your wee arse outside and dance with your mother,” she called too loudly, her voice bouncing off the miners’ houses.

  Inside, in the shade of the cool bedroom, Shuggie scowled on the edge of his bed. He had been skulking since that morning. “Look, you can’t sit inside all day,” Agnes had coaxed. “The sun will soon be away for another year, and then you’ll be sorry.” She’d spun around, swinging a trowel, like she was mental. She’d looked as happy as he could ever remember, and he was surprised how this hurt. It was all for the red-headed man. He had done what Shuggie had been unable to do.

  Agnes looked like the goddess of all roses. Her shoulders and face were flushed bright pink from the summer sun. Her rosy spider veins, from
the years of winters and drink, shone on her happy cheeks. It was like Disney himself had coloured her and brought her to life, a fleshier, smokier Snow White.

  Agnes pushed the top half of her body through his window and rested her melting boobs on the window frame. At least this was mildly better, he thought, for at least she wasn’t spinning and dancing like a maddie for all to see. He had never been embarrassed by the sober her before. It was a new and unwelcome feeling.

  Shuggie sat on his hands to keep himself from clenching his fists. He dreamt of throwing frustrated punches. Some were for the stupid roses, some for the stupid McAvennies, but most were because he had waited so long for this happiness and now he couldn’t seem to enjoy it.

  He looked up, and she was still smiling, dementedly, but it was contagious all the same. Her arms had been scratched by rose thorns but she didn’t seem to mind. “You can’t sit inside like an auld wummin. Meet me round the back garden.”

  Agnes disappeared from view, and Shuggie sulked for a while longer. A single white hand appeared from the cocoon of Leek’s bed sheets. It pointed threateningly at Shuggie and then, with a jerk of the thumb, pointed threateningly towards the back garden. Shuggie knew his brother had been staying up later now that their mother was sober. He had been drawing, on large rolls of graph paper, schematics of woodwork cabinets he planned to build for his side of the bedroom. The first was a complicated unit to hold his stereo and LPs. Next to that he planned a low pine desk with covered shelves, so that he had somewhere comfortable to draw and a place to lock his imaginings away from his brother. Shuggie had spent hours poring over the drawings while Leek was at his apprenticeship. The units screwed directly into the stone walls. Shuggie ran his hands over the drawings and liked the sense of permanence.