This Road is Red

by Alison Irvine

In the pitch-black lumber room Ricky’s alarm sounded. He darted a hand from under the covers and turned it off before anyone heard. He pushed his way through the washing that hung from the drying rail and grabbed a pair of his mum’s tights, put on his black clothes and opened the door. The house was asleep. As he tiptoed through the lobby he nudged a picture with his shoulder and grabbed it with blind hands but it didn’t fall. He felt in his pocket for his door key and then opened and closed the front door. On the landing it could have been daylight the way the lights buzzed and lit up the floor. Except that he sensed everyone was sleeping. Even the spiders and the flies. He called for the lift and when the doors opened he saw a man lying on the lift floor and nearly shat himself. It wasn’t a junkie. It was Mr Murray from floor nineteen, asleep and stinking of booze.

  Outside in the dark, Tommy whistled for him with such subterfuge that it made Ricky laugh out loud. Tommy had the paint and was dressed in black too with boot polish on his face.

  ‘Can you see through they tights?’ Tommy said.

  ‘Aye, no problem.’ Ricky tucked the legs down the back of his coat. ‘Right, we know what we’re doing don’t we?’

  ‘Aye. You hold the paint pot. I’ll paint. Go.’

  They ran. Tommy dipped the brush into the paint pot and shuffled backwards like they’d seen the men on the streets do when they painted the yellow lines. They started the line from one end of the low wall, took it down and then across and then up the way to the other end of the wall. They did the tramlines and the T to make the serving boxes. One side of the wall and then the other. Quick work. When they were fin- ished, the boys sat on the wall and swigged the Irn-Bru that Tommy took from his pocket. The white lines glistened. Ricky saw a rat. It nosed the kerbstone on the other side of Petershill Drive, then crossed the road and stopped by the painted lines but didn’t tread on them.

  ‘Good rat,’ Tommy said.

  ‘It must know there’s wet paint.’

  ‘That rat smells a rat.’

  An engine sounded and the boys looked up to see a police car going slow down Petershill Drive. They were off the wall and running around the side of the building so fast that when they peeked round the corner of One-five-three and looked back up the road, it seemed as if the patrol car had hardly moved.

  ‘We got away with it,’ Ricky said.

  When the police car was away and its engine was soft, the boys said goodnight.

  Mr Murray was still in the lift. He woke and yelled out and bashed his head against the side of the lift as he tried to sit.

  ‘Don’t hurt me,’ he said. ‘I’ll give you my money. It’s in my pocket. Take it. Take it all.’

  He pulled coins and a crumpled pound note from his pocket and the coins spun on the lift floor. When Ricky bent to pick them up he remembered he still had his ma’s tights on his head.

  ‘It’s all right, pal,’ he said and put the money into the man’s boozy hands.

  Ricky pulled off his ma’s tights before he went back into the house. He folded his black clothes and put his pyjamas on and slept. He woke up in the pitch-black lumber room, wondering if it was morning yet.

  Wimbledon! Björn Borg headbands! McEnroe tantrums! Towels and sheets and mops and buckets flung out of cupboards as kids search for tennis rackets. Strawberries and Pimms! What? Ma, chuck us down some money wrapped in newspaper so we can get some ginger from the van!

  Oh my God, somebody’s painted the tennis courts. Was it the caretaker? Was it fuck? There’s tramlines and everything. We can play doubles. That wall there’s the net. Who was it? Who cares? Can you serve? Doesn’t matter if you can’t. Just skelp it over the wall – the net! – and try not to aim for anybody’s coupon. Allan Scott, he’s the best player in One-five-three. He’ll take on the long streak of piss Robert Hawley from One-two-three. Oh my God, all the kids want to play tennis and they’re standing with their rackets around the court and the best bit is when they play five-a-side or ten-a-side and everyone just keeps hit- ting the ball over the net and it goes on and on and on all day until the mammies call from the verandas and tell the weans to come on home for their tea.

  Ricky and Tommy act casual. No, we don’t know who painted the courts, they say. Must be legends, whoever they were. Wink wink. Tommy’s whistle again, just for Ricky to hear.

  Iris 1982

  They came from their flooded house in Avonspark Street. Vandals got to it and wrecked her roof and the Corporation moved them high up in Sixty-three Petershill Drive.

  Iris, her daughter, Pamela, and her son, Scott. Iris was unused to the height of the place. Despite watching the towers for years from her low-down house she’d never been inside Red Road. And here she was now, twenty-four up and able to see her old roof and the roofs of her old neighbours’ houses, roofs of cars and buses, and warehouses. String-like roads, patches of grass, pylons, trees, hills. Some view, if only she wasn’t so feart to stand at the window and look.

  Ricky 1982

  They met in the same place as last time at three A.M. on Sunday morning, wearing their black clothes. Hardly anyone was around and anyone who was was buzzing on something or other. A few lights in a few windows and a dog barking. That was all.

  ‘We could fill our pockets like in The Great Escape,’ Ricky

  said.

  ‘Aye we could, but these are better.’

  Tommy handed Ricky a shovel and some black bags and they walked in the dark to the far fields. The two boys bent over their shovels and filled their bin bags with dirt. Ricky pushed the ends of his ma’s tights over his shoulders but they fell down and got in his way again.

  ‘Tommy, do me a favour and tie these ends for me or tuck them down the back of my coat,’ he said.

  ‘Just take them off.’

  ‘Good idea.’

  Ricky took them off and wiped his face.

  The boys dug in silence. A train rattled past and they stopped to watch and stretch their backs and when they bent to dig again their movements were economical and slight as if they belonged to another time when the fields were farmland and men and women bent to knife cabbages from their stalks.

  It took them hours to fill the bin bags and drag them to the football fields and then to pour dirt into the holes and divots made by the boots and falls of endless games of football. They stamped on the earth and pressed it into the holes and walked on, scanning the ground for more holes to fill. Ricky couldn’t stop. He said so to Tommy and Tommy agreed, saying just imagine the boys tomorrow when the pitch isn’t fucked up any more. They went on until the trains came more regularly and the sky lightened and they could see the shapes of singing birds in the trees and on top of the buildings; a kestrel taking off from the top of Thirty-three block, some crows pecking at the grass under the trees by the tracks.

  ‘I was born in those flats,’ Tommy said when they stopped.

  ‘I know you were. So was I.’

  ‘No, actually born there. In my ma and da’s bedroom.’ Ricky looked at his friend. ‘I never knew that.’

  ‘Aye. Born in Red Road. Bred in Red Road. Died in Red

  Road.’

  Ricky looked at his friend again. ‘Really?’

  ‘We’ll see how life pans out.’

  They walked back towards the flats side by side, knees muddied, shovels trailing, bin bags hanging at their sides like upturned cabbages, the clouds overhead grey and half-lit, the fields around them green-grey and ready.

  Pamela 1983

  Pamela and her pal ran towards the ice cream van. Its music drew them up from the swing park and they joined the line of weans in ankle socks and shorts. They licked their oysters and got vanilla on their noses and chins. Nicola trailed her skipping rope as they walked, the wooden handle bouncing off the ground.

  ‘It’s him!’ Pamela saw her da walking away up Red Road, jeans and a T-shirt, a paper in his hand, and ran to catch up with him. Ran straight into the ice cream van – bam – on its way out of Red Road. Up in the air she went and when she came back do
wn she hit off the ice cream van again and ended up on the road. But she got up, no bother. Her da didn’t see. He was out of sight.

  ‘Are you all right, hen?’ the ice cream man said.

  ‘I saw my da. I was wanting to talk to him. I’ve missed him now.’ Pamela’s knees were grazed.

  ‘Where do you live? I’ll take you home.’

  ‘My ma’s at the bingo,’ Pamela said and she held the man’s hand in the lift as her body began to hurt. Nicola chewed her fingernails.

  ‘I’ll be back tomorrow with a present,’ the man said when she was sitting on the couch and he was trying to leave. ‘I’m glad you’re not hurt bad.’

  ‘What will he bring you?’ Nicola said.

  They switched on the television, even though the day was a scorcher and if Pamela hadn’t been hit by the ice cream van they would have been running about daft outside.

  ‘I don’t know. I’m so excited.’

  ‘Maybe he’ll bring you ice creams.’

  ‘Aye, hunners of ice creams. Or sweeties.’

  Pamela’s ma found the bruises in the bath and she was livid. She said she’d have words with the man when he came back but he never did. No present for Pamela.

  Donna McCrudden

  I had friends in other blocks and I had friends up the same flat as me. I had a really good neighbour. She moved out before me. She’d been there a long, long time, I think since the flats opened. She moved to one of the houses on the Red Road. We would babysit for each other and things like that and have nights out together if there were any nights going. And then when the kids went to nursery I got to meet a lot of other peo- ple from a lot of different areas, but I kept good friends with my neighbours for years until they all moved away. My kids they went to nursery in the flats and they got to meet a lot of friends there as well, but I never really let them out too often on their own. They couldn’t reach the buttons on the lift for a start to get up or down because they were way up high. And if they did go out to play, one of my daughters was more street- wise so she used a stick to press the buttons. Either that or they had to wait till an adult came or somebody older and they would press the buttons for them.

  Ricky 1985

  Ricky and Julie went to different schools. He went to Albert School, she went to All Saints. So they met around four o’clock down by the tennis court and talked about music. Julie with the flick and pink lipstick and Ricky with his boxing fists and football. He made her a tape of David Bowie songs. She told him about Bob Dylan and said she would record one of her da’s tapes on the tape-to-tape and give it to him.

  ‘What was the first record you ever bought?’ Julie asked and when Ricky told her it was Jimmy Osmond’s ‘Long Haired Lover from Liverpool’ she leaned into him and put her fluffy head on to his chest and laughed and laughed.

  They hid up her back stair and winched. She told him if her da caught them he’d cut his balls off.

  ‘You wouldn’t let him do that to me.’

  ‘I’m only saying. It’s not up to me.’

  Julie lived on floor twenty-seven of Two-one-three Petershill Drive. She once took Ricky and Tommy and some of their other pals up to her house to look at the view. Her da watched them from behind his newspaper and asked questions. When she offered to show them the roof, he said, ‘Five minutes or I’m coming up after you.’

  Afterwards, Julie told Ricky that her da thought the other boys dressed smart, but not Ricky.

  ‘That’s because I’m not into that kind of music.’

  ‘I know what music you’re into, my long haired lover.’ Ricky believed Julie’s da would hurt him, no bother. No fat

  on him which was impressive for an old guy. He had fingers that looked like they would crush flies, his forearms were covered with black hairs and his movements were quick and surprising. He once took Ricky’s football from him and threw it off the veranda – just hurled it.

  Another time, he stood right close to Ricky when Julie was out of the room.

  ‘Julie tells me you’re a boxer.’

  ‘Aye, well, I train with Alistair McBride in the community hall.’

  ‘Do you compete?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  Julie’s da laughed. ‘Not competing? I see. I bet you haven’t even sparred.’

  Ricky wanted to tell him that Alistair had started introducing a spar at the end of each training session.

  ‘I used to box.’

  That’s all Julie’s da said before he left the room. Alone in Julie’s living room, Ricky stared at the picture on the wall of the boy with the tears. Everyone’s house has that picture, he thought.

  That evening, in the lift on the way down, Julie and Ricky

  held hands. She wore perfume. She must have just put it on because her neck was wet. He touched her silver name which hung on a chain and sat just below her throat. Julie put a hand in the back pocket of his jeans and Ricky leaned his head against the lift wall and had conflicting thoughts about his stauner; his bloody cock was out of control – she might think him disgusting if she saw – but then again it was such a right rare feeling and God she was gorgeous.

  ‘My sister’s got an empty tonight,’ Julie said. Ricky opened his eyes.

  ‘She’s away in Dundee. I’ve got the key. Do you want to stay there with me?’

  ‘Just me and you?’

  ‘Aye. I’m not inviting all your mad pals too.’

  ‘Oh, Julie.’

  He put an arm round her shoulders. At the next stop a woman in her Sally Army uniform stepped into the lift. Ricky took his arm from Julie’s shoulders and waited for the questions to start. Dutifully, they stated how they were doing at school, what their mammies and daddies were doing the night and their opinions on the various huge dogs in the flats.

  ‘You youngsters have a good evening,’ she said when they got out.

  ‘We will.’

  A Friday night.

  ‘So shall we?’ Julie said when it was just the two of them.

  ‘Oh, aye,’ Ricky said and they went to find Tommy so he could cover for them.

  Tommy was helping some of the weans with their hatchets. He was finishing them off for them – stamping with his stronger feet to flatten the soup can and shaping it so it looked more like an axe blade.

  ‘Find me a tack or a nail and I’ll fix it to your handle,’ he told the weans who went off searching.

  When Julie and Ricky asked if he’d cover for them that night, Tommy said, ‘Aye, no bother,’ and the three of them worked out their story.

  ‘So this is how it goes,’ Tommy said. ‘Ricky, you’re staying with me the night, Julie, you’re staying with Karen Brown. And I’m staying in my house on my Jack Jones because no lassie will have me.’

  ‘Taking one for the team, Tommy, cheers pal.’ Ricky was so excited he could hardly stand still. He kept looking at Julie to check she hadn’t changed her mind. Her hair, her peachy cheeks, her gorgeous rack, oh God, he couldn’t believe she wanted to be alone with him in an empty house.

  The wee boys came back with nails and half a brick and Tommy squatted to bash the nails through their hatchet blades and onto their wooden handles. He slashed one through the air when it was done and then shook it in front of Ricky’s face.

  ‘If I find out you’ve been messing with my daughter, I’ll chop your prick off, you dirty wee... prick.’

  Ricky looked at Julie and Julie just said, ‘We won’t get caught.’

  Tommy gave the hatchet back to the boy and the weans ran off, waving their weapons in the air, roaring and cussing.

  ‘On you go then, go tell your lies to your mammies and daddies.’

  Ricky left Julie to make the arrangements and walked back to his house. He passed some of the boys he spent evenings with. They were dressed alike, in skin-tight trousers, big boots and jackets with ribbed elastic trim at the waist. They swung sticks or kicked stones and Ricky guessed they were heading out to the railway tracks to have a go at the Gyto.

  ‘Ricky boy
, you coming?’ one boy said.

  ‘Not tonight fellas, I’ve got an empty with my bird.’

  The boys shouted out appreciatively, ‘Getting your hole, wee man!’

  Ricky played it down but thought, would he? Would she? Is that why she arranged to get the empty? Did she want to sleep with him? Should he get johnny bags from his big brother’s room? Yes, he should. Oh, it was fucking amazing. Julie was a soft-skinned, gentle girl. He might be getting his hole with a girl he actually liked.

  Their lies told, they winched in the lift they took to her sister’s house in Birnie Court, even in front of people, they didn’t care. The house was on the fifth floor and Julie shut the door behind them and turned on the lights. Her sister had painted the walls purple and lime. She had a framed poster of New Order on her living room wall and heart-shaped cushions.

  ‘Did she say you could use her flat?’ Ricky said.

  ‘No,’ Julie said. ‘But she wouldn’t have given me a spare set of keys if she didn’t want me to use it.’

  He wasn’t going to argue. They kissed in the kitchen and Julie put her hands down the back of his jeans. His belt was quite tight and he wanted to loosen it. He felt her tits and got a hand beneath her bra. Oh God. Then they made coffees and moved the heart-shaped cushions to one side in order to sit on the couch.

  ‘We’ve got the whole night,’ Julie said and smiled at him and he felt sick and sweet.

  She put her feet in his lap, like he’d seen women do on the television, and he put his coffee cup on the floor and took off her socks. She had pink toenails and the softest feet he’d ever felt. He’d only felt his own. He tried to massage her feet the way he thought she might like; stroked them and played with her toes – not too tickly yet not too rough. She told him his hands were warm and lovely and as he massaged, more confidently now, she talked about her da losing his job and how he shouted at the television and said Maggie Thatcher was a vile, evil cow. She said she’d heard him crying in the bathroom one night.

  ‘I’m going to stay on at school and get a decent job,’ she