This Road is Red

by Alison Irvine

  ‘You must be mad to jump,’ Pamela said but Nicola can’t have heard her, pulling her arm and dragging her down the stairs before they got caught. They did the whole building, pissing themselves and running away. What to do next?

  Ricky 1986

  There was a problem in the flats with joyriders. If you had a motor you better expect it to get nicked or wrecked. Or else guard it. Ricky walked back from his football game, his studs clicking on the concrete and Tommy’s too, which reminded him of a time when he was just a boy and all the boys would walk back to their houses with mud-streaked legs and elbows, their studs click-clacking on the ground and Ricky in his trainers would wish for a pair of boots with studs so his footsteps would make the same beautiful noise. They were nearly men now, with bigger thighs and more sweat. One of the older guys, in his twenties, had started to recede and another had let the drink spread out along his belly but Ricky was the fittest and strongest he’d ever been. He still wanted to be a fireman.

  Ricky was worried about his car because the paintwork was scratched on the driver’s side and when he’d gone to drive it one night he was sure he disturbed a couple of dark-clothed sneakit-looking boys. It made him more angry than he’d ever felt to think of some little shites messing about with his motor.

  He and Tommy went to the Broomfield Tavern. Ricky drank his cider and wiped his mouth. The football had rid him of some of his energy but he still felt sharp and anxious about his motor. Another gulp of cider. Bob Marley sang out from the jukebox.

  ‘I think I need to give those wee shites a warning. Make sure they don’t come anywhere near my motor again.’

  ‘All the kids carry knives now,’ Tommy said.

  ‘I’m aware of that.’

  He leaned towards Tommy and told him what his elder brother had brought him back from Russia. Tommy shook his head and laughed and said, ‘Are you serious?’

  ‘Oh aye.’ He pressed his lips together then ran his tongue over them and sniffed. Took another swig of cider.

  ‘Don’t get yourself in trouble over a motor.’

  ‘But you see, Tommy, it’s more than a motor. It’s the work and the saving and the waiting. And it’s mine. I’m not having anyone tear into my car just because they feel like it. No, I’m not.’

  ‘My ma likes watching the polis chase the joyriders.’

  ‘I know. All the old dears do. Telly’s crap these days.’ They stayed for more pints and leaned back in their chairs

  as the jukebox played Marley and Madonna and the warm air made them yawn into their fists and wipe water from the corners of their eyes. The landlord asked them if they wanted someone to stretcher them out they were lying so far back in their seats.

  Outside, daylight was gone and cold wintry air was in its place. They walked briskly through Red Road. Ricky checked for shapes at the doors of cars and vans but there was nobody about. Too early. His legs were stiff. He kicked a Lucozade bottle out of his way and told Tommy he was going home to see if his ma had boiled up the soup she’d promised to make. A couple of figures crossed in front of him. They stopped by some parked cars and Ricky wondered if they were going to have a go at one of the cars but he heard the tinkle of a dog’s chain and saw them move off with a fat Staff. A trickle of dog’s piss shone in the light from a streetlamp as he passed.

  ‘Come on and I’ll show you what my brother brought back.’

  Tommy held the sword with two hands above his head and lowered its point to the floor. Then he swung it from left to right and right to left as if charming a snake. He let go a hand and made wide zigzags. Then he stroked the side of the blade and put a finger to its edge.

  ‘Ricky, pal, that is some sword. Is it a genuine Russian

  Samurai sword?’

  Ricky paused. ‘Aye, I think so. I’m going to hang it on the wall above my bed.’

  ‘What if it falls off in the night and kills you?’

  ‘Okay, I’ll hang it away from my bed.’

  Tommy held the sword in his flat palms. ‘I don’t like it. You need to be careful, Ricky. Don’t get into trouble with this.’ They were all saying things like that; Tommy, Julie, his ma. Tommy was even making threats to leave Red Road altogether. He said he could feel himself going wrong; he’d been in too many scrapes, had too many warnings from the police, and finally realised that hankering after the easy days with the footballs and tennis and water fights was a waste of time. Ricky said he

  didn’t believe he’d ever go and Tommy said he would have said the same until now – watch this space.

  ‘Go back to the boxing,’ his ma said to Ricky and he always said no, he preferred football. Russell was heavy into smack now so there was no one he wanted to batter. But he felt like battering the bastards who broke into the cars and crashed them for laughs.

  ‘I’m away for my tea,’ Tommy said.

  ‘See you after. Keep an eye out the window for the joyriders. Don’t do anything stupid. Like leave.’

  He sat up well into the night with his sword at his side. His ma asked him what he was doing and he told her he was looking at the lights and the view. And when she’d gone to bed he saw three figures creeping towards the parked cars on Petershill Drive. Black-clad. Young and troublesome-looking. Not a second to spare. Into the lift, his sword in his hand, ready to give them the biggest shock of their car-thieving, joyriding lives.

  The roar started as he pushed himself through the foyer doors and rounded the corner to the cars. A scrawny wee shite of a boy ran away and Ricky followed him, holding aloft his sword which curved down his back like a pelmet or a mane. The kid was a fast runner and he cried out oh mammy mammy mammy as he ran and he sounded like a goat or a horse or a baby. Ricky heard his own throat making noises he didn’t mean to make. High, violent noises. The kid was right to be crying out for his mammy. Ricky chased him along Petershill Drive, past One-two-three and Ninety-three and when the kid turned right to run past Sixty-three block Ricky dropped the sword and lunged at him. He caught him and he pushed him against a brick wall. His head stoated off the wall and the kid began to greet.

  ‘You weren’t greeting when you were trying to steal my motor.’

  ‘I wasn’t stealing anyone’s motor.’

  ‘Yes, you were.’

  Ricky hit him hard. The kid’s head stoated off the wall again and Ricky’s knuckles hurt. He went for him again and the kid ducked his head and Ricky hit the wall. He kneed the kid instead and kicked at his legs.

  ‘I wasn’t stealing your motor.’

  ‘Yes you were.’

  ‘I wasn’t. I wasn’t.’

  ‘Yes you were.’

  Ricky didn’t want to stop and he didn’t think he could stop. He kept hitting the kid and kicking the kid and there was blood now and the smell of piss.

  ‘You don’t know what that motor means to me,’ he said and he was nearly greeting too now, his head so angry, so fuck- ing on fire with the nerve of this stupid boy.

  The boy said, ‘I promise you, it wasn’t me, I wasn’t trying to nick it. I was going home. I promise you, I promise you,’ and when Ricky left him lying on the ground and turned to pick up his sword the boy said ‘Oh mammy mammy no, please don’t kill me,’ and he shouted for help.

  Ricky put the point of the sword to his soft neck and thought about pushing it down hard. He could, he could. The kid deserved it. He could fucking murder him. He could teach him a lesson. He had a Samurai sword. So angry. So much fucking fury.

  ‘Ricky, no! Ricky!’

  It was his ma’s voice and he saw her running towards him, her house coat open and flapping at the sides. She held out her arms and ran awkwardly. The sight of her, her voice, her house coat, her slippers that she was struggling to keep on her feet,

  stopped Ricky. He took the sword away from the kid’s neck and stepped back.

  ‘You put that sword down and leave the poor boy alone,’ his ma said and Ricky was afraid of what she would say to him and what she would think of him.

  H
is ma knelt alongside the greeting boy and smoothed his fringe from his forehead.

  ‘You’re all right, William,’ she said. ‘You’re all right.’

  The boy whimpered. He was bruised badly. He turned his head this way and that and called for his mammy.

  ‘We’ll get you to your mammy,’ Ricky’s ma said. ‘You’re all right. It’s over.’ She pointed at Ricky. ‘Do you know who this boy is? He’s the butcher’s boy. He’s Andrew Cullen’s wee lad. What were you playing at Ricky?’

  Ricky gripped his right hand with his left, the sword still in his hand. ‘He tried to steal my motor.’

  ‘No he didn’t.’ His ma’s voice cracked as she shouted at him.

  ‘No, I didn’t. I promise you, I didn’t.’

  ‘He’s the butcher’s boy. Look at him. He’s got a van. What does he want with your car?’

  ‘I saw him.’

  ‘No you didn’t. You must have seen someone else.’

  She looked at the kid and put her hands inside his clothes, on his waist and then felt his ribs. The kid cried out. She inspected his face. He was cut badly on his cheekbones and his mouth. There was blood in streaks on his neck. His hair was wet with blood.

  ‘And you,’ she said to Ricky and her voice was grave. ‘I

  told you to put that sword down.’

  Ricky looked down at his hand and his sword. It made an awful grating sound on the concrete as he put it down. Then there was quiet as Ricky’s ma helped the boy to his feet. The boy whimpered but he no longer gret.

  ‘It’s okay. It’s over,’ Ricky’s ma said again to the boy but she looked at Ricky.

  Ricky couldn’t meet her eyes.

  ‘You’d better get out of here,’ William said. ‘If the polis catch you with that, you’ll get done. Look.’

  The kid nodded at the buildings next to them. Sixty-three and Ninety-three. Lit up windows, rows of them, and heads at the windows. More lights flicked on in more windows. Yellow squares lighting up the dark.

  ‘Go away,’ his ma said and Ricky picked up his sword and ran home, past his car, which was still there, and into his building.

  He put the sword under his bed and waited for the police.

  He waited to get caught for weeks. When his ma took him to the butchers to apologise, the butcher’s boy, said, ‘I guess you thought I was someone else. I saw three lads running away just before you came out and chased me. I guess it was them you should have got.’

  Ricky nodded and noted the bruises still on the boy’s face and couldn’t look at the boy’s da who stood at the back and hacked a cleaver into a cow’s leg.

  Ricky’s ma told him that it was time to get his act together. If you get a criminal record the Fire Brigade won’t touch you, she told him. These antics of yours, they’re over, she said, or you’re out.

  The police never came to his door. Ricky kept the Fire Brigade in the back of his mind while he worked his first job for the social. Tommy moved out of Red Road for a new start.

  The police came to someone’s door, however. The family who lost their son in the fire, they lost another son to a car crash. He was a joyrider, ten years old, and chased by the police one night he drove his stolen car into a lamppost. It killed him instantly.

  Ricky bought the father a drink whenever he saw him in the Brig or the Broomfield. It was the least he could do. And when he felt like doing something stupid or revengeful, he thought of the sword and those lights going on one by one in the windows all around him.

  Section Four

  Concierges 1986

  JOHN THOUGHT HE MIGHT have put too much milk in George Mallion’s mug of tea because he didn’t touch it. They stood in the main office and John pointed out the televisions with the black and white cctv pictures, the key cabinet, and the paper- work on the students who came and went, some only in the building for a term, some a year, and some for longer.

  ‘You’ll see when I show you around, the first thirteen floors are ordinary council tenants, floors fourteen to twenty- seven are the student flats and each student has a bedroom to themselves and they share a kitchen and a bathroom. The three top floors, twenty-eight, twenty-nine and thirty, they’re the executive flats.’

  George wanted to ask what was special about the executive flats but John answered the buzzer and let in a girl whose eyelinered eyes looked wide into the camera.

  ‘I’m here to see my friend Kat,’ the girl said.

  ‘On you go,’ John said and the men watched her get into the lift.

  ‘Heavy into politics, Kat is. She’s a good lassie, but.’

  John picked up his radio. ‘The only difference with the executive flats is that they’ve got a better quality curtain and the baths are green, not white. Pistachio, actually. Are you going to take your tea with you?’

  ‘I’ll just drink it.’

  George swigged it as if it was ginger, drank the whole mug in one, and wiped his mouth. Then he put the cup down on the desk and picked it up again.

  ‘Do you want another one? Are you thirsty?’

  ‘No, I just can’t drink it when it’s too burny.’

  John stood in the main office and watched George go into the kitchen and rinse his cup. George was a tall skelf-like man. He seemed to have hollow trouser legs and too-long arms. Apparently he was a long-distance runner. John hoped he wouldn’t be too jumpy for him. He liked to ponder, not charge.

  ‘Have you always worked in the high flats?’ George asked when he came back. He clasped his knuckles and pushed his palms outwards.

  ‘I was on the Manpower before here,’ John said. ‘My year was nearly up. I jumped at the chance of working here.’

  ‘So it’s not true what they say about Red Road?’

  ‘Oh don’t get me wrong, it’s not paradise. You’ll get to know the community police and there’s a reason for that. But I like it. Are you ready to go up the stair?’

  Today they had the flat inspections. When their colleague Allan was back to man the office John took George to floor twenty-seven and told him they’d work downwards and when George got the hang of it, they’d split up and take a flat each to make things go more quickly. As the lift passed floor twenty-three John told George about the community flat, the pool room, tv room and the library and study room and said they held meetings in one of the rooms from time to time. George thought the place wasn’t as bad as people had suggested it was. His colleagues were all right too; laid-back, friendly, and they seemed to like their work and their tenants.

  ‘We’re not ready John, can you come back?’ a girl said in twenty-seven/one. She held a broom when she opened the door. The flat smelled of toast. George looked beyond her down the corridor and saw the Hoover cord on the floor.

  ‘We’ll do flat two first,’ John said. A boy in pyjamas opened the door.

  ‘Did we get you up?’ John asked.

  The boy said no and led them into the living room where two more boys sat on the couches. George wanted to rush to the window to look out at the view. But he didn’t. A Scottish Saltire and the flags of Canada and Nigeria were pinned on one side of the room. There were bowls on the floor with the cocked ends of spoons and forks sticking over their sides. A duvet was slung over the back of one of the couches. There were beer cans with cigarette ash on their tops, books, news- papers, crisp packets and two-litre bottles of Irn-Bru. George looked at the carpet and saw pieces of food and dirt and paper. The other boys wore pyjamas too. Number 73 was on the tele- vision. George couldn’t see a Hoover or a broom or a duster. There was a black bag, however.

  John leaned his hand against one of the walls. ‘Did you forget about your flat inspection?’ he said.

  The boy who answered the door shook his head earnestly and gestured towards the black bag. ‘We were just about to start on the living room.’

  The other boys shifted their shoulders and turned their heads to nod affirmation.

  ‘So you’ve done the kitchen and the bathroom?’

  ‘Oh aye.’


  George had never heard anyone say oh aye who didn’t have a Scottish accent. They left the boys in the living room and went to the kitchen. The worktop had been given a smeary wipe, the floor was swept to a certain extent and the dishes done. The washed dishes were piled high on one side of the sink, plates stacked on pots, cups at angles, and a shoal of silver cutlery next to them.

  ‘You’d think they’d never seen a dish towel,’ John said.

  He moved to the cooker and said, ‘No way. Right, that cooker’s not been touched so we’ll tell them to get it cleaned and we’ll come back in two hours.’

  He looked briefly in the bathroom and came out saying,

  ‘They’re living in a midden.’

  When the concierges returned to the living room the boys were off the couches, their bare feet treading amongst the debris on the floor and their bare legs bending to throw rubbish into the sack.

  ‘Can we keep our beer pyramid?’ one of the boys said and popped the end of a Marathon bar out of its packaging and into his mouth.

  ‘You can keep your beer tower but everything else has got to be ship-shape when we come back in two hours.’

  ‘Okay, John, sorry John,’ they said and John softened.

  ‘Why don’t yous boys take it in turns to do a clear-up once a week and then all do the clear-up the week of the inspection?’

  The boys seemed taken with this idea and said they would do that starting from next week. George and John left them as they sat back on the couches and began a conversation about which one would go first on the clear-up rota.

  ‘They’ll never do it,’ John said and as they waited outside the first flat again he told George that one time he’d gone up to sort out a broken Hoover in one of the flats only to find it wasn’t broke, the bag just needed changed.

  The same girl opened the door and led them into a thor- oughly cleaned flat which now smelled of furniture polish and perfume. The windows were pushed wide open in the kitchen and the living room, and cool air shook the curtains.