This Road is Red

by Alison Irvine

  ‘Aye all right.’

  They walked round to the entrance to Thirty Petershill Court and the boy mumbled, ‘I only live on floor two. It’s too cold to take them off here.’

  They stood in the lift in silence. Outside his door, the boy knocked, shouted for his ma, pulled down the tracky bottoms and handed them to Pamela. The girls rattled down the stairs just before his mother opened the door and shouted after them.

  ‘All right lassies!’ Trevor shouted. His dog was on its side, scratching itself.

  The girls waved. Pamela felt like kicking the air. She rolled up her sleeves and they left the towers behind them, walking on the wet grass towards the trees and the tracks and the tunnel and the boys from the Gyto.

  Concierges 1988

  John read the incident book.

  ‘Here, read this, George,’ he said. He and George had relaxed into a happy partnership that was two years long now. George could be a bit of a doughball at times but he clocked on to John’s humour and he had a sense of humour of his own too. They’d not been able to stop laughing about the new student – the boy from France – who’d come into the office in his swimming trunks with a towel under his arm asking for the pool room. And the thought of him taking the pool cues from George and saying no I want the swimming pool, still made them laugh. Or the girls who complained about their flatmate who kept dead mice in her freezer and it turned out she’d a snake in her room. John had a phobia of snakes so George had gone in and told the girl that he would put the snake down the chute if she didn’t get rid of it.

  ‘Why did you say you’d put it down the chute?’

  ‘I don’t know. That’s the worst place to put it isn’t it? We’d all be feart to go near the bins.’

  ‘No shit, Sherlock. As long as she gets rid of it I don’t care

  where it goes.’

  They liked the students. The executive flats were gone and after their first year many of the students stayed on in the block, taking rooms in flats on the top three floors or the first thirteen.

  ‘John read from the incident book “Anthony from flat thirty/ one complained again that somebody had taken his breakfast cereal from his room. Concierge went up and found no break-in. No explanation. Student questioned as to whether he was remembering correctly.”’

  John flicked back through the incident book and found a similar entry. ‘“Anthony from flat thirty/one accused concierges of breaking into his room and stealing cornflakes. Assured tenant that concierges did not break in and steal cornflakes.”’ John and George were on the back shift after a couple of

  days off.

  ‘Anthony’s the one who couldn’t work the washing machine,’ John said, as if that explained everything.

  George took the buffer and went off to do the landings. Later, Anthony came into their office, his eyebrows at anxious angles.

  ‘My breakfast disappeared again,’ he said. He wrung his hands.

  ‘What did you have, son?’ John said.

  ‘Cornflakes.’

  ‘Did you have sugar with your cornflakes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘A little milk?’ said George.

  ‘Yes but...’

  ‘Now, was the milk cold or did you warm it up first?’

  ‘I don’t think you’re taking me seriously.’

  The young man’s eyes were disappointed. They made John stop laughing. He looked again at the young man, and saw some- thing honest about him, saw the man who left for university at eight-fifteen and returned from his labs at six-thirty, who put his messages in a rucksack to save on carrier bags – John had seen him once with the contents of his rucksack on the landing floor: he was looking for his door key – saw this honest young man and realised he was completely and profoundly spooked.

  ‘Start again, son,’ John said.

  ‘I put my bowl and a packet of cornflakes on the table in the living room. I went back to the kitchen to get milk. I read an article from yesterday’s paper. It was about greenhouse gases. I forgot about my breakfast. I went to the toilet. And when I came back my cornflakes were gone.’

  ‘Are you sure you put the cornflakes on the table?’ John was determined to sort this out for the poor wee lad. ‘Maybe you only thought you got them out of the cupboard.’

  ‘No, I took them out of the cupboard. There’s a space on the shelf where they were.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ John asked.

  ‘Yes. It’s happened before.’

  ‘How many times?’

  ‘Five.’

  ‘Five?’

  ‘I told you after the first and second times. And then the third and fourth times I didn’t tell you because I didn’t think you’d believe me.’

  ‘And is it always your cornflakes?’

  ‘Aye. One time it was a bottle of Pepsi as well. This is my fifth box of cornflakes. They’re not cheap.’

  John watched Anthony put his key in the lock and push on the door.

  ‘They were here,’ Anthony said and he pointed to his table. It was a small square table with one chair. There was a spoon, a bowl, a cornflake, and nothing else. John looked around him. He paced to one wall and the other, as he imagined a detective would.

  ‘Shall we retrace your steps?’ he said to Anthony and Anthony took him to the kitchen. He showed him the cupboard from which he took his packet of cornflakes. ‘And you see, I have no other cereals,’ he said. ‘And I have no bread. So I haven’t had breakfast.’

  ‘Get yourself a roll and bacon from the van on your way to university,’ John said and his words seemed to cheer the young man.

  The young man took him from the kitchen to the table in the living room then back to the kitchen where Anthony showed him the paper with the article on global warming.

  ‘And then I went...’ The student made to go to the bathroom.

  ‘We can skip that,’ John said.

  John checked all the doors – the back and the front – and saw no sign that they’d been forced open.

  ‘Look, son, I don’t know what to say to you. Are you sure?’ The boy’s eyes were angry. He held out two empty cassette

  cases. ‘They’ve taken my tapes now. They’re missing.’

  John tapped open the tape deck on his tape player but it was empty.

  ‘I want the polis up here,’ Anthony said and John stopped suddenly.

  Up the stair again with the community policeman who checked the doors and windows like John had done.

  ‘It’s an unsolved crime, right enough,’ the community policeman said. ‘Are you sure he’s the full ticket?’

  ‘He seems to be, but you never can tell.’

  Back in the office George showed the polis cctv footage of a couple of lads trying to put a crowbar down the side of a car door.

  ‘I can tell you who they are and where they stay,’ George said.

  ‘An easy one at last,’ the policeman said and took the boys’

  names and addresses and went off to chap their doors.

  The cornflakes mystery unsolved, the concierges left at the end of their shift. John never liked leaving for the day with an issue unsolved or unattended, but there was nothing he could do with this mystery.

  Two days later, Martin, the concierge from Petershill Court, flagged him down on his way to the paper shop.

  ‘See up there,’ Martin said. He pointed to the top of Ten

  Red Road.

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘I saw someone up there and I had to do a double take. He was right at the top. How many floors up do you go? Thirty isn’t it?’

  ‘Aye, thirty.’

  ‘He was hanging onto the outside of his veranda and then he scaled the side of the building and climbed over the next veranda along. I wanted to shout up to him to be careful but I was afraid to break his concentration in case he fell.’ Martin’s face was red and animated.

  ‘When?’

  ‘Five minutes ago.’

  ‘He climbed out of his flat and into someone else’s?�
��

  ‘Aye, Spiderman. Right across the side of the building.’

  ‘I know who that is. Thanks pal, you’ve just solved a crime.’ Back in the office John identified the man; an hpu, Homeless Persons Unit, who had been moved into Red Road while the flat he usually stayed in was repaired after a fire. He hadn’t been in the building long. Was obviously hungry and not afraid of heights. Another call to the community police. After the dressing down, John wrote in the incident book: Cornflakes mystery solved. Man climbed from veranda of thirty/two to veranda of thirty/one and broke into Anthony Docherty’s flat. Case closed.

  Pamela 1988

  They stood in front of her mirror, Pamela and Nicola, and behind their reflections was the open window and beyond that, all of Glasgow, it seemed.

  ‘Don’t say I look like a boy.’ Pamela turned her head to see her profile.

  ‘I feel like battering you. I should have stopped you,’ her friend said. ‘Your curls were gorgeous.’

  ‘Suits me, for fighting.’ Pamela’s hands were sticky with the mousse she’d used to spike her hair. Her neck felt bare so she zipped her ski jacket to her chin and wiped her hands on her jeans.

  ‘I bet your ma had a hairy canary.’

  ‘I like it. Richard likes it.’

  They stood a little longer in the mirror, the two friends. Nicola passed her lipstick to Pamela. Pamela checked her pockets for everything she would need.

  ‘I’m going to do hairdressing,’ Nicola said and Pamela looked at her. It surprised her in a way she couldn’t understand.

  ‘When?’

  ‘August.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Central College.’

  ‘I would have thought you’d do something with numbers,’ Pamela said eventually.

  ‘Nah. Shall we go?’

  Pamela checked her hair again in the mirror and replaced her sleeper earrings with studs. Then she looked around her bedroom for her boots.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ her pal asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Pamela said. ‘I don’t really care. Now where’s my boots?’

  The girls were used to searching for Pamela’s lost clothes or shoes. When they’d checked the wardrobe and the piles of clothes on the floor they lay on their bellies on Pamela’s bed and took a side each, pulling up the valance and sticking their heads underneath.

  ‘Here they are,’ she said, pulling them out by their laces.

  A bottle rattled out of one boot. Pamela picked it up. It had a chemist’s label and her brother’s name on it.

  ‘Come and look at this,’ she said.

  Nicola turned herself around and crawled to Pamela’s side

  of the bed. They lay there, the girls, on their bellies, looking at the bottle.

  ‘I reckon my brother planked these,’ Pamela said.

  ‘In your boot?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘What are they?’

  ‘Temazepam. Jellies. He called the doctor out the other night. Said he was freaking out, because of my dad.’

  ‘Give us one then,’ Nicola said and Pamela looked up at her pal. She’d never taken one before. Glue and fighting had been enough.

  The lid was difficult to undo – it just clicked round and round – so Nicola took the bottle from Pamela, pressed hard on the plastic cap with her palm and twisted it off.

  ‘How many?’ she said.

  ‘Look at the size of them. They’re not going to do nothing to me. Two?’

  They took two.

  The walk across the field was exciting as they waited to feel something. Their boots swished on the damp grass. Gulls cawed overhead. And when Pamela’s ma shouted from the veranda ‘Don’t you be out late,’ they only turned and waved, her warning cry ineffectual, her body and waving arms tiny against the vast wall of concrete around her.

  Back in Pamela’s bedroom the girls lay on their backs. Afternoon. Still wearing the previous night’s clothes.

  ‘That wee guy from Blackhill took four off me. I just took the two and I can’t remember the rest of the night,’ Pamela said.

  ‘You were out of your face, buzzing glue an all.’

  Nicola drank from a can. ‘Check in all your shoes,’ she said and the girls upended all the shoes and boots they could find but there were no more planked jellies.

  ‘We’ll buy some. Or I’ll get a script,’ Nicola said.

  Pamela spiked up her hair and looked at the ceiling. Her head was sore. The night’s events were patchy but she knew that Nicola went off with some of the guys from Avonspark Street and she and Richard sat against the wall of the community centre and listened to the shouts over at the railway.

  Nicola laughed. ‘I ended up down at a house in Sighthill, chapping the door and demanding to get in. I was like that, I stay here, and the person inside was like that, no you fucking don’t, this is my house. My uncle found me and got me up the road. He’d been to a pal’s.’

  ‘I thought those wee things wouldn’t do nothing for me. Sure did,’ Pamela said and then her ma put her head round the door and said, ‘Can you get me twenty Mayfair and bring them up the stair before you go out.’

  ‘All right, Ma,’ Pamela said and followed her mother into the living room where the table was set up for her card game with her pals from the bingo.

  Nicola stood in the doorway and said, ‘I start my course in three weeks.’

  Running through the town to take a script to Boots as the workers clog the bus stops and pour down the hills to Central Station. Running through the sizzling lights, the black sky leaking its rain, the script in Nicola’s hand and Pamela running behind, dodging the people with bags and brollies. Running through the town to catch Boots.

  ‘I can’t sleep is what I told my doctor. It was easy. My nerves are jangling, can you give me something for my jitters?’ In Boots they take the paper bag with the pills rattling inside.

  As carefully as the pharmacist taps out the tablets from the big bottle they cup their hands and tap out with a forefinger two, three, four jellies. Swallow them.

  The fighting was funny that night. Pamela got lamped with a brick and the skin above her right eyebrow cut and bled. Her tracksuit was filthy from where she fell. The boy who threw the brick jumped about. I got that guy a cracker, he said and Richard said That guy’s my girlfriend and the two of them fought, clamping arms and heads and punching ribs in the dark. Pamela watched them lunging at each other on the top of the embankment on the other side of the lines.

  Stones and bricks and bottles. Pamela and Richard kept each other in sight, Gringo girl, Gyto boy, meeting up after the police sirens and the flashing blue lights signalled the end of that night’s fighting. The useless police, seen from miles away, giving all the fighters time to scramble through the undergrowth and Pamela and Richard a chance to winch.

  She used to meet him when it was quiet and the girls from their side went to meet the boys from his. His mouth tasted of lager and mints. Pamela thought she loved him. She pure fancied him. He said he liked her hair either way; curls or spikes. He took her to see Scheme and they both joined in the fighting that went on while the band played. He said he felt fierce about her, got done for breach several times then disappeared to live in Greenock with his uncle.

  Kat 1989

  Kat Fisher was indignant for the tenants of Red Road, for the tenants of Glasgow, for the tenants of Britain and the whole capitalist world. It made her so angry. Shame on electricity companies that charged their highest prices for metered elec- tricity in rented flats that were generally the domiciles of the poor and the struggling. Shame on Glasgow City Council for installing the meters. Shame on everyone for not stamping their feet and refusing to take this crap from the multinationals.

  It annoyed her even more because she always paid her electricity bills on time and now she and her two flatmates were being penalised. And one of her flatmates was tight enough. They’d never have the lights on any more and the television would be censored. At least the heatin
g was included in the rent.

  The wind shot leaves and dust around the tarmac when she left the building. It lifted the skirt her sister made her high up her thighs and she had to hold it flat against her legs with her hand. Her black woollen tights kept the chill off and the wind didn’t matter to her hair which was tousled and bowl-cut any- way. Hardly anyone about. She walked on to the bus stop. John, one of the concierges, waved at her.

  ‘I’m not talking to you, John,’ she said.

  ‘Oh. What have I done today?’

  ‘You could have stopped them putting the meters in.’

  John used a hard-bristled brush to sweep up bits of wet cardboard box. He made a pile of the cardboard, and the bristles made a sharp noise on the concrete. He leaned on the broom and said, ‘I knew I’d get a telling from you. It was coming, but. The electricity board were up here every five minutes cutting off someone’s supply.’

  ‘That’s not the point. They’re charging their most expensive electricity to those that can least afford it. We’re all in thrall to big companies and we all let it happen.’

  ‘Aye, you start the revolution, and I’ll join in,’ John said.

  ‘I will.’

  Kat tucked the billowing ends of her scarf into her jacket and put her hands in her pockets.

  ‘John,’ she said. ‘My da’s coming to visit this weekend. Can

  I borrow the Hoover?’

  ‘Aye, sure you can. Tell him to park in front of the cameras and we’ll keep an eye on his motor.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  John began to sweep again and Kat walked to the bus stop, her notebooks and textbooks heavy in her bag.

  Pamela 1989

  Nicola stopped coming up the stair. Pamela saw her from time to time with a snakeskin handbag. She changed her hair colour then kept it blonde.

  New friends took tablets out of their pockets and chased them down with Irn-Bru or Buckfast. It was easy not to leave Red Road. Sofas in high houses were comfortable.

  ‘I’ve never done a Ouija board,’ Pamela said.

  The new friend, Sarah, cleared stuff off the wee table and

  Pamela watched her take things out of a shoebox.