Iris 1997
Iris stood at the window and spoke to her daughter.
‘I have to give the weans their bikes,’ she said.
‘Is there anyone in the house?’
‘Aye. He’s there.’
‘Have you knocked?’
‘No, not yet. His daughter’s just left.’ She paused to inhale and the house was so quiet, the gentle pop of her lips leaving the cigarette end could be heard. Iris saw her reflection in the window and twisted the telephone cord in her fingers.
‘No, there’s been comings and goings all day,’ she said.
‘Could you get them tomorrow?’
‘I could. But he might go to mass.’
‘Aye.’
Her daughter was smoking too. Both their voices were soft and low. The night did it to them. Or perhaps the occasion.
‘I’ll give you money for your taxi tomorrow. Have you got it up front?’
‘Thanks, Ma.’
She saw cars on the Broomfield Road.
‘So what will you do?’
‘I’ll chap his door now.’
Iris finished her cigarette while they talked about the next day. Her daughter was having a good, clean run since her boy was born. The wee man had turned her round again. Liam was back and worse than ever. He was well into his life now, as was Pamela, and Iris didn’t like to think in last chances, but she felt if there was any time Pamela needed to stay clean it was now.
‘Get to sleep now, else Santa won’t come.’
‘Night, Ma.’
She propped open her front door and went in her slippers to Jim and Colleen’s. Lights were on and she could feel the warmth from his house as the door opened.
‘Christmas Eve,’ Jim said as he opened the door.
‘Aye. Have you had your family up?’
‘Jennifer and my granddaughter. They’re away now. James is picking me up tomorrow morning. The weans asleep?’
‘That’s why I’m here. I’m awfully sorry, Jim, the bikes, we need them for Christmas tomorrow.’
‘Oh good God, the bikes. Come on in.’
‘I didn’t like to ask you.’
‘I’ve been staring and staring at them all day. I should have remembered.’
‘Not at all. You’ve had enough to worry about.’
He wouldn’t let her wheel them out herself. He took them from his living room into hers and asked her where he should lean them; a girl’s bike and a tricycle. She showed him a space by the wall underneath a hanging print and he placed them there.
‘Do you think you’ll sleep?’ she asked.
‘The doctor gave me pills. I don’t know if I’ll take them.’
‘Will you stay for a wee half?’ she asked.
‘No, dear, I’ll be by myself.’
She stood at the door as he crossed the landing. He passed the lift and turned back to Iris, his fingers touching the wall.
‘I’m not having her back up here for the wake,’ he said.
‘The lift’s too small for a coffin. I won’t do it to her again.’
‘She’d understand.’
Concierges 1997
Christmas Day. Carols on the radio. Prayers. ‘I Wish it Could be Christmas Every Day’. ‘I Saw Mummy Kissing Santa Claus’. Pre-recorded Wogan. Ho ho ho. The shops closed except for the paper shop. Rain not snow. The incident book with a list of drunken events at twelve, one, two, three and four in the morning. Now, the block was quiet.
‘We’ll start on the mince pies,’ George said.
‘And a cup of tea.’
Church and chapel goers stood in the lifts with their good coats and umbrellas. The children clutched one toy each to their chests, the lifts crowded and no space to zoom toy aero- planes or jiggle baby dolls. ‘Me-he-he-heeeeerrrrry Christmas,’ George warbled on the lift intercom and the church and chapel goers looked up at the camera and waved. A man, clean-shaven for the first time in weeks, gave the vicky and winked. A baby on another man’s shoulders widened its eyes in surprise and almost cried but a wee girl looked up, gabbled some baby talk and put her hands out to touch his legs.
The lifts went up and down all morning and George and John endeavoured to cry ‘Merry Christmas’ to each and every lift load. Cars pulled in and parked outside the building and in the car park at the back.
At lunchtime George and John unwrapped their pieces. George had thick-cut ham that his missus had bought for Boxing Day. John had beef as his missus had roasted a joint for the Christmas Eve tea and they would have it again with cold roast potatoes and coleslaw and horseradish sauce that evening.
‘All we’re missing is a cracker,’ George said and John said
‘Oh, Mrs Donoghue’s not so bad.’
Theo Orr’s grandweans charged into the office with a four- pack of beers.
‘Thank you very much,’ John said and checked the expiry date.
‘Tell your granda thank you very much. We’ll drink them in eight years time.’
‘He wants a favour off you.’
‘Does he now?’
‘My mammy’s cooking the Christmas dinner and we’ve got too many people and not enough chairs. My granda says can you shift six chairs and one of your tables from the community
flat so we can eat our Christmas dinner in one sitting. My two uncles will help you.’
‘That’s what he told you to say, was it?’
One of the boys wore a Celtic jersey and the other a
Rangers top.
‘What does your granda say about your Celtic jersey?’
‘My ma says he’s not allowed to say nothing.’
‘Quite right.’
John put his piece down on the desk and said to George,
‘Will I go, or will you?’
‘I’ll go,’ said George and John said he’d do the next one as they were bound to get more requests for furniture before the day was out. He turned up the radio which was playing The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl and ate his delicious beef piece.
When George came back he told John he’d caught Theo Orr’s next-door neighbour trying to shove three cardboard boxes down the rubbish chute.
‘The landing is piled high with boxes,’ he said. ‘Every door, there’s about six boxes outside.’
‘It’s started,’ John said.
So, when George had eaten his piece and they’d finished another cup of tea they set about clearing the landings, hold- ing the lift at the top floor and putting in all the cardboard boxes and black bags of wrapping paper, and dropping down the floors until they’d piled the lift so high and full of boxes they couldn’t see each other when they squeezed themselves in.
‘Merry Christmas, partner,’ said George as the lift shot to the ground floor.
‘Merry Christmas, partner,’ said John and put his arms wide around the towers of cardboard boxes to stop them falling down.
Section Six
Concierges 1999
A PLANE-LOAD OF MEN, women and children would arrive at Glasgow Airport. They would come on a bus to Red Road. The media would be there.
George and John prepared the flats for their arrival and laid out keys on the desk in the office. They unstacked chairs and put them in rows in the community flat and placed a table at the end of the room for the press conference. It was busy on the phones with Glasgow Housing Association people calling. Moira and Allan were on too.
George and John watched the news, they read the papers, they knew what was going on in the former Yugoslavia, where a tenant once went on his summer holiday.
Mrs Donoghue buzzed down and asked if perhaps some- body could pick her up some tablets for her headache if they were going out themselves, because she was feeling awful bad and her daughter wasn’t due until teatime tomorrow. Ah, Mrs Donoghue, her timing was impeccable. Allan held the phone away from his mouth with his hand covering the mouthpiece and whispered, ‘What do I tell her?’
The bus was expected. They’d had the call from the airport. The concierges looked at e
ach other and looked at Allan.
Mrs Donoghue was nearly ninety now with no sight in her right eye. She hadn’t left her house for going on two years and the concierges never saw her unless they took up mail or messages.
‘I’ll go,’ John said. He picked up his coat and his radio. ‘If they arrive, just radio me and I’ll come straight back.’
There was no bus pulling in as he left Ten Red Road and turned right to go up the steps to the shops. In the chemist, a
girl was causing a row over a suspect prescription and John waited as the pharmacist and the shop assistant convinced her that her script wouldn’t be dispensed. The girl slammed into the door as she left. ‘I’ll be back to batter you,’ she said.
‘No you won’t,’ the shop assistant called after her. Her voice was suddenly energetic and loud.
‘Cow,’ the girl shouted as the door closed.
The shop assistant raised her eyebrows, tilted her chin, turned away from the door and looked directly at John.
‘What can I get you, honey?’
‘Forty-eight Nurofen please, hen.’
‘That all?’
‘Aye.’
She took the pills from the shelf and tapped the price into the till. The pharmacist stamped a prescription.
‘Three times now, Ali, someone’s been in with that same script,’ she said to the pharmacist without looking up.
She put the Nurofen in a paper bag and handed it to John.
‘Take care, honey.’
John folded the receipt and put it in the bag.
‘See you after.’
The girl was outside the door and she approached John, holding her script out, the cuffs of her sweatshirt frayed.
‘Gonna take this script in for me and get it dispensed? Please, my ma’s really desperate for these pills.’
‘You were just in with it. I heard you and I heard the chemist.’
‘Gonna try again for me?’
‘No, pal.’
‘It’s her arthritis, she can’t relax because of it.’
John looked towards Ten Red Road and saw a bus pulling in. ‘I said no.’
‘Okay, no bother, calm yourself.’ The girl walked away, pushing the script into the back pocket of her jeans.
John watched the bus’s careful arrival. It drove past the
entrance to the block and parked in front of the lock-ups where the bingo buses used to sit. He saw grainy faces through the windows, upturned eyes and unmoving mouths. John looked around him, trying to see Red Road for the first time, taking it in as if it was new to him. On a sunny day light glinted off the windows and the mustards and greys and reds of the flats were grand-looking. But today the place was stark. The buildings’ rendering was dirty and so was the ground on which he stood. Other people had stopped now, like him, and he didn’t like to stare but he couldn’t help it. The people who stepped from the bus were in a terrible state. Some were bandaged and others had sticks or crutches. Some were elderly. Some carried chil- dren in their arms. They filed off the coach and followed the woman from the gha. None of them carried luggage. Nothing. His radio crackled. It was George.
‘The coach is here.’
‘Oh I see them.’
In the office George and John and all the other people there helped allocate flats. Some of the children spoke English but very few of the adults did. When John took people to their flats he showed them the storage cupboards, the view from the windows – if it was a good view – and the white meter heaters. Their faces were so tired-looking. The empty rooms echoed with their footsteps and their coughs. They had nothing to put down, nothing to lay out on the table or place in a drawer. John left them.
Hanging about on the first floor landing was a loose-tied, suited photographer hack who didn’t want to impose but won- dered if any of the Kosovans would be interested in speaking to him for his newspaper article.
‘They’re just off the plane. No,’ John said. ‘You’re not sup- posed to be in here.’
‘Yeah, yeah, I know that, I just thought I might get to speak to someone before the press conference.’
‘Out.’
John walked behind the journalist as he left the building and told him to stay away. Then he found a police officer. ‘You polis are going to have to do better at guarding the entrance. I’ve just evicted a journalist who knew fine well he shouldn’t have been where he was. Do your jobs.’
Back in the office, two young boys came in. Brothers who’d translated for their parents when John was settling them in.
‘Are we allowed to go outside?’
That floored John. He didn’t know what to say. ‘Aye, on you go.’
The boys turned to walk away.
‘Hey,’ John said, ‘you don’t have to talk to anyone who shoves a microphone in your face. Just you stick together. Be careful.’
The boys nodded and gave John the thumbs up sign. John wondered where they would go; if they would walk as far as Petershill Drive and the grass beyond or whether they would stay close to the building, circling the base of the block, within the thickening ring of police and press and residents.
The residents of the Red Road Flats and the houses across the road whose front doors or bathroom windows or gardens were overlooked by the high steel flats responded vigorously to Tron St Mary’s campaign to collect clothes and furniture for the Kosovans. Some had seen them arrive off the bus and had returned to their houses shaken and horrified, others had been told about the poor souls and the terrible state they were in; fleeing a war-torn country and arriving with nothing. The concierges received black bag after black bag of donations and when the press conference was over they opened up the com- munity flat and spread everything out on some tables they’d put together. There were some quality items; clothes and shoes, bedding, rugs, crockery. Then they suggested to the Kosovan men and women that they come up, or down, and choose things that they would like to have. The asylum seekers were grateful and enthused and this enthused the local people more and they raked through their own belongings again and returned with more black bags. Eventually, the concierges said enough was enough. ‘Take your stuff to the church,’ they said.
‘We’re full to bursting.’ There was a feeling among the local people that they had done good, that they couldn’t stand by and see so many poor souls suffer. They’re on our turf, Glasgow, and we’ll look after them.
Ermira 1999
Ramiz clapped his hands and silenced the young people in the community flat. He looked at the concierge who stood in the corner with his keys.
‘Okay, some of you know me,’ he said. ‘I’m Ramiz. My job is an interpreter. I’m Kosovan Albanian but I came to London first, last year. I didn’t have to flee like some of you.’
Ramiz looked at Ermira and paused. She touched her hands to her knees and avoided his eyes. Ramiz was Ermira’s brother-in-law. His English was fluent. He told jokes to the concierges and they laughed. Always he was on at her to do something with her days because she was too old to go to the school in Hillhead with the other teenagers. But she wished he’d leave her alone to watch television.
Ramiz started speaking again, in English this time because, he said, it was essential that they improved quickly.
‘You need to learn Scottish words. Glaswegians speak quickly. There’s a whole new vocabulary here. Wean. What’s that?’
Nobody spoke.
‘It means child. Next one: messages? What are they?’
‘Like a note or a letter,’ said a guy Ermira knew from the plane.
‘Ahah, no! It means shopping. You go to the shops for your messages. Isn’t that right John?’
The concierge nodded his head and pushed out his lips as if to say, why not?
‘Who wants to have English classes? Tell me?’
Hands went up and Ramiz said he would take names at the end of the meeting.
He then said he wanted everyone to enroll on courses at the colleges on Cathedral Street. A vocational course that w
ill give you a job. Hairdressing. Food technology. Computing. I’ll help you, he told them, and Ermira knew he would. And her sister would too, because they were like that. Driven. Passionate. Caring. But they hadn’t fled to Macedonia and lost their moth- er in the mess at the border like she had.
Lastly, Ramiz brought out his recent acquisition, one that he’d told Ermira about already. In fact he’d saved one for her and it was in her house, in a handbag she’d taken from the table-loads of donated clothes.
‘Here. For all of you. This is a free bus pass from First Glasgow. Use it to explore your new city. Be careful and have fun. Remember, come to me and tell me what you want to study.’ While Ramiz and the concierge gave out the bus passes Ermira left the room. She heard Ramiz call her name but she didn’t turn back to see his hopeful, energetic face. She would see it later, back in the house. There would be no avoiding it there.
Beki
Everywhere you go you would see same furniture. If I went to my friends you would see same furniture but different colours. They had furnished flats. Okay, my mum had red furnitures. My mum’s flat went for red. Red carpet, red sofas, there was one three-seat sofa, two chairs, three tables, small ones, one kitchen table like dining table with four chairs. Bedrooms were mattress and all that, they were like pink, wardrobe was light brown, light pine. I went to my friend she had same but in green. Most of them were green, red and like yellow with green. It was so funny. Wherever I go I see same size of house and same furniture. That’s why people didn’t get jealous of each other, the neighbours, because nobody had better than anyone else.
Pamela 1999
It came out aggressively because Pamela was tired and wrung out and not doing well.
‘Ma,’ she said, ‘You know my favourite tracksuit, the one that got nicked that I got back, did you give it away?’
‘It’s been in the bottom of my wardrobe for about ten year and you’ve never mentioned it in about ten year so I took it to Ten Red Road for the Kosovans. And don’t give me a row about it, I’m not in the mood.’
This Road is Red Page 22