John didn’t know. Perhaps he was jaded. It could have been the bag of bread that landed on his head when he stood outside the building and he’d never know where it came from because when he looked up, all the windows were shut. Not as bad as the fire extinguisher that the students smashed onto the roof of the bmw next to where he stood and could have killed him. At least they’d caught the guys that did that, though. Or perhaps it was because his job was about to go. Because they’d moved some of the concierges on already – concierges who’d spent as long as he had, or longer, at Red Road. He was told he’d be given another concierge job or an alternative job and God knows what that would be.
So the mainstreams were moving out to the new builds at the foot of the Red Road Flats but still the asylums came. Perhaps that was getting to him. This constant flow of persecuted people from all over the globe. Some globe. And locally the bnp were stirring things up snake-like, taking advantage of people’s poverty and the media’s misrepresentation. He saw it every day in his paper. He’d heard too many times the main- streams say that they wanted out of Red Road because they hardly saw a white face anymore. The asylums were no bother. If anything, they were less bother than the mainstreams because they kept themselves to themselves; they didn’t pester or badger or, let’s face it, harass the concierges. It wasn’t the same in that Christmas was quiet and a non-event and they hardly got a single tin of biscuits or a card for their work during the year and a family could be living in the block for months and he would never see them or he wouldn’t recognise them when he did. But crime was down. Joyriding was finished. Drugs weren’t the problem they used to be. John didn’t know. Maybe it was the weather. Maybe it was the starless and moonless night that was doing it for him.
Each floor of the slab block nearest to Ten Red Road – Ten, Twenty and Thirty Petershill Court – needed to be checked. Most of the floors were uninhabited, with steel bolted onto the doorways of each house. They had to check, though, in case there was somebody sleeping on the landing or dead on the landing, snuck in through the main doors. Although the updated door entry system in this block meant that a message was sent to the computer in the Ten Red Road office with the name of each person whose key fob accessed the doors, it wasn’t impossible that somebody could get in.
Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. On his own in the lift to the top of the block, watching the red numbers go up and up and up and the tiny lift shake in its shaft. The remaining tenants were spread around the three joined-up blocks. Thirty-three lights in thirty- three living rooms. He didn’t expect to see anyone until he walked all the way down to the twentieth floor. So why did it sound like there were doors closing and footsteps above? He told himself it was because the doors he’d opened to check each land- ing took a wee while to close. Simple. He couldn’t explain the footsteps so he would forget about it.
‘Jesus Mary and Joseph!’ A man was just inside the door that went from the stairs to the landing. He was coming out of his front door and seemed as frightened as John.
‘I don’t expect to see a soul up here,’ the man said. He was an hpu. The majority of tenants were from the Homeless Person Unit or were mainstreams, not wanting to move to one of the local houses but waiting until a house came up in another part of Glasgow – perhaps one where family or friends lived. Everybody was waiting to leave.
The tenant called for the lift and John went on his way down the stair. He still didn’t know. There wasn’t much chance of him and George working together on a new job. It was a shame. You didn’t get better partnerships.
The other floors were quiet. On floor seven it was a relief to hear a television behind one of the doors. He thought it must be strange for the tenants left behind to live on deserted landings. Or maybe it was peaceful. Maybe that’s what people wanted now; to be undisturbed in their houses, not to know their neighbours, not to be living cheek by jowl.
Three in the morning. One block left to check and then he and George would make a cup of tea and sit in the office and keep an eye on the cctv monitors. In the last block the shutters to the old concierge office were pulled down and undisturbed.
A tenant came out of the lift and lunged at John.
‘It’s coming,’ she said.
The tenant was pregnant. It was Susie Ho. She lived with her husband on floor nineteen and they were waiting for a house in Knightswood.
‘Oh hen, are you all right?’
‘It’s coming,’ Susie said again and she put her hands flat against the wall and bent over.
‘Is it a contraction?’
Susie nodded and said yes with an intake of breath so that it came out as a gasp. This was serious.
‘Have you phoned an ambulance?’
Susie nodded again and cried out. When her contraction had finished she stood up and began to walk to the door.
‘Where are you going?’
‘To wait for the ambulance.’
‘Hen, wait here,’ John said. ‘We’ll sit you down in the office and you can be comfortable.’
‘Nothing is comfortable,’ Susie said but she waited with John while he opened the door to the old concierge office, flicked on the lights and pulled out a chair for Susie to sit on. The office was like the bloody Marie Celeste, everything as if the concierges had stood up and walked out one day. Which is what they did, really. She put her legs astride the chair and leaned her body towards the chair-back but began to struggle and didn’t seem comfortable. John helped her up. ‘My bump’s too big,’ she said and then she leaned against John and roared.
‘It’s coming. It’s another contraction. Oh God.’ Her legs shook and began to buckle. John helped her to the floor and leaned her back against the wall.
‘Right,’ he said. ‘I’ll phone the ambulance to see where it is. Where’s your husband, Susie? Tell me he’s not up the stair.’
‘He’s away at a conference. He didn’t want to go but I’m only thirty-six weeks. I said I’d be okay.’
Susie leaned back against the wall and put a hand on her forehead and a hand on her belly.
‘You just rest there,’ John said and he went to radio George to tell him what had happened but thought he’d better check on the ambulance first.
Susie began to breathe heavily, in and out through her nose.
‘It’s another one,’ she said and she continued to breathe, her chest rising and her head turning from side to side. Her face was pale and sweaty. He made to get a towel from the back room but the operator answered.
‘I’m checking on an ambulance. I’ve got a lady here and she’s about to give birth.’
Susie moaned through her contraction and put her hands on the floor next to her and said, ‘I want to push. I need to push.’
‘Did you hear that?’ John said to the operator. ‘She wants to push.’
‘Right. How regular are her contractions? Can you tell me if you can see anything? Can you see a head?’
‘Okay.’ John put the phone on speaker and said to Susie,
‘Your contractions, how far apart are they?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Well that’s about a minute since the last one. Or maybe less. A minute at most!’ he shouted into the phone.
‘Okay, can you tell me if you can see a head?’
‘Susie, I need to see if the baby’s coming.’
‘I can feel something heavy.’
Susie lifted her hips, pulled down her tracksuit and kicked off her trainers.
‘I can feel something heavy,’ Susie said again. ‘I want to push.’
‘Yes, there’s something there,’ John shouted into the phone.
‘Do you think it’s the head?’
‘I think it’s the head.’
‘It’s coming,’ Susie said.
‘Okay, on the next contraction, you need to put your hand on the baby’s head and hold it gently. You’ve got to stop it from shooting out or she’ll tear, do you understand?’
‘Aye.’
‘Have you go
t clean towels?’
‘No.’
‘Run and get clean towels if you can.’
John leapt to his feet and Susie screamed, ‘Don’t leave me,’ but he ran to the back office. There was a dish towel on the side next to the sink but it seemed used. He pulled open drawers, praying he’d see a pile of clean, folded towels. He didn’t know this office. When he found a drawer with some dish towels he grabbed the lot. No hand towels. Nothing else of use. Susie was crying out again.
‘She’s having another one,’ John said and he spread out a dish towel.
‘Remember,’ the operator said. ‘Apply firm but gentle pres- sure to the baby’s head.’
‘Until the ambulance gets here?’
‘No, the baby wants to be born, but you must hold its head there so she doesn’t tear. How’s mum?’
‘She’s doing really well.’
‘I’m in agony!’
‘I know, I know, but you’re doing really well,’ the operator said on the phone’s loudspeaker.
‘Can you see the head?’
‘A little. I think it’s the head.’
‘Well, remember to apply firm and gentle pressure when she has her next contraction. And when the head does come through you have to support it, yes? And support the baby’s shoulders. They’ll be slippery. Don’t drop it.’
Susie leaned her head back and roared through her con- traction. ‘It’s coming. I need to push.’ She squeezed her eyes tight shut and scrabbled at the floor. John had a sudden thought that she shouldn’t be giving birth in this dirty disused office, but there was nothing he could do about that now.
He applied gentle pressure to the baby’s head and felt the baby pushing against his hand. It was coming. Then the pressure eased.
‘Oh my God, oh my God,’ Susie said and John wished he could mop her brow or hold her hand but God, he was delivering a baby.
The next contraction came within seconds and he could feel the head wanting to burst out so he applied pressure as the head kept coming.
‘How are you doing?’ said the operator. ‘Can you see the head?’
John was silent.
‘Can you see the head?’ the operator said again.
‘The head’s out! The head’s out!’ John shouted.
‘The head’s out?’ Susie cried. ‘Oh my God, oh my God, oh help me.’
‘Are you supporting the head? Hold onto the head and remember to support the shoulders when they come and then the hips and legs. The baby will be slippery.’
‘Come on wee baby,’ John said. The baby’s eyes were closed. Its face was blue and wrinkled.
Susie’s cry tore into the room. John told her she was doing well. His hands were bloodied and he held onto the baby’s head. Liquid surged over the baby’s head and on to John’s forearms and he shouted, ‘There’s water coming out!’
‘That’ll be her waters breaking. It’s okay. How’s mum?’
‘She’s doing great.’
Then the shoulders came.
‘The shoulders are here,’ he said and Susie cried out again.
‘Well done,’ said the operator. ‘Remember to hold tight. Baby will be slippery.’
The operator was right. The baby was slippery. So slippery he prayed he wouldn’t drop it. It was coming now, nearly all of it, body, hips, bum and legs. Susie panted and said ‘oh oh oh,’ over and over. John saw the cord still attached to the baby he held in his outstretched hands.
‘How are you doing?’ the operator said.
‘The baby’s out. The baby’s born. The cord –’
‘Clean its nose and mouth. Wipe it with a clean cloth. Then wrap it in a different clean cloth. Keep it warm. Don’t pull the cord.’
So many instructions. Susie was whimpering in high-pitched out-breaths. It was hard to hold the baby and reach for a dish towel. God, he didn’t want to drop it and it was so slippery. He held the baby against his chest, keeping his arms tight around it. He wiped a clean dish towel over the baby’s face and waited
for it to cry. He knew it had to cry. He wrapped the tiny wrinkled baby in a dish towel and then wrapped it again in another one. The cord was still attached.
‘The ambulance is thirty seconds away,’ the operator said.
‘Is it crying yet?’ Not yet.
‘Shall I give the baby to mum?’
‘Is it crying? Make sure its mouth and nose are clear.’ John had no more dish towels left. He wiped its nose and mouth again with the corner of a used one and then the baby opened its mouth and cried. It bleated and opened its eyes once, twice, then closed them again and cried some more.
‘That’s the baby crying,’ John said and he felt relief in his face and shoulders and arms and he began to shake. Don’t drop the baby.
Susie was quiet, shaking, her head tipped back against the wall and her eyes half open, watching her baby. Her hair was jet black compared with her pale face.
‘I’ll give the baby to mum, will I?’
‘Yes,’ the operator said. ‘The placenta will be delivered soon. Don’t pull the cord. The ambulance men will help you. Give the baby to mum. Do you know what you have?’
John didn’t know. He must have seen because he’d had the bare baby in his hands, but he didn’t know or he couldn’t remem- ber. He moved closer to Susie and as she held out her arms, he put the swaddled baby against her chest. She cradled it in her arms and her baby’s face was close to her own face. The baby breathed.
John took off his coat, and encouraged Susie to lean forwards and let it slip over her shoulders and down her back. Susie was quiet. She kissed her baby’s wet head.
‘The ambulance is pulling up outside now,’ the operator said and her voice was more relaxed now, a strange sound coming from the phone on the floor beside John. ‘I’ll wait till they get inside then I’ll leave you with them. Is it a boy or a girl?’
Susie smiled. ‘Shall we see?’ she said, and John helped her pull open the cloth around the baby and peek. ‘It’s a boy,’ she said.
‘A boy,’ said John.
‘A boy. Congratulations. You’ve done really well. Both of you.’
‘Thank you,’ said Susie and she put her fingers to John’s bloodied hand and then her fingers returned to touch lightly on the cloth that swaddled her baby.
Blue lights flashed a pattern in the foyer and John got up to let the paramedics in. The operator said goodbye. The para- medics attended to Susie and the baby boy and John stood in the doorway looking at the way they swiftly organised the scene and cleaned up Susie. He turned away and looked at the wall and then asked them if he could do anything.
‘No,’ they said and they had Susie in a wheelchair and the baby in her arms very quickly. And because her husband was away and there was nobody Susie could call, they took her away to the Royal.
God. A baby.
He found a mop and bucket and some disinfectant and cleaned the floor. Then he bundled the dish towels and put them in a bin bag. That was all he needed to do. The office was as they’d found it. Papers scattered on the desk, shelves of files and a4 notebooks. He would write up the incident book when he returned to Ten Red Road.
Outside, the concrete crunched under his shoes. The wet breeze cooled his damp neck and back and arms. He remembered he’d left his coat in the old office, but he didn’t want to go back. It was a short walk to where George would be waiting for him in the office but one that took him some time for stopping and raising his face to the black sky and starting again and stopping to flick his wet eyes to the lights he could see in the windows of the dark towers. Oh God have mercy on us he said out loud and crossed his arms to hug his shoulders as he walked, waiting a while, out of sight of the cctv camera, to shake and sob and get it out of his system.
Jim 2010
Jim had his meeting and told them he didn’t want to leave and a week later his daughter phoned for the doctor. They took him to hospital all of a sudden because his chest was weak and infected and the pain in his arthritic hip wa
s masking some complications. He sat in a wheelchair with a blanket over his knees as they pushed him out of his house, his pictures and trinkets and piles of books flashing by him. Down in the lift to leave Red Road for the last time.
They left his body in the chapel for a night. The same chapel as his wife. Janet came to see him and lit a candle. They said his name from the stage at Alive and Kicking when the elderly folk were at the tables eating, and told them that he’d passed away. Despite the smiling walls, the hall was sad that day and nobody felt like singing, especially the old Irish songs.
Mariam 2010
Mariam lit a candle and put it with the others in the spot outside the YMCA. She didn’t know them but her brother played football with the boy. Rumours were rife and varied; they were about to be deported, they were wanted by the Russian mafia, the Canadian Intelligence were after them too. But they did jump. Tied together. And they died where they landed. Those were facts. Mariam was aware of tension and panic and fright and anger. Many people milled around. She watched a photographer take a picture of a young woman her age who lived in the ymca too. The woman glared at the photographer and turned away, then she turned back and spoke and used her hands a lot when she spoke and her face was angry. The photographer took his pad from his pocket, listened, and wrote.
John McNally
I still live in the flats. Twenty-seven/four, One-two-three Petershill Drive. G21 4QU. Same flat since when I first moved in. 1969. Any people that I know have left, they say they kind of miss it because they were well laid out. There were no stairs or that. It’s the view that actually kept me there. My living room looks to the west with the whole of Glasgow spread out in front of me and believe it or not I can see the Arran hills. And Thursday and Friday there the sunsets were absolutely beautiful. Thursday and Friday were beautiful. For a daft old man like me, an old gas worker talking about sunsets, is there a name for it, aesthetic?
Concierges 2010
George came back one day with a tiny black and white cat. It stayed in his arms contentedly when he sat on the desk and stroked its head, rubbing his fingers between its tiny black ears.
This Road is Red Page 27