“Aye,” says Liam, “and if any ay them’s got baws, it’s gaunny be Margaret-Anne McCall.”
§
Karen fumbles reluctantly with the buttons on her blouse, feeling more self-conscious today than yesterday, on the first occasion she had to get undressed here in the changing room. She knows it could be worse—the boys apparently don’t have separate shower cubicles, and have to get in and out of their underwear in front of each other. She only has to get changed into her shorts and T-shirt, but it still feels very uncomfortable. She doesn’t imagine anybody is going to be particularly staring at her; there’s much more worth looking at elsewhere, but that in itself is part of the problem.
As they undress, Karen reckons that she’d have been able to tell which of her new classmates would turn out to be wearing a bra even if she had seen them only from the back. They’re the ones who are first off with their gear, chatting away as they pop open buttons, and conspicuously facing away from the benches and pegs as they do so. Karen can’t help thinking that it’s because they want the others to notice, like it’s a status symbol. She wonders, conscious of all these willingly displayed over-the-shoulder boulder-holders, does having breasts help you develop confidence and popularity, or does having confidence and popularity help you develop breasts?
That one Caroline, from St Gregory’s, had her blouse off in seconds but seems in no hurry to replace it with a gym T-shirt, presumably in case anybody fails to notice not only her bra, but that she’s got something to fill it with. Admittedly she’s not got quite as much to fill it with as Margaret-Anne, a formidably stocky girl whose own lack of shyness seems less to do with confidence as raw aggression.
Of the bra-wearers, only the fat ones seem huddled, backs turned, reluctant to expose anything. Or the fat ones and Karen, to be precise.
Her mum bought her it for going to the big school, that being the given reason because the obvious one—showing signs of growing breasts—was non-applicable. It seemed bloody unfair. She was always the tallest girl in class, which made her feel awkward and conspicuous, but she had somehow convinced herself that the consolation for this would be that she’d be among the first to mature physically. It was the biggest girls who developed first, wasn’t it?
Well, no, apparently not always.
So there she was, still just about the tallest girl in her new class, still awkward, still conspicuous, still flat as a billiard table. She hadn’t seen the point of the bra, and had intended to stick with her comfy vests. That was until yesterday’s first PE lesson, however. There, amid all that cotton and lace, she could see divisions forming along the vest⁄bra faultline, and decided that the only thing her classmates would consider more weanish and uncool than a mousy wee short lassie in a vest was an unmissable big tall lassie in a vest. But her self-consciousness yesterday lest anybody spot her in her sleeveless wonder was positively carefree compared to how she feels now about unbuttoning to reveal this itchy and redundant article. She turns to face the wall so that anyone who happens to look can see it only from the back, hoping also that nobody remembers she wasn’t wearing one the last time. Her ringers turn to bananas around the buttons, her sudden haste to limit her exposure and get the T-shirt on serving only to make her more clumsy. She wonders if there’s any way of getting the T-shirt on and slipping the blouse off beneath it. Not with the length of these arms, she reckons.
“Heh, you,” says a voice, gravelly and harsh: Margaret-Anne. “Carol.”
Karen feels relief that it’s not her being addressed, then shudders as she feels a finger tap her shoulder.
“I’m talkin tae you.”
“It’s Karen,” she says. She has to turn round, and so pulls her blouse closed again, holding both sides of it tight across her sternum.
“Just wanted tae ask ye a question.”
“Yeah?”
“See if you’d nae feet, would you wear shoes?”
Karen is knocked a little off-stride by the oddness of the query, but is grateful that it’s not the challenge or accusation that Margaret-Anne’s tone suggested. It’s something she’ll have to get used to, she reckons: Margaret Anne’s got the kind of voice that would make ‘Good morning’ sound like she was trying to start a fight.
“Eh, no. Course not. How?”
“Cause I was wonderin why you’re wearin a bra.”
Stranger on Home Ground
Okay, take two for meeting Scotty. This time, at least, he can’t say he’s stuck at work, as Martin is meeting him where Scotty says he’s working today. However, as Martin makes his way there by taxi, he is harbouring doubts about whether Scot is taking the piss. It’s Saturday, for one thing, but the main suspicion, once again, is the venue. Is the bastard setting him up on a tour of the sites of ghastly personal memories?
“The Bleachfield Hotel, you say?” the driver turns around to ask. “Did I hear ye right?”
“Yeah.”
“Nae bother, pal, it’s just…I’m sure I heard somebody say they were knockin it doon.”
This acts, paradoxically, as an assurance that Scot will be there. He is an architect, after all.
“It’s aw right. I’m no lookin for a billet,” Martin tells him. As he says the words, he’s slightly surprised at what’s coming out of his own mouth, a stark contrast to how he’d addressed the cabby on his way to Heathrow just two days earlier. All these years of living in London have softened his accent, but more pertinently rendered much of his colloquial vocabulary dormant. It wasn’t a conscious process, more a gradual grinding down. In the capital, as soon as they heard your accent, they seemed to ask you to repeat yourself on a point of principle (though if you told them to go and fuck themselves, they never seemed to have any bother understanding that). However, even down there, any time he finds himself in Scottish company, he instantly reverts to the mother tongue. He’s aware he’s doing it, too, even though it’s not an entirely conscious act. He wonders if it’s a kind of politeness, a form of patronising or a sort of social camouflage, like Woody Alien in Zelig.
He stood out a mile in the playground when he first started at St Lizzie’s because he was about the only kid in the place who pronounced all his consonants and didn’t employ a glottal stop. It didn’t take long for the transformation to start, much to his mother’s initial dismay, but as long as he could demonstrate that he was able to switch it on and off, she generally didn’t worry too much.
Last night, talking to Jojo, he had found himself oscillating erratically between one and the other. He had instinctively slipped into his hometown dialect but had consciously reined it back at times. He was partly afraid she’d call him on the discrepancy, slag him for being the polite wee boy who learnt to talk like the others at school. But it had also been partly because he wanted to emphasise his distance from here, and from her. Being a prick and—you were right, Jojo—being a snob.
“Aye,” the driver says, indicating the heavy plant looming between them and their destination. “Looks like they’re tearin the place doon, right enough.”
Twenty years too late, Martin thinks.
He pays the fare and gets out on to the pavement, the hotel car park being blocked off by cones. The Bleachfield is on the outskirts of Paisley, on the road to Carnock and Braeside. The railway to Glasgow runs past to the north, crossing the road over an old iron bridge. There are houses in adjacent blocks, fifties-built bungalows with long front gardens, the better to distance them from the passing traffic and the eyesore on the other side of the carriageway. The residents will probably have a party once the action starts, with everybody dancing to the wrecking-ball swing.
Martin walks up the short driveway towards where the heavy machinery is ranged, and soon clocks Scot in a hard-hat, talking to a burly bloke wearing a luminous yellow jacket and boots with more tread than tractor tyres. It’s the burly bloke who notices Martin, then Scot looks to see what’s caught his eye. He grins and gives Martin a wave, holding up two fingers to indicate he has to finish talking but
won’t be long. A few seconds later, the burly bloke nods and walks away. Scot grabs a second hard-hat from the track of a crane and turns to face Martin.
There are a few flecks of grey just visible beneath the hat, and he’s got a wee bit extra around the waist, though not much. His face hasn’t changed a bit. People always look younger when they smile, even Noodsy yesterday, but in Martin’s experience, the ones who smile the most are those whose faces age the least. From that first day at St Lizzie’s, Scot had been an ongoing source of cheerfulness and effortless reassurance that whatever you were getting all worked up about simply wasn’t worth it. Martin wonders where he’d be today if he hadn’t stopped listening. Most of his problems and fuck-ups in life had been down to being in too much of a hurry to get somewhere else, to be someone else. Scotty was the one guy who was happy being himself. The trendy crowd at St Grace’s were always striving for maturity, desperate to be taken as seriously as possible. Scotty was never striving to reach somewhere life would inescapably take him eventually, and gave the impression seriousness was a major impediment to enjoying life. One look and Martin realises how much he has missed the guy, how wasteful it’s been that so many years have gone by with little more than a few emails passing between them.
Martin’s instinct is to hug him, but it’s easily suppressed. They shake hands and smile, a little awkwardly.
Reputations
“I hope it’s a side,” says Chick Dunlop. “I heard 1S1 and 1S2 played each other when it was their second time at PE.”
“Hockey’s pish anyway,” says Kevin Duffy.
“Aye, but at least if it’s a side, you’re gettin a game, no just borin exercises wi a baw an a stick like yesterday.”
“And you should enjoy it while you can,” says Kenny Langton. “Because it’s meant tae be fuckin rugby next month.”
“Aw fuck, man. Rugby’s really pish,” Kevin moans. “And have you seen the state of the rugby pitch? Like a fermer’s field.”
“That’s because it is a fermer’s field,” Chick informs him. “Over the summer holidays. Coos shitin all over it an every-thin. So be fuckin grateful for a wee game ay hockey the noo.”
“A side’ll be a good laugh,” says Tarn Mclntosh. He’s got close-cropped hair, almost like a skinhead or an army recruit. He strikes Martin as a bit of a hard-nut, not remotely wary of his words or behaviour around either the class’s two giants or the boys from other schools, though his demeanour is a sight more cheerful than the headcases usually exhibit. “Did they pick teams, or did 1S1 play 1S2?”
“I think they played each other,” says Chick.
“We should sort oot teams and positions, well,” Tarn suggests. “So’s we can give 1S6 a doin. Plus, saves fannyin aboot once we get oot there.”
If we ever get out there, Martin thinks.
“Aye, good shout,” says Kenny.
“Bagsy no me in goals,” says Kevin.
“Bagsy no me neither,” says somebody else.
“Bagsy no me an aw.”
“Hang on,” Kenny says. “Bagsy nothin. We need a keeper, for fuck’s sake. Who’s goin in goal?”
“The weest yin,” says Andy Brady, sitting on the opposite bench. “Him,” he adds, pointing briefly at Martin but barely looking at him. He makes his suggestion matter-of-factly, like it’s simply understood, though there is an unmissable contempt in his dismissiveness. Andy reminds Martin of Robbie. He’s scowly and sleekit, seldom smiling.
He is also, more pertinently, surely no taller than Martin, which one of his ex-St Gregory’s classmates takes delight in pointing out: “He’s bigger than you, Andy, ya wank,” says Scan Cassidy. “Same size, anyway.”
“Fuck off, you know what I mean: the poofiest. That’s who goes in goals.”
Martin says nothing, feels his cheeks burn, hopes nobody notices.
Kenny Langton has got to his feet and is looking back and forth between Martin and Andy. “You any good in goals?” he asks Martin, looking him in the face. He doesn’t add the expected ‘wee man’, which tells Martin a lot more about the guy than any of the stuff he’s heard.
“Shite,” Martin replies with a smile.
“Nae point in puttin you in goals, then. Well volunteered, Orb, good shout.”
“Me?” Andy cries, outraged. “Why me? I’m shite as well.”
“Aye, but you’re fuckin horrible and everybody hates ye, so there’s a good chance the other team’ll be tryin tae hit you wi the baw rather than score.”
“Fuck’s sake,” he moans, apparently knowing better than to contest the decision further.
“Orb?” someone asks.
“Aye,” says Kenny. “Orble Andy.”
They’re all laughing: the St Elizabeth’s and St Margaret’s ones because they’ve never heard this before; the St Gregory’s ones because they love hearing it again. All laughing except Andy, naturally.
He stares directly across at Martin and jabs a finger towards him, though keeping his hand close to his stomach, like he doesn’t want it widely noted. “You’re fuckin gettin it later,” he says under his breath. He looks like he means it.
“Well, thank fuck it’s no me in goals,” announces Tarn. “Ma hauns are still fuckin stingin after gettin the lash.”
“You got the lash?” asks Kenny. “When? Ya sneaky bastart!” he adds, laughing.
“Just at the interval there.”
“Whit for?”
“Fuckin caught havin a drag.”
“Where?”
“In behind Tech Drawin. Fuckin McGinty caught us, the assistant heidie. I was only gettin a wee puff ay Rab Daly’s dowt.”
“I was just away fae there,” says Chick. “I shared a fag wi some big Third Year lassie. Must have just missed ye.”
“Just missed McGinty, ye mean, ya jammy bastard. He lashed everybody.”
“Is he good at it?” asks Kenny.
“All right. Had worse at St Greggy’s, but the cunt gave us four—two on each haun. It’s the second yin that’s fuckin sair, man.”
“Aye, I’ve heard they can give ye four at a time up here,” says Kevin.
“Just for really bad hings,” says Tarn. ‘Cardinal Sins, the cunt says. “And smoking is the worst of them,’” he mimics.
“Maist ay them are pish at givin it, but,” says Scan. “Ma big brer says, anyway. Apart fae Kerr, the geography teacher. It’s supposed tae be fuckin agony aff him.”
“But he’s a wee skinny guy,” says Tarn.
“Aye, but he’s meant tae have some fuckin brilliant technique. He stretches it or somethin. I don’t know. All I’ve heard is you’re best tae keep the right side ay him.”
“So is that Tam the first tae get it, well?” asks Chick. “Anybody else had it?”
All heads are shaken.
“Congratulations, man,” Chick says. “First aff the mark.”
“Four nothin,” Tam adds, holding up both hands like he’s taking applause.
“Aye, but it’s a marathon, no a sprint,” warns Kenny. “We’ll catch up wi ye soon.”
“Come ahead,” says Tam, smiling.
“Naw, but seriously,” insists Chick. “Let’s see who can get the maist lashes.”
“Today?” asks Kenny.
“Naw, let’s make it tae the end ay the month.”
“Fuckin brilliant, aye,” agrees Scan.
“Aye, we should all chip in for a prize,” suggests Kenny. “Get a wee shitey plastic fitba trophy fae the sports shop up the Main Street.”
“That would be gallus,” agrees someone else.
“Aye,” chips in Andy. “An whoever has the least should get a fuckin doin from everybody as well.”
“Whit? Why?” Chick asks.
“So’s everybody has tae join in and wee snobby poofs like Jackson here cannae shite oot it.”
“Whit have ye got against Martin?” asks Scan. “Have ye finally discovered somebody ye think ye can batter, is that it?”
Eureka, Martin reckons.
“Martin Jackson?” Tarn suddenly asks. “That’s your name? You’re Martin Jackson?”
“Aye,” Martin confirms, a little uneasy at Tarn’s enthusiasm.
“Why?” asks Kenny, intrigued.
“I heard you fought Boma Turner once,” Tam says.
“Aye, that’s right,” confirms Kevin before Martin can respond. “Marty ended up wi blood all over the place, but.”
“It wasnae exactly—” Martin begins, but is interrupted.
“Fuck’s sake, man,” Tam says, laughing. “Boma’s whit? Two years aulder than ye an twice your fuckin size, but ye still…Fuck’s sake, man. Mental.”
Martin smiles bashfully, wanting the issue to close, wanting the attention to focus elsewhere. He tries again to say what really happened, but the dressing room is now a babble of voices stating variously how much of a scary and vicious bastard Boma Turner is, as well as listing the illustrious names etched alongside Martin’s on his list of vanquished opponents.
Martin got a doing from Boma, an absolute doing. It was over in seconds, and he doesn’t think he even landed a blow. But this is proof that on St Grace’s virgin territory, the reputations game can go both ways. He’s already heard via a St Margaret’s kid that it was Richie Ryan who once stood up to the deputy heidie and Father Wolfe at St Elizabeth’s. Once upon a time it must have got around Braeview that Boma Turner leathered a kid called Martin Jackson, but while the outcome has not been forgotten, it has been remembered as a fight rather than an assault, and it seems that to have fought and lost is better than never to have fought at all.
Martin doesn’t know where to look, but happens to catch sight of Andy again. All the threat has drained from his face and he is suddenly very interested in the toggle on his duffle bag.
Plans
“Sorry again about last night,” Scot says, once they’ve traded the standard hails and enquiries.
2007 - A tale etched in blood and hard black pencel Page 19