A Billy or a Dan, or an Old Tin Can

by Paul Kelly

  Turning the pages, in desperation, he eventually arrived at the “Ms.” and his finger slowly traced its way down the page.

  “Mastitis ... Mastodon ... Mastoid ... Mast ...!”

  He closed the book with a bang and shoved it back on the shelf, unsettling some other books and catching them swiftly with his hand before they too fell to the floor.

  “My God ...He thinks I’m a wanker.

  The doorbell rang and Aggie put down the book she was reading, to answer it.

  “Is Willie in?” ... a faint female voice enquiry came from outside the door and Willie pricked up his ears as he looked anxiously at Meggie who was sitting quietly beside him.

  “Oh! Hello Moira. Willie It’s wee Moira McKenzie, to see you,” Aggie called out from the hall as Willie shuffled about and collected some of his homework together from the floor when he had spread it out to view it more clearly.

  “Tell her I’m oot,” he whispered and made to go into the kitchen but Aggie ignored his request.

  “Come in Moira. Willie’s just finished his homework. Would you like a wee cup of tea?”Moira McKenzie was anything BUT ‘wee’. She took small steps as she came into the house, refusing the tea with a quiet wave of her hand and a dimpled smile on her plump, round face. She was indeed a big girl a very big girl and Willie emerged from the kitchen giving Aggie a look that could kill as he forced a frozen smile for his visitor.

  “Hello Moira,” he said, at length.

  “Hello Willie,” she replied coyly as she started to dance Not proper dance steps, you know just fidgety movements to hide her excitement, but Moira McKenzie looked radiant and was obviously thrilled that Willie had called her by her Christian name. That was a start she thought and remembered her mother had taught her that fact.... when she read to her from the book by Lindsey Cropper on ‘Facts of life that every young girl should know.’

  She blushed and pulled hell out of her print handkerchief as she stoodthere, fidgeting from foot to foot.

  “Would you would you like to go to the youth club dance tomorrow evening, Willie?” she asked demurely and fluttered her ginger eyelashes, sinking her pride against her mother’s solid advice and twisting her hankie to buggery as she blushed to high heaven.

  “I’m doin’ the barman’s job for the dance Moira,” he informed her with relaxed deference and smiled, thinking that would put Moira off looking for a partner.

  “Oh! well ... that’s alright then, because my brother Harry is doing the bar as well, but they only do it for half an hour each during the evening. I think there are four other boys doing it too,” she blurted in fast, nervous spasms, cutting the words into monosyllables and the wind was completely taken out of Willie’s sails as he looked across the room at Aggie, hoping she might intervene and save the situation, but she only smiled and looked away.

  Well ... Willie thought It was one thing to admire Moira McKenzie from afar, when the other lads looked on in envy, but to have Moira’s company exclusively for a whole evening .well, that was quite something else and he couldn’t understand why he had made any remarks about Moira in the first place. She made no impression on him whatsoever. She was in the playground and he looked at her. She danced on one foot and he had kept looking. That was all. . Well One would, wouldn’t One ...One could hardly miss her now ...Could one? Willie thought ...

  Moira was obviously disappointed at Willie’s apparent lack of interest, but by the look on her large, shiny face, she was determined to fight for her man ...just as her mother had told her she should do and as quoted in the Cropper woman’s handbook

  “I’ll see you there then, Willie, unless, you’d like to call for me. My mother wouldn’t mind,” she said triumphantly but softly and her eyelashes fluttered somewhat; not too much but just enough, the way her mother had told her ... and then she left.

  It would appear that the Cropper woman had nothing on Mrs. McKenzie who was determined that her daughter should shine at all costs and that was Mr. McKenzie’s views on the matter also.

  Aggie smiled as she sat down beside her brother, but she was very diplomatic and she held her counsel. She loved Willie very much, especially when he was in his present state of mind. She watched his brain going to work to avoid the situation that he now found himself in and then she got up to set the table for supper.

  “I have to be back at the factory in ten minutes Willie. Will you be alright until Sadie comes in? I don’t think she’ll be very long.”

  “Wish you hadn’t let her in Aggs,” he said quietly, pushing his teeth into his lower lip and still thinking of some way to get out of the mess she had helped to put him in.

  “Why not ... she’s a very nice girl Willie and you should be flattered that she has chosen to ask you to take her to the dance. She’s got more courage than I have. I couldn’t have asked a fella to go with me.”

  “But you’re not a youth Aggs. You wouldn’t be allowed in. You’re too old.”

  Willie stuffed his books under his arm as he left the room but not before Aggie gave him her curt if somewhat sarcastic answer.

  “Yes, that’s true Willie. I do understand ...a woman like that could cause a man a lot of trouble, I guess. I’m sure you’ll be the envy of all the boys in your class” she sniggered, thinking that Willie, the youngest Blair was growing into manhood as she took her coat from the hallstand and set off on her way to the lemonade factory.

  Willie pulled his school satchel open and threw his books into it, but as he passed the shelf near the wardrobe in the bedroom, where the dictionary stood, looking at him defiantly with its infinite knowledge that made him feel sick, he stuck out his tongue and then went to perform his ablutions, for when a man has to go then a man has to go.

  ***

  Charlie came home greatly excited. He had got the job he had applied for on the building site and was like a dog with two tails, but Mary was apprehensive of the dangers involved in the work he had to do, however, Charlie assured her it was a job that exempted him from the Forces and he didn’t want to leave home and go into the army anyway. The war had only just begun and had made little or no difference to life in Scotland, except for the conscription of all the young men over eighteen. Charlie guessed he would be conscripted in a few years time and he hoped he would get settled in the building trade, so that he would be exempt ... besides, he didn’t like the idea of killing anyone. The enemy were the enemy of the Government; not his ... and they were some mother’s son or some wife’s husband. Probably even someone’s brother, just like Willie was to him. No He definitely didn’t want to kill anyone. He had no enemies and didn’t want any. Let the brass hats at the top fight it out between themselves ... and leave the ordinary man in the street alone. That was Charlie’s motto. ...why couldn’t they sort all those matters of power and authority over a round table talk or something like that, he reflected quietly to himself for Charlie knew nothing about politics and neither was he interested. Definitely not . . .

  “How did your medical go, wee yin?” Charlie asked Willie in his usual impish, spoon-stirring ridicule of which he was so fond.

  “Awright,” said Willie, but he didn’t want to elaborate and hoped Charlie wouldn’t ask him any more detailed questions . . . but he did.

  “You’re very quiet about it. Is there anything wrong?” he persisted and Willie looked at his brother, with his eyes down and in disgust at his own thoughts.

  “No,” he said, “Why should there have to be anything wrong, just because I don’t want to talk about it?” he snorted and Charlie pulled his shirt over his head and straightened his blond fringe that fell about, all over his face.

  “Did he like your wee bottle?” he sniggered and began to giggle, but Willie remembered his friend’s bottle and confided to Charlie about Wattie’s bottle being as big as a tank and they both laughed together.

  “Well maybe Wattie pisses
more than most.”

  There was another burst of laughter and then Willie looked at the shelf by the wardrobe ... there was a silence a long silence, before he spoke again and his face looked quite pink.

  “Charlie ... When you had your medical at school, did the doctor say anything to you?”

  Charlie pulled off his vest and studied his chest in the mirror.

  “What do you mean?” he asked, still examining his biceps and squeezing the muscles between his fingers.

  “Well, did he say anything to you at all? I mean ... about anything?”

  “Don’t think so. At least I can’t remember anything Why?”

  Willie studied the floor and then looked into the mirror at Charlie’s reflection.

  “Don’t your eyes look funny in there Charlie? You look cross-eyed,” he said, hoping to make a diversion to the conversation ... but Charlie drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly again, studying his chest expansion and ignoring Willie’s remarks about his eyes as he pursued his own interrogations.

  “What did he say to you exactly? Come on, tell me.”

  Willie confided shyly and somewhat reluctantly about the word the doctor had used to him and which he had looked up in the dictionary and Charlie roared with laughter as he ran his fingers through his brother’s hair and tousled it about. He grabbed him by the shoulders and they both fell across the bed laughing.

  “Tell that doctor that all the Blairs have big yins ... an’ he’s only jealous because I bet he’s got a wee yin.” he cried and the bed shook with the laughter that neither could control.

  “What’s going on in there?” called Mrs. Blair from the kitchen. Willie was unaware that she was in the house.

  “We’re just talking about how all the male members of the Blair clan have been fine upright young men, Mammy that’s all.” Charlie offered his explanation of the merriment as he shoved his pillow into his mouth to stem his laughter and Mary Blair got on with her vegetables for dinner, humming a little tune and with a contented and complacent look on her gentle face.

  ***

  “Miss Carson?” Willie called out to the Headmistress from the crowd surrounding him in the playground. She turned around and removed a pencil from between her lips and stuck it behind her ear, under her sparse, ginger hair.

  “Yes ...did somebody call?”

  “Miss Carson, please?” Willie put his hand in the air.

  The Headmistress drew in her large bosom and her nostrils tightened.

  “Yes Blair and what’s the matter now?” she asked, as if Willie was in constant need of her valued attention and looked to the sky, awaiting some great disaster as was always the case when a pupil called her twice.

  “My wee sister is not too well today Miss and I would like to go home early as my mother has to go and see the doctor and there is nobody at home to look after her ... my wee sister, I mean. Can I go please, Miss Carson?”

  The Head Teacher listened to the garble and fumbled in her pocket for her scented hankie, with which she rubbed her eyes gently and then put it back in her pocket, but not before she had folded it into its original pleats.

  “Go to my office and wait for me there,” she called out as one of the other boys lunged into her in his attempt to get away from a fight with his mate.

  “Mind where you’re going, you great oaf,” she screamed and blew a whistle that she carried on a string around her neck. Silence prevailed once more, over the playground and Willie made his way to her office. He stood outside, waiting for Miss Carson to come along the corridor but the Secretary came out and told him to go inside and sit down, until the Headmistress came to see him, warning him as she herself left the office, that she wanted no nonsense.

  “Miss Carson won’t be long. Take a seat there and behave yourself,” she snapped and Willie did as she asked and waited, but the waiting seemed like an eternity and he hoped Miss Carson hadn’t forgotten him. He looked around the neat office and he could see something protruding from under the Headmistress’s desk .Of course he remembered. It was the peculiar shaped shoes. He moved nearer to investigate and to discover that they were indeed ladies brogues, complete with the tassel tongue hanging out over the laces. He giggled as he observed the shape where the bunions had made their mark on the highly polished uppers and he giggled even more as looked towards the door to ensure that Miss Carson wasn’t in sight, before he slipped his own shoes into the brogues and strutted around the room.

  “What in heaven’s name are you up to boy?”

  Willie froze where he stood as the Headmistress came through the office door and he struggled in vain to get the shoes off his feet, but they were wedged firmly and wouldn’t budge. She took a size seven, so they should have fitted, he thought, but then he hadn’t allowed for the shrinkage, due to the unfortunate bunions. His feet were stuck and he went the colour of beetroot as he stammered his apology.

  “Sorry Miss Carson,” he said softly and hung his head. He could think of nothing more to say and he could offer no excuse for his bad behaviour. It was just a mad spur of the moment caper and he closed his eyes to hear the worst.

  “Get them off immediately and go home to your sister,” she said and the hair of her facial mole seemed to curl up into the colour of bright orange.

  “Yes Miss but I think I’m stuck Miss. Could you help me please?”

  Miss Carson strained and pulled, as Willie sat on her desk chair with his foot between her legs and he could see her rear wobble in the process as she faced the wall.

  ***

  He reflected all the way home and his cheeks were burning.

  “Why didn’t she knock on the door before she came into the office? Everybody else did .” he asked himself.

  Chapter Three

  Charlie started work on the building site and although it was hard graft, he was happy. He wasn’t able to talk as much as he would have wished, but the anticipated wage packet on the following Friday compensated for everything, even if his muscles ached at the end of the first day. The weather was unusually hot for the time of year and especially in Scotland, so he stripped to the waist with the other men on the site, knowing that it wouldn’t be long before he would acquire a good tan.

  “Cooooh! She’s a corker,” exclaimed one of his mates as a young girl and boy passed the site. The girl was darker skinned than was usual for a girl born in Scotland and she had an attractive air about her as she walked with her suitcase in her hand. The boy looked a little younger and he also carried a suitcase. Charlie looked down from the scaffold platform where he was standing. He looked at the girl for a long time and she stopped and looked up.

  ***

  “Can I do your fire this morning?” Willie called out as Mrs. Harris approached him from a corner of the street, “It’s Saturday, you know.”

  “Yes please Willie. I would be grateful,” she answered as she began to climb the stairs of the tenement building opposite to where Willie lived.

  Mrs. Harris was a Jewish neighbour and Willie did some work for her each Saturday morning. She did as little as she could on the Sabbath and besides, Willie got tuppence for his chores. He cleaned out the fire-grate and set the new fire ready for lighting. He also did any other errands that the old lady might require and she considered him to be an honest and trustworthy young man who suited her requirements perfectly. Both were happy with the situation.

  He had just finished cleaning the grate when Mrs. Harris came into the kitchen followed by two young people. Willie stood up and rubbed his hands down his trousers.

  “These are my grandchildren, Willie. This is Rachael and this is Nathan.”

  Everybody shook hands and Willie blushed as he looked at Rachael. He had stretched his hand out before he realized how dirty they were, but she didn’t seem to notice as she smiled at him. “They will be staying with me here for a while, until
their parents can join them later. The Germans have bombed them out of their home in London and my son, Samuel and his wife Miriam had to get away quickly, so I am saddled with this pair of ruffians until they get themselves settled again. Rachael would you like to make some tea? Perhaps Willie would like a cup before he goes.”

  Willie watched Rachael as she moved and he liked what he saw. He liked her a lot and she didn’t look a bit like Moira McKenzie. He drank his tea but he felt very shy and tongue-tied and could think of nothing to say. Mrs. Harris gave him his tuppence and he backed out of the kitchen, unable to take his eyes away from this young vision who had suddenly visited him from the south. Nathan looked on. He was only eleven, but Rachael must have been fourteen or fifteen, he guessed. She was beautiful he concluded ...Just BEAUTIFUL, he thought as he ran down the tenement stairs in one building and up to the first floor of the other, three steps at a time.

  Charlie had spent his first week at the site and he would come home in the evenings, feeling tired beyond words. His eyes looked heavy and he always needed a bath which meant the water had to be heated in the geezer and the zinc bath filled in the kitchen. He sat down heavily on the settee and dropped off to sleep, whilst Aggie helped to get the bath water ready. Poor Aggie! Everything seemed to fall to her lot as she worked nearest the house, in the lemonade factory and could be home within a few minutes, after she had clocked out at the factory gates. Meggie was always looking for a job and Sadie never could make up her mind whether she wanted the interviews or not . in the event that she may get the opportunity of an acting career, or at least a part in the local amateur dramatics society. Her patience was infinite, if her dreams were near nigh impossible, but no-one would dare to tell her. Willie looked at his brother as he snored his way into his own dreams, whatever they were. He envied Charlie having a wage packet and not having to go to school, but he didn’t fancy a job as a hod carrier.