by Carlos Alba
7
There was a holiday feel about waking in a room that wasn’t my bedroom, finding the hallway populated by strangers and having to queue for the bathroom. The children huddled, unblinking, under the protective arms of their mother, and they moved around as a unit.
Papa had already left for work. I’d heard him and Mama arguing in their bedroom earlier in the morning, in English. That was the one good thing about having the Chileans to stay – my parents couldn’t say anything private in Spanish.
Finally it was my turn for the bathroom, which was just as well, because I was running late for school. I brushed my teeth, washed my face and ran downstairs to find the Chileans perched together on the sofa, looking painfully self-conscious, like animals in a zoo. They wore shabby, ill-fitting clothes – heavy-knit sweaters several sizes too big, with frayed shirt collars and baggy, threadbare trousers that extended below their feet.
The boy gripped his cuddly toy, which on closer inspection appeared to be a lion, close to his chest, and the little girl sang quietly to herself. She stood up and paced back and forth along the length of the window bay, running her hand along the sill. The mother had an unnerving, fixed smile on her face, though I could tell that underneath she was anxious and exhausted.
Mama appeared in the kitchen doorway looking harassed, an apron tied around her dressing-gown, and she said something to me in Spanish. I stared at her blankly and asked her to speak in English.
‘I said you’d better leave, you don’t have time for breakfast because you were made to wait so long to get into the toilet.’
I knew Mama had spoken in Spanish so the Chileans would know what she was saying. The woman stared at the floor. I said goodbye to everyone and forced a smile. I felt sorry for the Chileans, but I agreed with Mama: they had to go.
When I arrived at the school gates Max Miller was standing with Jim Sweeney, playing with a set of clackers that Sweeney’s big sister had brought back from a holiday in Benidorm. I felt Max Miller’s gaze follow me as I walked by.
‘Hey, Speedy, why don’t you show us how these things work?’ he shouted.
It was the first time he’d spoken to me since I’d pummelled his face, and it unnerved me that he was being so cocksure. I panicked – perhaps he knew about the Chileans and was toying with me? But that wasn’t possible, the Chileans hadn’t arrived until late the previous evening, after dark. He couldn’t have seen them, could he? His ma would never have let him out on the streets at that time. Perhaps his da had seen them when he was walking home from the bowling club; but they lived on the other side of Mosspark, he’d have had to take a lengthy detour to pass our house.
‘Shove it up your arse, Miller,’ I ventured, monitoring his face closely for any reaction.
He walked away. It was a good sign. If he had known about the Chileans, he’d certainly have said something then – he wouldn’t have been able to help himself. I began to relax, but I wasn’t taking anything for granted. It was morning, and I didn’t know for sure that no one else had seen them. If I could just make it until the end of the day I’d be safe, because by then they’d be gone.
When I returned home, not only were they still there, but the children were now dressed in my old clothes. I protested to Mama, but she shot me an angry stare.
‘They arrived here with nothing,’ she said quietly, so they wouldn’t hear. ‘They stepped off the plane with only the clothes they were dressed in. They had to buy jumpers and trousers from a charity shop. Surely you wouldn’t deny them old clothes that don’t even fit you now?’
When she put it like that, how could I refuse? Actually, I had no real objection to them wearing my old clothes. I hated them anyway – greying, too-tight vests, scratchy shirts, and grimly functional hand-knitted sweaters in assorted ugly hues. And I didn’t even mind sleeping in the living-room again. What troubled me was the apparent shift in Mama’s attitude. When I’d left for school that morning, she was determined that they’d be away by evening. Now she seemed to be mellowing, and there was no sign of them departing any time soon. The threat was clear to me – the longer they stayed, the greater the possibility I’d be tainted by association with them. All it would take was for someone to recognise they were wearing my old clothes, and the connection would be made.
Two nights stretched into three and three into four. Still there was no sign of them leaving. Emilia, the mother, helped Mama with the laundry and the shopping, and they spent long hours sitting at the kitchen table, drinking endless cups of coffee made with the strong Colombian beans that the cabin crews brought back from Spain for Papa.
Then, after a week, Mama suddenly announced they’d be moving to the other side of the estate. A friend of hers who was a cleaner for an official in the housing department had managed to wangle them temporary accommodation until they could be assessed properly by the council. I was so relieved that I even allowed myself a moment of sympathy for them. In spite of myself I actually quite liked the boy, Jorge, who was quiet and good-natured, and a skilled footballer. His little sister Alejandra was a bit annoying, always trying to play with us, but she was also very sweet, the way she lost her temper and scolded me in Spanish if she thought I wasn’t paying her enough attention.
Despite her early opposition, Mama had become friendly with Emilia, and I knew she’d miss having her around.
‘Don’t worry, Mama,’ I told her. ‘She’ll only be ten minutes away. You can still meet up with her.’
‘And of course you’ll see Jorge at school,’ Mama added cheerfully.
My heart thumped. It hadn’t occurred to me the Chileans would have to go to school, far less my school. Alejandra was still of nursery age, but Jorge was only a few months younger than me, so he’d be in the same year, perhaps even the same class. To make matters worse, Mama wanted me to walk with him to school until he got settled in. I felt sick. This was my worst nightmare come true. Max Miller would have a field day.
The goodwill I’d felt towards the Chileans suddenly evaporated. I didn’t want anything to do with them, with Jorge and his weird accent, his stupid Beatles haircut and his hand-me-down clothes.
The day he was due to start school I was despatched early to collect him from his house, to accompany him to the school gates. I’d barely slept the night before, worrying about what would happen if I was seen in his company. I came up with a dozen reasons why I couldn’t do it – I’d be late for school; I had a stomach bug; the traffic was too dangerous on that side of the estate; I didn’t even like him; there was no reason why he couldn’t make his own way to school; he’d have to learn to stand on his own feet sooner or later; it wasn’t fair.
For every argument, Mama had an answer. It was still only half-past seven, I had plenty of time; I could take cod liver oil for my stomach; I could walk on the pavements, that way I’d avoid the traffic; I didn’t have to like Jorge, I just had to collect him; he was eight years old, he didn’t speak English, and he didn’t know the way to the school; he could start standing on his own two feet tomorrow; life wasn’t fair.
I trudged down Mosspark Avenue as though I was on my way to the dentist. I could already imagine the scornful jeers of my classmates. It all seemed so unfair. There was nothing I could do about my family. It wasn’t my fault my background distinguished me so conspicuously from my Scottish classmates. I had no control over the fact that that we had neither a family tartan nor a surname that began with Mac. I was different, but over the years I’d learned to live with it. Now, it seemed, all that was in danger of being washed away. I wasn’t going to stand for it. I was Spanish, that much was incontestable, but I wouldn’t be answerable for a family of Chilean refugees.
Jorge was a decent enough boy, but I’d paid my dues for being foreign, and I’d done it alone. By the time I’d started at primary school, Pablito had already moved on to the secondary school, so I’d had no one to stand up for me. I’d fought my own battles, and Jorge would have to do the same. Why should I provide him with support
that had been denied to me? If he was coming to my school, he’d have to take care of himself.
When I got to Alcaig Road, a couple of hundred yards from his house, I turned right and doubled back. I arrived at the school gates and looked up at the full horror of what I knew would greet him on his arrival. Mama had told me about the tiny, rural schoolhouse Jorge had attended back in Chile – it apparently had clematis growing round the door and mandarin trees in the playground. Our school was a joyless, functional four-storey structure of grey concrete, built on stilts, surrounded by a running track and a high perimeter fence. Its main catchment areas were the badlands of Pollok and Govan, whose residents regarded Mosspark as an oasis of privilege – we had gardens and cars, and some of our parents even worked in offices. I cringed thinking about what the Pollok boys would make of Jorge.
Among their members was Joey Adams, whose brother had done time at Barlinnie following an incident at The Cart Bar. The details were shrouded in mystery, but rumours involved a ceremonial sword and a cut-off ear. Then there was Jerry Chaney, who wore a silver hooped earring that Mad Dog Murison made him remove before class every morning. Chaney was also made to wear a glove on his right hand because he had an Indian-ink tattoo across his knuckles that said ‘FUCK’.
At nine o’clock the sound of the bell drowned out the deafening chorus of voices as hundreds of pupils slowly stopped their games of football and marbles, skipping and hopscotch, and trudged across the playground to their class lines.
A few moments later Mad Dog appeared, red and impatient, and he began to usher the first of the classes through the large double doors. Mad Dog was a bad-tempered pipe-smoker who wore Black Watch tartan trousers and a pale green herringbone tweed jacket over his short, sinewy frame. He had a bushy, nicotine-stained moustache, which drooped at the ends, and an ill-fitting grey toupee.
He’d served in one of the forces – no one knew for sure which one – before becoming a teacher, and he spent all of his spare time on manoeuvres with the Territorial Army in the Cairngorms. He was unmarried, and it was rumoured he had a lead-lined underground bunker in his garden that he kept stocked with bottles of water and tins of corned beef in case of a nuclear attack.
He took us for gym lessons when Dickhead Docherty was off, and he would make us march up and down the playground, square-bashing, as he breathlessly barked orders in between puffs of Condor Ready Rubbed. Afterwards he would come into the changing rooms and warn, with chin-stroking gravity, that if we didn’t wash behind our foreskins we risked contracting cancer of the penis.
Everyone hated Mad Dog, but I had a grudging respect for him. He was the only member of staff whom the Pollok boys genuinely feared. On one occasion, Joey Adams told him to cock off or he’d get his brother to do his kneecaps. Mad Dog ordered him to the front of the classroom and stood toe-to-toe with him, staring into his eyes, screaming at him with such deranged ferocity that if his vocal cords had snapped, they’d surely have taken Joey Adams’s eye out.
Mad Dog told him that he was a vile piece of human scum who didn’t deserve an education, that all he’d ever amount to was a thieving junkie dropout, just like his brother, whom he’d taught, and how he was more useless than dog shit because at least dog shit made your roses grow. By the time he’d finished Joey Adams stood silent and quivering, and he spent the rest of the morning sitting at his desk, wiping tears from his eyes.
I hated everything about school, from the wire-reinforced windows to the bolted-down desks and chairs. That no one wanted to be there, least of all the teachers, was evident from the poor physical condition of the building, the curling flakes of paint that clung stubbornly to the dirty, crumbling walls and ceilings, the threadbare carpets with their smell of decay. No one was prepared to take responsibility for its upkeep. It was an unspoken dirty protest.
During the morning break I locked myself in a cubicle in the boys’ toilets. The stench, as ever, made me gag, but I wanted to be alone, to gather my thoughts. I was dreading the row I knew I’d get from Mama when I got home for abandoning Jorge. What disturbed me even more was the certain knowledge that, at some stage today, Jorge was certain to arrive at the school.
Sure enough, halfway through a spelling test before lunch, there was a knock on the door, and Mrs Briggs, the school secretary, came into our classroom. She whispered something in Mad Dog’s ear, and they left the room together before returning with Jorge trailing limply behind. My stomach lurched.
‘This is Horgay,’ Mad Dog said in his clipped accent. ‘He’s from Chile, a country in South America, and he will be part of our class from now on.’
Jorge looked terrified. I could see him scanning the rows of white faces, looking for me, so I dipped my head below the desk and pretended to tie my shoelace. The only free seat was at the end of the front row, next to Joey Adams, so Mad Dog led him by the arm and signalled for him to sit down.
Jorge turned around and, as I raised my head, he looked me straight in the eye and smiled. I stared at my desk, willing him to look away, praying he wouldn’t call out my name or wave.
I gripped my forehead between my thumb and my index finger, using my hand to shield my eyes, as though that might offer some protection. My chest felt tight and my head faint, and I clenched my teeth, praying for the moment to pass. Mad Dog resumed the spelling test, and Jorge turned around to face the front of the class. I was safe, at least for now.
When the bell rang for lunchtime, I bolted from my seat and was out of the classroom and halfway down the stairs before he had the chance to approach me. Standing at the front of the queue for the dinner hall, I heard the distant footsteps and animated voices of my classmates approaching, making their way along the corridor. I willed the doors to open. As the first feet landed on the top step I heard the bolt released from the inside and I launched myself against the door, forcing my way into the hall and nearly knocking over the dinner lady on the other side.
I collected my lunch tray and moved to the furthest corner, hoping that by the time Jorge had managed to find his way downstairs the room would be full, and I’d be able to hide among the sea of bodies.
I spent the rest of the lunchbreak hiding in the toilets to avoid him until it was time to return to our classroom. When the bell rang for home time I hung back, on the pretext of wanting to ask Mad Dog about the long-division homework he’d set, but really I was hoping that everyone, Jorge included, would disappear. Mad Dog eyed me suspiciously, wondering about my sudden interest. I strung out our exchange for as long as I could while the class emptied.
The playground was deserted as I made my way through the gates, but as I turned on to Mosspark Boulevard I spotted a group of boys gathered further ahead – Chaney and Adams, as well as two of their pie-faced henchmen, Benny Lugton and Barra McCann. At the centre of the group was Jorge, looking confused and scared. They circled him like leery cavemen inspecting an intruder and began to push him, laughing and whooping as he bounced between them.
He saw me standing in the distance. I held his gaze briefly and looked away. At that moment I hated him. I turned and headed back the way I’d come, round the corner, past the bookie’s and out of sight.
When I returned home Mama was on the phone. I dumped my schoolbag in the kitchen and was about to run outside to play when she warned me not to go far.
‘Your papa wants to speak with you when he comes home,’ she said quietly.
I knew I was in big trouble – Mama rarely delegated discipline to Papa unless it was for something serious. I decided to go to my bedroom to start my homework early and perhaps lessen my inevitable punishment.
My throat tightened when I heard the front door open. I lay on the floor, trying to concentrate on my homework. I heard the familiar sounds of Papa’s afternoon routine as he washed and changed, and then his footsteps as he walked out of the bathroom and stopped outside my room. The door opened slowly. He wandered in and sat down on the edge of my bed.
‘Wha you dae?’ he asked.
; ‘Long division,’ I said.
‘Wha this?’
‘It’s maths. You know, sums?’
‘Si, I know, matemáticas.’
He lit a cigarette. I braced myself for the expected onslaught, but his body was relaxed, and he seemed thoughtful.
‘Wha is this sum?’
I looked down at my jotter.
‘Eh, six hundred and seventy-five divided by twenty-five.
‘Veintisiete,’ he responded instantly.
I stared at him.
‘Twenty-seven,’ he said.
I hesitated, my pencil hovering above the page, unsure whether to write. It was obvious I didn’t trust his answer, but he didn’t lose his temper.
‘You write, this correct answer, twenty-seven. I nae good with words but with numbers yes.’
He stood up slowly from the bed and arched his back. He let out a groan as he stretched, his muscles weary after spending the day lugging suitcases. He opened the window a few inches and flicked the ash of his cigarette into the back garden. Then he sat back down on the bed.
‘Why you nae take Jorge tae school?’
I began a long-winded explanation I’d already rehearsed about losing the way and being late, and how, although I’d meant to take him, in the end I didn’t have time, and . . . even as I was delivering my epic story, I realised how unconvincing it sounded.
‘You think you have tough life?’
He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees so that our faces were only a couple of inches apart. His eyes were uncharacteristically warm.
‘Pardon?’ I asked, not sure what he was getting at.
‘You think you have tough life?’
‘Eh, not really, no,’ I said defensively.
‘You know wha these children, they go through in their country?’