Handstands In The Dark: A True Story of Growing Up and Survival

by Godley, Janey

  The pub’s rebirth and its new clientele helped me focus on the good stuff; more cash was flowing in and eventually I stopped constantly thinking of Mammy. When times got bad I would just keep it in my head that she was up in Shettleston, sitting in her own wee pub. That was safe for me. Sean and I never discussed her. It was a closed subject.

  When new customers asked me questions about my family, they were terribly shocked when I told them my Mammy had been found in the Clyde less than six months ago. I would just smile as I spoke of it all, trying to hide the fear in my voice, until one guy asked me, ‘Did you not love your Mammy? You talk about it as if you were glad she died.’

  It hit me like a brick. I had adopted this monotone, matter-of-fact attitude when I spoke of her death: ‘My Mammy was found dead in the Clyde. Is that a lemonade you want in your vodka?’

  The only time I could share grief was when Mij came over to see me. He and Cathy had now split up and he was looking after his wee girl Debbie on his own. Mij and I had grown closer as we grew older. Gone was the big fat bully and here now was a vulnerable young single parent. Mij and I would sit and he would cry buckets about the way he had treated Mammy.

  ‘Janey, I was a bastard to her! I never even said ah wiz sorry!’ he would weep.

  I felt terrible for Mij, but it was no surprise Cathy had left him; he was difficult and made her life hell. She just couldn’t take it any more. I often wished I had the guts to walk out on Sean; I would watch him smile at people and sneer at me and my heart would drop. His slaps around the head were now becoming low punches and terrifying rages. I no longer felt sorry when he had migraine headaches; instead I wished they were brain haemorrhages. I once went back up to Granda Davy Percy’s house, just for a break and some breathing space.

  ‘Do you miss your favourite Uncle?’ Granda Davy asked me. ‘He only just left. If you stay for supper, David will be back. He’ll be glad to see you.’

  I left quickly. I was annoyed at myself. I knew he was back home as he had made an appearance at Mammy’s funeral.

  Sometimes I would just walk out of the Weavers bar and go to my sister Ann’s home, but it was hard for her because her marriage had just broken up too. She was left with two small children, a fair amount of debt and was not coping well with the separation; she was slowly coming apart. The last thing she needed was people banging on her door looking for me.

  My only ally was Patsy Paton. She knew how Sean ticked and often let me stay over at her home when the shouting got too much for me. She would pick up the phone and dial the Weavers.

  ‘Sean, fucking quit all this shit! Whit’s going on in your head? Ye weren’t brought up to hit women!’

  She would hold me tight as I cried about Mammy and constantly reassured me that getting Sean out of my life was an option. The responsibility of running the Weavers always dragged me home; I didn’t want to fail Sean; I didn’t want to be a shit worker; I didn’t want to be a failed wife; I didn’t want his brothers to be right about me. Occasionally, he and I could talk about his moods and he always promised never to hit me again.

  ‘I am really sorry, Janey. I don’t know whit goes through ma head. I wish I was dead, then this would all be over. Maybe you should leave me.’

  Sean could make me feel so loved and so wanted; I would wake up in the night and watch him and gently kiss his face, careful not to waken him up. I loved him. I just didn’t understand him.

  * * *

  We had a great Christmas that year; Sean was lovely and bought me a six-week-old, black-and-tortoiseshell kitten with a white belly which we named Twinkles. Maybe it will all get better, I thought. Dad came up to see me in the New Year: he was still off the drink and doing well.

  ‘I bought myself a flat,’ he explained, all pleased with himself. ‘It’s in Maryhill, near my work. Come up and see it? Maybe help me with decorating?’

  I was really excited. Sean was not remotely interested. He still largely ignored Dad and would only answer in one-word sentences when spoken to. I felt terrible.

  ‘I’m nice to your dad,’ I’d tell him. ‘Why can’t you be nice to mine?’

  ‘He never looked after you when you were a kid. He should have known you were being abused,’ Sean would snap back.

  ‘Does he know I’m being abused by you now?’

  ‘Well, fucking tell him I hit ye. D’ye want me to tell him?’

  ‘Dad didn’t know Uncle David Percy was abusing me,’ I tried to explain to Sean. ‘Dad drank too much then. He didn’t know what was going on.’

  ‘And you’re saying my hitting you is as bad as what your Uncle did? Well fucking leave me then!’

  Sean stormed off. I cried in the back shop, waiting for him to get over his bad mood. It all went round in circles.

  * * *

  When I went up to see Dad’s new flat, the wallpapering was perfect and the colours were all well suited. Pale beige walls with a lovely darker chestnut carpet and a vivid burgundy velvet suite – it was really good to see him happier. Dad, over time, started to ask Sean for advice and pull him slowly into being part of his family; and Sean slowly started to respect him for getting off the booze.

  Sean had never got any praise from his own father. He would tell his dad how good things were going at the new Weavers Inn and Old George would just nod and walk away without reacting. Never any praise. Sean would sit with him and try to show him future plans we had for the development of the pub. But any ideas that weren’t Old George’s were immediately criticised and ridiculed. Even worse, Old George didn’t like our new clientele.

  ‘All these fucking poncey so-called journalists in suits. They don’t spend enough money,’ he would sneer. ‘Talking fucking posh, thinking buying a Barratt flat across the London Road makes them a millionaire,’ he would mutter under his breath. He had never trusted strangers. The old Nationalist Bar boys had been fine: he knew a looney when he saw one and could recognise a drunk and a fighter. These new folk in smart suits were hard to suss and they didn’t know who he was, which was odd for him. Old George was very well known in the area, but not by these incomers.

  The new homes were being built and bought as fast as possible. New couples were walking around, getting to know their new area, hoping to find a friendly face in the local pub and Sean and I were trying our best to provide the perfect place for them. Our trade expanded. We soon needed extra part-time staff and got increasingly busy at teatime. Sean and I could no longer eat together – we had to take turns to eat – one in the bar and one upstairs. We would meet, in passing, at the jukebox.

  ‘Dinner’s on the table, Janey … I made tea … It’s in the pot … See you in an hour,’ Sean would say as we passed and he handed the keys to me. With both his mind and body busy, Sean was now easy to be with most times. He loved chess and had set up regular chess competitions for the customers.

  One night, I had to go up to Shettleston to pick up my cousin Sammy from his mammy, Crazy Katie Wallace. He and Katie had fallen out again and his wee sister Jackie was having more emotional and mental problems, so I had been asked if I could look after him for a while. I walked up the main road in Shettleston. It was raining hard and there were puddles all over the street. I was drawn to my Mammy’s local. I opened the door and stood in the entrance of the wee snug bar. There was that same familiar smoky smell, her same old friends sitting in their corner with the same big dog at their feet. Two of the women smiled at me – sad smiles.

  ‘Have ye seen ma Mammy?’ I asked them.

  The men at the bar turned round.

  ‘Have ye seen ma Mammy?’ I asked again.

  The women sat staring at me.

  I ran from the bar, slamming the door behind me. The wind and rain whipped the hair across my face as I splashed all the way up Kenmore Street. She will be in our house, I thought. That’s it! She will be there. The hallway was dark. Fucking light bulb’s gone again! I ran up the stairs two at a time, reaching my Mammy’s door in no time. Suddenly I put my palms on the
red landing wall and tried to breathe. The air is being sucked out of me. I looked at the door. No name. It had been painted a different colour! Who painted our door? It was no use. I have to breathe properly. My heart was pounding and something was rushing through my ears with a constant boom-boom boom-boom. My palms were sticking to the red council-painted wall. I stared at my name scraped into the old thick repainted plaster:

  JANEY CURRIE – 1970

  ‘Janey, fucking stop it, ye wee bastard!’

  Mammy was standing there looking at me. She had just climbed the stairs and was dripping wet, holding two plastic bags full of cans and butcher meat.

  ‘Ye cannae write yer name in the wall!’ she shouted.

  I looked at the wall again. It had been redecorated and my name had been filled in with red paint a few times since 1970 and I realised my Mammy was never going to come up those stairs ever again with her plastic bags. I dropped to my knees and hugged the pain inside me. Huge gulping noises came out of my mouth; no tears, just cries. She was dead! She wasn’t in that house. I sat on the stairs for a few hours, listening to the neighbours’ televisions. Occasionally, I slid over tight against the wall to let people pass me.

  The journey back to the Weavers was horrible: the bus was late, the cold rain soaked me and it was very late when I reached the glowing lights. I walked straight through the pub into the back shop and pulled off my coat.

  ‘What’s up?’ Sean asked.

  ‘My Mammy’s dead, Sean … I looked for her, but she wisnae anywhere. She’s dead, Sean,’ I sobbed. He held me tight and ignored customers shouting through for service. He stroked my head and sat us both down on the tiled floor.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Janey,’ he whispered. ‘I will call Crazy Katie and get her to send Sammy down on his own.’

  14

  A biblical prophecy

  WEE 18-YEAR-OLD SAMMY arrived the next day. He walked into the pub, his hair bleached yellowish, his clothes dirty. He was desperate for work and pleased to be out of Shettleston.

  ‘Sammy, that hair needs cutting and dyed black again. Sean has some clothes we can dress you in.’

  He was willing to be cleaned up as long as he had somewhere to stay. Sean treated him like another wee brother almost immediately and Sammy and wee Paul Storrie, who was still staying with us, hit it off straight away. Paul was five years younger than Sammy and still at school, but they became firm friends. Both of them ‘checked out’ girls at the Weavers. Paul was too young to get involved, but Sammy seemed able to chat up any woman in minutes. God knows how – a really lovely, intelligent guy but hardly a Hollywood stud to look at. He was about five foot seven inches tall, painfully thin with a rather big nose, big lips, his teeth needed some work and he seemed rather shy, but he had the biggest bluest eyes I had ever seen in anyone in my life. Maybe that was it.

  Sammy and I had almost been brought up together at my home in Kenmore Street because he stayed with us every time his dad Uncle James ran out of money or his mammy Crazy Katie Wallace got into another emotional crisis. He had been very fond of my Mammy and missed her terribly; it was nice to talk to somebody who remembered her like I did.

  ‘Yer ma wiz like my own mammy, Janey. I remember your Mammy trying to punch my mammy over the wee kitchen sink when she found out my mam hud left Jackie and me on oor ain all night.’

  We both laughed at the thought of my Mammy attacking Crazy Katie Wallace in front of her kids.

  Sammy soon started helping out behind the bar at the Weavers but, after a few weeks, he started disappearing for a few days and would come back without explanation. Sean would rip into him:

  ‘Ye have to make a decent commitment to this job or leave, Sammy.’

  But he was very insecure. He had been in trouble at school and had been glue-sniffing when he was younger. He was just a confused wee boy at heart. He had never had a stable family life and I knew working in the Weavers pub stifled him, though the customers liked him. He started to make an effort and started to fit in slowly. One day, he told me: ‘When I wiz up in Shettleston seeing my mammy, I met big David Percy. He was asking for you.’

  I froze.

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘Well, I told him I wiz living here at the Weavers with you and he just asked how ye wur …’ Sammy looked at me oddly. ‘You OK, Janey?’

  ‘I fucking hate David Percy,’ I spat out. ‘He’s a slimy bastard!’

  Sammy never mentioned it again and never asked why.

  Sean, Sammy and I continued to work hard in the Weavers. At lunchtime, new customers were coming in from the old Templeton’s Carpet Factory, which had been renovated and was now a ‘Business Centre’ for new Thatcherite entrepreneurs. Computers were the future and all these healthy young shirt-and-tie men would stride into our bar to get cheap lager and fried foods. Yuppies were coming into the Weavers bar but, outside, the heroin deaths continued. It was sad to see grannies and grandads pushing prams and raising babies that their dead children had left behind. Our smartly dressed new customers who had moved into their fancy new flats in one of Glasgow’s most sought-after residential communities were now fully aware of the area’s problems: their houses and cars had been broken into; their valuables stolen; prostitution was everywhere; young girls were trawling the streets, bringing weird kerb crawlers with them; men in cars were slowing down, staring at any woman walking alone.

  ‘You lookin’ for business?’ they’d shout out.

  * * *

  That New Year’s Eve we got a call from Crazy Katie Wallace:

  ‘Sean, is that you?’ she croaked down the line.

  ‘Aye, Katie, it’s me. Ye want to speak to Sammy?’

  ‘Naw, I just want tae die, Sean. I hate ma life. Will ye look after Sammy fur me?’ she mumbled. ‘I am really gonnae do it this time, Sean.’

  Sammy had had a least four suicide calls from Crazy Katie that year.

  ‘Look, Katie,’ Sean replied quietly, hoping Sammy could not hear the conversation, ‘you’re only upsetting everybody with all this shite.’

  She hung up.

  Sean told Sammy about the call and Sammy got into a state about his mum. Crazy Katie had never been a supportive mother, always falling apart, always drifting; Sammy was more worried for his younger sister Jackie, who already had problems. She had had some learning difficulties but was now settling into a routine through a social-work programme.

  The next day, Sammy went up to Shettleston to see his mum but, while he was still on his way, we got a call from the police. Katie Wallace had killed herself with sleeping tablets and gas in her boyfriend’s flat.

  Two days later, Sammy and I had to go and identify the body. We walked into town through the cold, slushy streets. New Year had just passed but Christmas decorations still hung forlornly from Glasgow’s street lamps. Sammy sat on the steps of the City Morgue and hugged his knees, crying, his huge blue eyes spilling tears.

  ‘Janey, I cannae go in there and look at her,’ he wept.

  ‘We will do it together,’ I whispered.

  Crazy Katie’s body lay dead on the table, its waxy face looking very old, the hair bushy around its head. It really didn’t look like her at all. At first, I thought it might not actually be her. But then I recognised her eyes and mouth. It was the first time I had seen a dead human body. Sammy collapsed. My heart broke. We were both really still kids and here we were both remembering dead mothers. We clung to each other in grief; I knew how hard it had hit him. She had never been the perfect mother but she was the only one he had.

  We all rallied round and tried to help him through the funeral. We suggested bringing Jackie to stay with us but she did not want to. Sammy spoke to her social workers and the next month she was put into a social care home. Sammy told me he wanted to go home, but he had never had a single, stable home, so he just went back to Shettleston, where his friends were, and he stayed there while still working at the Weavers. But his mother’s death set him back. His time-keeping became more erratic.
A cupboard in our flat was filled entirely with bags and bags of Crazy Katie’s clothing because Sammy didn’t want to get rid of them but had no space to keep them at his new place in Shettleston.

  It was inconvenient, but I had more personal worries. My brother Mij, who was living in the Gorbals, came over to see me more and more and I was worried about the weight he was visibly losing.

  ‘Mij, what the fuck is going on?’ I would ask. ‘You are getting really skinny and looking ill.’

  Eventually, I did scream at him the one obvious, scary question: ‘Are you on smack, ya big arse? Are you fucking hitting up?’

  He denied it.

  But, without warning, I went to his home.

  His flat was worse than our old home in Kenmore Street. There were clothes and pieces of food scattered around. My wee niece Debbie was sitting in by herself, when she should have been at school.

  ‘Where is yer dad?’ I asked her.

  She smiled happily at me. ‘He is over at his pal’s hoose, Aunty Janey.’

  I opened a drawer.

  The first thing I found was needles.

  Fucking needles.

  Just lying there waiting to be found, waiting to be picked up by Debbie. The big fucking idiot! I grabbed Debbie and told her to show me where he was. She sang and skipped all the way along the road until we reached a house and a hallway that smelled of piss. She took me to a door. I banged on it until a scruffy man with a big Pit Bull Terrier answered. ‘Whit the fuck do ye want?’ he snarled.

  ‘Is Mij here? Mij Currie?’ I snarled back

  Mij stumbled to the door, squinting his eyes. He looked shocked when he saw me standing there, holding Debbie’s hand: ‘Janey, hen! I, ah, meant to get hame in a minute. Debbie wiz just watching the cartoons, win’t ye Debbie?’ he said, looking pleadingly at his wee girl.