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

by Godley, Janey

  ‘I am gonna die with fucking AIDS!’ he suddenly shouted. ‘Me! I’m gonna die!’

  I still didn’t fully believe him. Mij had always been a drama queen; he lied so much you were never certain what was the truth. He still occasionally reminisced about the times he fought the big shark off the coast of Ayrshire and tamed the wild lion from Glasgow Zoo. But he explained the whole medical procedure and testing routine to me. He told me he had shared needles with a guy who recently found out he had HIV. I started to believe him and it all looked so bleak.

  ‘Mummy,’ Ashley’s voice said. I turned round. She was standing in the doorway. ‘What’s wrong with Uncle Mij, Mummy?’

  She had always loved her Uncle Mij; he was so childlike and so silly and had always been a great playmate; they would do crawling races on the floor and he would do all the funny voices when she was watching cartoons and would tell her bizarrely mental stories about rainbows and butterflies.

  ‘He’s just a wee bit upset, honey,’ I told her. ‘Uncle Mij just needs to sit with me for a while.’

  ‘He said he has AIDS, Mummy. I heard him shouting. Does he have AIDS, Mummy? Will he die next week?’ She sat down on a chair and big tears started plopping from her eyelashes.

  I remembered reading in a magazine about how doctors had been afraid of the first AIDS patients and they used to feed them under the doors, because they didn’t quite know what disease they were facing.

  ‘It’s just something between us, Ashley,’ I tried to explain. ‘Uncle Mij wants us to keep it a wee secret until he’s ready to tell everyone himself.’

  A few weeks later, Mij phoned up and she asked him, ‘Are you not dead yet?’ Death wasn’t terrifying to her; it was just something that happened in the Calton.

  ‘No, I’m no’ dead yet,’ Mij told her. But he was mentally devastated by his HIV; the only thing that kept him going in the next few weeks was that his Pit Bull terrier Tyson had just had pups. Mij loved his dogs – Tyson and Rocky – more than any person in the world. I took Ashley over to see the puppies when he felt up for a visit.

  ‘Uncle Mij, can I hold one?’ she asked excitedly, as if they were new toys; she’d never seen a puppy before.

  As Ashley fussed over the puppies, I asked him: ‘How are you?’ It was a question I asked every time I saw him, but I never had any idea what his answer would be on any given day. Today, he replied, ‘The doctors are all bastards, Janey … They don’t give a fuck aboot me … I’m just another junkie wi’ AIDS …’

  Dealing with him was hard. Mij had always blamed everyone else for his problems. It had been Cathy’s fault she left him. It was wee Debbie’s fault she got into trouble. It was never Mij’s responsibility. The world hated him and it was the entire world’s fault he was screwed. I loved him, but his self-pitying and destructive behaviour had always frustrated me, even in this situation.

  ‘I fuckin’ hate it,’ he muttered. ‘The doctors don’t treat me right … I’ve gotta get injections … They’re all bastards … It’s no’ fair …’

  When he was a wee boy, he used to batter his head against the wall until he blacked out just to get attention.

  Later that same week, I took Ashley up to see my sister Ann. Unlike Mij, she was doing well. She lived in a comfortable jumble of toys and clothes and collectable nick-nacks and her life seemed to have turned a corner and be sailing in the right direction. I had not yet told her about Mij’s illness. Ann and I sat watching TV while Ashley sat on the floor happily playing with her doll when a programme came on about dogs. ‘Look, Ashley,’ I said. ‘There are puppies on the TV. You never told Aunty Ann what Uncle Mij has now.’

  ‘Uncle Mij has AIDS,’ she said matter-of-factly. Then her wee hand went up to her mouth because she realised she told the BIG secret, so she turned away from the television and smiled up at us, adding: ‘Oh, and he has puppies as well …’

  Ann’s mouth had opened. She looked at me in horror. I felt awful.

  ‘I am sorry, Mummy,’ Ashley said. ‘I didn’t mean to tell the secret.’

  ‘It’s OK, honey,’ I said, bending down to stroke her wee head. ‘That was a big secret for you to keep all on your own and it’s my fault.’

  ‘Mij has AIDS?’ Ann almost shouted.

  ‘I’m sorry, Ann, he just told me last week. Well, he has HIV which isn’t really AIDS, so let’s not worry too much.’

  But now the secret was out and we all tried to make sense of Mij’s illness and his lifestyle. My Dad tried hard to help, but his generation had never had to understand heroin or HIV. I felt sorry for Dad; his life had been turning out just fine with Mary, his new wife. Now this had happened. We all tried to cope with Mij’s increasing dramas; life went on; and the late hours we opened the Weavers during Glasgow’s year as European ‘City of Culture’ put Sean and me under even more strain. How I hated the bar that year!

  * * *

  One wet Saturday, I took a trip back to Shettleston to meet my other brother Vid in his favourite local bar. I hopped off the bus and ran through the rain – it inevitably rained when I went home. It always felt slightly weird going back because these streets looked the same and nothing had really changed in the area, but I had changed. I had played in these streets, grew up running round them and cycling along them on my bike and now I felt alien. The only people I knew left here were my brother, grandad and Aunt Rita. With my Mammy gone, the area felt empty. I went to Vid’s bar and, when I pushed the door open, the smell of cigarette smoke punched me in the face. You would think after running a bar I would have got used to that oppressive smoky stench, but it still made me flinch. I looked around the bar and strange men looked back, staring over their shoulders or turning completely around to see me. I recognised none of them. A barmaid looked over at me and smiled. I think she knew me from school.

  ‘I’m looking for my brother Vid.’

  ‘David?’

  ‘Yeah, has he been in?’

  ‘Sorry, I huvnae seen him, hen.’

  I was angry; Vid had told me to meet him here in this bar. I stepped back out of the pub into the rain. It was getting dark. The old church where I used to attend Brownies stood opposite. I loved that church. It looked so comforting. Looking at it, I thought I want to go up to my Mammy’s house, just to see it again, just to check it is still there. Maybe she’ll be standing at the window looking out. Then I realised I was being daft. I shrugged off the leaking pain in my soul as I flagged down a taxi to take me back to my real home in the Calton. By the time I got back, it was dark and the Weavers was getting busy, the karaoke was in full swing and Ashley was standing in her pink stripy housecoat behind the bar waiting for Sean to take her off to see Old George.

  ‘I’m going to Granda’s home to see him,’ Ashley explained to me, her wee head bobbing about as she chatted eagerly. ‘He is going to play his piano for me and I am going to sing Doris Day. He promised that on the phone.’ Her hair was wrapped up in five bunches, bright-coloured rubber bands gripping them, making the hair wiggle-wiggle as she moved. She looked like some pop singer from Bananarama or Culture Club, her blonde spiky hair standing up on end at straight angles to her head.

  ‘Who put all those funny pony-tails in your hair?’ I asked, smiling.

  ‘Sammy did it for me! He helped me do it and gave me a mirror to watch myself and he says I am beautiful,’ she enthused, stroking her mad hair.

  I kissed her on the cheek and started work behind the bar as she went off to Toad Hall with Sean. Saturday nights at the Weavers were always hectic nowadays. When the phone behind the bar rang this particular night, I barely heard it over Old Wullie singing ‘Love Is A Many Splendoured Thing’ with Sara his big tailless Alsatian at his feet howling along in time to the rhythm.

  ‘Hello?’ I shouted into the receiver with my left hand over my ear.

  ‘Janey!’ the voice yelled. I could hear the sound of another bar in the background.

  ‘Yeah, this is Janey! Who’s that?’

  ‘Is that
you, Sweet Pea?’ the voice yelled.

  I froze inside. The only person who ever called me Sweet Pea was my Uncle David Percy.

  ‘Janey! Were ye lookin’ fur me today? A guy tells me ye were in the bar up Shettleston looking fur me!’

  Behind me, Old Wullie’s voice trembled at the high notes as he sang:

  For l-o-o-ove is a many sple-e-e-ndoured thing …

  Cold fear gripped me inside. Why was he calling me? I took a deep breath.

  ‘No, I wasn’t looking for you!’ I paused. ‘Why the fuck would I?’ I shouted. ‘Did ye think I wanted sex?’ I paused again. ‘Or am I too big fur ye now?’ I screamed.

  The customers at the bar behind me went quiet. Old Wullie had finished the song and they had heard every word. I slammed the phone down with a bang. It fell out of the vertical cradle which was mounted onto a pillar behind the bar. Shaking inside, I picked it up and slammed it into the cradle again with even more anger but it fell out again. Angry at the inanimate object, I just threw the receiver into mid-air and watched the spiral cord twist and turn as it finally unravelled and crashed to the floor.

  ‘My Uncle called,’ I announced to our customers as if in a trance. ‘He used to sexually abuse me as a child. I hate him.’ I turned to face Old Wullie: ‘Lager, Wullie?’ He simply looked at me and nodded with an almost angry look in his eyes, as if he understood why I’d said the words. I grabbed the beer tap and pulled him a pint. I could feel some of the customers watching me carefully as I kept my head down and averted my eyes. I think they were more stunned than uncomfortable; they were just a random bunch of ordinary, good people who had gone out for the night; the last thing they expected or needed was me throwing my problems in their faces. I felt suddenly guilty and stupid.

  ‘Good song, Wullie,’ I muttered uncomfortably, holding his beer out to him, feeling the first tears dripping over my eyelashes.

  Why had he called? I had not spoken to that bastard in years. Of course I wasn’t looking for him. I was looking for my brother Vid. What made him think I was looking for him?

  ‘You OK?’ I didn’t hear the words at first. ‘You OK, Janey?’ Weavers regular Big Malky was speaking to me.

  ‘No, not really.’

  I walked into the back shop. Sammy followed me.

  ‘Sammy, that was …’ I gulped; I found I could not speak.

  ‘I know all about it, Janey,’ Sammy said as he put his arms around me. ‘You told me, remember?’

  But I couldn’t remember telling him anything. Maybe Sean had told him.

  ‘I know, Sammy,’ I eventually replied. ‘I’m sorry. Give me two minutes to get myself together and I will be OK. Go watch the bar for me, eh?’ I sniffed, trying hard to fix my mascara. By telling the customers, I felt I had unleashed something. I had spoken to Sammy, Paul and Sean about the abuse, but not anyone outside this safe wee inner circle. Now I had confronted the abuser himself with the knowledge that I had not forgotten what he had done. Now my Uncle David Percy would know I was not going to bury away what had happened. I had no idea how all this made me feel. One minute I was elated: I have said it to him! The next moment, I felt like a bad girl: I am causing trouble! It was out now, but I didn’t know what the consequences would be.

  Sean came home at about 10.30 p.m. with a sleeping Ashley draped over his shoulder. He went straight upstairs and put her to bed. I told him all about the phone call. He was surprised but glad I had brought it out into the open. He was ready for any confrontation that resulted; I wasn’t.

  ‘Well, maybe it’s time you did tell your Dad all about it, Janey. Why do you have to carry the whole of this fucking emotional bundle and none of them know anything?’

  ‘I cannae tell him, Sean; he disnae know and it’d really hurt him. He was an alcoholic back then; it wisnae his fault.’ As I spoke, I could feel the panic rise inside me at the thought of the whole thing becoming unravelled.

  ‘It wisnae yer fault either, Janey,’ Sean said gently, putting his arm round me.

  I sat quietly thinking about it all and decided not to say anything to my family. Not yet, I thought. Not yet.

  18

  ‘Janey, shut the door, eh?’

  GLASGOW’S YEAR AS European City of Culture was too much for us all. We had to be open from 11.00 each morning until 3.00 the next morning. Sean decided that I should take Ashley on holiday alone, as he could not possibly get cover for both him and me for all the extra working hours. So, one evening, Ashley and I caught the overnight train down to Torquay in south-west England. She was so excited we were going away on our own; it was a great adventure. She begged me to let her sleep on the top bunk and I finally gave in to her four-year-old demands; within minutes the train jolted and she came flying off the bunk and landed on her head on the train floor.

  I screamed.

  I thought she was dead.

  ‘Mummy,’ she laughed, rubbing the back of her head. ‘Did you see me fly?’

  I always felt so inadequate when she was my sole responsibility. When Sean was there he always seemed to know what to do and say. It was like I didn’t function properly when he wasn’t with me. Torquay, though, was good for me because I was alone with her, my confidence soared and I made all the decisions about where we went and how much money we spent. We seemed to spend the whole week swimming and beachcombing, walking for hours along the seafront. When we arrived home by train the following Saturday at Glasgow Central, Ashley ran into Sean’s arms as soon as she saw him.

  ‘Daddy!’ she shrieked into his face. ‘I’ve got shells in my bag for you! Special shells that whisper!’

  Sean was so happy to see us. He hugged Ashley so hard she pushed him away.

  ‘Daddy, you are squeezing me too hard!’

  ‘Sorry, babes, go strap yourself into the car; I want to chat to Mummy.’ He held the car door open for her and threw our bags into the boot. I could see something frightening in his eyes. My mouth went dry.

  ‘What is it, Sean?’ I panicked: ‘Is it Mij or my Dad?’

  Sean leaned against the boot of the car and held my face gently between the palms of his hands. ‘Janey, Donna from up the road died two nights ago: it was heroin.’

  She had been such a lovely young woman and her wee daughter Kara was just getting ready to start school that year – she was almost the same age as Ashley. Is everyone going to die from it? I thought.

  As soon as I got to the Calton, I went up the road to Donna’s home. She had lived on a very nice council estate where the houses had verandas. Her open coffin was lying on a trestle table in a candlelit bedroom cloaked in semi-darkness, with flowery curtains pulled tight. She lay there like a wee angel looking about ten years old in that wooden box. Her blonde hair was spread out all over the beautiful soft white silk lining. I stood there for long minutes and prayed. I had never really prayed before, because I didn’t have a religion. I suppose I just stood there and whispered hopes and fears to a God I didn’t believe in, thinking: Such a waste of a life! The tears started to squeeze through my tightly closed eyelids. I heard low voices and looked over to the shadowy corner of the gloomy, candle-lit room. As my eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, I saw Donna’s sister and older brother Kieron both sitting there heating up a small spoonful of heroin over a Holy Candle that had been lit for her Mass.

  ‘Janey, shut the door, eh?’ Kieron said quietly. ‘This is the stuff she overdosed on. She left it an’ it’s good an’ I’m sure she wid want us to huv it.’ He had his trousers pulled down to his knees; Donna’s sister had the left leg of her jeans rolled up. The two of them turned away from me and started to split the gear into two syringes. I watched as Donna’s sister sat quietly injecting brown fluid into the back of her left leg while Kieron pushed the needle slowly into a vein at the top of his right leg where it joined his groin.

  It was the same week the fair came to town.

  19

  Trains and floats and pains

  GLASGOW FAIR IS a traditional celebration left over f
rom when all the shipyard and factory workers got two weeks off work; during ‘Fair Fortnight’, they used to take their whole big scabby families to other parts of Scotland, usually ‘doon the watter’ to Rothesay on the Isle of Bute in the Firth of Clyde. That year, Glasgow Fair was a community project to celebrate the City of Culture year. A big-top tent was set up on Glasgow Green near the Templeton Carpet Factory, just opposite the Weavers. There were big swinging boats, loads of activity tents, a mirrored German Spiegeltent where musicians played, stilt walkers and loads of entertainment to cheer up local people.

  The Weavers entered a float in the fair parade, which followed a circular five-mile route starting and finishing at Glasgow Green. We borrowed the float from Sean’s relatives who were Gadgies. Our float was amazing. It was a long, flat-floored lorry with a big kiddie ride filled with lots of fibreglass Disney cartoon characters – Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and big glittery Goofys – on which our customers sat wearing fancy dress; but the moulded children’s characters were all too small for adults, so everyone had to contort their bodies to sit on them. Our regular Country and Western crowd were there, including ‘Wild Bill Hickok’ and ‘Sioux’ wearing full Western outfits, which made me smile because they weren’t in fancy dress at all – this was their everyday garb. They shopped at Safeway supermarkets, went to the cinema and got on the bus wearing their cowboy and Indian outfits. They hadn’t known we were going to be wearing fancy dress that day; they had just turned up dressed as normal.

  There was an extraordinary assortment of outfits. My face was painted as Minnie Mouse; one middle-aged guy was dressed as a baby; a few of the female customers dressed as Hawaiian Hoola girls with grass skirts, bare midriffs and garlands on their heads; Gay Gordon – of course – was dressed as a woman with fake breasts, fishnet tights, high heels, a blonde wig, blue eye shadow and lipstick that went up round his nose. He had turned into a particularly grumpy version of Bette Midler: he was hanging off the back of our lorry, carrying a handbag, swigging gin, spitting it at passing children and shouting out, ‘Feck off! Don’t! I’m a lady! Don’t speak to me like that!’