Its Colours They Are Fine

by Alan Spence

  In the next queue an old man was trying to stop a puppy from yelping.

  ‘Look at that poor bugger!’ said the man in the donkey-jacket. ‘Disnae look as if e could feed is sel, never mind a bloody dug.’

  He looked across at the old man, trying to calm the puppy which he had on the end of a length of string. Another bit of string was tied round the waist of his long shabby coat. He looked as if that might be all that was holding him together. But in the band of his old bashed hat was a feather, and in his breast pocket a paper napkin, folded like a hanky, and in his buttonhole a plastic rose.

  He didn’t look at the man too long. Something in that precarious dignity was too much for him to take. Perhaps it was too close to his own. For a moment he felt saddened again. There was not much room for dignity in this place, with its boxes and forms, its numbers and its cards and its queues. They could call it what they liked. Unemployment benefit. Social Security payment. But the echoes of the Means Test were still there. The fact that Social Security was called SS spoke for itself.

  Once, when he was about twenty and out of work, the man from the Means Test had come to the house, about eight o’clock in the morning, hoping to catch him in bed so that his money could be cut because he wasn’t out looking for work. He’d been out in the toilet on the landing and he’d stayed there, listening to his mother say he’d been out since six. She had let the man look round the house, to make sure, and at that he had grudgingly gone. He had heard stories of people having their money cut because they had a decent bit of meat in the house. (‘If ye kin afford that,’ they’d been told, ‘ye must be awright.’)

  At least it wasn’t as bad as that now, though sometimes he thought the attitudes hadn’t changed much.

  The queue at last moved up. He handed over his card, signed, and queued again to collect his money.

  On his way out, he held open the door for the old man with the dog.

  ‘Thank you sir,’ said the old man, smiling. ‘A gentleman.’

  Outside he bought some cigarettes and the morning paper, then headed into town to walk around and fill in the day.

  He needed a solid pair of shoes and a heavy pullover, so he made his way down to Paddy’s Market to see what he could find.

  Just across the road from Paddy’s was a low building where smoke seeped from every crack, every gap. Painted on the wall was a sign that always made him smile. It said NO NEED FOR ALARM. FISH BEING CURED. And here, under the dank arches, beneath the railway bridge, the smell of fish was everywhere. It hung in the air. It seemed to ooze and trickle from the damp glistening walls.

  Crossing over, he could hear a jig being played on a tin whistle, as bulging bundles were dumped on to the pavement from the back of a horse-drawn cart. Into the market itself, along Shipbank Lane, he picked his way past the heaps of old clothes spread out on the ground, stopping now and then to investigate any woollens that caught his eye. Here was something soft and green, here something patterned, Fair Isle, here what looked like a sleeve. But what he unravelled from the fankled heaps were a woman’s cardigan, an old scarf, a jersey frayed away at the cuffs and under the arms.

  Sometimes he would walk the whole length of the lane and find nothing, and the place would assail him with its dismal drabness. Then he would notice only the smells and the dirt; nothing but old junk and stinking rags. Even the people would look bedraggled, pathetic, their faces brutalised and harsh.

  There were times though, when the place had another quality altogether, when it seemed colourful and alive, when every stall might reveal some treasure and everything pulsed with a warm underlying humour. He remembered coming here as a child with his mother, the atmosphere, the clamour, the feeling of adventure it had held for him then. (Even in the mad scrambled chaos of everyone trying to grab their things and run whenever the police had raided the lane.)

  Paddy’s was a link for him with those days. The old days, remembered. It belonged to a Glasgow that was almost gone, bulldozed and flattened, gutted out. And while the gutting was perhaps necessary, there was still the feeling that something was lost, something that could be glimpsed here, even in spite of the grey.

  He stopped to look at a heavy black coat, but it was stiff and greasy with age. He picked up a pair of shoes, but both the soles were worn through.

  ‘Jist need a perr a rubber soles,’ said the woman who was trying to sell them. Her voice was without enthusiasm, without hope. She was about his own age. She sat amongst her sad rags, resigned. He was feeling cold. The day was looking bleak.

  But on the wasteground behind the lane he noticed a few young people had lit a fire and were gathered round it. One was playing a mouth-organ, another was tuning up a guitar.

  He moved on and pushed his way into one of the indoor markets. Just facing the door was an old stove and he warmed himself in front of it, rubbing the life back into his numbed fingers. Propped up on the stove was a sign reading NO LOITERING AT THE STOVE, and beside it another which said WHERRABOOTS . . . AWRERR, with an arrow pointing across to a stall stacked high with workboots and shoes. A few minutes’ rummaging unearthed a pair of brown brogues that were only slightly too big, and that could easily be set right with a cardboard insole or a thicker pair of socks. He bought the shoes and, feeling brighter already, moved further in.

  At one corner, the passageway was crowded. He eased past a big brash woman who was trying on a fur coat. Her hair was dyed blue-black, a stiff-lacquered haze round her head. With her was a little girl about six years old who was holding her mother’s umbrella and handbag, walking up and down with them, delighted, as if they were her own. A young Indian man had bought a red shirt, patterned with yellow sunburst flowers, and now he was trying on the jacket of a chalkstripe demob-suit (lifted down from its place on a rack beside a velvetcollared teddyboy-jacket, a Beatle-blazer with brass buttons, a leather jerkin and a morning-coat with tails).

  A young girl who looked like an art student was holding up a velvet curtain, examining it for stains and flaws. Passing, he could smell the soft scent of her. Thin bangles jingled together with every move of her arm. She was dressed in a long flowing cloak and she might have been unfolding bales of silk in some far Oriental bazaar.

  Presiding over the stall were two old women, perched on rickety chairs, their bony hands wrapped round mugs of steaming tea. Like old spey-wives they sat, looking out on all that passed, breaking off their mumbled and endless conversation to haggle over prices or accost any likely customer. Under their scrutiny, he began to look through the tangle of woollens on the table. He told them what he was looking for and one of them dragged out a huge hand-knitted cardigan. Across the vast back of it, blue reindeer ran in ordered lines through an off-white tundra broken by scattered firtrees.

  ‘Rare an warm,’ she said.

  He said it was too big, and anyway he wanted something a bit plainer. She looked at him as if to say there were plenty of big stores up in Argyle Street for folk that could afford to be fussy, and she sat down again, went back to her mumbling and left him to look for himself. And eventually he found something good — a thick white Aran-knit jumper, just about the right size and all in one piece.

  The child had lifted a pair of high-heeled shoes, climbed into them and wobbled forward, scuffling and clacking as she went. Her mother broke off from preening herself in the fur coat to yell across at the child. The Indian had almost decided to buy the demob-suit. The girl had found a hole in the velvet curtain. The women talked on.

  ‘Mind you, she fair suits er new teeth.’

  ‘Wull you do as yer told an put them back.’

  ‘How much for suit please?’

  ‘Ah won’t tell you again malady!’

  ‘Course he’s no half the man e was.’

  ‘None ae us gettin any younger.’

  ‘Nice bit a velvet dear. That’s whit aw the young yins are after.’

  ‘That’ll go nice wi yer shirt son. Don’t make suits lik that anymerr.’

  ‘Much y
e wantin fur the coat?’

  ‘I take it.’

  ‘No thanks, it’s not really . . .’

  ‘Will you pit thaym DOON!’

  Fumbling in his pocket for change, he paid for the jumper and moved on again, pausing for a last heat at the stove before heading back outside.

  Further along the lane he stopped at another stall, a jumble of bric-a-brac and paperback books. What had caught his eye was a stack of old gramophone records, old 78s, many still in their brownpaper sleeves. A record was just the kind of fine and useless thing he felt inclined to buy. Although he had pawned his record-player, he had kept up the payments, hoping some day to redeem it. Meanwhile he could add to his collection and look forward to music and better times. The labels of the old records were beautiful – intricate, graceful designs, golds against reds and blues, lovely melodic names, like Regal Zonophone, Beltona.

  There were a few records he would have liked to buy, but the one he finally chose was John McCormack singing ‘There is a flower that bloometh’. The man at the stall gave him an old carrier-bag and he put the shoes in the bottom, the pullover on top and eased the record down the side.

  He was almost at the end of the lane, so he turned and headed back. There were more people gathered now round the fire on the wasteground. The man with the tin whistle had joined them and was playing ‘Amazing Grace’.

  And suddenly it was all unreal, like a scene from a film, with that thin frail sound as the background music; and everything moved to it, moved without knowing; moved in that place and that time.

  Turning away, he went from the lane, carrying his treasures with the greatest of care.

  At the corner of Stockwell Street, buffeted by the cold wind from the river, he hesitated, wondering which way to go. The pubs would be open now, and he felt like a drink to warm him. But instead he decided he should put some food in his belly. So he walked along the riverside, two blocks, to Community House. There the food was good and cheap, and he liked the atmosphere. It was big and spacious, half way between being a café and a canteen, with something more besides, something peaceful that maybe came from having a chapel in the back. Along one wall was a mural showing what looked like Glasgow in the thirties, people queuing at a soup-kitchen, a background of tenements and shipyards. He didn’t know much about the Community, just that it was connected with the island of Iona.

  He bought a bacon roll and a bowl of soup and sat at a table near the window. At this time of day there were not many people in the place – some drivers and conductors from the red-bus terminus across the road, a few old folk here and there, marooned at their tables, lingering over cups of tea.

  The soup brought the life back to him and he savoured each bite of the bacon roll, wiping his soup-bowl with the last of it. Then he settled down to read the paper, with a cup of tea and a cigarette.

  An old woman, who’d been sitting over in the corner, began to make her way towards the door, stopping at some of the tables to give out gospel tracts. ‘God bless ye sir,’ she said as she handed him one. He thanked her and read it over. On the front it said COME BACK TO GOD. COME HOME. Inside was an obscure story about a drunkard who had lost his job and his house and sunk from one disgrace to another, stealing, beating up his wife and children. Somehow it ended with them all on their knees at a gospel-meeting, being welcomed into the church. Then there was a text from St John’s Gospel – ‘In my Father’s house there are many mansions . . .’ That was part of the text that had been read out at his wife’s funeral. So long ago it sometimes seemed, but the words had stayed with him. They were beautiful, moving words and they said so much more than the stupid TRUE LIFE STORY, that had no reality at all. He put the tract in his pocket and went on reading his paper over a second cup of tea.

  When he left, revived, he didn’t feel like going home just yet. So he wandered about the city centre, peering in shop windows at things he’d never buy, cut by the freezing wind, till it finally began to snow again and he stood in a queue for a bus back to the West End. But instead of going home, he got off the bus at the Botanic Gardens. He would go for refuge to the Kibble Palace.

  In the Palace it was always summer. Outside there might be snow, sleet, ice; but in here it was warm the whole year round.

  The whole structure was of glass, two main domes connected by a short passageway. At the entrance was a plan, showing the overall shape, with a key to the names of the statues and the grouping of the plants. It explained that these were arranged ‘according to their habitats’. So the area under the large dome was divided into North and South America, Australia, New Zealand and Temperate Asia. He smiled at that. It was pleasing to think that his leisurely dawdle round the Gardens would take him through four continents.

  Passing inside he felt the warmth, the gentle humidity of the atmosphere; condensation, wetness of leaves. He breathed it in. The smell of it was green. He walked round the pond and along the passageway, through South Africa to Australia. It was a whole different world from the cold and grey outside. Sounds seemed accentuated, the crunch of his footsteps on the red ash of the path, the steady drip and spray of water from hosepipes and sprinklers, the song and chatter of tiny birds. The green was ease to the eye, creepers and tree ferns reaching up on either side, dark luxuriant growth; it breathed a rich fragrance, vegetation, the damp of the earth. In imagination he could be deep in some tropical rainforest.

  In the Temperate Asia section he passed two Indian women, one old one young, sitting on one of the benches. And it was as if a joke was being played on him; as if they had been placed there to be part of this reality; Temperate Asia at the heart of a drab Glasgow day.

  Further along was an empty bench and he sat himself down, glad of the rest. He set down his precious bag beside him, peering inside to see that nothing had mysteriously disappeared. Reassured, he leaned back and closed his eyes.

  Perhaps he had actually dozed a little, or was just afloat between waking and sleep. He couldn’t be sure. But the voice startled him.

  ‘Ah’m sayin d’ye mind if ah sit here sir?’

  Looking up, he recognised the old man he’d seen that morning at the labour exchange, with the string round his coat and the feather in his hat.

  ‘Not at all,’ he said, fully awake now. ‘Not at all.’

  ‘Sorry for disturbin ye,’ said the man. ‘Ah didn’t realise ye were sleepin.’

  ‘That’s awright,’ he said. ‘Ah jist shut ma eyes fur a minnit.’

  ‘Oh aye,’ said the man. ‘It’s a nice place tae come for a wee rest. Ah come here quite a lot maself in this weather. Here or else down tae the library. Ah think this is better aw the same. The library’s no bad mind ye, but the atmosphere’s . . . well, some a they auld tramps, they smell a bit, y’know.’

  Pot calling the kettle black, he thought to himself, looking at the old man, but all he said was ‘Oh aye, in here’s nice an fresh.’

  ‘Beautiful,’ said the man. ‘Mind you,’ he went on, ‘the thing aboot the library is ye can get a good read as well. Eh, would that be the day’s paper in yer pocket? Could ah get a wee look at it?’

  ‘Aye, sure,’ he said, handing it to him. ‘Ye kin jist keep it. Ah’ve finished readin it.’

  ‘That’s very kind ae ye. Mind you, sometimes ah don’t know why ah bother. Papers can be awfy depressin things tae read. Still, there’s always the jokes.’

  He realised something in him was wary of the old man, drew back from him. But behind that was something more. A sympathy perhaps, complicated by that discomfort he’d felt in looking at the old man that morning, and seeing in his shabby dignity something of himself. In his wariness was a lifetime of attitudes to old dossers. The hand on your arm as you passed a closemouth; the reek of wine on the breath, the stink of old clothes that had been slept in for weeks or months or years; and always the hustle for money.

  But over these last few years his attitudes had been eroded, eaten away by his own worsening luck. He had seen how easy it was to slide. An
d this old man had just slid that bit further. And yet he was very far from being a wreck. He had that quality, that tattered dignity, the paper napkin in his pocket, the plastic rose in his lapel. His very eccentricity was a kind of affirmation. There was life in his eyes, in his voice.

  He remembered the pup the man had had with him at the dole. To be looking after a dog, he must have a place to stay. So he wasn’t even a tramp, just an old man down on his luck.

  The old man was chuckling at the cartoons in the paper. But as he scanned the pages, he shook his head. ‘Ah don’t know,’ he said. ‘Nothin but disasters an tragedies an God knows what. Ye’d think nothin good ever happened. Ye know, it puts me in mind a some auld minister ah heard on the wireless years ago. He started is talk bi sayin Good News is No News.’

  ‘That’s very good, that is.’

  ‘Ah thought so maself,’ said the old man. ‘An it’s true as well.’ He folded the paper and put it away in a carrier-bag he’d left under the bench.

  ‘Same as mine,’ he said, pointing to his own bag.

  ‘Snap!’ said the old man, laughing. ‘Been doin a bit of shopping then?’

  ‘Aye,’ he said. ‘Ah’ve jist been down tae Paddy’s Market.’

  ‘Paddy’s!’ said the man. ‘God, ah havnae been down there for years. Many’s a good bargain ah’ve got in Paddy’s. Tell ye no a bad place as well, jist down the road – that Oxfam shop in Byres Road. Ah went in this mornin tae get a pair a gloves an ah found these.’ He held up his hands to display a pair of bright red woollen mittens.

  ‘Jist the job.’

  ‘Ah’ll show ye what else ah got.’ Carefully he took from the bag an old print in a wooden frame. Faded and brown, it was a drawing of St Francis surrounded by birds, hovering about him, pecking the dust at his feet.

  ‘Ah thought it wis really nice,’ said the old man. ‘An ah wis kiddin maself on that it wis a bit like me. Ah mean, ah’ve seen me comin in here tae feed the birds, say if ah’ve got some old bread. No that ah let a lot a bread get stale wi the price it is. But the drawin puts me in mind a that. That’s whit it feels like when yer feedin them.’