Maggie & Me

by Damian Barr

  ‘Ignore them,’ she says and only then do I click that it’s me the queue is laughing at.

  ‘Tink,’ mutters one girl.

  An older boy turns out his empty pockets and pretends to cry. My face is hotter than my lunch.

  So far high school is not cool.

  There’s worse to come. Somehow the whole school has got a whiff of my gayness. ‘Poof’, they hiss in the foyer. ‘AIDSY!’ And they know I’m poor even though we’re all in the same uniform. I think of Mary the Canary singing ‘Coat Of Many Colours’ and I know it’s not true. I don’t know how they all know so much about me. Most of them didn’t go to Keir Hardie and half of them don’t even live in Newarthill. I’ve not done anything gay. Have I? Do I smell poor? I don’t smell like David Marsden – wet washing and potato peelings. For all her faults my mother is mad for bleach. She inherited this from Granny Mac who actually scrubbed chicken pox off one of my uncles with a wire brush. By the end of the first day I’m ‘Barbie’, ‘Gay Barr’ and the startlingly original ‘Gaymian’. I deny it – to them and myself.

  At 3.30 p.m. Mark and I meet outside as planned. Turns out 1A1 isn’t much better than 1G2.

  ‘Remedials,’ Mark says. ‘By the way, everybody knows you’re bent.’

  ‘They don’t. I’m not.’

  ‘You are.’

  ‘I’m not!’ Pause. ‘So are you!’

  We never argue. He turns left towards his dad’s and I turn to go with him.

  ‘No way,’ he says. ‘Not like you.’

  ‘Not like me how?’

  ‘I’ve been asked to smokers’ corner,’ he boasts, spitting. Since when did he spit?

  Smokers’ corner is basically a bin shed at the back of the canteen where you can buy a fag for 50p. The whole school knows about it and every now and then one of the teachers half-heartedly breaks it up.

  ‘But you don’t even smoke! You hate it when your dad smokes. If you smoke you won’t be able to run the 100 metres or swim or anything!’

  ‘Watch me,’ he says as if he might have a pack of twenty in his back pocket right now.

  I can’t smoke. Our house is always hazy and choky. I nicked some cigarettes on a Wednesday when they wouldn’t be missed – a few days later Dodger was scrounging in the ashtrays for extravagantly stubbed out fag-ends. I wheezed like one of the balloons I used to get from the ragman, the ones that always had holes in.

  ‘I’m going,’ says Mark. I put my hand out to stop him and he shakes it off. ‘Get off me! Grow up!’

  Mark isn’t there to walk with me to school next day. He’s on the other side of the foyer when I come in and turns his back when he sees me. We’ve got PE that morning and I’m thrilled and horrified to find the boys’ changing room has no cubicles. Coat hooks line the brick wall and when I walk in wee Davie Fowler is dangling off one from his backpack. Andrew Frew, who’s got taxi-door ears, is pointing and laughing. Fowler finally falls off. I take a hook near him but not near enough to be contaminated by him. Frew joins the other cool boys in the corner. They’ve all got pubes. The boys near me have fuzz if they’re lucky. I sneak a peek when I can but they all just point and stare: ‘maggot’ is the worst slagging off and ‘dong’ is the highest praise. None of them is as hairy as Mark and I feel proud of him. We’re all in navy-blue shorts and gold T-shirts by the time Mr Stewart the PE teacher jogs us out to the athletic field. The class before is finishing a 100-metre race and I see Mark cross the line first. Everybody cheers and Mr Stewart asks his time from another teacher and raises his eyebrows and joins in the clapping. Everybody loves Mark. Fowler stands next to me and I move away towards Mark. I smile at him. He strides right past.

  After a week of not seeing each other all day every day it’s like he’s forgotten me. I turn up at his house on Saturday morning. For once his dad looks pleased to see me.

  ‘He’s oot,’ he says. ‘Playin’ fitba.’

  Football? Mark is playing football? Why? Who with? I’ve got the latest James Herbert, The Fog. We were supposed to go to the Craig and read out loud. Instead I run home and barricade myself in my room with my books.

  As usual there’s a party downstairs. When the noise reaches its predictable peak I shove bits of toilet paper in my ears and focus on the horror on the page. I imagine Dodger and Joe and all their drunken pals disappearing in the fog screaming then I realise I really can hear screaming. I unstuff my ears, pull back the nails from my door and head to the top of the stairs. Looking down I see a woman standing by the bathroom staring at the blood running down her lard-white legs from under her black-denim miniskirt. It’s wee Sandra Gordon whose big sister Cora went mad with syphilis and threw a birdcage out the top floor of Carfin flats with a bird in cos she thought the whole thing would fly. Sandra is even shorter than my mum. She touches the blood and it drips off her fingers and she screams even louder. I’m halfway downstairs when a grinning Dodger bounces out the living room, dancing from foot to foot. He sees the blood but doesn’t seem that bothered and shouts, ‘LYNN!’ There’s a pause. ‘LYNN-EEE!’ he sing-songs idiotically and I wish he’d just go in and get her. My mum staggers out with a fag in her hand looking interrupted and sobers up in an instant shouting at me to phone 999. She locks herself in the bathroom with Sandra then Dodger tries to stop Andy with the smashed-in Goonies face, whose baby this was, from kicking the door in. When Tanya the Rottweiler starts barking and growling, I retreat to my room.

  Monday morning and I head to Mark’s to tell him about Sandra but he’s gone on ahead again. I can’t believe it.

  That lunchtime I finally find him and he’s too embarrassed to go with me while I get my free dinner so we agree to meet at the chippie. When no one’s looking he gives me a chip and we walk and talk and it’s all OK again. Coming towards us are two girls I know from 1G2. I recognise them as Heather Drummond and Sharon Johnson. They’re both in frilly white ankle socks. All the other girls wear thick black tights. Mark is drinking a strawberry milkshake. ‘Let’s do a Carrie,’ he says. It’s one of our favourite books and we love the film. If I do this, things’ll be back to how they were. He slugs half and hands me the cup, it’s that thin plastic that splits if you grip hard. I walk towards the girls who look wary before they realise it’s only that gay Damian Barr and he won’t do anything and in that second I decide to prove them wrong. Direct hit. Pink milks runs down bare legs staining white socks.

  ‘Periods!’ Mark shouts. ‘Yous’ve got yer periods!’

  Sharon stands there dripping and bawling. Heather lowers her head and runs at me and I don’t move and she kicks me once really hard right in the shin. I hop over to Mark who’s pissing himself laughing with some boys from 1A1. They’re all pointing and laughing at me and Heather and Sharon.

  ‘Sorry,’ I shout, my voice trailing off, not quite wanting the boys to hear.

  Not stopping to dry her legs, Heather stomps back to school trailing Sharon. All afternoon I wait in fear, expecting to get in trouble, to be pulled out of class, but Heather doesn’t grass. I try talking to her when the bell goes but she ignores me. So does Mark.

  After a week of my saying sorry every time I see her, Heather finally shrugs. ‘That Mark Ellison’s a dick,’ she says and I’m shocked to hear this girl with the Alice band swear.

  ‘He’s not, I, he . . .’

  She looks at me, assessing my loyalty. ‘Well, he is a bit.’

  We start talking about To Kill a Mockingbird, which we’re reading for English with Mrs Kennedy who we both agree is brilliant but mental.

  I don’t know how we become boyfriend and girlfriend but that’s what everybody starts saying about us so that’s what we become. They make smoochy noises at us in the foyer and dare us to kiss and sometimes we do. Valentine’s cards are exchanged with SWALK and messages from ANONYMOUS even though we hand them to one another in person with a chaste peck and maybe a gift of a pack of Rolos. Our relationship is the Tooth Fairy, Easter Bunny and Santa Claus rolled into one but what does it matter so lon
g as we both believe? Mark steers well clear and rumours spread about him and a slaggy fourth year. The whole school still says I’m gay but Heather defends me, even when I don’t defend myself. If anyone gets too close she kicks their shins. Her nickname is ‘Farmer Giles’ because her family keep horses and she does look like a farmer’s wife in waiting. She’s the only girl in our year without a fringe and she never covers her pink cheeks with blusher or anything else. Hazel eyes unbothered by mascara hold your gaze. She’s no slag. She doesn’t care what anybody thinks or says about her.

  Heather is a good person and good for me, I think. Maybe she can help me change. ‘Fly wi the craws ye get shot wi the craws,’ says Granny Mac, who approves of her family. We sit next to each other in registration, we cheer each other when we come in last in PE and we spend every evening together after school. It’s not long until I’ve got out of sports for ever. Heather is less fortunate. I sit in the library longing for Holden Caulfield, watching the others doing cross-country in all weathers. Poor Heather slogs on through the rain catching everybody up, her boobs, two of the biggest in our year, bouncing in her sports bra. When the bell rings for the next class I use my laminated sick note – ‘Please excuse Damian, he has asthma’ – as a book mark.

  Heather’s house is at the top of Newarthill. It’s one of the last in the village and the only ‘bought hoose’ I’ve ever been in. Her family used to own lots of land about here but sold it off so now it’s just the farm and stables where her deaf angry granpa lives and the fields where her dad and her uncle have built bungalows. I thought only the Council built houses. Heather’s parents both work – nobody works at 15 Rannoch Avenue but my mum keeps saying she’ll get ‘a wee job’ when she’s better. I keep nagging her to stop drinking and she just ignores me, tells me to mind my own business. Somehow she makes me feel uncool. We walk up the high street past the post office and Streaks Ahead Hairdresser’s where I’ll soon go for some ill-advised streaks.

  Heather’s bungalow has a red monoblock driveway and room for several cars. It’s a palace. She lets us in with her own key. It’s quiet. We’ve got the house to ourselves and I’m suddenly terrified she might think I should take advantage and give her a love bite or something but instead she offers me a drink and we down glass after glass of Irn-Bru while thumping our homework on to the dining table – dining table! I stroke it like my dad would a shiny new BMW. There’s a microwave and Heather does us some chips in a box, which she gets from a fully stocked chest freezer. We watch Neighbours and Ramsay Street is just fading when her mum sighs through the door straight off the train from Glasgow where she programmes computers in a bank.

  ‘Hello,’ she says, surprised to see me, and Heather gives me a look. She’s warned me her mum’s English.

  ‘Is your pal staying for dinner?’ I enjoy the exoticness of her Cumbrian vowels.

  Heather nods. I was never this welcome at Mark’s. I introduce myself to Mrs Drummond.

  ‘Call me Mrs D,’ she says.

  We follow her through to the scullery, which they call a kitchen, where a dish of precooked garlic chicken is produced from the fridge. I thought garlic only came on bread and only then on telly. Mrs D sets an extra place at the table. She will do this almost every school night for the next six years and she will never complain. Heather’s brother wanders in. He’s a fifth year with long hair tied back in a ponytail. He’s going to do physics at the uni. Like Heather and her mum he’s got ridiculously rosy cheeks. We’re all talking about what we did today when the back door slams and in comes Heather’s dad. Everybody sharpens up except me. I just keep talking. He is tall but would never stoop. His eyes vibrate in his head, they dance, daring you to watch them move.

  ‘Who’s this?’ His beard is flecked with red.

  Heather introduces me and her mum explains I’m staying for dinner. He asks my second name and I tell him.

  ‘Big Glenn’s laddie?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say, proud. He looks me up and down then shrugs. ‘Tell yer daddy ah was askin’ for him. Is he still at the Craig?’

  I nod. He shrugs again, looks surprised.

  ‘Well, tell him if he wants mair work tae gie me a wee buzz. Yer dad’s good on the machines.’ He turns his attention to Swarfega-ing the dirt on his hands into submission.

  He knows that Maggie is going to close the Craig. We all do. Only my dad won’t believe it and when I see his weary face I hate her as much he does, as much as everybody does. I feel stupid for trusting her, for thinking she would read his petition.

  Dinner is eaten quietly around an actual table and I feel like I’m in a BBC One Saturday-night series. It’s all so amazingly normal. Nobody shouts or lifts a hand. Dorny, the family dog, lies under the table waiting for crumbs. He’s a black-and-white border collie, the only kind of dog Heather’s dad would allow. We’re actually excused from the table and scurry off to Heather’s room where we close the solid pine door and flop on to her bed and burst out laughing before gossiping about everybody from school, what he said to her and she said about him and then we get our homework out and start that.

  Heather’s got one of the first portable CD players. It has a yellow sign on with a lightning bolt warning you not to look at the laser. She puts Madonna on low-volume and we hum along to ‘Like A Virgin’. After an hour her dad throws open the door without knocking and we’re both on the bed and he stares at the floor where I obviously should be and I’m flattered he thinks I’d be doing anything I shouldn’t. He asks if I want a lift home at 9 p.m. and leaves before I can say anything.

  Bang on 9 p.m. Mrs D sits me in the front of their G Reg Blue Vauxhall Cavalier. I buckle up and she smiles and we drive the five minutes down from the top of Newarthill. I try to make it clear I’m not bad for Heather by talking about school. We’re about to turn into the top of Rannoch Avenue and I panic.

  ‘Just here. Drop me just here and it’ll save you turning.’

  She brakes, saying that’s considerate. I wave her away and when she’s turned the corner I walk down the road and sure enough music is blaring out the wide-open front door and Dodger is punching the fuck out of some random in the front garden. I get closer and . . . it’s my mum and I’m running running running but before I get to her she’s up on her feet with a Buckie bottle in one hand and while Dodger’s looking at me she smashes it round his head and he goes down, right down. She smiles at me and waves but I ignore her as I walk in the front door with my schoolbag over my shoulder.

  When we have to pick our Standard Grade options Heather and me conspire to take the same subjects so we can spend all our time together. Everybody does English and maths. After that, it’s up to you.

  Neither of us picks music. I like it but I can’t afford my own instrument as I learned when I had to borrow a communal recorder. They stand steeped in a jar of Milton’s sterilising fluid to prevent the pupils sharing them from also sharing germs. Since AIDS, Mrs McKay, who wears a leather miniskirt with no knickers, refuses to dilute the Milton’s and she won’t let you rinse your recorder. She makes you play with the taste of Milton’s in your mouth. All the boys take turns dropping pencils on the floor so they can get a look up her skirt. Even me. Somehow I get an A which means I’m invited to play the flute in the school band. Talk about gay. In registration Miss Campbell interrupts me telling Heather that I’d like to play but can’t afford to and in Mrs McKay’s next class I’m informed a spare instrument has been found, in a tone that suggests it’s wasted on me. I take up flute mainly because I don’t like to disappoint and I like showing off when I can. On the rare evenings Heather’s parents take her out without me I practise at my own house which is so noisy nobody can hear me.

  We each choose seven Standard Grades. I am in the top set for everything except maths where I’m on course for a shameful B. I am embarrassed to be in M2 and our teacher is Baldy Laing. He’s the guy from the Hamlet cigar advert minus the jokes. He’s introducing himself when the door flies open and dozens of ping-pong balls bounce
in and I recognise my cousin Peter’s laugh in the corridor. Each ball has a comb-over.

  We all get a good look at his baldy head as Mr Laing bends down to pick one up. ‘Silence!’ He slaps the blackboard so hard with his pointer it rips.

  We obey. He hates us all but he hates me most.

  ‘You think you’re clever, Mr Barr,’ he says and who am I to disagree. ‘You think you should be in the class above.’

  At that I shake my head. I know I’m rubbish at maths.

  This he takes as some kind of insult so I’m made to carry a desk out into the corridor and sit there doing sums on my own. Teachers walk past and do a double-take, not quite believing their eyes. Pupils on errands for teachers between classes smile at me, this might make be a bit cool. Miss Campbell, who teaches maths, is perplexed. From then on I’m always in the corridor of shame and one day Baldy Laing bawls at me for coming in to ask permission to go the toilet when I could just have gone without him noticing and I burst into tears and run down the corridor not sure where I’m going till I storm into Miss Campbell’s guidance room and cry, ‘I can’t stand maths and I can’t stand Mr Laing.’

  He storms in after me and shouts, ‘I can’t stand that boy!’

  Miss Campbell soothes us and somehow I end up in her maths class.

  Me and Heather love science with its Bunsen burners and subatomic truths and take chemistry and physics. Biology is gross and also a bit too easy so we shun it. In a taster session about breathing we are given sheep’s lungs to dissect. They’re more grey than red and smell rotten but are still in working order as we see when Mr Garvie huffs and puffs into them. The whole class groans and gags as the gory bagpipe inflates and deflates. Mr Garvie wipes his lips and laughs. This is obviously his signature move. A knock at the door and he leaves class to take a message. When he’s gone I nudge Heather and we look at gormless Leeanne Smith staring out the window. She’s glaikit, totally not with it. She’s even lower down the food chain than us because at least we’re clever and can give the teachers lip, not that Heather ever would.