by Laura Hird
As they moved through the clogged spaces of the streets with the mists stocked up between sandstone buildings the driver started talking:
God said to Saint Peter. Peter I’m going to make a beautiful country. Fertile lowlands, beautiful mountains with graceful waterfalls coming down the sides. Sheltered Glens that glow purple in the summer. I’m going to make the people of this country strong, brave and noble. I’m going to give them a drink that glows like gold, called whisky. This noble country of handsome men and the prettiest girls will be called Scotland. What do you think Peter?
Saint Peter said, Well God that’s all very well but do you not think you’re being too lavish in the gifts you’re bestowing to this country. It sounds like heaven on earth.
God replied to this: Oh there’s no possibility of that, wait till you see who I’m going to give them as fucking neighbours!
Scorgie joined the taxi driver’s laughs as they pulled into the side of the railway station.
Scorgie had his ticket so he got a table seat and dozed for a while till the train moved off through the tunnels and into morning sun clearing away the mists.
For three hours west then north the train moved away from the central belt cities into the Far Places. At the military halt, a couple of The Dose brothers sat two seats up from Scorgie. They were from a family of fifteen children including two sets of twins and they were cleaners at the military station. They had two crates of beer with them and they soon started pishing into plastic carrier bags and throwing them out the window at sheep.
Scorgie walked forward.
Aye Aye Scorgie, where have you been?
Never mind where I’ve been boys I’m trying to rest easy and somehow just your presence is disturbing me, savvy?
We were just having a crack and that.
It’s not very nice what you’re doing.
Aye, well sorry, we’ll move up a bit.
Brilliant idea boys, maybe see yous in the Gluepot one night.
The two Dose brothers moved up the coach into the next one with their beers.
Through The Slip Halt and under the Blackmounts the train moved on. When it stopped at The Falls Platform, the Man Who Walks was stood with a long section of sink top and the actual sink still attached. The Man Who Walks mustve found it in a field. Clods of grass were still stuck to the taps and U-pipe. Molotov the guard wouldnt allow it on the train cause it exceeded length permitted in the Free Baggage Allowance for passengers. Scorgie could hear the argument through the window The Dose brothers had left open.
Man Who Walks leaned the sink unit against the side of the train and delivered it a heavy kick, splitting the unit in the middle. The Man Who Walks threw the draining board section across the wooden platform, hoisted the aluminium sink above his head and stepped onto the train.
The train accelerated on up the pass beyond Five Mile House then into Back Settlement. Whatever The Dose brothers had been up to, Molotov threw them off the train there. They were so drunk they just sat on the gravel platform looking bewildered. As the train pulled out Scorgie gave them an over-enthusiastic wave. They had another six miles to make it home.
Beyond Back Settlement the train slowed through the concession land and around the first of the reed beds. Out on the point Scorgie could see the buildings of The New Projects and just beyond on the higher ground, The Summer Colony.
As the train moved close to the roofs of the bought houses, Scorgie stood up and shuffled to the door. He leaned out, opened the door and got down onto the platform. He slammed the door and stood where he was. The engine blew its horn and a length of exhaust smoke keeled over as it increased its power onto the leaning curve.
Molotov was standing up in the guards’ doorway and he nodded and smiled as the train moved by. The moment the end moved past him Scorgie jamp down off the platform. The rails still zinged. Across the track he ducked down through the insect clouds on the Bridle Path. He came out up the road from the Ferry Hotel and walked down to its public bar, The Gluepot.
The barmaid who was known as The Hole of Morar was serving. Scorgie had seen her souped-up black mini with the aerials parked outside.
Aye, Aye.
Hello there. You been away for the weekend?
Yup. Can I have a fresh orange and lemonade.
Youre first in today. Its dead.
Aye? goes Scorgie sitting on a stool and looking around. The tables hadnt been cleared of the night-before-ashtrays.
Can I put some music on? asked Scorgie walking in behind the bar.
Aye help yourself.
Scorgie clattered through the big box of cassettes till he came to the yellow one. He wound it near to the end of side two then set it going. ‘Reincarnated Souls’ by Bunny Wailer started coming from all the speakers throughout the bar’s nooks and crannies.
Thanks, says Scorgie handing over a tenner and leaving his change on the bar. He drank the drink in a one-er then asked for a lager and packet of crisps. Scorgie thought, I’ve twelve quid. I’ll drink the lot before I leave here, then he moved round the bar to rewind the cassette again.
Scorgie moved under the blue dusk and through the nettle paths to Hacker’s boathouse. He undid the wire and opened the doors pulling out the inflatable. He climbed in and took off the too-small trainers and his socks, staying sat down he reached over and opened the cock, tapped the fuel pipe and pulled the string sharp. The Yamaha rumbled smoke and a few oily water drops out the exhaust then he sunk the prop and twisted the handle on the tiller. The bow rose up and it carried him across the flat evening water. He saw dark birds hugging the surface out where the current from the loch met the sea. He took his bearing from the languid swell and mellow dipping of the lighthouse beam below the Young Crusaders Hall.
As he steered a wide curve into the bay, ruining the glassy water beyond the buoys of his brown crab keep cages it could be seen that the conical spire of the new church in The Summer Colony also served as a lighthouse, warning the big, self-discharging vessels with their 14m drafts about the reed beds.
He cut the engine and lifted the prop as the boat cruised into shingle beach. He grit his teeth and splashed into the water and it came up to his knees. Tugging the forward cleat then the port thole he juddered the boat up the shingle and tied the nylon line to the old tree with the bark worn away to smooth wood by boat lines.
He climbed over the small sandbank. He could see the different shapes and colours of the tiles on his roof: all lifted by his own hands from a sunken barge at the end of the reed beds. From the corner he could see the lights of The Summer Colony where Sulee would be with her father, the minister, in the manse.
He would phone her after he’d showered and he would see her when he talked to them all from Pulpit Rock in the morning. He reached in the compresser door to where he hid his front door key then under the darkened sky touched by the rigid beam of light from the spire, his lips trembled words up to the stars in that holiest of hours: his return. Again, sideyways through Scorgie’s mind came: … the sputter of the storm lamp held up by his brother, his father’s white face where he’d lain down in The Sorrowless Rigs’ burn, the empty WD40 de-seizing bottle in one hand and the sharp old baling knife in the other with both wrists split wide open but washed clean by the spate of freezing water. His dead father’s face pale as Sulee’s young body when she turned her back and lifted the dress that night below the Young Crusader’s Hall, her ghostly arms pushing out of the summer-blue dark then the sweep of the lighthouse beam from the spire illuminating everything for just one bright instant.
(From a novel: THE FAR PLACES, 1991)
The Brown Pint of Courage
JAMES MEEK
THE SOUND OF the crickets chirping in the darkness was loud. John was aware it would upset his mum. It was years since she’d spoken but he knew what she didn’t like. The noise had been going on all night. It was also overdue at the library.
John got out of bed and switched off the ghetto blaster. He took out the tape, put it i
n its box and put it in a pocket of his uniform jacket. He went into the kitchen.
Sorry, Mum, he shouted. Just be grateful I didn’t have the tree frogs on. Did it keep you awake? I’m sorry. I’ll get your breakfast. Are you wanting cereal? Aye? Are you wanting tea? Eh? If I make you tea you’ll only cry it out straight away. There’s never been such a woman for crying if she takes liquids. Brown tears it looks like.
John switched on the radio. The Radio Four morning discussion programme was on. A young Englishman was plugging his book. It was very difficult to make them understand, he said. But I found curiously enough that the women were much more friendly than the men. I don’t mean in any sexual sense!
It’s defying the laws of gravity, that’s what bothers me, shouted John. If you drink it down, it should go to your stomach, not your head. The health visitor thinks I’m giving you Typhoo and milk instead of eye drops.
Yes, said Robert Robinson. But what I found interesting was the extraordinary way in which they regarded work, almost as if physical labour was the imposition of some kind of evil god.
Can you move your legs at all the day? shouted John. I’ll try and be back for six. Mind and bang on the wall and someone’ll maybe come if there’s any trouble.
They just couldn’t see the link between the coming of the rubber factory and the health care service that went with it, said the young Englishman.
John put the cereal and tea on a tray and went upstairs to his mum’s room. He looked back over his shoulder as he went out.
Don’t you bastards talk about me when I’m out the room, he said to Radio Four.
Once he was out the room Robert Robinson let rip a fart that was distinguishable from static even on long wave. Gammon! he said.
I’d just like to run through a few of the illustrations, said the young Englishman.
Might as well, said Robert Robinson.
John gave his mum the tea. I know you’re sick, he said. I’m not so sure about this silence routine. One day I’ll just pretend to go out the house and I’ll really be downstairs listening and you’ll be talking away, 19 to the dozen. You do that, don’t you? You talk when I’m not here. Well it can’t go on. I mean Christ how about a letter or something? Dear son, just to let you know I’m fine, and the tea’s hardly compensation for having you. Oh no, would you stop crying? It’s like living with an uncommunicative sponge. Aaaaaah! Here. Don’t use your sleeve. I’ll get you a jam doughnut for later. That’ll be nice, eh? Don’t go opening the door to any teenage conmen. And watch out for that postman – he’s got his eye on you.
John put on the uniform, put a copy of Sartor Resartus in his trouser pocket, put on a pair of mirrored sunspecs, ran a cloth over his jet black Doc Martens, put on his helmet, climbed onto his 49cc Puch moped and rode into town. From his mum’s room came music: the overture to Showboat.
The eyes just stared at John from under the peak of the cap, and the voice came out deep, loud.
Thick curtains of Night rushed across his soul, as rose the immeasurable Crash of Doom; and through the ruins of a shivered Universe, was he falling, falling towards the Abyss, said the Commendatore. He held the parking ticket out to John. John didn’t take it. He kept his hands behind his back.
Did you write this? said the Commendatore.
No, your worship, said John. I filled in the ticket, that was my own work, it was Thomas Carlyle wrote the bit on the other side.
Did you transcribe the words of Thomas Carlyle on the ticket.
Absolutely not, your worship, said John. Absolutely no way.
The word in the canteen is that you’re a man of great personal integrity and a good lad, said the Commendatore. The word on your file is you’re a jumped-up piece of shite. Lying to figures in authority.
No way, your worship.
Why should anyone have written this on the ticket?
There’s a blank space, Commendatore.
Spread the word. I want that space left blank. Commendatore is not right. I’ve got some books on Italian military ranks at home, would you like to borrow them?
No, said John.
Off you go, said the Commendatore. Tell Dek if he vomits on a private motor vehicle again he gets his cards.
Aye aye your worship, said John.
When John had gone the Commendatore went to a cupboard locked with a padlock. He took off the padlock with an individual key and took a shoebox out of the cupboard. He spread pages from the Herald and Post across the desk and started taking tiny pots of Humbrol enamel paint out of the box.
Can you cash a cheque? Dek asked the barman. He already had the chequebook open with a pen over the Pay line.
When the Pope comes through that door singing We Are The Fighting Billy Boys and orders a pint of special, said the barman. When. Then.
So it’s yes? said Dek.
Dek! said John in the doorway.
Aye, said Dek.
It’s time, said John.
Time for what, said Dek, not turning round.
Time for rightminded wardens to hit the road.
I’m not a rightminded warden. I’m a drunken warden, a bad warden, a warden wanted by sheriff officers.
Tania’s worried for you, said John.
Dek lowered his head till his forehead rested on the bar. How can a man not have a few drinks if he wants? he said.
It’s 8.30 in the morning, said John.
I’m not drinking early, I’m drinking late, said Dek.
The Commendatore took from the box cardboard strips. Plastic figures were glued to them, Airfix soldiers, no higher than the thumb above the joint. Their coats and peaked hats were painted black. Their faces and hands were painted pink. There were three on each strip. The Commendatore lined them up in four columns 20 deep. He bent down till his eyes were at table level and looked through their ranks for a while. He straightened up and took a slender-tipped brush from the box. He sucked it to a fine point and dipped it in a pot of yellow enamel. He picked up three plastic figures and brought them up close to his face. The tip of the brush approached the first figure’s head and the Commendatore started to paint a yellow band round its hat.
Have you ever done a Rolls? said Tania.
Rollers don’t park, said Dek. They grace the street. There’s an old Edinburgh bylaw says Rolls Royce owners may requisition traffic wardens to lick the salt off their bodywork during inclement weather. He stopped and leaned against a wall with his eyes closed.
Are you OK? said Tania.
I think I left something in the pub, said Dek.
Your wages, said John.
If you could feel what I feel you wouldn’t be funny about it, said Dek. Wait. I’m out of balance. The right side of my body’s got more than the left side.
John went up to him and looked him over. Try lifting your right leg, he said.
Dek lifted his right leg. John hooked his boot under Dek’s left ankle and pulled. Dek fell over.
Is that better? said John.
Bastard! said Dek, trying to clutch at John. He got up and started limping after him.
Keep going, you’ll even it up, said John, disappearing round the corner. Dek stopped and bent double, his hands on his knees, coughing.
Are you OK? said Tania.
Dek puked on the pavement. Aye, fine, he said, straightening up.
Do you want a mint? said Tania, holding out a packet of Polos.
Dek looked at the Polos. He looked at Tania’s face. Do you use these? he said, frowning.
No, she said, I don’t like them. They might help settle your stomach.
Aye, said Dek, taking a Polo. Thanks. You should try them.
Outside the games shop a driver opened the back of a delivery truck. He looked round. A traffic warden was watching him.
Won’t be a moment, said the driver.
You can’t park here, said Tania.
I’m must making a delivery.
I’ll walk round the block, said Tania. You’d better be finished. She walked away.
The driver climbed into the back of the truck. There was another traffic warden.
What? said the driver.
You can’t park here, said Dek.
Your friend said it was all right for a minute, said the driver.
Dek looked at his watch. I’m starting the clock, he said. You’ve got sixty seconds. He strolled off with his hands behind his back, singing ‘Only 24 Hours from Tulsa’.
The driver pushed a box to the tailgate and jumped down.
Jesus Christ, he said.
You can’t park here, said John.
I’m searching for the hidden camera, said the driver.
There’s a yellow line, sir, said John.
There’s just one of you, isn’t there, and you’re going round and round, said the driver.
Tania appeared next to John. You still here? she said, taking out her ticket pad.
Next time I’ll take the bus, said the driver.
Dek came strolling back. That’s your minute up, he said.
So, said the driver. What do you want?
What’ve you got? said John.