by Tony Roper
Magrit pushed fruitlessly against the door. ‘Open this door. Do you hear me? Open this door till I batter youse!’
Tim and Frankie's streetwise sense of self-preservation made them decide against this option. ‘It wasnae us – it was her, Ma,’ Tim pleaded in mitigation, from behind the door.
‘Tim's right, Ma,’ Frankie added, as the chief witness for the defence.
Magrit had neither the time nor the patience to continue this childish argument so, with a cursory kick at the door to shut them up, she issued her judgement on the case in question. ‘Right, I'm goin' tae ma work. See when I get back, you two are getting sore airses and then straight into bed – that's the pair o' youse for the night! I mean it.’
With cries of ‘But, Ma … honest … we did nothin'’ ringing in her ears, Magrit left the lobby and entered the kitchen where Theresa was kneeling in front of the fire, sniffling and feeling sorry for herself, as she wiped tears away with the back of her hands.
Theresa looked up at her with eyes that registered the deep unhappiness she was going through and stifled a sob. Magrit consoled her as best as she knew how. ‘Right, get dressed and stop snivelling.’
Theresa shuddered and gave a tiny gasp that she hoped would convey the dreadful hopelessness of her plight. ‘I feel as if I've nae privacy in this hoose,’ she snuffled. ‘Everybody just loves tae stare at me.’
Magrit put her coat on and buttoned it up as protection against the coming cold blast of winter. ‘Well, you're wrong there,’ she intoned as she looked for her message bag. ‘I'm sick of lookin' at you.’ She spied the bag behind a chair. ‘I'm away tae my work. I'll be back up aboot eleven o'clock. You can put the kettle on for me – I'll need a cup o' tea.’ As she left the kitchen, she also left Theresa with the comforting words, ‘Never mind they two. It's no' their fault – they're trainin' tae be men.’
EIGHT
Harry Culfeathers sat half upright in his bed. His pyjama jacket was opened and he was sweating with the effort of a recent coughing fit. His arms lay spreadeagled by his sides where they had collapsed, all strength having left them, Only an involuntary twitch of his left pinkie gave any sign of energy.
Mary looked on helplessly as she sat at the side of the bed. ‘Maybe you should take more o' that bottle the doctor gave you?’ was the best she could offer in the way of aid.
‘Aye, maybe,’ was the best Harry could muster as an acknowledgement of her effort.
‘Will I get it for you?’ Mary persisted.
‘Naw, it's bloody useless. I'm all right.’ Harry's whole being gave lie to his statement as he lay there, mouth open and chest heaving up and down at double the speed it should be.
Mary nodded in resignation that there was little she could do to alleviate her husband's plight. ‘OK. Drink your tea then.’
Harry snatched for a deep breath, then looked round his surroundings. ‘What tea?’
Mary surveyed the same surroundings. ‘Did I no' bring in your tea? See my memory, it's gettin' worse,’ she said, despairingly, and made to rise from the bedside.
Harry's voice stopped her. ‘It doesnae matter. What time is it?’
Mary looked over to the mantelpiece where the clock that they had been given as a wedding present still ticked accurately in testament to the Swiss craftsmen who had made it. ‘It's nearly ten.’
Harry gave no sign that he had heard and Mary knew that he didn't really care what the time was – it was merely a question to bridge a moment.
They both sat in silence.
‘Nae letters or cards, I take it?’ Harry intoned without any real expectation of a reply in the affirmative.
‘The lassie McCartney handed in a Christmas card. She said she forgot to give us it at Christmas.’
‘Oh. Did we gie her one?’
‘Aye.’
‘She's a nice lassie.’
‘Aye, she is.’
‘Nothin' from … the boys, though?’
Mary tried to sound casual. ‘No. They've probably just been too busy – I think it gets very busy in London … at this time o' the year.’
Mary could hear the sound of Harry's teeth grinding. ‘Oh. They're obviously busy – too busy tae send a bloody Christmas card tae their mother and faither – ungrateful bastards.’
Mary fought back the feeling of helplessness that made her want to find relief by bursting into tears. She took a deep breath and laid her hand on Harry's arm. ‘Harry … don't … don't get angry … please.’
‘I just don't understand it. We did everything for them boys. Then they grow up … leave home … and just … drop you! That's it, isn't it? You've served your bloody purpose … noo, don't annoy us … we've got better things tae dae than … than be bothered … wi' …’
Mary was losing the battle. She turned her face away from him. ‘Harry … please … stop.’
Harry stared into space, his anger having given way to perplexity.
Mary patted his arm, as she would a child. ‘I'll get you another cup o' tea.’ She looked round. ‘Where's your cup? Where did you put your cup, Harry?’
Harry continued staring into space. ‘Maybe they'll turn up … unexpected … as a … kind o' … surprise.’
Mary continued to look for the cup.
NINE
Doreen Hood entered Mario Francini's, the acknowledged best hairdresser in the district. In fact, Francini's was so far ahead of the other hairdressers in the vicinity that it was called a salon – SALON FRANCINI, read the sign above the door. This was the place to be seen if you were below thirty. It was as near to Hollywood glamour as Glasgow got. Indeed, on the walls were actual photographs of Mario alongside stars like Rita Hayworth, Betty Grable, etc. With a bit of luck, you might even get Mario himself to do your hair and then he would regale you with stories of what the stars had confided in him as he coiffed their coiffures. Of course, what they did not know was that Mario had simply joined a long list of people who had paid to get their photographs taken with a film star. Doreen paused a little before she entered, ostensibly to check the contents of her handbag but, in reality, to let people see that she got her hair done in Francini's. She turned round just as Mario himself opened the door and ushered her in. She loved the fact that Mario said, loud enough for people to hear, ‘Mrs Hood, a pleasure to welcome you again. May I take your coat?’
Doreen preened for a second or two at the entrance in the hope that she would be noticed by a few more passers-by before entering. As Mario helped her to remove her coat, she explained perhaps a little too eagerly for one who was trying to exude sophistication, ‘I'd like a bubble cut, Mario.’ As she handed Mario her coat, her eyes shone with the hope and expectation of someone who knows they have successfully followed the tramlines laid down by her parents as the way to live your life – tramlines that guarantee you will end up at the terminus of the good life.
Meanwhile, Magrit was outside the shop front of Wallis's Fashions. Another place that was only for those and such as those, it had been named after the American fashion icon Mrs Wallis Simpson who had caused Edward VIII to abdicate (although he was never crowned king due to the fact that Mrs Simpson was divorced). Magrit also paused at the entrance. Like Doreen, the owner of the shop came to the front door to meet her. Unlike Doreen, she was greeted curtly and then given the keys to the back shop where she could collect a bucket and mop to clean the floors with. As Magrit took the keys, her eyes did not shine – but they had … once upon a time.
Theresa McGuire was with her best friend Rena, standing at the corner of Dander Street and Dyke Mains Cross. Dander Street was about half a mile long and eventually led down to the dockside. This corner was the gathering place for all the pubescent pretenders to adulthood. Theresa and Rena were relishing the fact that they were on holiday and there was no school to go to. This meant that they did not have to wear their school stuff. They were, of course, not at a school that demanded a uniform but they did have clothes that definitely said ‘THIS GIRL IS STILL AT SCHOOL’ and
today they did not have to wear those. Both girls were bedecked with white ankle socks and white sandals and flared skirts, topped off with mandarin collared blouses. They stood chatting, their feet freezing and their faces blue with the cold, but that was a small price to pay for the opportunity to show off to the boys who were also standing around in their baseball boots, fourteen-inch drainpipe denim trousers and open-neck shirts. Like the girls they were also freezing but the banter and jousting as they showed off to the girls, who stood to the side and pretended they were not interested, made it well worthwhile. Also it did not cost any money and, as none of the participants had any, this made it the best game in town. Rena imagined that one of the lads, who the girls all gave the ultimate accolade of the name ‘Fine Boy’ to, was giving her the eye. When it turned out that the reason for his constant winking was a nasty sty, she got peeved and suggested to Theresa that they go up to her house and listen to Johnnie Ray instead of, as she put it, ‘Hanging about with that lot.’
Dolly Johnson had still not made it back to her house and was talking to her eleventh crony-come-confidant since leaving Wilson's the grocer. The conversations were all about the same subjects and were liberally peppered with phrases such as ‘Is that right?’, ‘So I heard’, ‘You never know the minute’, ‘As true as I am staunin' here’, ‘Och well’, ‘I'll need tae go’, ‘Me as well’, ‘Before you go’, ‘Did you hear’, ‘Is that right?’, etc, etc.
TEN
While this was going on Peter McGuire was having his ears assaulted by noises of another sort, namely the ear-splitting rattling of riveting guns on countless rivets, that pinged and rang as they were thrown from one side to the other of the ship's slowly-forming bulkhead. Welders' rods were fizzing, their blinding arc lights sparking with a blue brilliance and then dying in a shower of dead embers that mimicked stars in the firmament as they worked their way along the seams of the embryonic vessel. The acrid smell of burners, gas guns, heating and bending metal hung in the cold air as the tradesmen of the boilermakers union did their stuff and forged flesh on to the skeleton of the emerging ship. Peter could not have been in a worse place with a hangover. His head felt as if it had a hundred wee motor cars, without drivers, all running about and banging into each other. He had to escape before the top of his head blew off. He signalled to his gaffer that he needed a crap and was going to the outside toilet that was situated behind the enormous shed that fed the materials to the ship in waiting. The gaffer nodded and gave him the thumbs up, accompanied by his index finger pointing to his watch to signify that he would be timing Peter's crap. Grasping hold of a rung, he climbed the ladder that led to the top of the particular hold that he was about to desert from. After about sixty-odd feet, he reached the top at last and felt his head clear slightly for the first time that day. It wasn't much of an improvement but it was a definite one. As he shook his head, vainly trying to clear it further, Archie Watson, another gaffer who was affectionately nicknamed ‘Batchy’ (meaning nutter), was walking along the top gantry. Before Batchy could question what he was up to Peter explained he was going for a crap. Batchy just sniffed and pointed at his watch. ‘Must be a sale on of crap watches,’ Peter thought to himself as he made towards the vicinity of the toilet. When the toilet hove into view, Peter saw there was no one around and it entered his head that, if he skipped behind the building, there was a large wall. This wall was the only thing that separated him from the outside world and, if he climbed over this wall, he could swap the horrendous noise of work for the happy noise of a pub. There was no contest.
Entering the Bay Horse was like entering the gates of heaven. He checked to see what spondulix were available and was relieved to find the pound note that John Hood had given him still nestling cosily in his trouser pocket. As he settled at a corner of the large polished mahogany horseshoe-shaped bar, the barman approached wiping a pint glass dry. ‘What would you like?’ he asked, smiling at Peter.
‘If you can swally it, I'll like it,’ Peter replied. ‘Half o' Bell's and a chaser and ten Capstan. That should do the trick.’
‘Comin' up,’ the barman replied. He passed Peter the cigarettes from a display cabinet behind the counter and then selected a whisky glass and placed it below the optic that contained the golden elixir that was about to find its spiritual home at the back of Peter McGuire's parched throat. ‘That you finished for the day?’ he enquired, handing over the whisky.
Peter took a loving look at the wee goldie and nodded. ‘Eh! Probably – in fact, aye it is.’
‘I thought it might be your tea break,’ the barman ventured as he poured a beer from the pump into a small glass as a chaser.
‘If it is, it's fuckin' great tea your servin'.’ He sank the whisky in one and felt its fiery glow send warmth all over his aching head and body. Rot gave way to rapture as the world started to swing his way again. He smiled. ‘Gie's another cup.’
Magrit collected her wages from Simpson's. The manageress had put an extra five shillings in as a New Year bonus, which went down very well with Magrit. She took the offering with a nod of thanks, placed it into her purse and, wishing all in the shop a happy New Year, she put her coat on and hurried off to her next assignment.
Peter had been joined by more sufferers of upset-stomach syndrome in the pub and was indulging in a New Year bonus of his own. They were regaling the tale of how a squad of them had been sent off to the shipyard's vast store about a mile away. This enormous space held most of the iron that had rusted or proved faulty in some way and was to be sold on by the company for scrap at a suitable date. There had been a lean spell in the industry and Peter and a dozen others had been sent to fill in their time by organising this metal into some form of order and also to make a list of all the scrap that was available for selling on.
Of course, when they got there and surveyed the vast quantity of scrap lying around, it did not take too long before someone came up with the idea that a lorry load of it would not be missed. This was such an obvious statement of fact that, in due course, a truck was waved down and a deal done with the driver on an equal split, thirteen ways.
There is a theory that you will work far harder for yourself than for an employer due to the fact that you reap the rewards for your own efforts. Indeed, Karl Marx founded his philosophy of communism on this very premise.
None of the squad had ever read Das Kapital but Karl would have been proud of Peter and his twelve apostles as they manhandled rusting hulks of varying shapes from anchors, anchor chains, bulkhead plates, etc., weighing a ton and over, up and on to the back of the truck. When the driver was despatched with a trusted member of the squad to the nearest scrappy, it became obvious to the remainder looking around that the lorry load had made no significant difference to the naked eye that anything was missing. So, they reasoned, why not another lorry-load?
A roar of laughter went up as Peter relived the moment with a few of his fellow communists. While they were sharing the experience with their audience, one of them announced, ‘My round. What are youse wantin'?’ to cries of ‘OK – but my shout next time!’ and ‘What happened then?’. They gave their order and then settled for part two of Peter's party piece.
Magrit wiped a bead of sweat from above her eye and plunged a scrubbing brush into the bucket of hot water she was using to scrub down the stairs of Collins, Young and Hunter, Solicitors at Law, who shared three flights with a similar bunch of barristers, all of whom employed the services of Magrit McGuire, Cleaner at Large, to ensure that at least one part of their business was not stained. She adjusted the mat she was kneeling on and wondered what the time was.
‘Anyway, wan thing led to another and, before we knew it, we had emptied the place.’ Peter guffawed into a fresh pint which had just been placed at his disposal (and Peter was the very man to dispose of it). Another of the partners-in-pilfering chipped in with his own memory of the event. ‘No' so much as would have made the wife a wee bangle left. Mind you we were aw loaded so we could, at a pinch, have boug
ht her wan – as it happened none o' us did.’
‘Fuck me, we put away some drink though, eh!’ remembered another.
‘Anyway,’ continued Peter, ‘this was on the Thursday night and we'd tae go in for oor wages the next day. We were shittin' oorselves because we knew that the gaffer was comin' doon that night tae see how we had got on wi' squarin' the place up. And he couldnae help but notice that the place was emptier than Partick Thistle's trophy room.’
‘We'll win somethin' this year,’ said a Thistle fan, which made the collective collapse with laughter at the absurdity of the statement. ‘You just wait,’ said the Jags supporter, trying to ignore the peals of laughter that were erupting all around him.
‘What happened when they found oot? Did youse get done?’
‘Well! I'll tell youse but first let me get some bevvy in – 'cause it's my shout.’ Peter stood up and rummled about in his pocket, alas to no effect. ‘I'll need tae chuck it 'cause I'm boracic and I'm no' poncin' drink if I cannae stand my round.’
He turned to leave but was halted by shouts of ‘You're awright.’ ‘Here's five bob.’ ‘Get oan wi' the story’, etc.
Peter nodded and accepted the taps. ‘I'll pay youse back when I get my wages at dinner time. I might be a lot o' things but I'm no' a ponce, ye know?’ As they slapped his back he sank back into his seat and called the barman over to place his order.