The Steamie

by Tony Roper

  Magrit collected her money from Mr Hunter, of Collins, Young and Hunter, and noted there was no New Year bonus. ‘Miserable shower,’ was her thought as she returned his wishes for a happy New Year. She noted from the clock in the office that it was leaving half past eleven. ‘Where does the time go?’ She complained to herself as she hurried down the stairs and out of the entrance into the rain.

  Peter glanced up at the wag-on-the-wall clock which as well as telling you the time also managed to advertise the message that Guinness was good for you, without reference to the perhaps more truthful message that you were even more good for Guinness. ‘Is that all the time it is? We've another hour yet before we need tae get back and pick up the wages.’ He finished off one pint just as the barman set down another. ‘So, as I was sayin', we were all crappin' oorselves 'cause they were gonnae inspect the place later on.’ He paused while he took a long pull at the fresh pint, then, in a sure sign that he was not yet drunk, wiped the froth from his top lip. ‘See when I sobered up and went hame I couldnae sleep the whole night.’ There was a murmur of understanding from the rest. ‘The next mornin', we were all up the back keepin' oot the road and wonderin' what was gonnae happen. About quarter o' an hour had passed and then we see Harry Carr – he was the gaffer oan the job – makin' his way towards us. He comes up and staunds in front o' us. “Youse are no' goin oot this mornin,” he says. “The polis want tae talk tae youse,” he says. We never says nothing. “Youse made a right airse o' that yesterday – upstairs are goin' mental. I got earache fae them oan the phone there. So who was responsible?” We still never says a word. “The place has been gutted – there's nothin' left. The polis know who done it so youse might as well own up. Which o' youse was supposed tae lock up?” he says.

  It was Tommy Wearston, God rest his soul, that eventually says, “What do you mean lock up, Harry?” Harry looks at big Tommy as if he was stupid.

  “I mean fuckin' lock up – shut the fuckin' gate – close the fuckin' door. It's a concept even your fuckin' brain should be able to figure oot. Youse never shut the fuckin' gate when youse left, did youse? The place was open aw night and somebody ransacked it, stole the whole fuckin' kit and caboodle, di'n't they? Fortunately the polis have caught them, otherwise you lot were for the high fuckin' jump.”’

  ‘I don't understand … What happened?’ piped up the Thistle fan.

  ‘Well,’ Peter continued, ‘We were so oot o' oor skulls that the last thing any o' us thought aboot was lockin' the place up. We'd just left it open – which turned oot to be a shrewd oversight on oor part. What happened was that, after we left, a rag and bone man and his son were passin' by the place oan their wee cart which was bein' pulled by a horse. They saw the place open, swung the horse and cart inside and flung oan the odd wee bit o' metal that we had left. As they were leavin', a polis motor happened tae be passin' by, doin' their rounds, and stopped them. They've been caught bang tae rights, haven't they?’

  ‘Did they get done for the lot?’ asked someone in disbelief.

  ‘Aye. No' only did they cop it for the total blag, they also got done for cruelty tae the horse.’ Howls of laughter greeted this statement of injustice. ‘When your luck's oot, it's fuckin' oot all right!’ was the general consensus of the moral of the story. Such was the warmth of the mood in the pub that the barman wiped the tears from his eyes and then announced that the next round was on him.

  Magrit weaved her way through the wind and rain towards her house. She was conscious that the two boys would be needing something to eat before she set off for her next cleaning job. The cold wetness of the day was beginning to get into her bones. Her only consolation was that Peter would be suffering more than she would because of his hangover. ‘Serves him right,’ she thought as she waited for a tramcar to pass before crossing to the other side of the street. ‘I'll get them some rolls oot o' Wilson's,’ she decided. ‘Maybe put some cheese in them. That should dae them.’

  Peters' eyes were starting to go out of focus as he sat staring at Wullie McPhee, one of his pals, who was explaining his philosophy of … Peter was not quite sure of what. Neither were any of the others but they were all agreeing with the theory being put to them by Wullie – whatever it was.

  Wullie waved a hand in front of them as if trying to capture an imaginary fly as he pressed home his theory. ‘Because … that's … that's …’ He struggled for the exact word or phrase that would sum up whatever he thought he was talking about. ‘That's …’ He searched through the alcoholic fog that was surrounding his thoughts and his hands were now mimicking washing an imaginary window. ‘That's … that's …’ Then the word that he had been searching for jumped into his brain. ‘That's … RIGHT … right? Am I right? … Am I wrong? … Right.’

  ‘You're right … right enough …’ agreed another student of life.

  ‘You're are dead right,’ was Peter's verdict.

  ‘Fuckin' right – I'm right. You better believe it,’ Wullie stated, resting the case for the defence.

  A hand was placed on his shoulder and then it patted him on the back. ‘That needed sayin', by the way,’ was the verdict of the owner of the hand.

  ‘Fuckin' right it did,’ Peter said in a slurring-his-speech sort of way.

  Then, changing the subject, he informed the company, ‘I'm gonnae tell youse somethin', right – see my wife, she doesnae know what I'm aboot. She just … doesnae understand me … or what I'm tryin' tae achieve in my life.’

  ‘Mine's neither.’

  ‘They're aw the fuckin' same,’ agreed the gathering.

  Magrit hauled herself up the last flight of stairs before reaching her landing. She searched in her bag for the keys. The largest of them, known as the big key for obvious reasons, was under her purse, which was buried at the bottom of the bag under a mountain of other domestic detritus for safety reasons. However, try as she might, she could not lay her hands on it. ‘Where the hell is it?’ Magrit muttered to herself. Recently, she had noticed that she frequently talked to herself – it didn't worry her as she reasoned she was the only one she ever got any sense out of. With a sigh of satisfaction, she found the key and fitted it into the lock. She always locked the door – not so much to keep burglars out as to keep Tim and Frankie in. As she shut the door behind her she noticed with no small degree of relief that there was no noise of fighting from the kitchen.

  ‘Is that you, Ma?’ Frankie's high-pitched boyish voice found its way round the door to her ears.

  ‘Naw, it's Ava Gardner. Your ma asked me to look in and see if youse were a'right.’

  Magrit saw at a glance as she entered the kitchen that both of them were still in their vests and pants and socks, sitting up in the bed. Tim was reading about Jeff Arnold and the ‘Riders of the Range’ in the Christmas edition of the Eagle comic while Frankie was lost in the exploits of Dixon Hawke and the Black Slink in the Adventure.

  ‘Dear God, are youse no' up yet? Get up and get dressed,’ she commanded as she took the rolls and cheese from her message bag.

  ‘Gonnae gie us somethin' to eat? We're starvin'.’ Tim replied without taking his eyes off the page.

  ‘What d'youse want, well?’ she asked as she took her coat off and filled the kettle from the cold water tap. There wasn't a hot water tap and this was a thing that Magrit desired with all her heart. It would have been heaven to have hot water on tap. She was saving up for a gadget that you had connected up to the gas and it gave you hot water whenever you needed it. ‘Luxury,’ thought Magrit. There was no reply to her question from the poor and hungry who were still engrossed in their comics. ‘I asked you what do youse want tae eat?’

  ‘Anything at all,’ said Frankie. Tim's head nodded up and down in acquiescence – it saved him having to talk.

  ‘Do youse want a cheese roll?’

  ‘Naw,’ said Frankie. Tim just shook his head negatively.

  ‘D'you want some o' that soup, well?’

  ‘Naw,’ Frankie informed her, as Tim's head continued
shaking.

  ‘A piece ’n’ Spam? … A roll ’n’ jam?’

  ‘Naw.’

  ‘Well, what do youse want?’ Magrit shouted in exasperation.

  ‘Anything at all,’ they said.

  Magrit lit the gas and planked the kettle on it.

  ‘Get thae dirty things aff and get your clothes on. Put them on that pile in the tin bath. I'm goin' to the steamie thenight and I'll no' have time tae play hunt the sweaty socks – do youse hear me?’ she roared at them.

  ‘Aye,’ Tim nodded, still deep in the dangers that Jeff and the Riders of the Range were facing – which were not nearly so dangerous as those he was facing if he did not put the comic down. When the comic was suddenly swept from his hands and propelled across the room, he looked at his mother in genuine shock.

  ‘What have I done noo?’ he asked, his face registering mystification as Magrit stormed out of the kitchen and into the bedroom where the tin bath lay in wait.

  Frankie shrugged his shoulders and tapped the side of his head with his index finger to signal that his mother was losing her mind.

  ‘Gie's a page o' your comic, eh?’ pleaded Tim, now at a loss as to what to do with the remainder of his life.

  ‘Naw,’ was Frankie's sympathetic response. Tim grabbed for the comic and Frankie shouted frantically at the woman who was losing her mind. ‘Ma, he's tryin' tae steal my comic.’

  ‘Wee clipe,’ hissed Tim, pulling at Frankie's comic with one hand and at the same time nipping him on the leg with the other.

  ‘He nipped me, Ma,’ Frankie shouted through to the mad woman.

  ‘Naw, I never,’ Tim shouted at Frankie.

  ‘Aye, you did,’ screamed Frankie at Tim.

  ‘Shut it or I'll belt you,’ threatened Tim to his brother.

  ‘I'd be as well talking to myself,’ muttered Magrit – to herself.

  ELEVEN

  Theresa and Rena were in Rena's bedroom. Theresa thought that Rena was the height of sophistication because she had her own room and someday, Theresa vowed, she would have her own room as well. However, that was in the future. At the moment she and Rena sat on Rena's bed, both of them weeping their hearts out. The reason for their outpouring of grief was that they were listening to Johnnie Ray singing his hit song ‘Cry’. As Johnnie sobbed his way through the heartache of his life, it was as if he were singing to each of the girls personally. His words of woe rang incredibly true and cut deep into their psyche, uniting them in their grief. Theresa clutched a magazine that had a photograph of Johnnie on its front tightly to her chest. Rena dabbed at her eyes with a hankie and both of them sniffled and gulped greedily at their grief as if it was food.

  If your heartaches seem to hang around too long

  And your blues keep getting bluer with each song

  Johnnie wailed rhythmically, each word building towards his final absolute anguish as the swell of the orchestra dug further into their private selves with the expertise and precision of a surgeon's scalpel.

  Remember sunshine can be found behind cloudy sky

  His voice sang softly, before pausing dramatically while a solitary violin pierced their hearts with a soulful minor chord. Pushing them to the limit with this, he then sent them into the depths of despair as he finished his plea to the sufferers of the teenage world by imploring them to ‘Let your hair down … and go on and cry-y-y-y-y-y-y-y’. Theresa and Rena did not let him down.

  Through her tears Rena pronounced, ‘Oh, Johnnie – I love you.’

  Theresa wallowing in the moment confessed, ‘I love you too, Johnnie.’

  ‘Will I play it again?’ Rena asked.

  Theresa smiled tragically, ‘Please … aye.’

  Rena got off the bed and crossed to the Dansette record player that sat on top of her sideboard and reset the record. The record player was another thing for Theresa to covet about Rena's lifestyle.

  Rena settled herself beside her friend on the bed and they both listened with tense expectation as the dry hissing sound from the Dansette announced that the record was spinning and soon Johnnie would be massaging their tear ducts with his music.

  If your sweetheart sends a letter of goodbye,

  It's no secret you'll feel better if you cry

  He crooned as he continued down Lamentation Lane.

  Rena's mother Betty Reilly's voice cut through their sobbing.

  ‘Rena – turn that off – I'm sick of listenin' to it.’

  ‘In a minute,’ Rena shouted back.

  Johnnie continued relentlessly in his quest to have the girls on their knees with distress.

  If your heartaches seem to hang around too long

  Betty flung the door of her daughter's room open.

  ‘For God's sake – can you no' play somethin' else? My ears are bleedin' listening to it. What the hell are youse bubblin' aboot?’ she asked, her face a study of incomprehension.

  Rena, her voice echoing her feeling of being alone in the world, replied, ‘It doesn't matter – you wouldnae understand.’

  Betty surveyed the scene. ‘I understand – of course I understand – I was young once as well. I know you'll no' believe it but I was – and I understand how music can get to a young lassie … it's just … it's just that … well … he's rotten.’

  Rena's mother's heresy rang in the girls' ears as she left the room. Rushing over to the door, Rena wedged her shoulder against it in a poignant gesture she had seen Barbara Stanwyck apply in almost every film she had ever done. With one hand on the door handle and the other clutching at the frame, she pressed her back against the door and wailed, ‘See what I've got to put up wi'!’

  ‘It's the same in oor hoose,’ Theresa consoled. Then, after a pause, she added in a voice that was heavy with innuendo, ‘Do they … stare at you all the time as well?’

  Not to be outdone in the paranoia of being picked upon, Rena nodded her head. ‘Aye … constantly,’ she lied. Theresa gave a sigh of relief that she was not the only one to be constantly under scrutiny for the crime of being a teenage girl. Rena sighed back in what she hoped sounded like the sympathetic tone of a fellow soul in torment. She crossed over and sat next to her pal. They sat in silence, each of them bound up in a maze of doubt and confusion. Theresa placed her hand over her friend's and, in a gesture of companionship, gave it a squeeze.

  ‘At least you've got a room tae yourself – somewhere to get away from them all,’ she offered, not realising that this was placing the onus on her friend to come up with something that suggested she was just as unjustly treated as Theresa was.

  ‘I know … but …’ She tried to think of something that would put her on an even keel with Theresa. ‘But …’

  Theresa stared at her waiting to be updated on the next injustice visited on Rena by her family. She could not imagine what Rena was going to come out with. Not wanting to put pressure on her pal by asking outright, she just continued to stare at her. Rena could not for the life of her think what to come up with as a new complaint in the litany of imagined shabby treatment by her parents. ‘They … they … they … listen to me,’ she gasped, grasping at a passing straw in her brain.

  ‘They do not, do they?’ Theresa gasped in horror.

  ‘Aye, through the door. I've caught them at it.’ Rena's head was nodding intently as she tried to say this with such conviction that she would convince herself that it was true and, in a split second, she had.

  Both girls lapsed into silence again. Theresa gazed into Johnnie Ray's blue eyes on the front of the movie magazine while Rena stared at a photograph she had been sent by the Johnnie Ray fan club.

  ‘Do you think if we wrote tae Johnnie Ray and explained what we had to put up wi', he would take us oot tae America with him?’ Theresa asked, her eyes full of hope at the prospect.

  ‘He might,’ Rena responded quickly. Then, reason triumphing over optimism, she flung herself back on the bed and lay staring at the ceiling as she dismissed the suggestion. ‘Naw – that's stupid. He probably gets thous
ands o' lassies writing to him – he couldnae take them all oot tae America.’

  ‘It's worth a try,’ Theresa said in defence of her idea as she drew her knees up to her chin and, folding her arms around her legs, rested her head on her knees. ‘Mebbe.’

  Rena shrugged her shoulders in a sign that she was no longer enthusiastic.

  They both drifted back to their secret thoughts and stared at the ceiling and the wall respectively.

  Suddenly Rena jumped up from her prone position and announced excitedly, ‘Wait till you see what I got.’ She rushed over to a set of drawers and opened one. After a brief rummage around, she finally withdrew what she had been searching for and held it aloft. It was a postcard. She danced over the floor to the bed and deposited it at Theresa's feet. ‘Look,’ she said, her eyes alive with the thrill of the moment.

  Theresa picked up the postcard and looked at the front of it. It was a night-time scene. There was a depiction of the Statue of Liberty with a ship passing beneath it and an aeroplane flying just above it.

  ‘It's New York, so it is,’ Rena announced.

  ‘So it is.’ Theresa gazed rapturously at the depiction of all her girlish fantasies. ‘Is it real? I mean is it actually fae New York? Who sent you it?’ The questions tumbled from her lips like rain in a thunder burst.

  ‘Aye, it's genuine. My cousin sent me it – she works on a big ship – a liner it's called.’

  ‘Is that it on the postcard?’

  ‘Naw, that's just some ship they've stuck on tae let you see how big the Statue o' Liberty is.’

  Theresa could not believe she was actually holding a postcard that had, at one time, actually been held by someone in New York. It somehow drew her nearer to her dream and seemed to offer hope that, one day, she would actually get to the land where film stars and famous singers walked about the streets.

  ‘What does your cousin do on the ship?’ she asked.