Anyhow, I had to cut my dreads off mysel. I’d already let them grow out a bit at the roots, so I sat down in front a my granny’s mirror and took the scissors to them. I tried to concentrate on the hair and no look at my face; lifted every lock individually and crunched through it wi my ma’s big scissors, leaving as much a the new hair as I could. I laid them one at a time on the dressing table, stretched out longways, side by side, till there were too many and I had to stack them on top a one another. They looked like a bundle a ginger sticks.
My da was dead right; the bus is goin in and out of all the wee schemes round about Clydebank and Dumbarton. The road we’ve just came into could be comin up the hill to our house on Kirbister Street. They all look the same, the schemes; all the ones that haveny been regenerated.
I saved Farkhanda’s braid and Julian’s dread till last. Fark-anda should a been there; we would’ve had a good laugh at the whole operation. Instead, I lost my concentration and caught the full blast in the mirror of what I done to mysel; jaggy tufts a new hair and the four dreads that were left. State a me! Two big tears appeared fae nowhere and ran down my face; I felt dead sorry for mysel. By the time I cut the last ones off, my reflection was a blur and the colours all ran into one another; black and red and peroxide. The Peroxide Dread. Maybe it was just as well I couldny see mysel properly; wee bunches of new hair in rows with white scalp crisscrossin my head in between.
I met my ma comin out the bathroom, when I was goin in. She didny say a word, but her face said it all.
What? I says, and locked mysel in afore she could answer.
I made a point a no lookin at myself again till I’d washed my hair and dried it, and the separate wee clumps had merged thegether. Then I snipped away at it till it was all the same length, a soft fuzz like the nap on velvet or somethin. Russet velvet. I couldny bear to go back to my room and face the pile a dreads, so I went through. Danny was in. I seen my ma shoot him a warnin look, but he says it anyway.
Fuck me, if it isny Sinead!
Aye, very funny, I says.
Sing us a song now, won’t you. A darlin song from the oul country.
Fuck off!
Clare, what is wrong with you these days? my ma says. There’s no livin with you.
And that pure set me off. I ran into my room, threw mysel on the bed and buried my face in a cushion. I must a howled for three whole hours. They all came to my door at different times, my ma, my da, Danny, but I couldny stop sobbin. I heard my ma sayin, Leave her. Leave her be. Let her have her cry. And that made me worse; I wanted them to leave me and I didny want them to leave me. I didny know what I wanted.
Anyway, that was a week ago. I left the dreads like a bundle a twigs on my granny’s dressin table for days. I couldny bear to handle them again. But yesterday mornin, I got up, took one look at them, ran through to the kitchen for a poly bag and stuffed them all in. Then I thought better of it and fished out Farkhanda’s plait and Julian’s dread, still attached to two of my ain dreads. I untwisted a bit of the hairpin skewerin Farkhanda’s braid to my hair – she never did get round to sewin it on – and I bent it round the top of my mirror, so the black and the red hung down thegether. I’m gonny keep it there till Farkhanda’s seen them anyway. It looks good. The red ribbon wove through the braid is a bit duller than it was to begin wi, but Farkhanda’s hair’s just as black and shiny. And mine’s like a strand a really thick red wool.
I lit an incense cone and set it on the windowsill. I took Julian’s and my dreads, one in each hand, and yanked them apart like a wishbone. The thread holdin them ripped and unravelled right away. It was weird lookin at the two of them separate in my hands. I closed my eyes and rubbed them baith wi my thumbs; they felt the exact same, couldny a telt them apart. I put mine in the polybag with the rest, tied up the handles and stuffed the bag into the kitchen bin. I picked up a roastin tray fae the cupboard on the way out.
Then I sat on my bed wi a box a matches and the tray on my knee. I laid Julian’s dread out straight. It was startin to look a bit grubby again since the last time I bleached it. Tarnished. I lit a match and held the flame to the end a the dread. The hair sizzled and crackled and spat. The stink was pure revoltin. The whole operation took at least fifteen minutes and maist a the box a matches. It was worth it. I watched the dread meltin and turnin black and frizzlin away to nothing. Then I opened the window.
So that was that.
Elvis was funny the first time he seen me without my dreads. I come through the door and he charges at my legs as usual, wraps his arms around them. Kay-kay, he shouts, Kay-kay. I pick him up and smoothe back his quiff and he looks at my face wi big brown eyes. Then he keeks round the back a my head, baith sides, to see where my dreads are hidin. He looks at me again and his face pure crumples and I feel a wail getting ready to start. I have to shoogle him up and down and sing to him afore he gets the picture it really is me. Eventually he puts his wee fat hand up to feel my spiky hair, touches my face and laughs, that deep throaty chuckle he does. Uh-huh-huh. And that’s it. He never mentions it again – if you know what I mean. Weans, they just accept you, don’t they, whatever you’re like.
I look out the bus window. We’re on a mair open stretch a road now, runnin alongside the Gare Loch. There’s snow on the hills and you can see towns and cranes, all a sort a hazy blue round the edge of the loch. I’m wonderin if one a them’s Helensburgh; we must be gettin near it by this time. I could ask somebody, I suppose. The woman in the seat across is no there now; she must a got off somewhere along the line and I didny even notice.
We come round a bend and the sun breaks through a narrow gap in the blue haze and lights up one a the towns in the distance, turns it gold. Just the one.
Excuse me, I says.
The bald man two seats in front looks round.
Is that Helensburgh?
Aye, he says. That’s it now. Looks like the sun’s shinin there.
Aye, it does, I says.
Right. OK. I’m no gonny take it as a sign. Pathetic fallacy and all that. I’m no daft. It cheers me up anyway but.
So.
So, I’ll take Barney for walks on the front. Spend some time wi Patsy. I’ve no spoke to her for ages. Last time Laetitia was there wi Elvis. The time before was when she came through to Glasgow to help my ma look for Danny. They went off in her car, my ma worried sick, Patsy haudin on tay the steerin wheel for dear life, and Barney sittin up in the back seat, as if he was directin operations. If I hadny been so worried mysel, it would a been funny.
And I’ll see what the town has to offer. It’s no exactly Florence, but it’ll make a change fae sittin in my room. I’ll maybe even check out the Peace Camp at Faslane. There’s gonny be protests there just before the G8 this summer. Jed says three women got into a wee blow-up dinghy a few years back, steered it out to one a the nuclear submarines, climbed up and done some damage wi wirecutters and glue; jammed winches, wrecked computers, chucked stuff ower the side. The Trident Three. One a them was over sixty! Another time two women swam out and boarded a submarine to protest against weapons of mass destruction. Must a been pure freezin in that water, but they done it.
OK. Couple a weeks in Helensburgh. And that’ll be me.
Then back to Glasgow and
who knows.
Acknowledgements
The Creative Writing course run jointly by Glasgow and Strathclyde Universities gave me the impetus to turn my secret vice into a public one. Thank you to all the staff, especially my tutors, Zoeé Wicomb and Janice Galloway, whose writing and teaching always inspired; Willy Maley, whose unfailing optimism nudged me towards publication; Liz Lochhead for her enthusiasm and encouragement; and to the students, particularly my editorial group, Ailsa Crum, Griz Gordon, Ann MacKinnon, Heather Mackay, Clare Morrison and Maureen Myant, for their creative criticism and friendship.
Thank you to my editor, Judy Moir of Penguin, for liking the book after part one and having faith that parts two and three would follow.
&n
bsp; The time I spent in Castlemilk is woven into the fabric of my life; the people I worked with gave me so much. I heard echoes of conversations I had there every time I sat down to write. Thank you all. In particular, thank you to Janette Shepherd, whose generosity of spirit has touched so many people.
My friends kept me going when I faltered; Usha Brown, Mary Patrick, Maureen Sanders, Allison Linklater, Anne-Marie McGeoch, Jean Barr, Cynthia Fuller deserve special mention.
Ewa Wojciechowska and the group listened to my first attempts at prose and helped me on my way; Eileen MacAlister too.
Staff in Great Western Road Costa, the Tinderbox and especially Stravaigin provided a constant flow of cheer, as well as good coffee, food and wine.
Leanne Crisp at Controlled Demolition Ltd was very helpful.
It was in my Orkney family that I developed – among all the other things – a love of words and a fascination with the workings of groups. Thank you to my mother, Irene, to Stuart, Catherine, Maggie, and Iain Miller and, in memory, my father, Sonny, and brother, Alan. Thank you also partners and next generation: Gordon, Helen, Rachel, Lewie, Sonny, Lana, Darren, Alan, Gemma.
Extra thanks to Maggie Miller for taking the photos in front of the peat shed door.
Last and foremost, my Glasgow family, Liam, Norna and Ewan Stewart gave me the love and encouragement that saw me through.
Alison Miller
April 2005
Permission to quote ‘She Moved Through the Fair’, Padraic Colum, sought from Music Sales Limited.
Permission to quote ‘I Just Want to Make Love to You’, Willie Dixon, sought from Bug Music 70% and Hornall Bros 30% via Music Sales Limited.
‘New York, New York’. Words by Fred Ebb. Music by John Kander. © 1977 UNART Music Corporation and EMI United Partnership Ltd, USA. Worldwide print rights controlled by Warner Bros. Publications Inc/IMP Ltd. Reproduced by permission of International Music Publications Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
Permission to quote ‘Freedom Come-All-Ye’, Hamish Hender- son, © Copyright Hamish Henderson Estate.
‘Orcop Haiku’, Frances Horovitz, from Collected Poems (Blood-axe Books, 1985).
‘No Woman, No Cry’ © Copyright 1974 Vincent Ford. Reproduced by kind permission of Fifty-six Hope Road Music Ltd/Odnil Music Ltd/Blue Mountain Music Ltd administered by Fairwood Music Ltd.
‘Redemption Song’, Copyright Bob Marley. Reproduced by kind permission of Fifty-six Hope Road Music Ltd/Odnil Music Ltd/Blue Mountain Music Ltd administered by Fairwood Music Ltd.
Permission to quote ‘Metaphors’, Sylvia Plath from Collected Poems sought from Faber & Faber.
‘The Shooting of Dan McGrew’, Robert W. Service.
Reproduced by kind permission of Mr Wm Krasilovsky. Courtesy of estate of Robert Service.
Permission to quote ‘50 Ways to Leave Your Lover’, Paul Simon, sought from Paul Simon Music.
‘Hound Dog’, Words & Music by Jerry Leiber & Mike Stoller. © Copyright 1956 Elvis Presley Music/Lion Publishing Company Incorporated, USA. Universal/MCA Music Limited (80%)/Chappell/Morris Limited (20%). Used by permission of Music Sales Limited. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.
‘Brown Eyed Girl’. Words & Music by Van Morrison. © Copy- right 1967 Web IV Music Incorporated, USA. Universal Music Publishing Limited. Used by permission of Music Sales Limited. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.
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