Twenty-Seven

It was the first day in three weeks she hadn’t woken up to a living room full of clammy, sodden bodies. It was a funny kind of lonely. Agnes sat and whimpered poor me’s to herself for a while. She sat in the chair, which was surrounded by overflowing ashtrays, and put her head between her knees and tucked her hands up in her armpits to stop the shakes.

She was unsure how long he had been sitting there clutching the red mop bucket, but when she called his name he looked as surprised to see her there as she had been to see him.

“Can I have a cuddle? ” she asked pitifully.

He crossed the room obediently and sat on the arm of her chair. He was taking a growing stretch again, and his arms easily encircled her shoulders. Each time he held her he was less like a child. He was becoming something else, not yet a man, something like a stretched child, waiting to be inflated into adulthood. She clung to him while she could. He smelled fresh, like the fields outside.

All he said was, “I don’t want to live here any more. ”

“No. Me neither. ”

Agnes ran herself a hot deep bath. To sweat felt good, and she felt some of the sourness leave her. She sloughed herself with a rough towel and got dressed in her best, taking care to match her jumper to her coat and shoes. With mutinous hands she put on her face and combed her black hair carefully over the start of white roots. Finding the last of the Tuesday Book money, she put it carefully into her pocket and left the house. The day was hot and close, two weeks of sunshine trying to soak up a year of rain. Still, she buttoned up her coat. They were watching as she came out the gate, standing in clusters with bean sauce down their jumpers and weans wrapped around their stretchy leggings. Agnes could hear what they were saying, and she knew that was the point. She pitied them for not even having the pride to run a brush through their hair. Please, God. Not long now, she thought, as she waved and held her head high.

Grey men stood around the mouth of the Miners Club, drinking their lager in the weak sun. Even though the weather was muggy and close, they all wore the thick black donkey jackets they had worn under the ground. As she passed, they turned in to one another like shy penguins, talking in hushed tones. She heard her name whispered, heard her legends discussed. The bolder of the men watched her with hungry eyes over their pints of amber. She knew they only wanted to degrade her, bring her to a new low. She knew a handful of them who had taken her comforts in exchange for a bag of carry-out. When they were done, they all went home again to their scrawny wives and their mismatched bedding. It was all too small, too pitiful to care about any more.

After a long walk she reached the string of shuttered shops on the side of the thoroughfare. As the cars screamed by, she realized now that this was the only time she got out of the Pit town, the only time she was guaranteed to cross the marshes, to be around people who didn’t believe they knew every sordid thing about her. She was walking in the sunshine, allowing herself this rare daydream of freedom, when she saw her. Like a cat being cornered by a dog, the woman jumped and looked about herself nervously. For a minute Agnes thought the woman might dart out, climb the low barrier, and try to run across the four lanes of screaming traffic. In a way, Agnes hoped that she would.

“Hello, Colleen. ”

The woman tried to circle around her on the narrow pavement. Agnes might have let her go but not today. She stepped into her stride and said louder, “I said, good morning, Colleen. ”

The withered woman was stuck, blocked from escaping by the screaming traffic. “What are ye saying that for? ” she asked.

“Why should I not say hello to you in the street? ”

The woman lifted her eyes to Agnes’s face for the first time and tried a vinegary smile. She pursed her lips in a grimace, which Agnes thought was a shame. The only thing that was plump and feminine on her face was her lips. “I dunno. ”

“So, how is your brother keeping? ”

The woman batted her light eyes. “Aye, grand, thanks. ”

Agnes hoped she was lying, but it hurt anyway. “Well, do you think now that we are finished you could stop phoning me? ”

Colleen placed her hand over her silver crucifix. “I don’t know what ye are on about. ”

“I see. So you must take me for daft. T’chut. ” Agnes clacked her lips in the same way Lizzie had done when she was having none of it. It surprised her, then she laughed. “Colleen, you breathe like an old cocker spaniel. In the future when you phone someone to harass them, maybe you should try to shut your mouth and breathe through your nose. ”

The look of innocence slowly slid off Colleen’s face like an ice lolly melting in the sun. The smug smile returned. “Well, youse stay away from ma brother, and we’ll see. ”

Agnes reached into her pocket and took out the old gas-bill envelope. It listed the “House Wanted for Exchange” notice, the same one she had placed in the paper; she now planned to advertise in the newsagent’s window. She handed it to Colleen, and as her eyes peered over it, Agnes noticed that the woman was a slow reader, her lips moving with each syllable. Agnes was glad she had taken the time to do it in her best cursive. “See. I’m trying to get away. ”

The woman snorted. “Too good for us, eh? ”

Agnes rocked back on her heels. She folded her arms. “You put me in mind of my second husband. You know that? You don’t want me here. You don’t want me away from here. ”

“Yer jokin’, right? ” Colleen dropped her jaw in mock shock. “Ye come here to our wee scheme thinking yer some kind of big I Am. Walking around thinking yeese are better than the rest of us, with yer hairspray and yer handbag there. ” She thrust her finger at Agnes. “Ye and that funny wee boy try and rub oor noses in it, and the whole time yeese are lying in yer own piss and fucking other wummin’s men. Lord. I’ve never seen such a hypocrite. ”

“Here’s hoping you never fall on hard times. ”

“Aw, shove it! Ah nearly died when ma Eugene came home and telt me that he’s taking up with the hoor in the purple coat! My mammy was being tortured in heaven just watching the two of ye carry on. ”

Agnes shook her head. “Those would be some bloody binoculars. ”

“I suppose it’s all a big joke to the likes of ye? ”

“Well, it’s all finished. You win. Your mother can rest her net curtains now. ”

Colleen’s face had worked up to such a shade of red that the woman looked as if she might burst. “It’s much too late for that, lady. Do ye think his poor wife is going to want him now when he joins her? There’s nothing he can do to make it up after bein’ with ye. ”

Agnes sank back on her heel, she twisted the back of her earring. “Well, I can say I’ve heard it all now. ”

There was a look of pure hate in Colleen’s eyes. “Ye’ve heard nothing. He only came to ye in the night because he was that embarrassed by ye. Creeping around like a thief! That’s why only taxi drivers will have ye, int’it? So they don’t have to be caught by yer side in the daylight. ”

“Is that so? ”

The thin woman smiled, triumphant. She looked unburdened, happy to have said her piece. “Aye. ”

“We’ll never get on, will we? ”

“Never! How does that grab yeese? ”

“Fine, ” said Agnes. She turned and headed towards the bombed-out shops. “Oh, and Colleen—” She motioned to the woman’s neck, then she ran a painted finger across her own pale collar bone. “You’ve got a ring of dirt there around your neck. You maybe want to take a cloth to that afore you step over the door in the morning. It fair spoils the lovely glint of your crucifix. ”

The woman sneered. “That the best ye’ve goat? ”

Agnes closed her coat against her neck and smiled goodbye. “Oh, and I fucked your man. It was lousy. ” She sniffed distastefully at the memory of it. “He had a line of skidmarks on his underwear that was a pure embarrassment. ”

The door went all afternoon. At first the McAvennie girls tried to lure him outside. Told him they had sweeties that they wanted to share, but he knew the McAvennie girls, and he knew their brothers would be hiding amongst the council bushes. They kept coming to the door, and when he stopped answering they took to spitting through the letter box, big long gobbets of sugary phlegm that stuck on the metal flap and slid slowly down the inside of the wood. Shuggie hid in the corner, watched them gob their mess, and tried to wipe it with a rag before it slid on to her good carpet.

Whatever Agnes had done now, Shuggie couldn’t say, but they had filthy words for her. New names that sounded dank and foustie; woman’s words that put spittle on their lips and made sucking sounds like a boot in the coal slag. The imaginary moat Eugene had laid around the Bain house was gone now; he rolled it up as easily as a carpet when he left. Now the McAvennie weans hammered their feet against the locked door. They shouted all the familiar poncey names at him. They made slurping kissing noises, then they made sing-songs of kissing noises, and then started the dirty names again.

When the girls grew tired of tormenting him, Francis McAvennie finally came to the door. Shuggie was ready to open it. He was so tired that he wanted to end it, take whatever was due to him, and close the door again.

Francis was nearly two years older than Shuggie. He was at the big school now, separated from his brother Gerbil, and there was thick hair on his top lip. He had started fingering a Protestant lassie. His little sisters told the scheme all about it with an odd mixture of disgust and pride. When Francis’s eyes appeared at the letter box, Shuggie thought he would spit through it like his siblings had. He folded the soaking rag and readied himself to catch the dribble. Instead, Francis’s big pink lips just started to talk softly through the slot. “Shuggie. Shuggie! I know you are in there. Open the door. Go on. I want to talk to ye. ”

He had never spoken so sweetly to Shuggie before. The words poured out slowly, like the trickle from a hot tap. “Will ye no open the door, Shuggie? ”

“No. ”

Their eyes met through the slot, and Shuggie noticed that the sallow-skinned boy had thick eyelashes like the bristles on a scrubbing brush. Francis said, “I heard youse were flittin’. I came to tell ye I was sorry for being a wee prick. ” Shuggie heard him ferret around in his pocket. He came back to the slot and pushed the body of a gold robot through the letter box. C-3PO’s severed head was bound on with clumsy Christmas Sellotape. An old, childish toy, long ruined, a measly peace offering.

“If ye put a wee dab of glue on it, it’ll be good as new. ” The older boy moved his eyes away and lifted his mouth to the slot to show he was smiling. His teeth were as big and smooth as white beach pebbles. “Jist open the door. ”

“No. ”

“Why do youse hate us? ” asked Francis quietly.

“I don’t. You hate me. ”

“Naw! ” He sounded offended. “It’s only banter like. ” Shuggie could tell Francis was thinking hard about what to say next. “I want to make it up to youse. For always noisin’ ye up. ” His brows knotted. “Dae ye want to kiss us? ”

“What? ”

Francis put his lips to the slot again. There was the faint blemish of an old scar on the top bow. His father, Big Jamesy, had been fast with the back of his hand. “I mean, I will let ye, if ye don’t tell anybodies. I’ll let ye kiss us. That’s what ye were always after, eh? ” He sniffed. “Jist open the door. ”

Shuggie waited, he didn’t trust the feeling that was writhing in his belly now. “Why would I want to kiss you? ”

“Come on. Ye know what ye’re like. ”

Shuggie peeled away the clear Sellotape, the head fell off the gold robot and rolled across the carpet. “Francis. Are we friends now, really? ”

“Aye. Surely. ”

“OK. Then put your mouth up to the letter box. ”

“Naw, jist open the door. ” The boy sounded almost pleading.

“Just do it, alright. ” Shuggie could hear the McAvennie boy hesitate. He was certain that at any moment Francis would balk, that he would call his bluff. It was silent for a painful moment. Then he heard the scrape of shirt buttons on the door as Francis pressed himself against the outside.

“One kiss, then ye’ll open the door? ” The voice was so clear it sounded like it was inside the room.

Shuggie closed his eyes and got on his knees. He put his face to the letter box. Francis’s breath smelled sweet and sugary, like supermarket jam. Shuggie could feel his sticky breath flood over his lips, and for a moment he wanted only to put his fingers through the hole, to touch Francis gently.

But the moment passed.

Shuggie brought his hand to the opening and, as quickly as he could, he pushed the wet rag through, the one soaked in the spit of his tormentors. It was folded so the greenest, phlegmiest part was to the outside. He felt it touch the other boy’s face, felt the resistance, then he felt Francis pull away from the door as the tea towel slid out. Shuggie leaned against the door. He could hear Francis hacking the sour spit out of his mouth.

Francis brought his teeth back to the letter box. They were snarling now, nipping and biting to tear at Shuggie. “Aye, ye better no open the door. I’m gonnae fuckin’ stab ye, ya poncey little prick. ”

There was a thump-thump against the door, like a hard fist against the wood. Shuggie recoiled as Colleen’s kitchen knife shot through the slot and jabbed wildly in the air. Shuggie pressed himself against the inner draught door and watched as the silver blade darted in and out of the letter box. It searched blindly for his flesh, its edge so keen and sharp it screeched as it sawed back and forth against the metal flap.

Davey Parlando, the rag-and-bone man, came to the door three times with his wagon. He took anything Agnes offered and paid her with a roll of grubby pound notes bound by an old Elastoplast. He couldn’t believe his luck at the beautiful woman’s generosity—or blind stupidity. When he talked he was jumpy and nervous, like he was constantly improvising, because he couldn’t tell which it was: Was she daft or was she good? It was hard to tell because her eyes were glazed with a kind of apathy.

When Davey offloaded the remnants of Lizzie’s wedding china, he made a last trip to the wagon. He usually gave weans a whistle or plastic toy, but he handed Shuggie a whole boxful of grubby balloons, enough to last him the entire rag season, all misprinted seconds emblazoned with the smeared offset of proud corporate sponsors. Davey did a trick where he blew up a balloon through clamped lips by slipping the rubber neck between the teeth he was missing in the front. He handed the damp balloon to the neat boy, and read it slowly, as if Shuggie could not read for himself. “See, it seys, Glasgow’s Miles Better. ”

“Than what? ” asked Shuggie pointedly.

The ease with which Agnes was now willing to part with things was unnerving Shuggie. Whatever furniture the rag-and-bone man did not cart away at a steal, Agnes returned to the rental centre. She sent back all the furniture that was on hire purchase that she could. Then she took out a hobbling Provident loan to buy new and better when they made it to the city.

He could sense the fever that had fallen on her, the dream of being a new person surrounded by new things. It made her clammy as any flu. She gathered up all the years of Kensitas cigarette coupons and counted them obsessively. All bound together, they made dense little bricks, little ingots that still smelled of sweet golden tobacco. Shuggie lay on the carpet and built walls and forts from them as Agnes went through the Kensitas catalogue, tabbing the corner to mark lamps and tea trays she only half-liked, and kept a worried-looking total on a gas-bill envelope.

Shuggie watched her and said under his breath, “Why can’t I be enough? ”

But she wasn’t listening.

Agnes had packed up the house quickly, starting as soon as the exchange was agreed upon. She looked at most of their belongings as though they had hurt her in some way. The packing was mostly done in an afternoon, both of them keen to be gone and preferring to live the last weeks in a packed-up house full of unsullied dreams and anticipation. Shuggie helped her wrap the precious ornaments, taking care to fold them all into old newspaper and then tuck them in a box amongst her underwear. When her back was turned he took things of Leek’s from the pile of discarded items—some old records, half-filled sketchbooks, and an old stuffed leprechaun of Catherine’s—and then hid them safely amongst his mother’s moving boxes. The last of his siblings’ belongings she gave to Davey Parlando for a roll of dirty notes.

The night before they moved she burst the television meter one last time and bought handfuls of chocolate at the ice cream van. She laid all her old clothes out for Shuggie, and they sat with their knees touching, deciding what versions of her to bring and what to leave behind.

“People don’t really wear stuff like that any more, ” Shuggie said. She had slipped on a fuzzy black jumper, the yarn like a trillion droopy eyelashes.

She nibbled a corner of mint chocolate. “But what if I belt it? ” She pressed her hands against her cinched waist.

Shuggie reached inside her jumper, unbuttoned the two white shoulder pads, and removed them. Suddenly she seemed less severe; she was softer and younger-looking. He squinted. “If you’d wear denims, then maybe that’s better. ” He put the pads inside his own school jumper, and his shoulders raised to his jawbone.

Her face puckered. “Uck. I’m too old for denims. They make everything look common now. ”

Shuggie leaned forward and took up a wool A-line skirt the colour of dead heather. It was tight but not too tight. He had never seen her wear it. “I like this one. ”

Agnes considered it. She flicked the zipper as if checking to see whether it still worked and then tossed it aside. “No. I don’t want to be her. She wears men’s house slippers and keeps her pinny on all day. ”

“You would be comfortable. ”

His mother lay back on the carpet with a huff. She turned and ran her eyes the length of him. “So, who do you want to be when we move? ”

He shrugged. “I dunno. I’ve been too busy worrying about you. ”

“God, it’s Mother Theresa herself. ” Agnes looked crabbit then. She propped herself up on one elbow and took a drink from her lager mug. She scowled into the cirrus patterns that were forming on the top of her ale. “Look, when we get to the tenement, I’ll give up the drink, I promise. ”

“I know. ” He tried a smile.

“I’ll get a wee job like other mammies. ”

“I would like that. ”

Agnes picked at a hangnail. “Your bastard of a father never liked me to work. A woman’s place and all that guff. ” It was true: Shug had never suffered her to work, nor had Brendan McGowan. For the Catholic it had been a matter of pride; he worked his hardest so the neighbours knew he could provide for his entire family. For Shug it had been that he was not to be trusted, and therefore he was unable to place his trust in anyone else, least of all his own wife. He preferred her at home, to know where she was all day. Her men never liked her to work, so she never really developed the taste for it.

“You’re too good to work. You’re too lovely. ” He knew what to say; they had talked like this a hundred times before. It came out too flat, but still Agnes seemed assuaged. Then he said something unexpected that froze the smile on her face. “But, like, if you did work, it would be OK. Like, if you get a night shift, you don’t have to be in for me at nights any more. I can watch myself. ”

Agnes sat up and downed the last of the lager. She seemed like she wanted to change the subject. Shuggie watched her as she pulled together two effigies from their unwanted clothes. She arranged a pink angora jumper of hers and a too-small gangster outfit of his into a pair of hollowed-out Guy Fawkes dummies. Shuggie followed her into the kitchen, where she hung them on the clothes pulley. She pulled on the rope, and the pulley ascended to the ceiling again. They twisted there, full of life, two versions of their old selves hanging in wait for the new family.

“The woman’s named Susan, ” said Agnes. “She’s nice. She has four weans and a carpet-fitter for a man. Never claimed the dole in his life. Wait till they get a load of him round here. ”

“Are we tricking her? ” asked Shuggie, full of concern for the new tenants.

Agnes rubbed her cheek like she was trying to soothe herself, like her dentures were pinching at the back. She poured herself a fresh mug of lager. “No. She has a motor and a man. They didn’t seem that bothered to be so far out. ”

She put her finger down the neck of Shuggie’s jumper, pulled it out, and rubbed his skin, like she was checking whether a lazy maid had hoovered under a carpet. There was fine hair starting to bud on the plain of his small chest. She worried it with her nail, but said nothing about it. “You’re awful pale. When was the last time you were outside? ”

He didn’t want to tell her about Francis McAvennie and the kitchen knife. He didn’t want to admit he had been too scared to linger outside since that day he had threatened to stab him. In the end he didn’t have to say anything. Agnes’s mind was a jumping slide projector. She said, “You’ll not remember the city. You were too wee. But there’s dancing, all kinds of dancing, and big shops. You can be outside all the time, because there’s that much to do. ” He thought he saw her inflate with false hope, like she was trying to puff herself up with a delicate excitement. It seemed as fragile as thistledown. “You’ll not remember. But you’ll see. ”

“I can’t wait. ” It was a lie, but only half of one. He couldn’t admit it to her, but the city scared him slightly, the vast uncontrollable nature of it: all the alcoholics he could lose her to, the dark pubs, the men who might take advantage, all the unknown streets she could slip down and he could lose her on. At least the Pit had been a known element. It had held them stuck like flies on paper, bounding them in on four sides by nothing. She could harm herself here, but he could not lose her.

Shuggie tried not to dwell. “When we flit, will you really try to stop the drinking? ”

“I said so, didn’t I? ”

There was a faint look of disbelief in his eye; he couldn’t help it. He turned to the sink to wash the last of the dishes, to hide his face.

It got her goat. “Are you calling me a bloody liar? ”

She had been drinking all day. Her mood was a low-level haar, foggy, dark and heavy, but holding steady without rain. Shuggie did not want to burst this cloudiness and force the bad weather. “No. Sorry. ”

Agnes stubbed her cigarette out on the edge of the sink. She lifted her lager mug and tossed the contents down the drain. It all happened so forcefully, so fast, that Shuggie got sprayed with the dregs and stepped back, soaked and blinking.

Agnes opened the planking place under the sink and took out her last two Carlsberg. She handed one to him, and tore open the other herself. She held it over the sink, and the lager poured down the drain in a choking, sputtering torrent. When it was empty, and the last of the white yeasty foam had fallen into the sink like damp snow, she threw the can at the bin and missed, the tin rattling on the linoleum floor. All Shuggie could do was step back wide-eyed and hold on to the worktop for balance. Agnes, possessed by something now, ran around the house; he could hear her clawing underneath furniture and scrabbling behind the wardrobe. She came back with a half dozen bottles, all the forgotten dregs of vodka, all the last slugs she had passed out before finishing. She emptied them down the sink with a dramatic flourish.

Shuggie had never seen her do that before. He had never seen her waste good drink.

On the rare occasions she promised to get sober, she would still drink it all first, every single drop, before she started with the fierce withdrawals and the boaking and the shaking. There were other times she fell sober because she had no choice. On the weeks when all the benefit money was gone, and no man would bring her a carry-out, then a type of grudging sobriety would start. If that happened on a Thursday, then her sobriety had a four-day running start. Shuggie always rooted for it. But the drink rarely lost. It was like a bully who gave Agnes that running start in the grinning confidence he would catch her easily, and she’d be battered again when the benefit book was cashed again the following Monday. Still, Shuggie always fell for it.

He opened the last bronze can. He watched her out of the side of his eye as he poured it down the sink, in a gentle, tentative trickle, ready to stop at any moment.

Agnes watched him do it, her held tilted back like she was a fine lady. “Do you believe me now? ”

Shuggie pushed his thumb knuckle into his eye socket to steady himself, to stop the hopeful tears. “Thank you. ”

Agnes stiffened, but she smiled, a faint tremulous thing. “No more drinking for me. I’m not saying it’ll be easy, but that’s the best thing about the city. No one will know us from Adam. ” She picked some oose from their hanging effigies. They spun in the quiet kitchen. “And you. You can be like the other boys. We can be brand new. ”

THE EAST END

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