Twenty-Nine

The brown-eyed boy who lived downstairs in the tenement knocked on the door as though they were old friends. In the months since they had moved in, he had done his best to ignore Shuggie. Now, when Shuggie answered the door, the brown-eyed boy tilted his head in greeting, told him to get his coat and follow him.

“What for? ” asked Shuggie, rather ungratefully.

“Cos ah need your help. ” The boy was already halfway back down the close.

Keir Weir was a palette of warm tones all chosen because of how well they went together. He was more tan than anyone Shuggie had ever known, and his brown hair shone with memories of a sun it had rarely seen. His eyes were richly grained, like walnut wood, and his lips were shaped and arched in a way that made Shuggie stare. He would have looked like a teen pinup if it wasn’t for the dripping tip of his nose and the continual cold sore that bothered his top lip.

Shuggie pulled on his jerkin and followed like an obedient footman. When they got to the mouth of the close, Keir spun on his heels and stopped him in his stride. “Look, you’re no going out wi’ me looking like that. ”

Shuggie looked down at himself. He was wearing what he wore every day: old wool school trousers, old black shoes, and a blue anorak from the catalogue that looked like one of Agnes’s old coats that she would be embarrassed to run the messages in.

“You’ll gie me a brass neck. Does your maw still dress ye? ” Keir pushed his hands into Shuggie’s anorak. He reached around into the small of Shuggie’s back and with a tug pulled on the adjustable cords there. The jacket cinched in at the waist till it almost cut him in two and fluted at the hem like an Edwardian doublet. The brown-eyed boy took the neatly ironed collar and flipped it up, then he roughly pulled the plastic zip all the way to the top till Shuggie felt like he was peering out from inside a ship’s funnel.

Shuggie tilted his head back and talked over the top. “Where are we going? ”

“Ah’m gonnae introduce ye tae some lassies. But ah cannae have ye looking like a fanny. ” Keir drew a cheap black comb from his back pocket; one end was chewed to uselessness. He spat a foamy white gobful on to it and scraped a line down the dead centre of Shuggie’s head. Shuggie recoiled in horror, but Keir put his long fingers around the nape of Shuggie’s neck and braced him in place. It was how men pulled women towards them in all the pictures Agnes liked on telly. It meant nothing to Keir, but Shuggie felt like the back of his eyeballs were sweating.

The drag of the buckled comb made his skull feel like it had been cleanly and evenly split. The boy roughly rearranged Agnes’s neat sideswipe and parted the black hair sharply into heavy curtains. “There! ” he rubbed the back of Shuggie’s head, fair pleased with his work. “You look mair hardcore now. ” He turned and went out on the street. “Just dae what ah dae and there’ll be nae problems, right? ”

“OK, ” agreed Shuggie, lurching after him, imagining ways he could make Keir grab at him again.

Keir Weir swaggered bandy-legged up the street. The bottom of his face was obscured by his anorak collar, and his hands were tucked deep into the pockets of his jacket. Shuggie walked a little behind and tried to use a wide gait like Leek had once shown him. “We’re gonnae meet a couple of lassies. One’s ma bird. The other is her wee pal. She’s a right wee ride, ” he said. “Have ye already goat a bird? ”

“Yes, ” lied Shuggie.

“Who? ” asked Keir. Only his frown and his eyes were visible over the high neck of his anorak.

“A girl from where I used to live. ”

“Oh, aye? Whit’s her name then? ”

Shuggie couldn’t tell if Keir was sneering now. It was hard to talk when you couldn’t see the person’s lips. “Eh, ” he stuttered. “Um. Madonna. ” As soon as the word escaped he was grateful for the collar. His face flushed a liar’s pink.

Keir looked at him with narrowing eyes. A shadow passed his face that said he was beginning to regret having asked him out. “Aye, is that right? ” His eyebrow arched high above his collar. “Have ye even finger-er-ed her yet? ”

Shuggie’s mouth went slack behind the facade. He nodded slowly.

Shuggie heard the bored air escape Keir, watched his hair curtains bounce from the draught. “Well, ma bird’s pal is right dirty. She’ll gie you a ride if you ask. ” He sneered again. “That’s if Madonna doesnae mind. ” He lowered a cigarette doubt into his collar, like a bucket into a well. “Anyway, ah just want ye to stop her botherin’ us. Goat it? ”

They walked through the blond-tenemented streets, not stopping to watch women pour buckets of bleach water out on the pavement. Keir cut through the estate with a man’s stride, clipping corners, jumping benches and small stone walls. He made a direct and efficient line to her. Shuggie half-jogged behind. Keir slowed his stride only when they got to a block of modern-looking flats. He stubbed out his wrinkled cigarette doubt and reached around in his pocket and took out a piece of chewing gum. He put it in his mouth and chewed it quickly. Shuggie could smell the sweet peppermint casing break between his big white teeth. He chomped it like a hungry dog and then drew it out of his mouth. “Here, ” he said, offering the wet gum to Shuggie. “You’re gonnae want tae be fresh for the ladies. ”

Shuggie blinked at the grey gum between the boy’s wet fingers. He was glad again of the upturned collar, as his mouth turned down in a distasteful frown.

“Don’t be a fucking poof. Here! ” Keir thrust the gum at him. Reluctantly, Shuggie took the wad and put it in his mouth. It was slimy and warm, and it tasted of mint and beans and cigarettes. He found he didn’t mind; he rolled it slowly around his mouth and savoured it. He used his tongue to push the last of Keir’s spit up into the dry pocket above his teeth, behind his lips, like it might last longest there.

They climbed the stairs to the top-floor flats. Every landing had a big open balcony, and Shuggie was happy to stop at each and admire the view, like a contented pensioner. When they reached the top, Keir turned to him and said, “Try not to sound like such a posh boy, alright. I don’t want them tae laugh at us. ”

Keir pushed the bell at the side of a mottled-glass door. Inside, a door opened and tinny pop music filled the hallway. They watched a cloud of blond hair get closer and closer through the bubbled glass. There in the doorway was a short plain girl, pale-skinned, with big green eyes obscured behind thick pink glasses. Her gelled hair was scraped back from her face and erupted in a large, permed ponytail. On the side of her head, arranged in neat rows, were pink-coloured hair clips that looked like a rack of ribs from a pig.

She was a little younger than the boys. The messy paint on her fingernails made Shuggie think of the McAvennie girls, when they would slide around clumsily in Colleen’s low heels. “Hi-yaa, ” said the girl through the crack in the door.

“Hi-ya, doll. ” Keir wore a sideways smile. He put his palm possessively on the door.

The girl giggled and then eyed Shuggie suspiciously. “What do you two want? ” She closed the door slightly.

“Is your maw home? ” asked Keir.

“You know fine well she’s out workin’. ”

“Can we come in for a wee while then? ”

“Naw. ” She squirmed and closed the door more.

“How no? ”

“Cos I said so. My maw said she would batter me if I let you in when she was at work again. ”

“Aw, come on. ” He stepped out of his shoes.

“Naw, ” she squawked childishly. “You ruined it last time! You peed all over the toilet seat and the skirting board. My maw went spare when she saw it. I got leathered. ” She closed the door till only her face fit in the crack.

They stood this way for a moment. Inside there was the sound of a pop cassette tape being turned over. Keir spoke first. “Well, I brought ye this. ” In his hand was a bar of soap wrapped in clear pearlescent cellophane; it looked like the cheap soaps that were piled high at the Barras market, the ones Agnes turned her nose up at. It said clearly on the side, Not to be Sold Individually.

Her small white hand came out from behind the door and cautiously took the soap. The cellophane made a crisp, crinkling noise. The young girl gasped in delight, then added, “That changes nothing. ”

“Are ye still wantin’ to be ma bird? ”

She looked at the bar of soap and back at the tall boy. “Aye. Mibbe. ”

“Dae ye want tae come out then? Ye know and kick around for a wee while? ”

“Na-aw. I cannae, ” she pouted.

“How no? ” Keir Weir was batting his brown eyes as hard as he could.

“Cos Leanne is here, that’s how no. ”

Keir nodded and presented his prepared plan. “Well, this is Shuggie. He fancies Leanne. ” Shuggie stepped from the shadows of the close. “So she can come an’ all. ”

The girl’s eyes went wide. She let out a squeak, and her little head popped back into the hallway as the glass door slammed shut. Shuggie watched the distorted puff of blond hair race down the hall.

Was this to be the moment that would make him normal? All the practicing at walking, all the chasing of a bladder ball and learning outdated football scores: it was all for this.

The door opened, and two small faces peered out. Then the door slammed shut again. There was a riot of laughter from inside the hallway. Keir shifted nervously. “Try and look less like a big poof, would ye? ” he hissed without turning.

Shuggie inhaled a deep breath and tried to stand up broad and straight and then like an unhappy turtle he lowered his face into the anorak with a scowl. The door opened again, wider this time. The two girls stood there, fidgeting with delight. Leanne Kelly was a good foot taller than the other girl, and peered out at them over the bush of blond perm. Her jaw was set firm, and she wore no make-up or trinkets in her hair. From the way she stepped forward and squared herself to the boys, it was clear that she had been raised with a colony of brothers. When she spoke, her mouth was pinched like it was guarding her teeth. Shuggie thought her eyes were like little watchful raisins.

“How can you fancy me? I’ve never even seen ye, ” she asked bluntly.

Shuggie went blank, and Keir kicked him hard in the soft of his ankle tendon. “Well, it’s … it’s just that I heard so many nice things about you. ”

The girl wrinkled her nose in disbelief. “Whit, now? ”

“I heard that you were very attractive. ”

“Why do you speak so funny? ” she said without smiling, the wrinkle still on her nose. “Whit school do ye go tae? ”

The girl stepped further out into the daylight of the close, and Shuggie realized her face wasn’t actually dirty but covered in a thousand beautiful freckles. Her raisin eyes still shot about, taking him in suspiciously. “Um, I go to the school up the road, ” he said.

“That Proddy dump? ”

“Yes. ”

The girl sighed, and the wrinkle fell off her nose. “Too bad. Ah go tae Saint Mungo. It’s for Cath-licks. ”

“That’s OK. My mother is a Catholic. So I’m a halfer, I suppose. ”

A thin smile spread across her lips. “Doesnae matter round here. Ma brothers would skin me if they knew I was going around with a dirty Orange dog. ”

Shuggie tried to hide his relief. It flooded over him, and he wanted to exhale long and low. He could tell her he was mostly Catholic, that he had taken Communion, but instead: “Oh. Well. OK, then. It was nice to meet you. ” He turned away with a gentlemanly wave goodbye. He wanted to run.

“Don’t play so hard to get, ” Leanne exhaled loudly. “At least let me get ma fuckin’ jumper then. ”

It was smirring lightly by the time they went back out on to the grey streets. They walked in neat sets of two. Up and down, up and down, between the identical tenements. At first Shuggie could feel the girl steal sideways glances at him; then she was openly gawping in the puzzled way that he himself stared at starving African babies on the telly. Her mouth hung open and her eyes wanted to look away but couldn’t, because they were confused by what they saw. All the while she played absent-mindedly with the end of her long brown ponytail.

“Ye look funny, ” she declared finally, her assessment complete.

“Sorry? ” He wondered how long it would be until he could go home.

“You don’t have a da, do ye? ”

Shuggie turned his head in the funnel neck. “Why do you say that? ”

“I can just tell, ” she huffed, like a bored clairvoyant. “I’m just guid at guessing things like that. ”

“My dad is dead, ” he said, and then he wondered if he would even ever know if it were true.

“Really? Mine too! ” She was brightening. Then she added, as though she had forgotten, “I mean, sorry. That’s dead sad. ”

Shuggie shook his curtained hair. “No. I think it’s great. ”

Leanne giggled. “That’s a terrible thing to say. God’s going to get you. ”

“It’s OK, my dad was a bad man. ”

They walked on a little further before she spoke again. “Do ye even like lassies? ”

“I don’t know. ” It fell out of him unexpectedly, almost like a loose fart, and he regretted it instantly. His face flushed, and his eyes darted to her. She was his best chance at being a normal boy, and already he had ruined it.

But the girl simply sighed. “Aye, me either. Like boys that is. ” She chewed on it for a moment and then added, almost defeatedly, “So, do you want to be my boyfriend anyhows? Ye know. Just for the now. ”

“OK, ” said Shuggie. “Just for the now. ”

She slid her hand into his; her hand was longer than his own, but he liked the way it felt, safe and warm. They came to a ragged bit of muddy grass with blue-legged weans playing football. At the far side Keir and the blond girl pushed through a split in a chain-link fence.

Leanne stopped stubbornly and folded her arms across her bony chest. He was half-stunned by how her teeth ground together in the tight mouth. “Dirty perverts! ” she spat. “That’s all they want to do. Go in there and suck the scabby faces off one another. It makes me sick the way they paw at each other. She’s been a right nympho since she turned thirteen. ”

The pair watched Keir and his date receding into the waste ground. Shuggie spoke first. “They’ll just think we are funny if we don’t go in. ”

The girl thought about it for a minute. She dug at the dirt with her toe. “So, ” she pouted, “ah’ll get my brothers to murder them. ”

Keir turned around, waist-high in the weeds, and with a flick of his wrist commanded Shuggie to hurry the fuck up. Shuggie held the wire back, and with a sigh Leanne warily went through the hole, bending her height almost in half.

On the other side of the fence the grass crested in a gentle unkempt hill. On the down slope of the hill ran the motorway to Edinburgh. Traffic screamed by at terrifying speeds less than twenty feet away. They walked along the grassy knoll beside the hard shoulder until they reached a pedestrian footbridge. One by one the children crawled under the bridge and shuffled along the concrete embankment that slid down and on to the motorway. It smelled of piss and car fumes, but it was dry, and if they sat directly behind one of the broad structural columns, it was almost private.

They sat there, the two couples, in a fidgety silence, watching the Saturday-morning day trippers rush by. They rolled chuckie stones down the side of the embankment and cheered when the stones raced to the bottom, got caught in the wheels of the speeding cars, and flew dangerously backwards down the motorway.

“You goat any fags? ” asked the blond girl. She was flattening an unruly hair into a piggy hair clip.

“Naw, ” answered Keir.

“Honest to God! I don’t know why I am your bird, ” she moaned. “Stookie telt me he’d gie us a packet of fags a week if I went wi’ him. Didn’t he, Leanne? ”

“Aye, ” said the tall girl, absent-mindedly.

Keir shrugged; he would call her bluff. “Away ye go wi’ Stookie then. See if I care. ”

It was freezing under the bridge, away from the weak sunshine, and Leanne started to rattle with the cold. Shuggie slipped off his anorak. He watched her put it on with a glad smile, and laughed when her long arms stuck out the bottom of the too-short sleeves. She put her long arm around him. They sat quietly like this for a long time, watching the traffic rush by. When Shuggie looked around, he saw that Keir was lying on top of the blond girl. He was opening and closing his mouth on to hers in a way that looked like he was trying to be sick.

Shuggie watched a long thin hand slide up inside the girl’s sweatshirt. Keir pushed himself against her leg, the muscles in his arse tightening with concentration, and Shuggie watched him move his head up and down on her mouth like he was chewing her. He was moaning and grinding as the girl squirmed clumsily underneath him. Shuggie savoured the sight of the ropes in the boy’s arms, the tide of his back, the pulse of his arse. Keir opened his eyes and met Shuggie’s hungry gaze. The outline of his mouth was wet and red and chapped raw. He narrowed his brown eyes. “Were ye lookin’ at my fuckin’ arse? ”

“No …” Shuggie turned back around. The cars had thinned out.

The blond girl’s glasses were moist and crooked on her face. She looked like she had been assaulted. “Leanne, hen. You alright, doll? ” Her tiny voice echoed off the concrete bridge above.

Leanne, cold and bored, simply shrugged without looking back. The pair of them sat in silence, listening to the young lovers behind them. Keir spoke first, in a voice that was deliberately too loud. “See! ” he said to the crushed girl. “Everybody but you thinks I’m pure shaggable. ”

“Ye’re a stirring bastard, ” moaned the girl, but she was squirming beneath him again.

Keir hauched a chewy phlegm wad out on to the concrete. Shuggie could feel Keir’s eyes burning into his neck. The boy turned back to the crushed girl. “Can I finger ye for a wee while? ” he asked bluntly.

“Naw. It’s too cold. ”

“Aw, please, ” he pleaded. “I’ll blow on them first to warm them up. Ye don’t even have to take yer pants off. ”

“Naw. ”

“But I telt you I love ye. And I bought ye soap. ”

“You stole that soap, ” the blond girl said, before she sighed and added, “Alright then. But just for a wee minute and ye need to warm up yer fingers first. ”

Shuggie’s face had turned scarlet. He could feel the heat radiate off of it. He took Keir’s chewed comb out of his pocket and slowly slipped the end into his mouth. It smelled like cigarettes and boy’s hair gel. It smelled like Keir.

“If ye want, I’ll let ye touch my tits, ” said Leanne next to him. “That’s if ye want? ”

He shook his head without looking at her. “No, thanks. ” He let a handful of small grey stones roll down the embankment and on to the motorway.

The girl dug at a line of green moss. “Well, I’m no sitting here to catch my death. ”

Shuggie drew the chewed comb from his mouth and wiped the wet end of it on his trousers. It left a wet, dark patch on his leg. “Maybe I could comb your hair? ”

The girl didn’t answer, and he felt the red flush back into his face. Then she sighed and slowly drew the furry elastic band from her hair, and the thin, straight ponytail fell around her ears. The tightness in her face softened. Her eyebrows lowered and her freckled skin looked less taut and transparent. She looked kinder now and much younger. Shuggie took the comb and ran it the length of her hair. The brown was more than just brown. It was a million shades of glossy reds and a melange of dark chestnuts. The hair slid through his fingers like silk, each strand light as gossamer.

They sat like this for a long while, listening to the clumsy moaning behind them and watching the buses come and go to Edinburgh. Shuggie drew the comb gently through the girl’s hair, and soon she closed her eyes and relaxed her head against his chest. “Does your maw take a drink? ” she asked abruptly.

“Sometimes. Just a little, ” admitted Shuggie. “How can you tell? ”

“You are too worried-looking. ” She raised a hand and found the bridge of his nose. She rubbed it gently. “Don’t worry, though. Mine does an’ all, ” she said. “I mean. Well, sometimes. Just a little. ”

Shuggie fixated on the comb gliding through the hair. He watched how each strand separated like burn water. “I think she is going to drink herself to death. ”

“Would you be sad? ” asked the girl.

He stopped combing her hair. “I would be gutted. Wouldn’t you? ”

She shrugged. “I dunno. I think it’s what all alkies want anyways. ” She shivered. “To die, I mean. Some are just taking the slow road to it. ”

Something shook loose inside him, as if the old glue that was gumming his joints together had failed. His arms felt unexpectedly heavy, like the knotted muscles that stopped his shoulders from spreading were suddenly unravelling. He felt the words start to pour out of him. It felt good to tell her things. He hadn’t known how much lighter it would feel. “It’s hard to not know what you are coming in to at nights. ”

“Aye, but it’s never a hot dinner, is it? ”

“No, ” admitted Shuggie. His stomach turned over with fresh worry. “Do you have many uncles? ”

“Aye, of course, ” she said. “Ye know, I’m a Cath-lick. ”

“No! I mean, you know, un-cles. ”

“Them. Oh, aye. They don’t stay that long, the scavengin’ bastards. They always end up battering her, and then my brothers always end up battering them. ” She yawned like it was too ordinary to explain. “My job is to dip their pockets for money. ”

“Really? ” He was surprised at her barefaced pride.

“Aye. I clean them out. Every single penny. ” She shrugged nonchalantly. “I need to. Ma maw spends that much of the message money on drink. ”

Shuggie picked long broken hairs from the old comb and wound them thoughtfully round his finger. “I wonder if my mother knows yours? ”

“Doubt it. ”

“I mean through the meetings. Through the AA, ” he said.

“Naw. Auld Moira is well past that shite. ” She shook her head. “Has she ever tried to send you to Alateen? ”

“No. What’s that? ”

“It’s like AA but for families. Moira said it was a support group. She said it would help me to cope with her illness. ”

“Did you go? ”

The girl sat up and took her hair in her hand. “Once. But after that, no fuckin’ way! Why should I go when she hardly makes the meetings herself. Eh? ” She pulled the short sleeves down over her blue hands. “Anyway, you should have seen some of the posh wee bastards that were there. All moaning that their mammy drank all the Christmas sherry and fell asleep afore present-opening time. ” A cruel smile crossed her lips. “So I telt a story of how ma maw opened all the presents and drank ma brother’s Christmas aftershave by mixing it wi’ a bottle of fizzy ginger. You should have seen their faces. ” Leanne grinned like the devil and put on a fancy Edinburgh accent. “I’ll have an Obsession and Diet Coke, please. ”

“Diet Coke? ”

“Aye, she’s worried about her weight. ”

Shuggie laughed, then felt bad for laughing. “Did she really drink that perfume? ”

“Oh, aye. Well, she tried it. Drank the whole thing. It near kil’t her. She was vomiting for days. ” Leanne rubbed at her chilled legs. “Her sick smelt nice though. ”

Leanne’s face fell again; the end of her nose was purple with cold. “The next Christmas she wised up. Auld Moira Kelly got the itch and took some of the presents up the far end of Duke Street on Christmas Eve. She stood in the knee-deep snow and sold them at the side of the road for some drink money. She sold a cassette player for five pounds and a wee colour portable for twenty. ”

“I’m sorry. ”

“The worst part is that I’m still paying the catalogue for them. ”

The words were on his lips before he realized he had spoken them out loud. “My mother tried to kill herself last night. ”

Leanne turned to face him. “Did she take some pills? ”

“No. ”

“Slash her wrists? ”

“Well, no, ” he paused. “Not this time anyway. ”

“Put her head in the oven? ”

“No. She has afore. But I think the one in the new flat is electric. ”

“Ugh, that’ll not stop them. ” Leanne took a strand of hair between her fingers and inspected its frayed ends. “Ma maw did it once when I was away on a school trip. I’d had a lovely time at the Edinburgh Zoo looking at the penguins, but when I got home my brothers were all stood around her laughing. She looked like she had been on the sunbeds. She’d tried to do hersel in and baked her face instead. Half her hair had grill lines on it from the oven rack. ” She plucked violently at a broken hair. “It was mental. She permanently crimped half her head and set the other side in a semi-wave. ”

Shuggie couldn’t help but laugh. The girl giggled lightly and then sighed sadly almost as quickly. “Well, what did yours dae, then? ”

“She tried to throw herself out of the window. ” He lowered his eyes. “With no clothes on. ”

“Jeezo, ” the girl whistled. “Auld Moira has never tried that. Thank fuck I live on the ground floor. ”

Shuggie rubbed at his arm; he felt the fresh welts from her struggle scream from under his jumper. Agnes had sure enough taken to the window ledge. It was a new tactic, and it had terrorized him. She had been casting up on the telephone, and then she went quiet. When he found her, she was at the kitchenette with one leg in and one out the window, her bare cunt on the stone sill. She was naked and screaming, and he had to use his whole strength to drag her back inside. There were slivers of her skin still stuck under his fingernails. A tired, damp feeling ebbed over him now. “I think the drink will kill her, and I feel like it’s my fault. ”

“Aye. It probably will kill her, ” she said, much as if she were only discussing the weather. “But like I said, it’s a slow road, and there’s nothing you can do to help her. ”

The desperate slurping sounds behind them stopped. Leanne sat forward, her hair so shiny it was almost wet-looking, her face calmer and kinder now. The cold motorway air rushed between them. Shuggie let a little ball of her loose hair roll down the embankment, and suddenly he felt lonely, like he wanted to sit on Agnes’s knee again as he had when he was little.

Leanne turned and regarded him over the curve of her shoulder. In the bright headlights he saw how pretty her eyes really were, not only brown but gold and green and a sad flat grey. He knew now that he couldn’t keep his promise. He had lied to Agnes as she had lied to him about stopping the drink. She would never be able to get sober, and he, sat in the cold with a lovely girl, knew he would never feel quite like a normal boy.

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