by R. D Rhodes
I was still leaning my face against the window. My eyes were still closed. The train seemed to pick up speed. It was getting uncomfy. I wished the woman sitting next to me would move so I could shuffle over a bit. I wished I had an iPod or mp3, to take my mind of the constant fear that at any moment I could be dragged off the train and found out for who I was. But we still had five hours to go.
The family at the table in front were shouting their conversation. I heard the woman on my right tutting and sighing and shuffling in her seat. The man was still yelling on his phone. I half-peered out through the hazy light of my right eye at the huge, open mouths that chewed up whatever it was they were eating. But despite all their racket, and the trio of woman’s voices now gabbing away somewhere on my right, I felt a real tiredness overcome me. The train was warm. The heaters seemed to be on full blast. And I slowly drifted off.
“OH AYE, DOING REAL WELL FOR HIMSEL. HE’S MAKING LOADS OF MONEY NOW.”
I grimaced and squinted open an eye. The family had gone, and the lady had vacated the seat next to me, but that trio of gabbing woman were still there. They sounded like they’d been drinking.
“Yeah, he’s top dog at his work. Just worked his way up and there he is. Going to China next week on a business trip as well.”
“Oh, wow! You must be so proud of him.”
“Yeah. I says to him, How about you and me swap jobs and you let me go to China for a week! HAHAHAHA!”
“And what about Joshua? Is he still at school?”
“Aye, he’s sixteen now, doing really good. Just passed all his exams and got three A’s. He’s really smart.”
“So is he going to go to uni, or?”
“Yeah, he’s applying next year. Doesn’t know what he wants to do yet but he’s thinking about chemistry.”
“Very good.”
“See that Patricia Pounder? Shocking eh?”
“Oh aye! I heard about that, went off the rails and went off with Bob Pitt? That’s mad that is.”
“She’s a good actress though.”
“I read in Heat she got three million for Confessions alone. Imagine that, eh? What would you do with that kind of money? Lucky girl.”
“I think I’d just fuck off and spend the rest of my life on a beach somewhere, soaking masel in the sun, HAHA.”
The others chimed in unison, “Aye! Aye! Aye! That’d be great.”
I closed my eye again. Even if I was a millionaire, I wouldn’t be paying the one hundred and fifty pound it is for a ticket on this train, I thought. I peered out to the left as the world passed by, trying to avoid the dim reflection that followed my every move. I couldn’t look at myself, but the outside made me sick too. All the primed fields and individual houses. It didn’t seem that there was a place in the world that man hadn’t ruined yet.
The ticket inspector hadn’t come back for a while. I had passed two of the obstacles. Soon enough I would get to the third- getting into Glasgow itself.
Chapter 31
T he three women got off at Newcastle. More people got on, but the carriage was now again half-empty. I pushed open my eyes a little more as the train coasted through the bleak and desolate hilly landscape of Northumbria. The sky was overcast and grey and the ground all around was a series of barren and treeless mounds of earth. The last stop had been twenty minutes before. We would soon be crossing the border.
I opened my eyes fully and looked from one side of the carriage to the other. I couldn’t see the train inspector, but I saw Harry, doubled up in his seat, his sleeping head on the armrest. I rose onto my knees. In the rows behind people were sitting quietly in their chairs, just minding their own business; flicking through magazines and papers, listening to music on their headphones, or just staring out the window.
It was getting dark. I yawned and rubbed my hands across my face and when I took them away, I was distracted by the sight of a man and what looked like his two daughters, sleeping at an opposite table. The young girls were lying on his lap in a peaceful repose, and were both so little. One was about seven and the other about three. The youngest one lay breathing softly, her little chest moving gently in and out with each breath. Her thumb was in her mouth and her cute, tiny face was turned up towards her father. The older little girl’s arm was positioned under her sister’s resting head, and they were both lying in their dad’s arms as if their whole being and trust had been placed in him. As if he was the center of their whole universe.
I felt tears well up in my eyes. And that man, their dad- he had his head tilted very awkwardly to the side, his shoulders were slumped, and his neck twisted down towards his kids. He had fallen asleep making sure that they were alright, making sure that they were comfortable. That they were sleeping first. And after he was satisfied, he must have fallen asleep too. His face was turned slightly towards me and it was covered in a love and warmth so great that I was mesmerized by it. The whole picture was serene and wonderful. I thought it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
All of a sudden I didn’t care about what happened to me. I didn’t care about anything. Humanity was beautiful! Humanity was great! Jesus, look at that! I thought. Joy surged into me and I felt truly glad to be alive. I wanted to live. I wanted to see that love every day. That was something. That was divine and heavenly. That scene had everything that life should be.
I stared from sleeping face to sleeping face. I was so proud of humanity. I squeezed my eyes again and just let it come, let my face burst forth into the smile that it wanted to.
A voice from a passenger behind said it was “twenny-past nine.” We didn’t have long. I sat back and watched as the houses got more frequent and their orange lights glowed in the dark. Harry woke up, peeked out over the chair in front of him and smiled at me.
“THIS TRAIN IS NOW APPROACHING…GLASGOW. LAST STOP…GLASGOW.”
My nerves shot back to life and I resumed sleep position, peering out at the dark stalwarts of buildings that rose up along the train tracks and hovered above my head. The train crossed the bridge over that familiar Clyde river, the bright lights of the city all around us. Then we were crawling under the station roof that covered us in darkness. Then the lights went on outside again, and we were drawing up by the platform.
I stood up. So did Harry. We joined the small queue of bodies at the door. The sleeping little girls stirred and rose, and their dad took the bags down from the compartment above their heads. The train ground to a halt and the doors opened.
This was it. This was the big one. Harry and I walked together. “If either of us get caught, say you got on at Dumfries, okay? I don’t know how much it will be, but that might be enough.” He handed me twenty-five pounds in notes. A mass of bodies stepped off from the carriages in front and we let them walk ahead. I couldn’t believe it. There was no-one on the gate! “This could be our lucky day.” I said.
The people were going through the gates at a good speed. I waited until a guy stepped in front of me and I squeezed in behind him as he collected his ticket from the slot. Harry emerged right behind me. Maybe it got easier with practice. I thanked my lucky stars as we headed through the station. It was hoaching, mostly with younger folk on their Friday night out. From all directions men marched around in their weekend costumes of jeans and shirts and blazers and girls went by done up to the nines and with breasts and legs on show. We headed on past the ticket office, down the incline and out onto the street.
“Jesus!” I said, stepping back into the doorway as the mad rush engulfed us from both sides.
“This is something else!” Harry replied. I saw the shock on his face- but then remembered he hadn’t been out to a city in eighteen months- as we watched the hordes of people stomping past us under the dim orange lights; grabbing at each other, screaming, some staggering along with pizzas and chips in their arms.
Harry and I kept close as we stepped to the kerb. The traffic squealed and roared, the buses hissed, and the drunks hollered over the top of them all. A spot clear
ed and we ran across the road to join the pavement on the other side and started to walk up the hill. All the streets were lit up in orange and green and red and blue signs, their neon glaring like great, dingy strip joints. We headed up the road, dodging and winding through surges of people. They lined the pavements above us and on the opposite side of the street, filing up and down like little ants. My personal space was being invaded. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t wait to get out.
“How old are you?” I asked Harry, to distract myself.
“What?!” He turned his face to me, a faint smile playing on his lips, till he realised I was anxious, “Twenty-one. And you?”
“Nineteen.” I said. “I thought you were few years older. You look younger though.”
His eyes stayed on me and his lips were moving, but a boy racer revved by and I didn’t hear him. “What?” I asked.
“What made you think I was older?” he repeated.
“I dunno. You just seem to have done a lot. Read a lot.”
“I guess so.” He folded his hands in his pockets.
We reached the top of the hill. Harry turned down Sauchiehall street.
“Where does your friend stay?” I asked.
“Possil Park.”
“Possil Park!” I had been once, when I was really little, but even being that young I could remember what it was like. “Well, if that’s where he stays. Are we not better heading up that way though?” I pointed up a road that I thought was a shortcut.
“Are you sure you can get up that way?”
I couldn’t remember for definite. “I’m not sure.”
“Maybe best just sticking to the way I know. We could get a taxi, but I’d rather save the money. It’s only about an hour’s walk. Want a sandwich?”
I took the sandwich from the bag he offered. There was only one left. I stuck the plastic case in a bin as we made our way along Sauchiehall. It was as if the world had fallen in on itself. Scantily clad girls and brainless guys stood sozzled out of their minds and cursing the air and threatening the doormen of the clubs. The fast-food joints stood under their hellish neon lights, the staff inside shaving the grease-sopping kebab meat and throwing frozen hunks of flesh in the deep-fat fryers. The further we got up the noisier it got. Girls sat, half on the pavement, half on the road, their skirts hitched up their arses, their legs sprawled while the guys walked past leering and smiling at them and grabbing at their crotches and laughing to their friends. One girl at a bus stop was bawling her eyes out and throwing pathetic punches at a man swaying before her, who was pleading “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” I felt men’s eyes glaring at me. We stayed on the left side of the street and as we crossed a road a girl was standing in the middle of it. She was swaying slightly from side to side, a guy stood in front of her, she was pretty-looking, her tits were squashed in a tight catsuit-like dress and the guy was groping away at them while she smiled a drunk, vacant smile and rolled her eyes. And to the groper guy’s left two men were sitting in a static car, the engine running, talking to their mate and lusting after his girl as he kept squeezing those tits. And directly across the street, a girl was sitting in a club booth with her back to the window. The guy next to her suddenly stood up and, facing the street, started thrusting his pelvis into the girl’s face. After five or six thrusts the girl obviously couldn’t take it anymore and leapt up and started kissing him. “Wow.” Harry said. “Who said romance was dead.”
We carried on up the street, reaching its end at the M8. Three traffic lights later we reached the other side and were in the West End. It was supposed to be the upmarket part of the city; the classier, cleaner side. We passed more shops and despite them all being closed the lights were shining brightly from inside every one of them. A man trudged by looking just like some of the patients from Sleepyhillock; sallow-faced, his lidded eyes gone with it, his mouth wide open. Zombified. Another guy staggered, and tripped on his heel and almost fell, but regained his balance and kept on. We passed the herbal shop and the organic shop and the health food shop and the Sainsbury’s supermarket, and I looked up to our left at the fancy old houses in the stone cobbled streets that stretched beyond to Park Avenue and then to Kelvingrove Park.
Harry turned right through a sort of housing scheme that I knew was a big student and ethnic area. We came out the other side and waited at the lights and crossed over Dumbarton Road towards Maryhill. A couple of girls came our way, not looking unlike those girls back at the park in Exeter. They both had heels on, but one girl’s were ridiculous, I watched on amazed as she put one foot and one bent knee in front of the other and stalked like a T-Rex, her little arms in front of her to keep her balance.
All the bright lights and fancy buildings with the stone-carved architecture were long behind us now as we got off Maryhill Road towards Possil. The lights got dim and the few bare trees seemed to lurch ominously as we walked on in the darkness. Harry portrayed a confident face, but I could tell by his fleeting eyes that he was on the lookout too. Then the first sighting of what we both were worried about appeared; a pack of five gang kids were striding towards us on our side of the pavement. They walked with a fierce swagger, their eyes red with pent-up frustration. They looked ready for a fight. We both stayed silent and fixed our eyes on our shoes and I hoped they wouldn’t say anything. They passed us, to my great relief.
“AH’LL FUCK’IN STAB THE CUNT!” one of them spat aggressively. But their voices got lower as they walked away and I realised they weren’t talking to us.
I looked up at three high-rise flats.
“He lives in one of them.” Harry said.
“I hope he’s in.”
“He will be, he’s always in at this time.”
We turned left and followed the signs for Possil. More shops appeared, many broken down and with boarded-up windows. Glass scattered the doorways. Graffiti strewed the walls- POSSIL MASSIVE! GONEE STAB YEEZ!
GIRUFFY!
PURE CHAFFIN YA BAS!
Those messages screamed the deprivation and poverty that had stained those kids. And as we came to the slum houses, the little African-style shacks of the High Street shops, and the vile bookies lining the streets to cash-in on the people’s woes, I thought about the mothers that kept giving birth to them in these areas. I clenched my fists, feeling rage. But they don’t know any better, I thought. It’s like Africa. On all the adverts they keep telling us that kids keep being born into total abjection, total dismal poverty, no clean water, no food. So why the fuck do the parents keep breeding? What chance do you have growing up in this?”
Both of us were tired and we didn’t utter a word to each other as we crossed that road and past the loan shop that had 6 month no interest and a cardboard-cutout suited man smiling from the window, and we cut along a path nearing those high-rise flats. I was grateful the streets were deserted. I’d heard so many things about random people getting knifed here for no reason other than random chance. We crossed by a small, gravel-filled park with empty swings and empty seats, scratch cards and empty beer bottles littering the ground, and we stepped up to the door of the first high-rise.
Harry rang the buzzer.
We waited.
“Hullo?”
“Hey, Gary! It’s me, Harry.”
“Harry? Harry Anderson?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh, fuckin hell! Come on up mate. Know which number it is, aye?”
“Aye, be right on up.”
Chapter 32
T he door buzzed and clicked and Harry held it open. The lift was broken so we made our way up the piss-stinking stairs by all the black bin bags discarded outside the doors. An ice cream tub on one of the doorsteps contained a bunch of needles. Harry didn’t even blink, but a wave of nausea washed through me.
I followed him up two, three, four dark and dingy flights, each floor imagining another boxful of human beings piled up one on top of the other. This is what we are, I thought. Rats. The year two thousand and ten and this is how much we va
lue ourselves. Jesus, all those politicians who come from riches and shield themselves from all this. This is where they should be. Any self-respecting, honest politician should be living in these areas, working to sort all this, stop all this miserable way of life and poverty.
We reached the tenth floor and from the hall window I could see right over all the orange lights of the dismal, apocalyptic-looking city. At that moment I would have been quite happy for a bomb to go off and kill us all, for America or China to fire a wayward nuke down upon us, because that’s the only way I could see an end to all this.
Harry stood outside the wooden door and knocked. A couple minutes later a dull, thudding noise came towards us and the door opened and a man with a tense, pock-marked face stood in the doorway. His anxious eyes studied Harry, glanced doubly nervous at me, then looked back at Harry again. All of a sudden the tension in his face disappeared and he smiled wonky teeth and in one quick movement threw out his arms.
“Mate! It’s been a long time, man!”
Harry let those arms close around him, bare in a white t-shirt and almost as skinny as his own. He returned the embrace and slapped him on the back. “It’s been too long, Gaz. How you doin?”
“Nae bad mate. Nae bad.” Gary stepped back and looked at me. “This is Aisha,” Harry introduced. Gary held out a wiry hand, the nails on the slim fingers long and uncut. I put out my hand and he shook it quickly then swooped back around in the same swift motion, “C’mon in, guys,” He said.
Harry stepped in and I followed along the flimsy, faded-green carpet past two closed doors and into the living room. It was sparsely furnished. Just a TV, a small coffee table separating a two-seater couch and a chair, and a little wooden desk in the corner that was full of little marks and indentations. The dark green walls were bare. Behind the TV, the only window looked right out over the city.
“Take a seat, guys. Yous wan a cup a tea?”
