by Irvine Welsh
Back outside, Nessie Girvan was recalling the images of Biafran famine on the telly last night. They wee souls, it would break your heart. And there was that rubbish, and there were loads like him. She couldn’t understand why some people had kids. — That bloody animal, she said to her Davie.
Davie was wishing he’d reacted quicker, had followed the bastard into the pub. The man had been a real rogue mind you; olive-skinned, with hard, shifty eyes. Davie had taken on a lot harder before, but it was all some time ago. — If our Phil or Alfie had been there, he wouldnae have been so bloody smart, Davie said. — When ah see rubbish like that ah wish ah wis younger maself. For five minutes, that’s aw it wid take . . . christ . . .
Davie Girvan stopped in his tracks, unable to believe his eyes. The wee kids had got through a hole in the wire fence and were scrambling down the bank towards the river. It was shallow at this stretch, but it had a sloping gradient and the odd treacherous pocket of depth.
— MISSUS! he shouted at the woman on the seat, pointing frantically at the space in the wire meshing, — MIND YIR BAIRNS, BI CHRIST!
Her bairns
BANG
In blind terror Alice looked at the space to her side, saw the gap in the fence and ran towards it. She saw them standing halfway down the steep bank. — Yvonne! C’mere, she pleaded with as much composure as she could.
Yvonne looked up and giggled. — Nup! she shouted.
BANG
Terry had a stick. He was lashing at the long grass on the bank, chopping it down.
Alice implored, — You’re missin aw the sweeties n juice. Thir’s ice cream here!
A light of recognition filled the children’s eyes. They scrambled eagerly up the bank and through the fence towards her. Alice wanted to batter them, she wanted to thrash them
she wanted to thrash him
Alice Lawson exploded in a sob and hugged her children in a crushing grip, anxiously kneading at their clothes and hair.
— Whaire’s the ice-cream but, Ma, Terry asked.
— Wir jist gaunny git it, son, Alice gasped, — wir jist gaunny git it.
Davie and Nessie Girvan watched the broken woman stagger away with her children, each one gripped firmly by the hand, as jerky and full of life as she was soundly crushed.
Carl Ewart
The Works
The particles of filed metal hung in the air, as thick as dust. Duncan Ewart could feel them in his lungs and nostrils. You got used to the smell though; it was only when it had competition that you became aware of it. Now it was duelling with the more welcome scent of sponge and custard which wafted through the machine shop from the canteen. Every time the swing doors of the kitchen flew open Duncan was reminded that lunch was closer and that the weekend was approaching.
He worked the lathe deftly, cheating a bit by lifting the guard slightly, to get a better edge on the metal he was turning. It was perverse, he thought, but in his role as shop steward he’d bawl out anybody who tried to cut corners by flouting the safety regulations in this way. Risk losing some fingers for a bonus for a bunch of rich shareholders living in Surrey or somewhere? Fuck that, he was mad. But it was the job, the process of actually doing it. It was your own world and you lived almost exclusively in it from nine till five-thirty. You strived to make it better, in every way.
A blur pulled into focus from the edge of his sight-line as Tony Radden walked past, goggles and gloves off. Duncan glanced at his new space-age watch. 12.47. What the fuck was that? Nearly ten-to. Almost lunch hour. Duncan considered again the dilemma he faced, it was one he’d encountered many Friday mornings.
The new single from Elvis, The Wonder of You, was out today. It had been constantly previewed this week on Radio One. Aye, the King was back bigtime. In the Ghetto and Suspicious Minds were better, but they’d both peaked at number two. This one was more commercial, a sing-along ballad, and Duncan fancied it to go to the top spot. In his head he could hear people drunkenly singing along with it, see them slow-dancing to it. If you could make the people sing and dance, you were on a winner. Dinner hour was sixty poxy minutes, and the Number One bus to Leith and Ards record shop took fifteen minutes there and the same back. Sufficient time to buy the record and get a filled roll and a cup of tea from the Canasta. It had been a straight choice between purchase of the single or the leisurely enjoyment of a pie and pint up at Speirs’s Bar, the nearest pub to the factory. But now the teasing canteen smells announced that it was Friday, and the big nosh was coming into the picture. They always made a special effort on a Friday, because you were more inclined to go to the pub at dinner time then, which made high productivity and the final afternoon of the week uneasy bedfellows.
Duncan clicked the machine off. Elvis Aaron Presley. The King. No contest. The record it would be. Looking at his watch again, he elected to head straight out in his overalls, impatiently punching the clock and sprinting to catch the bus outside the factory gates. Duncan had negotiated with the management to provide lockers, so that workers could travel in ‘civvies’ and change into their working gear. In practice, few, including himself, bothered, except if they were heading straight out into town on Friday after work. Settling down upstairs at the back and recovering his puff, Duncan lit up a Regal, thinking that if he got a copy of The Wonder of You he’d play it tonight up the Tartan Club with Maria. The purr from the engine of the vehicle seemed to echo his own contentment as he basked in the warm fug.
Aye, it was shaping up to be a good weekend. Killie were over at Dunfermline the morn and Tommy McLean was fit again. The Wee Man would provide the crosses that Eddie Morrison and this new boy Mathie thrived on. Mathie and that other young guy, McSherry they called him, they both looked promising players, Duncan had always liked going to Dunfermline, considering them a sort of east-coast version of Kilmarnock; both teams from small towns in mining areas who’d achieved real glory in the last ten years and had battled with some of Europe’s finest.
— These bloody buses are useless, an old guy in a bunnet, puffing on a Capstan shouted over at him, breaking his thoughts, — Twenty-five minutes ah’ve waited. They should never huv taken oaf the trams.
— Aye, right enough, Duncan smiled, easing slowly back into his anticipation of the weekend.
— Nivir huv taken oaf the trams, the old guy repeated to himself.
Since his Edinburgh exile, Duncan generally divided his Saturday afternoon time between Easter Road and Tynecastle. He’d always preferred the latter, not for convenience but because it always brought back memories of that great day back in 1964 when, on the last game of the season, Hearts only had to draw with Killie at home to win the championship. They could even afford to lose one-nil. Kilmarnock needed to win by two goals to lift the flag for the first time in their history. Nobody outside Ayrshire gave them much of a chance but when Bobby Ferguson made that great save from Alan Gordon, Duncan knew it was going to be their day. And when he stayed out drinking for three days after they won, Maria didn’t complain.
They’d just got engaged, so it was out of order, but she took it well. And that was the marvel of her, she understood that, knew what it meant to him without him having to say, knew that he wasn’t a liberty-taker.
The Wonder of You. Duncan thought of Maria, how touched by magic he was, how blessed he was to have found her. How he’d play the song to her tonight, her and the wee man. Alighting at Junction Street, Duncan considered how music had always been the fulcrum of his life, how he always throbbed with a child-like excitement when it came to buying a record. It was Christmas morning every week. That sense of anticipation; you didn’t know if what you wanted would be in, or sold out or whatever. He might even have to go up to Bandparts on Saturday morning to secure it. As he headed towards Ards shop, his throat began to constrict and his heart pounded. Pulling on the door handle, he got inside and made for the counter. Big Liz was there, thick make-up and helmet of stiff, lacquered hair, her face lighting up in recognition. She held up a copy of The Wonder of You
. — Thought ye might be lookin for this, Duncan, she said, then whispered, — Ah kept it back for ye.
— Aw brilliant, Liz, yir a genius, he smiled, eagerly parting with his ten-bob note.
— That’s a drink you owe me, she said, raising her eyebrows, a serious underlay to her flirty banter.
Duncan forced a non-committal smile. — If it gets tae number one, he replied, trying not to sound as disconcerted as he felt. They said you always got the come-on more when you were married, and it was true, he reflected. Or maybe you just noticed more.
Liz laughed far too enthusiastically at his throwaway line, making Duncan all the more keen to leave the shop. As he went out the door he heard her say, — Ah’ll remind ye aboot that drink!
Duncan felt a bit uncomfortable for another couple of minutes. He thought about Liz, but even here, just in the street outside the record shop, he couldn’t remember what she looked like. Now he could only see Maria.
But he’d got the record. It was a good omen. Killie would surely win, although with these power cuts you didn’t know for how long football would be on as the nights would start to draw in soon. It was a small price to pay though, for getting rid of that bastard Heath and the Tories. It was brilliant that those wankers couldn’t take the piss out of the working man any longer.
His parents had made sacrifices, determined that he wouldn’t follow his father down the pit. They insisted that he was apprenticed, that he got a trade behind him. So Duncan had been sent to live with an aunt in Glasgow while he served his time in a machine shop in Kinning Park.
Glasgow was big, brash, vibrant and violent to his small-town sensibilities, but he was easy-going and popular in the factory. His best pal at work was a guy called Matt Muir, from Govan, who was a fanatical Rangers supporter and a card-carrying communist. Everybody at his factory supported Rangers, and as a socialist he knew and was shamed by the fact that he, like his workmates, had obtained his apprenticeship through his family’s Masonic connections. His own father saw no contradiction between freemasonry and socialism, and many of the Ibrox regulars from the factory floor were active socialists, even in some cases, like Matt, card-carrying communists. — The first bastards that would get it would be those cunts in the Vatican, he’d enthusiastically explain, — right up against the wa’ wi they fuckers.
Matt kept Duncan right about the things that mattered, how to dress, what dance halls to go to, who the razor-boys were, and importantly, who their girlfriends were and who, therefore, to avoid dancing with. Then there was a trip to Edinburgh, on a night out with some mates, when they went to that Tollcross dancehall and he saw the girl in the blue dress. Every time he looked at her, it seemed that his breath was being crushed out of him.
Even though Edinburgh appeared more relaxed than Glasgow, Matt claiming that razors and knives were a rarity, there had been a brawl. One burly guy had punched another man, and wanted to follow up. Duncan and Matt intervened and managed to help calm things down. Fortunately, one of the grateful benefactors of their intervention was a guy in the same company as the girl Duncan had been hypnotised by all night, but had been too shy to ask to dance. He could see Maria then, the cut of her cheekbones and her habit of lowering her eyes giving an appearance of arrogance which conversation with her quickly dispelled.
It was even better, the guy he befriended was called Lenny, and he was Maria’s brother.
Maria was nominally a Catholic, though her father had an unexplained bitterness towards priests and had stopped going to church. Eventually his wife and their children followed suit. None the less, Duncan worried about his own family’s reaction to the marriage, and was moved to go down to Ayrshire to discuss it with them.
Duncan’s father was a quiet and thoughtful man. Often his shyness was confused with gruffness, an impression accentuated by his size (he was well over six foot tall), which Duncan had inherited along with his straw-blonde hair. His father listened in silence to his deposition, giving the occasional nod in support. When he did speak, his tone was that of a man who felt he had been grossly misrepresented. — Ah don’t hate Catholics, son, his father insisted, — Ah’ve nothing against anybody’s religion. It’s those swines in the Vatican, who keep people doon, keep them in ignorance so that they can keep filling thir coffers, that’s the scum ah hate.
Reassured on this point, Duncan decided to keep his freemasonry from Maria’s father, who seemed to detest masons as much as he did priests. They married in the Register Office in Edinburgh’s Victoria Buildings and had a reception in the upstairs rooms of a Cowgate pub. Duncan was worried about an Orange, or even a Red speech from Matt Muir, so he asked his best pal from school back in Ayrshire, Ronnie Lambie, to do the honours. Unfortunately, Ronnie had got pretty drunk, and made an anti-Edinburgh speech, which upset some guests and later on, as the drink flowed, precipitated a fist-fight. Duncan and Maria took that as their cue to head off to the room they had booked at a Portobello guest house.
Back at the factory and back at the machine, Duncan was singing The Wonder of You, the tune spinning in a loop in his head, as metal yielded to the cutting edge of the lathe. Then the light from the huge windows above turned to shadow. Somebody was standing next to him. He clicked off the machine and looked up.
Duncan didn’t really know the man. He had seen him in the canteen, and on the bus, obviously a non-smoker, always sitting downstairs. Duncan had an idea that they lived in the same scheme, the man getting off at the stop before him. The guy was about five-ten, with short brown hair and busy eyes. As Duncan recalled, he usually had a cheery, earthy demeanour, at odds with his looks: conventionally handsome enough to be accompanied by narcissism. Now, though, the man stood before him in an extreme state of agitation. Upset and anxious, he blurted — Duncan Ewart? Shop Steward?
They both acknowledged the daftness of the rhyme and smiled at each other.
— I art Ewart shop steward. And you art? Duncan continued the joke. He knew this routine backwards.
But the man wasn’t laughing any longer. He gasped out breathlessly — Wullie Birrell. Ma wife . . . Sandra . . . gone intae labour . . . Abercrombie . . . eh’ll no lit ays go up tae the hoaspital . . . men oaf sick . . . the Crofton order . . . says that if ah walk oaf the joab ah walk oot for good . . .
In a couple of beats, indignation managed to settle in Duncan’s chest like a bronchial tickle. He ground his teeth for a second, then spoke with quiet authority. — You git tae that hoaspital right now, Wullie. Thir’s only one man that’ll be walkin oaf this joab fir good n that’s Abercrombie. Rest assured, you’ll git a full apology fir this!
— Should ah clock oaf or no? Wullie Birrell asked, a shiver in his eye making his face twitch.
— Dinnae worry aboot that, Wullie, jist go. Get a taxi and ask the boy for the receipt and ah’ll pit it through the union.
Wullie Birrell nodded gratefully and exited in haste. He was already out the factory as Duncan put down his tools and walked slowly to the payphone in the canteen, calling the Convenor first, and then the Branch Secretary, the clanking sounds of washing pots and cutlery in his ear. Then he went directly to the Works Manager, Mr Catter, and filed a formal grievance.
Catter listened calmly, but in mounting perturbation at Duncan Ewart’s complaint. The Crofton order had to go out, that was essential. And Ewart, well, he could get every man on the shop floor to walk off the job in support of this Birrell fellow. What in the name of God was that clown Abercrombie thinking about? Certainly, Catter had told him to make sure that order went out by any means necessary, and yes, he had actually used those terms, but the idiot had obviously lost all sense, all perspective.
Catter studied the tall, open-faced man opposite him. Catter had encountered hard men with an agenda in the shop steward’s role many times. They hated him, detested the firm and everything it stood for. Ewart wasn’t one of them. There was a warm glow in his eyes, a sort of calm righteousness which, when you engaged it for a while, seemed to be more about mischief an
d humour than anger. — There seems to have been a misunderstanding, Mr Ewart, Catter said slowly, offering a smile which he hoped was contagious. — I’ll explain the position to Mr Abercrombie.
— Good, Duncan nodded, then added, — Much appreciated.
For his part, Duncan had quite a bit of time for Catter, who had always come across as a man of a basically fair and just disposition. When he did impose the more bizarre dictates from above, you could tell that he didn’t do it with much relish. And it couldn’t be too much fun trying to keep bampots like Abercrombie in line.
Abercrombie. What a nutter.
On his way back to the machine shop, Duncan Ewart couldn’t resist poking his head into the pen, boxed off from the factory floor, which Abercrombie called his office. — Thanks, Tam!
Abercrombie looked up at him from the grease-paper worksheets sprawled across the desk. — What for? he asked, trying to feign surprise, but his face reddened. He’d been harassed, under pressure, and hadn’t been thinking straight about Birrell. And he’d played right into that Bolshie cunt Ewart’s hands.
