A Glasgow Trilogy

by George Friel

  ‘I told you,’ said Mr Dale. ‘She’s English.’

  ‘Oh I see,’ said Mr Alfred.

  He sipped his tea, squinting over the rim of the cup at the sinister clock.

  ‘She’s married to the personnel boss at Bunter’s Ball Bearings,’ said Mr Dale. ‘You know, the English firm that came to the new Salthill industrial scheme. A shower of Sassenachs out there now.’

  ‘She’s from Essex actually,’ said Mr Brown.

  ‘Upminster. Here about a year. The Herald had an article on her last week.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Mr Alfred.

  ‘On the Woman’s Page,’ said Mr Brown.

  ‘Complete with picture,’ said Mr Dale. ‘A horsefaced old haybag.’

  ‘A reformer,’ said Mr Campbell. ‘The minute she sees a pie she shoves her finger in.’

  ‘She’s got two girls at Bay,’ said Mr Brown.

  ‘Two girls at bay,’ Mr Alfred turned gladly. ‘I thought it was stags one had at bay.’

  ‘Bay School,’ said Mr Campbell.

  ‘Private school for girls,’ said Mr Brown.

  ‘You couldn’t send your daughter there,’ said Mr Dale.

  ‘I know,’ said Mr Alfred. ‘I haven’t got a daughter. Not as far as I know.’

  ‘If you had you couldn’t,’ said Mr Campbell. ‘Not on your salary.’

  ‘It’s not a school,’ said Mr Dale. ‘It’s an advance post of English infiltration. Hockey and an English accent. The old girl network.’

  Mr Alfred glanced at the clock. The bell rang.

  He swallowed the last of his tea and was first out to meet his class.

  At morning break Mr Brown was still in a teasing mood. He read out further extracts from Mrs Trumbell’s letter and bits from a letter supporting her. Mr Alfred wasn’t amused. Mr Brown’s voice jarred on him and he disliked the man’s use of juvenile slang. He tried to show his disapproval by sighs and groans but Mr Brown wasn’t discouraged.

  ‘Here’s a smashing argument,’ he declared loud and clear.

  ‘Must you?’ Mr Alfred asked.

  Mr Brown read with zest to his jaded colleagues.

  ‘“It is surely obvious to the meanest intelligence, even amongst teachers—”’

  Mr Campbell was jolted from his crossword.

  ‘That bloody cheek!’ he cried. ‘“Even amongst tea¬ chers!”’

  ‘Than whom,’ said Mr Alfred.

  Mr Brown read straight on through the interruptions.

  ‘ “—that a pupil refuses punishment because he is the innocent victim of certain psychical and physical strains resulting in a feeling of resentment due to his immaturity. Now whatever the child resents cannot be just and should therefore be abolished.”’

  ‘Hear, hear,’ said Mr Dale. ‘Let’s abolish the weans as well. That’ll solve it.’

  Mr Brown laughed and continued.

  ‘“This applies particularly to that curse of Scottish education, corporal punishment. Not that way will the child with a thirst for knowledge be provided with a key to wider horizons.”’

  ‘Oh ma Goad!’ said Mr Dale.

  ‘She’ll be leaving no stone unturned till she nips us in the bud,’ said Mr Campbell.

  Mr Alfred sighed and groaned again. Mr Brown continued.

  ‘“A system of sanctions must be devised which will not produce resentment in the child. Here is a task for our child-psychologists. Meanwhile in view of the present atmosphere of frustration which is itself an indication of a great deterioration in our much-vaunted determination to create a higher civilisation I appeal to parents of every denomination to send me their application for registration in the Parents Organisation for the Improvement of Scottish Education.”’

  ‘Damnation,’ said Mr Alfred.

  ‘Listen to this,’ said Mr Brown. ‘Monica’s last words. “It can hardly be without significance that Scotland is the only country, apart from Eire, Switzerland and Denmark, where teachers still think it necessary to flog their pupils.”’

  ‘To what?’ said Mr Campbell, pencil poised over his crossword. Clue: What are they when John has x times as many sweets as Jean? ‘That’s a bit stupid, that is.’

  He entered PROBLEM CHILDREN in his crossword and snorted.

  ‘Flogging? The bitch doesn’t know what flogging means.’

  The bell rang. Harsh, crude, rude, dogmatic, domineering. Tea was gulped, cigarettes stubbed, pipes knocked out, crosswords abandoned till lunchtime, and the battle- scarred troopers marched out to rejoin their unit.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Mr Alfred went to see his aunt.

  It was six weeks since he had given her any money. He swithered about sending her some by post. Then he thought it would be better if he went to see her.

  ‘You’re the fine one!’ she said when she let him in. ‘Your picture in the paper and you never come near folk to tell them what it was all about.’

  ‘There was nothing to tell,’ he said.

  She scolded him.

  ‘I thought you had more sense than to talk to reporters. Here, have a cup of tea.’

  He sat down with his coat on and his old hat on his lap.

  ‘I don’t talk to them. One of them tried to talk to me. All I said was excuse me.’

  ‘More fool you. You’re lucky he didn’t put in his paper, teacher apologises. But you must have been standing talking to them if they took your picture.’

  He sat across from her and stirred his tea.

  ‘No, it wasn’t like that,’ he said. ‘You know, it’s a very odd thing but—’

  ‘Here, I haven’t sugared it,’ she said. ‘Don’t sit there and try to tell me they snapped your face behind your back.’

  She pushed a poke of sugar across to him. He scrabbled the spoon in it. The sugar was low.

  ‘They took it before I knew. You know, it’s a very odd thing. You can stop a person printing a letter he stole from you, but you can’t stop him taking a quick snap at you and printing your photograph.’

  ‘You can’t call your face your own these days,’ she said. ‘Do you want a biscuit? Or can I fry you something?’

  ‘Any more trouble lately?’ he was asking. ‘No, thanks, no.’

  ‘Nothing much,’ she said. ‘You’re quite sure? It would be no bother. Except I had my purse snatched yesterday. I don’t know how you stay alive on what you eat. Well, my handbag it was actually, but my purse was in it. Are you quite sure?’

  ‘Yes, quite sure, thanks. You don’t know who it was?’

  ‘No, I’ve no idea. It was that quick. All I saw was the turnup of his jeans. I was coming through the Weavers Lane.’

  ‘I’ve told you not to use the Weavers Lane.’

  ‘It saves me a good minute’s walk to Ballochmyle Road.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I had my shopper and my handbag in one hand and somebody came up behind me and hit my wrist with a stick or something and I dropped them and he pushed me down and kicked me and grabbed my handbag and ran away. All I saw was the turnup of his jeans. Blue. Kind of tight. There was nothing I could do. He was out the lane and out of sight before I got to my feet. The funny thing was I found my handbag at the end of the lane but my purse was missing.’

  He gave her more money than he had meant to.

  ‘You shouldn’t bother,’ she said. ‘The price of things these days. You need it yourself. I wish you’d buy yourself a new coat. And as for that hat. It’s the midden it should be in.’

  ‘I must get you a purse,’ he said. ‘You only ever had the one.’

  ‘It was my mother’s. It was a good one. They don’t make them like that nowadays. Handstitched leather. It was a good one.’

  ‘Yes, I know. I’ll buy you a good one.’

  ‘When would you buy a purse? The only shops you’re ever in are beershops. I suppose you’ll be off round them tonight as usual.’

  He didn’t deny it, and she let him go after he gave her his version of the Provan story. He kept say
ing at the doorstep he would get her a good purse like the one she had lost and she kept telling him not to bother.

  His wandering took him to a district he hadn’t visited for over a year. The pubs were all changed. More chromium and plastic, less mahogany and brass. But it was the new people in The Kivins, a bar he used to like, that spoiled his pub-crawl. He remembered it as a bright spot off the beaten track, frequented by characters he would have said Dickens rather than God created. He hardly knew the place, and he certainly didn’t know the customers.

  There used to be community-singing in the back-room, and many solos too, though singing of any kind was against the licensing laws. There was an Irish labourer sang ‘Danny Boy’, commonly known as ‘The Londonderry Air’, and even ‘Sonny Boy’, as well as ‘The Rose of Tralee’ and ‘I love the dear silver that shines in your hair’, which is the same song as ‘Mother Machree’, sung elsewhere by Count John McCormack. And every Saturday night a bookie’s clerk sang ‘I have heard the mavis singing’, a fine song for a man with a good drink on him if he is a good tenor. The point of the song was that the voice of Bonny Mary of Argyll was sweeter than the song of the mavis, and a member of the audience said one night that the song was written by Rabbie Burns and that Bonny Mary of Argyll was Mary Campbell, the Ayrshire bard’s Highland Mary.

  His gloss aroused considerable dissension in the company and the argument flowed out of the back-room into the bar. Mr Alfred was appealed to as arbiter, his erudition being no doubt immediately recognised from his distinguished appearance and the fact that he wore a hat. He remembered the night well. He had, he regretted later, become rather didactic and after settling the controversy he had gone on to inform his fellow-drinkers that a similar mistake was often made about ‘I dream of Jeannie with the light-brown hair’. Many people, he said, believed it was written by Burns when in fact it was the work of the American songwriter Stephen Foster who wrote about the old folks at home etc.

  It was sober shame at his occupational habit of imparting information at the lowering of an elbow that inhibited him from going back to that haven of mirth and melody.

  And now! Ah, now! No couthy customers chatted at the bar, no merry company sang the old songs through in the back-room. A television gabbled on a high shelf at the far end of the gantry and dazzled him with a watered-silk effect the moment he went in. Two trios of long-haired youths, apparently not on speaking terms, were plainly now the established patrons. The door of the back-room was open, and he saw a couple of bottle-blondes, haggard professionals, sitting there with middleaged men beside them. The waiters too were changed. Four hard-faced, wary-eyed silent men, moving like ex-boxers, served clumsily. They looked as if they didn’t approve of drinking.

  Having gone in, Mr Alfred was unwilling to turn round and go out again. He would have one drink there anyway. Half-way through his pint, staring straight in front of him, wishing he had gone to see Stella, he had a subliminal knowledge of quarrelsome voices rising, angry scuffling, and the approach of battle. These disturbances put an end to his meditation of Stella’s bust and smile and he glanced round with disapproval. Two youths were fankled, legs kicking and heads butting, one of them with blood pouring from the tap of his nose. Four others, two on each side, tried to pull them apart, and there was a lot of bad language being used, another thing Mr Alfred didn’t like.

  The six youths came wrestling and lurching down the length of the bar, clearing all before them. Two of the ex- boxers dashed round to break it up and Mr Alfred stepped quickly out of their way, glass in hand. The youth who seemed to be the aggressor was wrenched away from his cowering foe but went on yelling threats and insults. He was a big fellow, and he strongly resisted the invulting arms of the grim barmen. He heaved himself free and launched a new attack. A joint effort by the bouncers brought him down, but in the tackle they shouldered Mr Alfred and brought him down too. He fell against a small table across from the bar and spilled beer all over his coat. When he got up he felt his ankle was hurting him. He hurried out as hastily as his newly-acquired claudication permitted, not waiting to hear what it was all about, nor caring.

  He limped a hundred yards or so in great agitation before a familiar rain, tapping insolently on his bare head, told him he had lost his hat. He slowed down. Then he hobbled on. It was an old hat. Everybody laughed at it. He would rather spend money on a new one than go back for it. He kept going, head down against a wind, angry at the young ones who couldn’t drink in peace.

  By the time the pubs were closed the wind was worse. He stood in a bus-shelter and a rainy draught annoyed his legs. He felt his turnups getting soaked. He wondered why. Then he saw that the glass panels along the upper half and the metal panels along the lower half were all missing. He fretted as he waited. Five schoolboys across the street stopped a while and kicked at a litter-basket till it tumbled from its post. The wind took up their sport and played along the gutter with cigarette- packets, bus-tickets, orange-peel, pokes, cartons, and a vinegar-drenched newspaper that still remembered the fish and chips it had wrapped. A Coca-Cola bottle broke where it fell. The schoolboys slouched on to the next litter-basket.

  ‘Oh dear me,’ said Mr Alfred.

  When the bus came he went upstairs for a smoke. There was a drunk man wouldn’t pay his fare. The coloured conductor stood over him. Tall, patient, dignified, persistent. A good samaritan across the passage offered the money.

  ‘No, no, oh no! That will not do,’ said the coloured conductor. ‘He must pay his own fare or go off.’

  ‘Ach, go to hell,’ said the drunk man, but quite pleasant about it.

  He lolled unworried, a small man with a bristly chin and nothing on his head. Mr Alfred noticed the raindrops glisten on the balding scalp.

  ‘Your fare please,’ said the coloured conductor again.

  ‘A belang here,’ said the little drunk man. ‘Mair than you do, mac. It’s me pays your wages. Go and get stuffed.’

  The bus weaved on between tall tenements.

  ‘Pay your fare or I stop the bus,’ said the coloured conductor.

  ‘Ye kin stope it noo,’ said the little drunk man. ‘This is whaur A get aff.’

  He swayed up as the bus slowed, palmed the coloured conductor out of his way, and slithered downstairs. Smil¬ ing. Victorious. Happy and glorious.

  Mr Alfred caught the conductor’s eye.

  ‘You meet some types, don’t you,’ he said, anxious to show sympathy.

  The conductor went downstairs without answering him.

  Mr Alfred blinked drunkenly at the graffiti on the blackboard of the seat in front of him. The rexine had been torn off and on the bare wood someone had scrawled in loose capitals FUCK THE POPE. A different hand added underneath CELTIC 7–1. Most of the seats had large stretches of the rexine stripped away. The bus was as shabby as its route. Above the front window SPITTING FORBIDDEN had been changed to SHITTING FORBIDDEN.

  Mr Alfred sighed.

  Three young men invaded the bus. They had shiny black jackets with white lettering on the back. ZEB ZAD ZOK I LOVE THE ZINGERS. The last one on had the outline of a broadhipped female nude in yellow paint and law in brass studs. They were no sooner on than they rose to get off. The conductor stood in their way to collect their fares. The first shoved him aside, the second pushed past, and the third flashed a knife.

  ‘There’s wur fares,’ he said. ‘Ur ye wanting it?’

  He rammed his knee in the conductor’s testicles and went smartly on his way. The conductor straightened in time to catch him by the collar at the top of the stairs.

  ‘Away ye big black cunt,’ said the young man, kicking as he turned. ‘Take yer hauns aff me or A’ll do ye.’

  He jerked free and did a wardance on the steps. The conductor kicked him on the thigh. He kicked back. The bus turned a corner. Rainbeads rolled down the streaming windows. White man and coloured, both fell. When they got up the passenger took another kick at the conductor. The conductor danced backwards and whipped off his tick
et-machine. He swung it by the straps.

  Mr Alfred jumped up to restrain him.

  ‘Here! Don’t! You’ll kill him with that.’

  He was frightened.

  A buckle of the strap smacked him on the cheekbone and tore across the nose. The conductor’s elbow thumped him on the eye in the course of a vicious parabola.

  Mr Alfred clung to him.

  ‘Let go, you,’ said the coloured conductor.

  Mr Alfred pulled him back. ‘I’m only trying to help you,’ he said. ‘For your own good. You’d brain him if that thing landed.’

  The passenger decamped. His mates were already off.

  ‘Muck of the world,’ said the coloured conductor. He was shaking. ‘They won’t pay. Every night they won’t pay their fare. White bastards.’

  ‘Compose yourself,’ said Mr Alfred.

  Turning to sit down again he saw a bus-inspector huddling in the back seat. He looked down on him. The bus-inspector looked up and shrugged.

  ‘Well, what can you do with that kind?’ he asked.

  Mr Alfred had a black eye the next morning, a bruise on his cheek, and an abrased nose. But he wouldn’t stay off work. He never did. When he turned up at school his colleagues were sure he had been in a drunken brawl.

  His awkward gait showed an injured ankle was bothering him.

  ‘He’s falling apart, that fellow,’ said Mr Brown to Mr Campbell. ‘I’ll have to get rid of him. I’m going to have a quiet word with Briggs about him.’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Martha was sorry for Mr Alfred.

  ‘Not that I know him. But every time I see him in the corridor, I mean. I was never in his class. Well, he never takes girls’ classes. No, it’s just when I see him about the school. I don’t know. He looks so neglected.’

  Graeme Roy laughed. He wasn’t jealous. He couldn’t see Mr Alfred as a rival.

  ‘You want to mother him? He could be your father.’

  ‘No, he couldn’t.’

  ‘Of course he could.’

  ‘Of course he couldn’t. In the first place my mother never met him. And even if she had I doubt if. I mean, she’s not his kind.’