Handstands In The Dark: A True Story of Growing Up and Survival

by Godley, Janey

  ‘I’ve got something bad to tell you,’ she said. ‘That wee lassie that went oot with Barra – Lizzy – she crossed the road wi’ him over to the bus stop one night and she was killed by a hit-and-run driver. That could’ve been fucking you!’

  I did manage to see Barra later that week and he looked awful; he would not talk to me about what had happened and we never really spoke again.

  * * *

  So much had changed in my family in the eight months I had been away: Debbie, my brother Mij’s wee daughter, was getting taller and chattier; my sister Ann was again pregnant; Charlie had moved into his own flat; my brother Vid had left home to work in England; Mammy and Peter were ‘keeping company’ more often. The house seemed empty and strange – there were only five people living in it – my Mammy, Mij, Cathy, Debbie and me.

  Mij had settled down a bit since I had been gone. He had been hanging around the Palaceum – the local bar where I had met Barra. It had been taken over by a new family; it had always been a big bar with a separate function room but now the new owners had converted the function room into a disco.

  Wow! I thought. A disco in Shettleston!

  I was desperate to go!

  I had never been in a bar before as I was still only 17 and licensed premises were only for people 18 or over, but all my pals had been and, at weekends, Mij’s girlfriend Cathy worked at the Palaceum as a waitress. So, that Friday night, my friends and I all got dressed up and rolled up at the door – a big bunch of 17-year-old girls covered in eye shadow and lip gloss except me. I did not wear make-up because I didn’t know how to put it on.

  We could hear the disco music booming from inside the club and came face to face with a doorman who looked even younger than me, all dressed up in a suit, his eyes staring short-sightedly at everyone. He passed them all through but took one look at me and mumbled, ‘You’re too young. Ye cannae come in.’

  I was devastated. All my mates went in and left me alone on those cold steps outside the disco. I wasn’t confident enough to try and blag my way in, but I vowed to hate that stupid doorman for the rest of my life. I turned and walked away in the dark, sat at home alone – everyone else was out on a Friday night – and played my cassette tape while drinking a Coca-Cola. The end of 1978 was quite a sad time for me. I spent a miserable Christmas with Mammy and Peter. Mammy had no cash and I sat in my bedroom and watched The Sound of Music thinking maybe if I ran away to Austria and became a nun my life would all come together.

  Uncle David Percy was far away in Redcar. Granda Davy Percy had moved closer to us in Shettleston. Ann’s marriage seemed to be going well. Everyone seemed to be moving on with their lives, but I was still being treated as the baby of the family one minute and expected to be a big adult the next.

  Dad came over to see me at the New Year; he told me I had to start thinking about getting a steady job. I was old enough to hold down a job but too young to get into bars! I was confused and in a rut, but I had a plan in my head. Everything would change on Saturday, 20 January, my eighteenth birthday. Then I would be able to vote, drink and even finally make it as the first female to reach 18 in our family without being pregnant. I would get a job, save the cash, go back to Maggie in Redcar and we could then move on to Scarborough, the next big seaside town down the coast in Yorkshire. I decided I had definitely finished with Glasgow and would move on again after Saturday, 20 January 1979.

  7

  The big night

  THE NIGHT OF Friday, 5 January 1979 was cold, the snow was thick on the ground and the Scottish winter bit into the flesh of my feet. Yet again the shoe problem was with me. My shoes had holes in the toes and the only solution was to pack them with red teddy-bear fur from a teddy that belonged to my niece Debbie. How odd I must have looked with the red fur peeping through my shoes, but at least I was warm. I had a new friend called Marion who was gorgeous and slim and had boobs and was everything I wasn’t. She lived with her gran and grandad in a small flat, in the next street. She had boys falling over her and I was so envious of her clothes and style and obvious beauty. We were good mates and, on Friday, 5 January, we got dressed up in cheap shiny tops and jeans, covered our hair in clips and boogied on down to the Palaceum. My nemesis doorman was there on guard, but this time he could not stop me. I had made 18 … well, two weeks to go, but that was just a technicality surely? I kept my head down and shuffled forward; the doorman squinted at me, lifted up my chin and smiled as he mumbled, ‘Have a good night.’

  Hurrah! Finally I had made it into glittery disco heaven! I quickly learned the etiquette of publand: you drank three vodka lemonades and danced energetically to every song that hit the turntables. I was made to dance!

  It was weird being there among my older brothers and their mates, but I felt I had finally arrived; I belonged here.

  Every weekend another mate had a house to herself as her parents left her home alone. We had amazing parties and I was quickly introduced to the adult world of passionate kissing and men. I got to snog at least 15 men in my first three weeks of arrival in the adult pub world. One big problem, though. The kissing thing was fun and a great teenage pastime, but I was scared of sex. Every boy I kissed (and I kissed loads) left me feeling odd and detached. I had still not physically developed, with little to no breasts and definitely no period. I felt totally weird; all my mates were sexually active and gossiping about it. When boys tried to touch me, I would go away to a place in my head. Very soon after starting, I could see no point in kissing. Maybe I was a lesbian? Is that what happens? If you don’t fancy men do you automatically become a lesbian? These questions whirled inside my head until I was driven to distraction.

  But, on the exact day of my eighteenth birthday, finally, after much praying and pondering, my first period arrived. I was not physically distorted! I had a vagina that worked! I had a womb! I was a woman! I had worried my Uncle had damaged me internally, but here I was now, a fully grown female adult. I celebrated by quietly but proudly marching into the local chemist to buy sanitary goods, although I found inserting a tampon only halfway and trying to sit down had its drawbacks. Yaagh! It seemed I still had much to learn.

  * * *

  Life at home had not changed much. Mammy would gush, ‘Oh, Peter’s a great man. See me and Peter? Peter’s lovely! Peter makes great soup. I love Peter! He’s a great wee man.’

  She came home from Peter’s one day, her hand wrapped in a white dishcloth with blood seeping through it. She told us she had fallen in the back court but it was the back of her hand that was cut. Who falls on the back of their hand? I realised it was a razor or knife slash and she must have put up her hand to protect herself. But the whole incident passed without questions; she had covered up for her brother and for her son; now she was covering up for yet another abusive man. God help her. I left her to it. I could do nothing to stop her.

  One late night soon afterwards I came home and Mammy wasn’t in, so I walked across the road to Peter’s to see if she was there. The lights were on in his ground-floor flat, but there was no answer when I knocked and shouted, ‘Mammy?’ and this annoyed me. I knew they had to be there because they rarely went out. I went round the back of the flat and pulled myself up onto the window and peered through. My Mammy was lying on the floor naked and Peter was holding her down. For a moment, I was horrified that I had just seen them having sex and was about to drop down from the window ledge when Peter raised his right hand and I saw he was holding a short-handled axe and he whacked her on the head with the sharp edge of the blade. The blood went everywhere. I screamed and ran to the door shouting. No one came out.

  Mammy had looked terrified, so I stayed quiet in case my shouting made him do it more. I really don’t know what happened next. I think I was in shock. I stood in the street and just stared at the house, waiting for her to come out. I don’t know how long it was, but the police eventually arrived; maybe someone else in the blockhouse had called them. Mammy came out and there was smoke everywhere. Peter had tried to k
ill them both by setting fire to the house. She was taken to hospital. He was charged with attacking her and with attempted arson.

  After Mammy was let home, she had to keep going back into hospital, but didn’t talk to us kids about it and made it clear we should not ask her. She had no burns, recovered well, had a big cut on her arm and axe wounds in the back of her head which were stitched. I never told her, the police or anyone else that I had seen what had happened and, within a week, she and Peter were back in love. She gave evidence for his defence in court – we were never told the verdict, but he was released – and they both spent her Victim’s Compensation money together. I thought: That must be what love does to you.

  Peter made sure Mammy slowly alienated herself from her friends and family: she stopped seeing her Valium Pals and members of her family who lived any distance away. She had had quite a big circle of friends but, as time went on, she just had Peter. Even with us children, she no longer sat and chatted or asked us questions as she used to. She became less and less involved in my life. One night I really laid into her about Peter and his violence. She had come into my room as I was taping Radio Luxembourg. As we started to speak, Kate Bush was singing ‘The Man With The Child In His Eyes’. I left the tape running as I told her, ‘Mammy, you’ll need tae get away from him. You just need tae get away from him. I swear to God, all these cuts and bruises—’

  ‘Och, Janey,’ she interrupted, ‘he’s no’ that bad. Peter isnae that bad. C’mon, I mean he’s had his problems, we’ve had wur fights, but I’m as bad as him.’

  ‘You’re no’,’ I told her. ‘You’re no’ as bad as him. He’s never had any cuts and bruises. Every time I see you, you’ve got a bandage or a black eye.’

  ‘No, no, no. You don’t like Peter. You’ve never liked Peter. That’s it. You always upset him,’ she started shouting at me. ‘You upset Peter!’

  ‘You’re going to end up fucking deed!’ I shouted back at her. ‘You’re going to end up fucking deed lying in your fucking coffin, because you’re going to let him fucking kill ye!’

  ‘Don’t swear,’ she told me. ‘Don’t get upset.’

  ‘You’re going to end up fucking deed, Mammy—’

  ‘No I won’t. Peter’s no’ a bad man.’

  ‘Ann and I are going to have tae explain to your grandweans that you are deed an’ the reason they never got tae see you was because you let a man kill you. That’s what I’m going to have tae say in years to come – I’m sorry you never saw my Mammy, but she let a man kill her!’

  Mammy burst out laughing: ‘I cannae imagine you being a mother! … You don’t seem like the mothering type tae me. I don’t think ye’ll be a mother. You’re good wi’ weans but I cannae imagine it but, don’t you worry, I’ll be there the day you have a wean.’

  So we all carried on with life and waited for the next big disaster to strike. I had no idea how my Dad felt about it all. By this time, he was living down in Bridgeton, at the other end of Glasgow’s East End, working in a chemical factory and he worked a lot, so I rarely saw him. He still came back to our house when he got really drunk. Most weekends, I would waken up and see him and Mammy in bed together. I have no idea how Peter took this. As he lived opposite, it was hard to miss my Dad arrive, staggering, loudly singing his drunken megamix medley of Frank Sinatra and Protestant marching songs. Mammy did love Dad being there on Saturday nights because, on the Sunday, she would still dip his pockets for cash, then both of them would get pissed and reminisce as I sat with them and we all imagined we were one big happy family again. On Sunday nights he would go home, leaving Mammy feeling sad and me feeling confused. Why could she not make him stay? Adult relationships flummoxed me.

  * * *

  One weekend in early March 1979, I was passing the Palaceum bar to go for my weekly wash at the swimming baths (our bath no longer worked and we had never had hot water anyway) when I met my nemesis doorman. We got chatting and he offered me a job as a weekend waitress. Mij’s girlfriend Cathy already worked there and he said she would show me the ropes. Brilliant! I had a job! That first weekend was fun and the cash was good. I found out that the new owner of the Palaceum was a Catholic called George Storrie; he had seven sons, one of whom was also called George, so they were differentiated as Old George and Young George; my nemesis doorman was the sixth son and was called Sean Storrie.

  I asked around and local people told me Old George Storrie had been in prison when he was in his late twenties for armed robbery. He had graduated into various other crimes including safe-cracking and jewellery robberies and had lived and worked as a driver and general worker on the Gadgies’ travelling fairgrounds for many many years until he became accepted as a Gadgie not by birth but by association. After his marriage, he settled down more and eventually became a troubleshooter for the city breweries. In Glasgow at that time the pubs were hard-drinking, hard-fighting places; Old George was known for his fist fights and for always confronting gang leaders head on.

  One famous tale I found was that, when Old George was around 30, he was dragged into the back of a police Black Maria van. Inside were five uniformed policemen with truncheons and wooden sticks. The van was driven to a back street in the south side of Glasgow, where they tried to beat him up. He fought his corner. He knocked two policemen unconscious and beat the other three to the ground. When he got out of the Black Maria, he was bloodied and badly beaten, but they were in an equally terrible state. Old George had survived and his relationship with the police was established.

  In the 1960s, Old George was once in the company of Arthur Thompson when Thompson met with the Kray Twins and some other well-known criminal ‘Faces’ from London. Arthur Thompson was regularly called Glasgow’s ‘Godfather of Crime’ by the Scottish press and lived in a house called The Ponderosa – named after the family home in the Wild West TV series Bonanza. They discussed flooding Glasgow with Purple Heart tablets (popular illegal stimulant drugs of the time); George was opposed to the idea and withdrew from the meeting. He hated drugs and drug dealers. He had no criminal gang. He had his seven sons, some of whom worked at the Palaceum. My nemesis doorman Sean Storrie was a real bastard to work for and his nickname was ‘Mad Eyes’ which was a fair description of the prolonged, angry stare he sometimes gave. But they were also sometimes soft, brown, reassuring eyes. He made me do all the shitty jobs like wipe up vomit and broken glass and any other crap that needed doing. I would tell anyone who listened what an arse he was. He also had the Storrie family habit of mumbling and tended to talk in telegramese so he might say to me:

  ‘Guy bar near payphone, red hair Guinness, called Frank, name on pool board.’

  Which meant:

  ‘Go and serve the guy with the red hair, near the phone, a pint of Guinness, then put his name up on the pool list.’

  It was infuriating.

  He would say, ‘Shops. Ye want?’ instead of, ‘I’m going to the shops. Do you want anything?’

  After I had worked at the Palaceum for a week, he asked me out, but I was not really interested – he wasn’t my type. He was very very quiet and very moody. He also always sneered at me when I was in with my mates dancing and chatting to young guys. So, out of curiosity, I said Yes.

  Sean was the sixth of seven brothers – just as my first boyfriend Barra had been; Sean and Barra were both Catholics; I had become Barra’s girlfriend outside the Palaceum where Sean now worked; and Sean was even born on exactly the same day of the same year as Barra.

  On our first date, I had to wait until he finished his shift at the Palaceum and he got Shuggie, one of his drivers (the Storries had drivers who worked for the family), to sweep us off in a big golden Mercedes. We were chauffeured to Sean’s home. He lived at the other end of Tollcross Park in a big house that everyone called Toad Hall and which stood alone on the corner of a main road surrounded by an eight-foot-high brick wall. It had what seemed to me a vast back garden and looked like one of those houses you draw as a child: four big windows and a door, but
it was no ordinary door. It was impressive by any standards. A giant wooden door with beautifully ornate carvings of roses on it. We went into the living room and I was amazed that he owned a video player – they were not common at the time.

  We watched In the Heat of the Night. He never really spoke – like Barra, he was not a great talker and was a year and a half younger than me. I think I talked nervously all the way through the movie. I felt truly out of my depth. This boy lived in a mini-mansion and I lived in a house with graffiti on the inside. Eventually, I decided to stop talking and call it a night. He leaned over before I had a chance to speak again and held my hand then kissed me on the lips. It was weird, coz normally at this point I pretended to be dead. But this was good! I liked him holding me in his arms and he was a really sensitive, lovely kisser. Wow! I thought. So this is what it is meant to feel like? That night, he walked me back to Shettleston through Tollcross Park and, within weeks, we were truly, madly, deeply in love.

  He never pushed me into sex. I told him about the abuse. He listened patiently and never made any judgements. I fully expected him to dump me. Who wants ‘used and damaged’ goods? But, slowly, he made me feel more at ease and my first ‘consensual’ sexual experience was such an awakening. I actually liked sex!

  About three weeks after our first date, one night after a late shift, Sean and I sat in the back of his large golden Mercedes, listening to music on the radio and kissing as we were driven by Shuggie for what seemed like hours through a beautiful spring night. Eventually, we arrived at the small town of Blairgowrie, sat by an old wishing well and held hands as we made our wishes. I thought: This will be the most romantic night of my life! I was still a wee, curly-headed tomboy, but I was holding hands with this young guy who had a Mercedes and a chauffeur and we were kissing in the moonlight. That was the night we got engaged. Three days later, he gave me a wee solitaire diamond ring round the back of the Palaceum. Me! I thought. I have a diamond!