Its Colours They Are Fine

by Alan Spence

  ‘Less a your cheek boy! Yer mother’s right. We canny be forever buyin ye new shoes wi you kickin the toes outy them.’

  In one frame, Wullie was skulking, head hung, shoulders hunched, and above his head was the word GUILTY.

  That was the name of one of Aleck’s comics. It had JUSTICE TRAPS THE in small letters across the top, with GUILTY in big red print above blue-uniformed American policemen machine-gunning their way into a roomful of gangsters. Into a plastic bag his mother put a little of each of the vegetables she was using for the soup. Carrot, turnip, potato, celery, onion, leek. This was to be his offering for the service. She added an apple and laid the bag on the table, together with his Bible and a penny for the collection.

  ‘There. That’s you.’

  He was over at the stove, looking in the pot. The broth was coloured red-gold and the fatty stock made the surface shine, globules bubbling, catching the light.

  ‘Smells good.’

  ‘Well, ye kin get intae that when ye get back. Noo c’mon or ye’ll be late.’

  On his way out of the close he was about to take a running kick at a tin can but he remembered about the shoes and he stopped, restrained. At the next corner were three or four boys he knew, boys his mother was always telling him to stay away from, because every time he got into trouble, it just happened to be with them. They saw him crossing the road and they whistled and shouted at him.

  ‘Waell!’

  ‘Gawn yersel!’

  ‘Heh Aleck, yer luvly!’

  ‘Ah’ll get ye!’

  One of them began singing and clapping his hands in time.

  ‘Will ye come to the mission

  Will ye come will ye come

  Will ye come to the mission

  Will ye come.’

  Aleck laughed back at them but he was blushing and he felt hot and confused. He wanted to go to Sunday school, but at the same time he envied them their freedom and their dirt. His walk was suddenly clumsy and awkward and he was happy to take a short-cut through a close, away from their taunting.

  The mission hall was a converted shop, stuck between a close and a HANDY STORE. The flaking paint on its front was an indeterminate colour – a dirty green or brown. Above the door was the name GLASGOW CITY MISSION and on one of the boarded-up windows was a list of the week’s activities. Sunday School. Bible Class. Christian Endeavour. Band of Hope.

  Mr Neil was at the door to welcome everybody in, grinning, nodding, pushing up his glasses which kept slipping down his nose. He was not much taller than most of the older children.

  ‘Hello Aleck. Hello. Comeaway in.’

  Inside, the place was cool and dark, the only sunlight getting in through the open door. Aleck could smell the different fruits and flowers and vegetables that most of the children had brought, above the usual smell of damp and polished wood and musty old books. The seats were arranged in groups of five or six, the children grouped according to age. At the far end was a small raised platform, with a piano, a lectern and a table draped with a white cloth. On the table stood a wooden cross and a vase of mixed flowers – yellow and red.

  At the piano was Mrs Neil, a big woman with greying hair. She wore a white hat and glasses with frames that turned up at the side, like wings. She was talking to Jim, the teacher for Aleck’s group, who waved to him as he came in.

  Aleck went and sat at his place, making too much noise with his chair. There were four other boys in the group – David, Robert, Martin and John. They all looked up and said hello.

  ‘Learned yer text Aleck?’ asked David. David was the only one of the group that Aleck really thought of as a friend. The others had returned their attention to their Bibles and were soundlessly mouthing the text over and over.

  ‘Jist aboot,’ said Aleck. He opened his Bible at the place, which he’d marked by inserting his attendance card and his membership card for the Life Boys.

  He went over the words into himself.

  ‘Mark 4:28 and 29 – For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear. But when the fruit is brought forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come.’

  ‘Quite a long wan this week, intit,’ said David.

  ‘Aye, so it is,’ said Aleck. ‘An ah canny get ma tongue roon that “putteth in the sickle”.’

  ‘Aye it’s hard right enough. Whit is a sickle anywey?’

  ‘It’s wan a they things fur cuttin grass. Lik a big knife wi a blade lik that . . .’ and Aleck drew an arc in the air with his forefinger.

  He went on, ‘D’ye remember they kerds ye goat wi FLAGS bubble-gum?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Well, d’ye remember the Russian wan ah hid, the wan ah widnae swap?’

  ‘Aye, aye it wis a red flag.’

  ‘Well, thoan wee things in the coarner wis a hammer an sickle, croassed lik that.’ He crossed his forefingers in front of him.

  ‘Aw aye, ah remember. Huv ye ever seen a real wan?’

  ‘A red flag?’

  ‘Naw, a sickle.’

  ‘Naw. Huv you?’

  ‘Naw. Bet it wid be some chib, eh?’

  They hadn’t heard Jim coming up behind them. He tapped David on the head with his Bible.

  ‘What would be some “chib”?’ he asked, sitting down at the head of the group.

  ‘A sickle,’ said David, slicing the air to demonstrate. ‘Schuk!’

  ‘Bloodthirsty shower!’ said Jim.

  Aleck asked him if he’d seen a real sickle.

  ‘Och yes,’ he replied. ‘We’ve got one at home. In the toolshed.’

  Aleck had forgotten that Jim lived in a house with a garden. He only came to Govan to teach at the mission. He was about twenty-five and he always had a redfaced, clean and scrubbed look. He smelled of soap and haircream, and he always wore a sports jacket with a Christian Endeavour badge in the lapel.

  ‘Ah’m glad you all managed to bring something for the service,’ he said. ‘Have you all learned the text?’

  He got five different replies, from Yes through Silence to No.

  ‘Ach well, we’ll see anyway. Would you like to pass me your cards?’

  While he was taking in the attendance cards, David turned again to Aleck.

  ‘Didye go tae the pictures last night Aleck?’

  ‘Naw. Ah jist steyed in. Did you?’

  ‘Aye. Ma big brurra took us tae the Lyceum. It was a war picture. Aboot Korea. Terrific! Ah’ll tell ye aboot it efter.’

  Jim took each of them in turn, and with varying degrees of assurance and hesitancy they intoned the text for the day in the same monotone of incantation that characterised the way they would recite the alphabet or the multiplication tables or any other memorised litany. Then he marked their cards, once for attendance, once for reciting the text. He also marked Aleck’s Life Boy card.

  The Junior Division of the Boys’ Brigade. Sure and Steadfast.

  ‘That’s fine,’ said Jim. ‘Now if you’d all like to open your Bibles at the place, we’ll have a wee look at it. Mr Neil’s going to talk about it after, so I won’t spend too much time on it. Right, well what’s the text about then?’

  ‘Harvest,’ said Robert.

  ‘Right, and what’s that?’

  ‘Time a year when aw the crops ur ready,’ said David. ‘Corn an wheat an stuff.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Jim. ‘In fact all the crops we need to make food. To live. And that’s why we celebrate harvest specially. To give thanks for our food. Now. Do you remember what a parable is?’

  ‘A story,’ said Aleck.

  ‘That’s right, but it’s a special kind of story that Jesus told. If you look at the top of the page it says The Parable of the Sower. Now Jesus told stories like this when he wanted to explain something in a way people could understand. This one starts at verse 3.

  ‘. . . Behold there went out a sower to sow . . .’ And Jim read them the whole story, about some seed falling by the w
ayside and some on stony ground and some among thorns and some on good soil, and when nobody understood, Jim explained about the sower being Jesus.

  ‘If you could look at verse 14,’ he went on, ‘it says “the sower soweth the word”. So Jesus is trying to make something grow from his words. Now, what do you think it is?’

  Everybody shrugged or looked at the floor.

  ‘Look at verses 30 and 32.’

  Five heads scanning the books.

  Silence, except for rustling pages and shuffling feet and creaking chairs.

  ‘No? Oh well. It is quite difficult I suppose. It’s talking about the Kingdom of God, growing up like a tree.

  ‘So if Jesus is the sower, trying to make it grow by spreading his words, what d’you think it means about the different kinds of soil?’

  Another silence. Then Aleck said, ‘Different kindsa people?’

  ‘Yes!’ said Jim. ‘Good. Good. We’re getting there!’

  When he finished explaining he said, ‘I suppose these things’ll be easier when you’re older,’ and smiled and added, ‘like me.’

  The singing of hymns left Aleck feeling strange, though he didn’t know why. Sometimes he felt like crying. Sometimes he felt his face flush. Everything seemed very real but far away, as if he was watching it on a film.

  Above the platform hung a single light bulb with a pink plastic shade. Aleck was looking at it as if he’d never seen it before. There was a dark crack on the shade, running from the rim about half way up. Aleck hated pink. The colour was like the sound of the word, like the taste of the pink pudding they sometimes had in the school dinnerhall.

  Mr Neil with his wife at the piano had led them in singing the hymns. Heavenly sunshine. This little light of mine. This is my story. Give me oil in my lamp.

  Cracked pink plastic shade. Sickly insipid pink.

  Now Mr Neil was talking, about harvest and parables, about the day’s text. The miracle of the growing corn. Man’s labour in tending and growing. He putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come.

  ‘And I know,’ he was saying, ‘that it’s difficult for us in a place like Glasgow, and especially in a place like Govan, to appreciate what harvest really means. I mean it’s only in the country that people can really be aware of the changing seasons and what they mean, because there it matters, and so much of your life is bound up with these changes and the actual growing of the food we eat depends on them. Now as you know, the food you eat is just bought by your mothers from the shops. More than likely it comes in packets and tins. The whole process of getting the food from where it’s produced to your table is so . . . so vast and complicated that it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that it all still depends on those same basic changes. On the sun and the rain. On the goodness of the soil. On human effort, and patience, and skill. And you know, I’ve been thinking about all this and about these parables that Jesus told. Like the one you’ve been talking about today – the Parable of the Sower. And I’ve been thinking especially about the way Jesus used parables – with one meaning on the surface that is obvious and easy to see, but with another far deeper, far greater meaning which is there for us to find.

  ‘And in this parable of the Sower – at one level it’s just a wee story about a man planting his seeds, and what happens to them. But when we see that the Sower is Christ, then we see that other meaning, and we think of the harvest that He will reap. And there are so many passages from the Bible, so many hymns that tell us the same story, that “All the world is God’s own field”. And you are that harvest, boys and girls. You are His children. And if you grow in His light, you will

  “stand at the last accepted,

  Christ’s golden sheaves for evermore

  to garners bright elected.”

  ‘And you will be gathered to Him, to dwell with Him in Heaven.

  ‘And no matter what happens to you, even if the dirt of the world seems to have settled on you and made you forget what you really are, deep inside you are still his golden sheaves. And no matter how drab and grey and horrible our lives and this place may sometimes seem, remember that this is only the surface. And even the muck of hundreds of years cannot hide that other meaning which is behind all things. The meaning that we are here to celebrate. That God is Love and Christ is Life.

  ‘And now boys and girls, if you will pray with me in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, The Light of the World, The Sower of the Word, who taught us when we pray to say . . .

  ‘Our Father . . .’

  And everyone stood and joined in –

  ‘whichartinheaven

  hallowedbethyname

  thykingdomcome

  thywillbedone

  inearth

  asitisinheaven

  giveusthisday

  ourdailybread

  andforgiveusourdebts

  asweforgiveourdebtors

  leadusnot

  intotemptation

  butdeliverus

  fromevil

  forthineisthekingdom

  andthepower

  andtheglory

  forever

  amen.

  ‘Now then,’ said Mr Neil, ‘whose turn is it to take the collection?’

  A small girl from one of the younger groups raised her hand.

  ‘Ah yes Cathy. Here you are then.’ And he handed her the collection bag.

  Another two girls from the same group were appointed to gather in the harvest offerings. These they collected in a large laundry basket made of bright yellow plastic, which Mr Neil brought out from behind the table. And as the girls performed the little ceremony with as much slow solemnity as they could, Mrs Neil played ‘Bringing in the Sheaves’.

  With Mr Neil’s help, they raised the basket on to the table, between the flowers and the cross. Then he gave thanks once more and everyone stood as he led them in the closing hymn – ‘We plough the fields and scatter’.

  This was one of Aleck’s favourite hymns. It had the same kind of thumping triumphant feel as the tunes they sang at the match or played in the Orange Walk.

  ‘We plough the fields and scatter

  The good seed on the land

  But it is fed and watered

  By God’s almighty hand;

  He sends the snow in winter

  The warmth to swell the grain

  The breezes and the sunshine

  And soft refreshing rain.’

  And Mr Neil conducted some vast imagined angelic choir, clenching his fists and jabbing the air, raising high his cupped hands, stretching wide his arms. And the voices rose with each wobbling note on the piano, up and out across the back courts and the tenements, the puddles and the rubbish, and the broken walls and railings and the sad sparse tufts of grass and nettle that encroached regardless.

  ‘All good gifts around us

  Are sent from Heaven above;

  Then thank the Lord, O thank the Lord,

  For all His love.’

  As David and Aleck crossed the back court, David was describing and acting out scenes from the Korean war film he’d seen at the Lyceum.

  ‘Anywey ther’s this Yankee pilot gets shot doon bi the communists, an ye see um fightin is wey oot the cockpit wi aw these flames roon aboot um. ’Nen e manages tae bale oot. An ye jist see is face lookin up, really shitin is sel. Then ye jist see um gawn lik that . . . Nyaaa!’ And with his finger he indicated the spiralling fall.

  ‘But did you say they wur fightin communists?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘An the Yanks ur the goodies?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘But your da’s a communist.’

  ‘Aye. Ah know. Ah couldnae understaun that either. But ah didnae bother. It wis a great picture.’

  Aleck left David at his own close and carried on down the road. At the corner were the same boys he’d passed earlier. They were kicking a ball about. He wondered if they would be gathered to Heaven too. They didn’t go to Sunday school. He didn’t know.

  In his mind the
whole day was a confusion; of dandelions and playing and hymns, of soldiers and communists and golden sheaves, harvest and parables and magic time.

  The ball bounced across towards him, and instinctively he trapped it and chipped it back. One or two of them gave a sarcastic cheer. The ball went to Shuggie, who was in Aleck’s class at school. He shouted across to him.

  ‘Come doon efter if ye want a gemm. We’ll be playin roon the Hunty.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Aleck. ‘Ah might dae that.’ And he started off towards home. Suddenly he laughed and began to run. His dinner would be ready. He would change into his old clothes, and after he’d eaten he would go to the Hunty and play till it was dark.

  In his path was a piece of stone chipped from a brick and without slowing down he booted it hard across the road and went charging on towards his close.

  The Ferry

  The cane arrow rose in the still warm air. Aleck and Joe shielded their eyes from the sun and watched its flight. It seemed to rise, clear of the tenements that enclosed them and hang for a moment against the sky before turning back to complete its arc and fall to land with a jar that staved and shuddered its whole length on the hardpacked dirt and brick of the back court.

  ‘It’s a goodyin!’ said Joe, grinning and flexing the bow that Aleck had just made. The bow had fired its first shot, and it was good. Aleck nodded and set about making a bow for himself as Joe ran across to pick up the arrow.

  They had bought six bits of bamboo cane. Each was long enough to make a bow or be broken in half to make two arrows.

  Aleck was stringing the bows, notching each end for the string to fit, and Joe was making the arrows. If he had simply snapped the canes in half the pieces would have split, leaving each arrow a loose mess of fibres and split ends. So he used an old hacksaw blade to cut carefully through each cane before breaking it and binding each end with black insulating tape.

  They played at their craft with seriousness. They were crouched in a clearing. The grey buildings were their jungle and the fragments of stone and broken glass they had gathered and laid out were imagined arrowheads of flint and bone.

  The hacksaw blade cutting through the cane sometimes made a harsh rasping noise that set Aleck’s teeth on edge. Like the squeak of polystyrene rubbed on a window. Like the scrape and squeal of the teacher’s chalk on the blackboard.