Maggie & Me

by Damian Barr

  Whenever our dad is late or doesn’t show up for custody Teenie has an excuse: an extra shift, a car problem, something, anything. I let her believe them. I play with the girls and she plays with the boys but I’m still her big brother. When boys knock the door it’s her they want on their team for football or whatever but it’s my bed she crawls in when she wakes up from the nightmares she has now. She never cries during the day. I do. I cry all the time. ‘She’s mair man than you,’ Logan likes to say. He only hits Teenie once, a big juicy slap round her face – his hand nearly bigger than her head. I don’t know why, I never know why, but she hits him straight back, a kick in the shins, and he laughs and that’s that.

  For all of Primary Five me and Kev cut through the Sippy. One day, when the tree by the gate is green with leaves, I get back and my auntie Louisa is standing in the scullery where my mum should be. I taste the air for Logan. He’s not here.

  ‘It’s just me,’ she says, too cheerful, and I breathe out but not all the way.

  She’s banging doors looking for things in unfamiliar cupboards. I try helping but she shooshes me out the way. Teenie is outside playing football, I can hear her out the scullery window.

  ‘Where’s Mum?’ I ask, trying to sound like I don’t think there’s anything wrong. Auntie Louisa stops fussing with pots but keeps her back to me. Louder: ‘Where’s my mum?’ She doesn’t turn or speak. ‘Auntie Louisa. Where’s. My. Mum?’ I sound each word the way adults do when they really need you to answer.

  She turns round and she’s crying and I’m shocked she’s been crying without any noise.

  ‘She’s away, son.’

  ‘Away? Away where?’

  ‘Glasgow.’

  I stare at her. Glasgow is a million miles away. How did she get there? Why is she not here? What’s in Glasgow?

  ‘She’s at the hospital.’

  Hospital. I relax. There must be another baby, a brother or a sister, but she didn’t look fat this time and where is Baby Billy anyway? I can’t hear him in the flat.

  ‘She’s at the hospital in Glasgow, Damian, son. She’s not well. She’s had a . . .’

  I start crying and don’t bother to be quiet about it.

  ‘Now don’t cry, son, she’ll be all right. C’mon, no greetin’. She went in a helicopter. A helicopter, Damy!’

  She called me ‘Damy’. Only my mum calls me that. What if she never gets to call me ‘Damy’ again? All I can think is how my mum hates planes and how when she went to Kitty Smith’s wedding in Belgium she went all the way there and back on a train and a boat.

  ‘C’mon, be brave for yer auntie, that’s it, c’mon, son.’ She cuddles me and I’m crying but I’m not crying for my mum, well not just for her. I’m crying for me and Teenie left here with him but maybe . . .

  ‘So do we go back to my dad’s now?’ I ask, jagging, stuttering over the words but already hopeful.

  ‘No, son . . . yer daddy’s busy with work. He’s not got room for yous.’

  ‘He has so.’

  I know he’s got room – there’s one spare room in 25 Ardgour Place, two if you count the one Mary the Canary turned into a dressing room for all her rhinestones. She’s doing well with her singing, doing more gigs in clubs than shifts at the hospital. My dad doesn’t like her staying out late, doesn’t like that she sometimes comes home with flowers, doesn’t like that she likes Lambrusco.

  ‘Yer daddy’s not got room so I’m goin’ tae come in and see yous both and Big Brenda over the road’s going tae watch yous and Billy’s goin’ tae his granny’s. Yer mammy’ll be fine, son. She will. She’s a tough wee bird. She’s got the Lord. She’s not gonnae die.’

  Die? DIE?! Nobody mentioned dying. Dying. Until now I never thought my mum would ever die and she sees this in my face and turns to the sink.

  ‘These tatties’ll not peel themselves, go and play wi yer wee sister and don’t upset her.’

  Next morning and every morning Kev’s mum, Big Brenda, gets me and Teenie ready for school. She’s Irish and she always smells of stewed tea and she prays under her breath and tells us to make our mammy proud at school. I ask what’s wrong with my mum and she says something about a ‘hemreej’ and I ask her to spell it so I can look it up in the class dictionary but she can’t. It’s to do with her brain and we’re all to pray for her. Logan is never in when Auntie Louisa or Big Brenda is. When he gets home from work I run out to play as far away as I can – I hide on the Library Bus, I sit on the swings at the swing-park reading, maybe join in a game of tig with the Cullen girls, if they’ll let me play. I draw the line at letting them do my hair in their Sindy salon but only cos they’ll tell everybody I let them put curlers in. When Logan shouts us in for the night I sneak in the front door then stay in my room with the door shut, pretending to sleep.

  Everybody is nicer to me and Teenie now our mum’s in the hospital. The pitying looks we get are better than dirty divorce looks. Only Kev treats me just the same.

  Every day he pishes in his favourite place. I’m always careful to go before but this one time I’m bursting so I stand next to Kev and close my eyes and finally it flows. I open my eyes again and try not to look at him or look like I’m not looking. He’s aiming his piss at some invisible enemy, I can tell. His cock is more grown-up than his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle pants and he shakes it and I shake my smaller, balder effort and we adjust our flannels. I pick my bag up and am nearly at the fence when I miss Kev. He’s disappeared. I look around and then from under the ground: ‘C’mon, Barr! Come on down!’

  What is this? The Price Is Right? My dad loves that programme, loves a gamble. Kev’s voice echoes below. I know all the hidey-holes down here now or thought I did when his hand waves from a hatch about five feet away. How did I miss that? I sit on the edge and I’m bracing myself to drop into the darkness when Kev grabs my legs and pulls me down. It’s a uniform-ruining slide down into chalky-glowing blackness.

  ‘Kevin?’ A seashell silence. ‘Kev?’ I echo.

  ‘Over here, Barr.’

  I move towards his voice with hands stretched in front like a zombie.

  My fingers find him first and wordlessly he slides them down the front of his shirt to his snake belt which is jingling undone. His breath ruffles my hair. He pushes my hands past his waistband and I feel hair – hair down there. Breathing deeply he wraps my hand around his cock still wet with piss and hard, so hard.

  ‘Pull!’ So I pull it like a Christmas cracker. He smacks my head. ‘You tool. Like this,’ and he takes my hand in his like we’re walking to school and shows me what he wants.

  The faster I go the faster he breathes and after a minute he kind of gasps then straight away pulls my hand out his pants and shakes me off and I don’t know what I’ve done wrong.

  ‘Right,’ he says, clicking his belt closed. He ghosts past in the dark then takes a run and clambers up and I know he’s going to leave me here. He reaches down. ‘C’mon, hame time!’

  I grab my schoolbag and take his hand and scrabble up blinking into the world. I’m half in, half out when Kev says what he’ll do to me if I tell, which bones he’ll break, and I’m surprised how much biology he knows. I promise I won’t tell, even in my prayers, especially not in my prayers. It’s not even four o’clock. We’ll be home in time for He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. I look down at my trousers and there’s something like egg white on the legs and it must be chalk off the walls so I brush it but it smears so I just leave it.

  Kev walks ahead as usual but maybe not quite so far and I see Teenie skipping ropes with her pals and I’m in the front door of the flat earlyish for a change and there’s Logan. No Auntie Louisa, no Big Brenda and still no Mum. I feel my face fall but try to stop it because it’s worse if I look scared.

  ‘Here,’ he says matter-of-factly, pointing to an invisible spot right in front of him.

  I drop my bag by the door and walk over, eyes down. He gets down in front of me and I can see the top of his head, his scalp raw u
nder his curly coppery hair. He’s sniffing at my trousers, loud so I know he’s sniffing like the Child Catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.

  He stands up and without a word grabs me by my school tie and I’m dangling in the air kicking my legs and choking not screaming and he boots opens my bedroom door and throws me in. My palms burn as I skid on the brown-cord carpet. I start crawling away but he plucks me up by my ears and flings me on to my bed.

  ‘Fuckin’ jessy!’ He spits at me but hits the bed. ‘Dirty fuckin’ fairy. I’ll fuckin’ show yae! Wait till yer daddy hears about you! Poofter!’

  He stops shouting. Now he’s muttering and looking round and round but I don’t know what for and I don’t think he knows and I’m saying, ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ but I don’t know what for and he says, ‘You will be.’

  He stops and stares at my rocking horse, the one my dad bought me when he won on the Grand National that you’re not to rock too fast on because you’ll go over the front. It’s creamy white with dappled brown spots and a long chestnut mane that Teenie likes to brush. She won’t brush her own hair or her dollies’ but she loves this horse, loves all horses.

  I sit up on my bed and pull my knees up to my face and look at Logan. I know it’s better to say nothing now because whatever I’ve done already is bad enough. He walks over to the horse gently like it might trot away and takes the brown leather reins in his hand wrapping them round and round his fist. With one hand he lifts the horse up off the floor and slowly he starts to spin round and round and I think he’s going to smash it off the wall and break its beautiful legs and faster and faster and round and round and, ‘They’re off!’ he shouts, letting go of the reins and that’s the last of my baby teeth.

  Kev says nothing about my gappy smile, none of the teachers ask anything. My adult teeth come in squinty and big and I start putting my hand over my mouth when I talk. We spend longer and longer at the Sippy after school and I’m careful not to get anything on my trousers again. One time Kev stole a torch off his mum and we looked in dark wet corners and found an old Razzle mag all crumpled and ripped and stained. We were obviously not the first to find this treasure. Who dared lift it from the top shelf at the Paki’s? Kev pulls himself looking at the ‘big busty blondes’ that remind me of Mary the Canary and I pull myself watching him, copying him exactly, and forget all about having to go back to that flat.

  Sometimes Kev crushes me in a judo hold but never that hard and only because he thinks he should really. He reminds me what he’ll do if I tell. This isn’t my worst secret and I don’t want him to stop, any more than he wants to get caught. I keep quiet. Kev sees my bruises and is quite impressed by one or two of them. He knows I don’t do judo but he doesn’t say anything. I pray for my mum to come home every night but every day I wake up and she’s still not there. Even if she was I wouldn’t tell her because I don’t want to upset her, especially now she’s not well. My dad thinks boys should have bruises. Logan says nobody will believe me anyway and Teenie will get it if I tell. Sometimes at school I put my hand up and open my mouth to tell the teacher everything but all that comes out is answers. Nobody asks the right questions. Nobody wants to know.

  Chapter 6

  ‘. . . I place a profound belief – indeed a fervent faith – in the virtues of self-reliance and personal independence.’

  Margaret Thatcher, first Speech to Conservative Central Council, 15 March 1975

  The summer holidays are still a few weeks away but I’m already dreading them as much as the rest of Primary Five is looking forward to them. After the holidays Kev starts at Brannock High School, which they’ve not long finished building across the road from Keir Hardie. It’s five floors high – the biggest thing around, except for the Craig. High school pupils use pens instead of pencils and walk between specialised classrooms carrying different-coloured folders for each subject. They sit exams instead of tests. Their bell rings at 3.30 p.m. – a whole extra half-hour of learning, of not being at home. So, on the dark mornings I’ll be walking to and from Keir Hardie on my own. Without Kev the Sippy will be off-limits.

  With her eyes raised to heaven Auntie Louisa announces that my mum is finally out of the Glasgow Southern General Hospital where she’s been for the past six months. Hallelujah! But she’s got to go and stay with Granny Mac till she’s well enough to come home. We’re still not allowed to go and see her. She needs her rest, we’re told. Me and Teenie beg and plead but have to settle for making yet another GET WELL card, careful to make it very clear that WE’RE OK! I get Auntie Louisa on her own and say maybe I could visit myself if Teenie is too young and she looks like she’s thinking about it but then shakes her head. Logan gets to go and see her but he doesn’t take our card.

  Logan has very strict rules about everything but only he knows them and they change all the time. Just when I think I’ve mastered eating – no clanking cutlery, no seconds, no complaining of feeling hungry – I’ll chew the wrong way and . . .

  Since my mum went into hospital I’ve been doing all her chores. Logan likes things done a certain way. He calls me ‘Cinders’. Every morning before school I brush the ashes from the fireplace in the living room – we’ve not had fires in our bedrooms since my mum took ill. Although Logan works for the gas man we’ve no central heating, none of the flats have. At night in bed your breath clouds above you like dreams. Sometimes I sleep with my school uniform on and try not to move so I don’t get it creased. In the morning Jack Frost’s long thin fingers have scratched inside the windows.

  The first morning Logan tells me to clean out the fire I put the ashes in a plastic bucket I find under the scullery sink. Some hot bits melt the plastic and I trail grey ash behind me all through the flat and out through the close to the big ash bin out the back. I Hansel-and-Gretel my way back, bracing myself, but Logan just hands me a brush and I sweep it up and that’s that.

  Next morning the wee brass stand that holds the brush and shovel is empty.

  ‘Use yer hands,’ says Logan, standing over me.

  I start scooping the silky warm ashes up into the metal bucket he’s provided and at first they feel nice like the sand on the beach at Portobello where my dad took us one weekend. But then they get hotter and soon tiny red jewels like the ends of cigarettes are stuck all over my hands and I try shaking them off but they’re burnt on. If I singe the carpet I’ll be in trouble. Breathing deeply through my nose without turning round or making a noise, I lift out all the ashes and fill the metal bucket. Then, careful not to rush, I twist yesterday’s Daily Record into kindling, reading the headlines as I go. Maggie beat the miners, they say. Only when I’m outside emptying the bucket into the ash bin do I pick the now-black embers from my hands. I cry quietly because crying can turn a beating into a rattling. So you don’t cry. Teenie doesn’t cry much but I make sure I take any blame for her.

  One Saturday morning, tired of being teased, I decide to try football again. I get the ball straight away and Teenie is staring wide-eyed and I’m thinking, ‘This is easy’ as I nip past Kev and the other boys and boot it straight through the two jumpers that make the goals and BOOM!

  ‘OG!’ shouts Teenie, ‘own goal’, and my team run at me and Teenie boots the ball away to distract them and it sails past the goal and straight through our living-room window. Before the glass finishes smashing Logan’s blazing face appears. To stop Teenie running forward – the only person she can lie to is herself – I put my hand up like I’m in class and say ‘My fault’ and start walking to the door I know he’ll be waiting behind. She’s my little sister. I’m the man of the house now.

  So I’m dreading days without school. I don’t think Logan is looking forward to them either. One of the highlights of my week is Dynasty. Me and Teenie watch it every other Friday night at my dad’s with him and Mary the Canary. We all hate Alexis Colby but we’re quiet when she’s on with her big black hair and her shoulder pads and her posh bitchy voice. We love it when she slaps dumb blonde Krystle Carrington and they th
row sequins at each other before rolling into a handy mud pit.

  Even my dad laughs. ‘It’s that far-fetched,’ he says. ‘But I do like the dolly birds,’ and nudges me, winking at the telly. He nudges me again.

  ‘I like her hair,’ I say, pointing at Alexis. Really I only have eyes for Steven Carrington, the troubled blond with the big blue eyes.

  Mary gets up to go and redo her lipstick and as she goes I notice Charlie’s cage is empty. Before I can ask where he is my dad says, ‘Sorry, son,’ and I burst into tears. ‘He flew away.’ Mary doesn’t look bothered, in fact she looks like Alexis Colby.

  My other pleasure is Story Teller – the fortnightly magazine from Marshall Cavendish which comes with a cassette on the front so you can play the stories out loud and read them at the same time. I’m getting too old for it I know but I listen over and over to ‘Gobbolino the Witch’s Cat’, ‘Ford and the Cars’ and ‘The Wizard of Oz’. I don’t use headphones so I can hear Logan if he creeps up behind me. He does that. It costs £1.95 and my dad brings me a new issue every time he picks us up.

  My secret pleasure is the Majorettes: a rhinestone relic from when we had coal pits. All the pretty girls aged four to twelve, and a few fat ones, wear pink tutus and tights and little white bolero jackets and feathers on their heads and march to music twirling batons and throwing them up high. The coal’s gone but the music plays on – Carfin Community Centre hasn’t got a band any more so they use a ghetto blaster which goes ahead on a wheelbarrow for parades. They practise all winter and dance all summer and everybody turns out to watch like it’s the Orange Walk only this doesn’t end with Catholics and Protestants fighting. Anyone can be a Majorette. So long as you’re a girl.

  I turn up at a rehearsal. The teacher, a woman called Elaine who everybody says is a Gypsy, eyes me through her mascara. She’s not unkind but explains it’s not for me. I insist it is. She hands me a baton and the girls stop to stare but she orders them to carry on twirling. The baton is shiny steel, maybe from the Craig, and each end has a white rubber stopper so the baton bounces if it falls. I catch the beat, extend my hand and twirl. Once, twice, three times it goes round and as Elaine smiles I lose focus and bounce, bounce, bounce, my pride falls to the floor with the baton. A chorus of giggles. Elaine says I can watch them practise but it feels like punishment so I run away.