Maggie & Me

by Damian Barr

  The last term of Primary Five is nearly over when a new teacher joins Keir Hardie. We’re all appalled. We thought teachers were for ever. You start off with kind, moon-faced Miss Traynor in Primary One and work your way through to scary hairy-nostrils Mr Baker in Primary Seven before going off to Brannock High School (I got Mr Baker in Primary Four as well for some reason). But oh no. Our Miss Wills, who always let us do our work outside on sunny days, has suddenly retired and we’ve got this new teacher: Mrs Rayson. We decide to call her ‘Rayson the Basin’ because her hairdresser obviously uses a bowl to do her bob.

  Every class has to say the Lord’s Prayer at the start of every day but Mrs Rayson says it like she means it. Instead of reading the new Roald Dahl she opens the brown-leather Good News Bible with the gold cross on the front and pauses to make sure we’re listening. It’s not like when we walk in pairs to church at Easter and sit on a cold wooden pew listening to Mr Knowles go on and on about how we need to work hard in this life for the hereafter is not certain for sinners like us. And it’s not like the ‘thees’ and ‘thous’ and bells and smells and endless standing up and kneeling down of the chapel that I used to sneak in with my mum who’s barred because she’s divorced. ‘Jesus disnae care about a daft bit of paper,’ she’d say, bowing her head to cross herself before kneeling at the back. They’ve all been praying for her to get better at the chapel.

  Mrs Rayson’s Bible is full of stories and I love them. I never want the bell to go at 3 p.m. but the clanging seems especially cruel when Daniel is in the lion’s den. I need to know where Samson’s Hulk strength really comes from. When she reveals that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute Amanda Ferguson shouts ‘Hoor’ and everybody hoots and instead of shouting Mrs Rayson gently shooshes us. She doesn’t treat us like we’re stupid just because we don’t know something.

  At the first assembly she takes, Mrs Rayson announces she’ll be holding a meeting in the gym every Wednesday after school for pupils who want to find out more about Jesus. I need more stories and I’m desperate to go anywhere but home so I head along. In the farthest corner Mrs Rayson sits on a stool with the piano panting to be played behind her. Cross-legged on the floor in a circle around her are about a dozen pupils, one older than me and the rest younger. Most have specs and few have pals.

  ‘Sit down,’ says Mrs Rayson graciously.

  I join the others on the gym floor tattooed with interlocking lines and circles, different colours for different games and all a mystery to me.

  ‘Welcome to Scripture Union,’ says Mrs Rayson, smiling. ‘Jesus said to St Mark: I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me. Through Scripture Union you will understand the word of the Lord and come to know Him and love Him just as He loves all of you.’

  A huge fart vibrates through the floor before reeking through the air and the perpetrator takes a beamer. ‘Even you, David Dawson,’ says Mrs Rayson, her kindness stretched but not snapped.

  We start off singing ‘The ink is black, the page is white; together we learn to read and write,’ which has a ploddingly pleasing ‘da dum dum dum’. It’s about how we’re all the same inside. I think I’m different inside. This doesn’t have much to do with Jesus and neither does the one about hammering in the morning and the evening.

  Between songs Mrs Rayson reads us Bible stories which she calls lessons but they don’t feel like work. She quizzes us after each one and every time my hand shoots up she looks slightly pitiful before smiling. The right answer produces a Black Jack from her miraculously bottomless handbag. Loaves and fishes. Soon my tongue is swot-black.

  We learn that how we act in this life decides where we go next. Up or down. We must always speak the truth. If we’re good we’ll go up to heaven and if we’re bad we’ll go down to hell. There’s no confession, no forgiveness. You can’t just say you’re sorry. Even if you’re only two minutes late for Scripture Union Mrs Rayson makes you sit outside the circle where you can hear the stories but not feel them. We must work hard at being good, she says. That’s what Maggie’s always saying on the News: work harder, do more, get more.

  Logan doesn’t want me in the flat any more than I want to be there so he’s happy for me to go to Scripture Union. ‘It’s not Catholic, is it?’ he demands, so I get him a letter from Mrs Rayson on Scripture Union notepaper with their symbol, an Aladdin’s lamp, assuring him the Pope has nothing to do with it.

  Along with the rest of the world, Mrs Rayson knows about our ‘broken home’ and my mum being in the hospital with her haemorrhage (which I looked up in the school Encyclopaedia Britannica). When we all sit in a circle holding hands, praying with our eyes closed, Mrs Rayson puts in a mention for my mum and I feel a charge of sympathy in my fingers.

  I love ‘the word’. As for ‘the truth’ . . . I am desperate to tell Mrs Rayson what’s happening at 1 Magdalene Drive but I’m scared no one will believe me and they’ll tell Logan what I’ve told them and he’ll smile like he does when other adults are about and ruffle my hair and wait till they’ve gone then kill me. I don’t want Mrs Rayson to think I don’t really enjoy Scripture Union because I do. I started coming as an excuse to avoid home but I really do love it now: none of the boys or girls who call me names come here, you don’t have to run or catch a ball and the stories are great – we’ve even been awarded Gospels printed on see-through paper in tiny letters. Inside each one has our name typed neatly on a label that says Ex Libris. But they’re not library books, we don’t have to give them back. And if I tell them about Logan, what about my other secrets? Do I have to tell them too? Then I’ll surely go to hell. At the end of the Lord’s Prayer I say a quick one in my head asking God to kill Logan and make me like girls so I won’t burn in hell, Amen.

  To make up for all my lies I decide to tell Mrs Rayson a truth. I hang back and when everybody else is gone I tell her that everybody calls her ‘Rayson the Basin’.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Because of your bowl cut, miss,’ I explain, drawing a circle in the air around my head.

  The light goes out of her face. She stacks the song books.

  ‘Thank you, Damian,’ she says, sounding tired.

  I thought she’d be pleased with the truth. Now I feel bad. ‘Miss, I . . .’

  ‘Thank you, Damian. That is all. Now, let us pray.’ And we kneel down praying together, just the two of us, but I’m not sure what for.

  Now it’s nearly summer there’s no danger of anybody getting run over. The mornings are light and even the night shines through my horrible porridge-coloured curtains well after bedtime. Not long after the sun goes down we get a second sunset here. It starts with a dull big deep boom you feel in your chest and then there’s a massive clanking like God’s dropped his cutlery drawer on the scullery floor and then silence as the sky glows pink then orange then red before fading back. People stand on their front steps and watch it before going back in to the telly. This show only lasts until they finish emptying the furnaces at the Craig but it’s long enough to snatch a couple of sentences so I keep a Gospel under my pillow. Every night I think of my dad sitting in the cabin of the giant eight-wheeled Kress-carrier laden with buckets of white-hot steel. My dad makes the sun set twice every night and he does it just for me.

  So now it’s light there’s no need for Kev to hold my hand. Without him I won’t brave the Sippy in case there are other boys and I’m in no hurry to get back so I walk the longer way but despite baby-steps I always end up back at 1 Magdalene Drive.

  Then I go to the Grotto.

  Carfin Grotto is a replica of Lourdes halfway down the road between Newarthill and Carfin, just past the garage where my Dad had a stand-up argument with the man about the price of petrol. The Grotto is a massive outdoor chapel bigger than Brannock, the Fine Fayre and the Coop put together. It’s all ancient like something from the Bible even though the sign says it was only built after the First World War. Nothing here is Council rough-cast, it’s all stone, and all the lamps are delic
ate glass bowls on fancy wrought-iron stands. There’s no gate, you can come or go at any time (but watch out for the beaky Canon if you’re not accompanied by an adult!). Enter between two big mushroom-shaped stone turrets, leaving the tarmacked secular world behind, crunching on spiritual gravel. An outdoor altar dominates the main arena. It’s like the stone table from Narnia and it would be a sin to lie on it and feel the coolness against my face but I want to. Radiating out from this are rows and rows of hundreds of white plastic chairs tipped forward so the never-ending rain runs off. Nobody wants to sit through Mass with a wet arse. Microphones and speakers are brought out for the Sunday services and you can hear the chanting for miles. Logan runs about the flat closing the windows to keep the Pope out. He turns the football up on the telly and cheers extra loud every time Rangers score – if they’re winning he’s happy and in these moments I feel safe. The only thing he hates more than me is Catholics. Despite her red hair and freckles and gold crucifix on a chain my mum is let off because she doesn’t support Celtic or any other football team. (He doesn’t know she still sneaks off to the Grotto sometimes.)

  The rest of the Grotto is a series of shrines linked by carefully kept rose gardens. Each tells a Bible story. It’s heaven to sit quietly at the feet of the Virgin Mary in her bright blue tea-towel robe. Pink plaster flakes from her face and surely her halo needs a touch-up from Mary the Canary with her waxy-smelling make-up bag of tricks. The Blessed Virgin stands even taller than my dad in a dazzling white alcove surrounded by yew bushes dotted with red berries. She’s the star of the Grotto. This is her sanctuary.

  ‘She turned up in a vision tae a wee Polish lassie,’ whispers Granny Mac as if the Mother of Christ might be easily spooked. Striking miners built the Grotto in 1922 to immortalise this vision and every Sunday coachloads of pilgrims pile out from all over the world hoping to glimpse her. I get to see her every day. I put my schoolbag down on the gravel so the stones don’t stick in my knees and pray for my mum to get better, for Mary the Canary to fly away and Logan to go to hell so my mum and dad can get back together. I peek through one eye hoping she’ll creak into life like a statue from Clash of the Titans but she shows no sign. Not today.

  In an artificial cave dripping with ivy there’s a life-sized Joseph carpentering, his chisel raised in one hand for ever. It’s damp in here and black mould blots his cheeks but I don’t let him know I’ve noticed. You can see where Jesus gets his looks. Next door St John the Baptist is raising both hands to heaven, head still on. I always pick a daisy and leave it for St Theresa, who looks so depressed in that jobby-brown habit. I love all the shrines but my favourite bit of the Grotto is the gift shop.

  Located by the entrance in a tiny octagonal building with a peeling, bottle-green door, the gift shop is where the pilgrims snap up souvenirs. It’s open every day from 8.30 a.m. till 5.30 p.m. I am there daily from just after 3 p.m. until Jane turns the key. Jane runs the gift shop. She’s older than Granny Mac, more ancient than Methuselah and her face is wrinkly like a ball-bag. But she’s not witchy or scary. She’s Irish like Big Brenda and laughs easily with the pilgrims who never leave without buying something. I don’t talk to her the first few times in case I’m not supposed to be there. I don’t even put my schoolbag down. I just stare at the holy medals, the colourful prayer cards with specific powers and the ornaments of all the saints and disciples. I love the Jesus with a light-up bleeding red heart.

  One day there’s no one else in the shop and Jane, laughing, asks me, ‘Have you not got a home to go to?’

  Staring at a long sheet of paper filled with a mess of ‘1’s and ‘0’s hanging on the wall behind her, I say, ‘No,’ then force a laugh in case she believes me and calls social services. Her wrinkles team up into a smile and she opens a drawer by the till and gets out a bag of marshmallows.

  ‘What’s your name, son?’

  ‘Damian Leighton Barr.’

  ‘That’s a lovely name, Damian, and do you know about Father Damian who went to live among the lepers and . . .’

  Every day Jane feeds me sweets and stories. Glinting under the glass-topped counters she’s forever dusting are all the saints’ medals. Carefully she untucks them from their velvet beds: St Jude, the patron saint of lost causes, is my favourite. Sometimes Jane is reading the Daily Record when I go in and we talk about how they’re striking at the Craig and I tell her my dad works there and she says she’ll pray for him. I’d like her to pray for me. I want to tell Jane everything, to confess.

  Instead I ask her about the weird bit of paper with all the numbers on it and she giggles.

  ‘Have you not got a computer at that Protestant school of yours?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say. She knows fine well Keir Hardie is officially non-denominational. ‘We’ve got a computer each.’ Another lie, another baby-step to hell, God forgive me.

  ‘Squint at it,’ says Jane, and I close my eyes and the mess of numbers blurs and swims and suddenly Jesus Christ is smiling out at me. It’s a dot matrix miracle, a word-processing Turin shroud.

  Jane’s favourite story is about Pope John Paul II’s visit to Scotland in 1982. ‘Oh His Holiness,’ she starts, ‘I saw him. There were millions of us in that park in Glasgow. Oh, Damian.’ She gets faraway eyes.

  When the Pope visited, Granny Mac bleached all her net curtains and had the living room repainted, including the gloss work, ‘just in case’. My mum took us all to a special Mass at the Grotto because Glasgow was so far and my dad stayed at home and changed the car oil. Everybody was waving paper flags of green, white and gold. There might even have been Majorettes. On the news we watched a funny-looking ice-cream van with a wee man waving. His fingers were dripping with rings and everybody crossed themselves as he rolled past and my mum sat in our living room moving her lips. Maybe the Pope can make her better.

  When Jane shuts the shop at 5.30 p.m. she lets me turn the sign to CLOSED and we walk out together. Parked next to the shop is her wee black Ford Fiesta. She always offers me a lift even though I’m just down the road in the flats. But I can’t let Logan see her drop me off – I’ve told him Scripture Union is every day now and he believes me. She stands with the driver’s door open like she’s waiting for me to say something and I just shake my head no thank you. I resist the urge to run after her as I wave her away, tyres crunching across the gravel, before walking down the road. St Jude is in my pocket.

  Amen.

  Chapter 7

  ‘I am . . . very much aware of the importance of Ravenscraig to Scotland, to Scottish jobs. In a way, it is more than to Scottish jobs; it is to Scottish morale. I know that. There is a Scottish dimension as well as a steel dimension.

  I will not forget what Ravenscraig did and the way it stood and the way it carried on during the coal miners’ strike . . .’

  Margaret Thatcher, interview for Scottish TV, 4 September 1986

  ‘We’re leavin’.’

  It’s midnight. A million mirrored shards of Logan litter the floor, all of them staring at us. I hold Teenie back in the doorway – any further and she’ll slash her feet. Baby Billy is bawling in his cot.

  ‘Get yer coats and shoes,’ says my mum calmly, her back to us. She steps over Logan to get to her baby, red and silver slivers sliding and cracking under her feet.

  Mark Ellison changes my life just before the summer holiday at the end of Primary Five. He joins Keir Hardie Memorial Primary School at the end of term, his Jason Donovan haircut neat and new when we’re all ready for a shear. There’s usually a space next to me so that’s where he sits. My report card states, ‘Damian has met his match this school year.’

  After five minutes we find out we’re the same age, almost to the day. We’re summer babies, which makes us the youngest in our year. Our parents went to school together, leaving as soon as they were sixteen, then marrying and splitting at about the same time. Dads don’t get custody so Mark went to stay down south with his mum and her fancy man but she sent him back. ‘Her loss,’ he says, flicki
ng his fringe out his eyes with a jerk of his head.

  My gain.

  Mark is the fastest runner in the whole school. He’s Sebastian Coe and Steve Ovett, his arms and legs a cartoon blur as he passes the finishing line with enough time to laugh at the stragglers, me included. And he’s funny like me. ‘You’ll cut yourselves with those tongues of yours,’ warns Mrs Rayson as we’re told off for giggling.

  For the final two years at Keir Hardie Memorial Primary School we must all endure BAGA – British Amateur Gymnastics Association – exams. Mark is the only boy to attain Level One. He flick-flacks across the gym, which once felt huge but now feels wee, and walks back on his hands pulling faces the whole time. It’s like he’s made of the elastic bands the girls tie together and stretch between their legs to play their complicated games. I never get past Level Five – the forward roll. I’m not naturally clumsy but I’ve learnt to be. No one expects the lanky asthmatic jessy to be athletic and I don’t disappoint, tripping over mats and nearly hanging myself on the ropes. This way no one asks questions about the bruises and black eyes. Once Mr Baker kept me back and asked if everything was all right at home and I was going to tell him everything but I panicked and told him a long, lovely lie about going fishing with my dad.

  From day one everybody loves Mark – boys want him on their team, girls want to comb his blond curtains. Nobody gets why he’s my pal. Not even me. He’s clever and pretty and cheeky and the teachers love him too. He dazzles with his front crawl when we start swimming lessons at the Council ’ool (There is no p in our ’ool, please keep it that way, warns the sign on the way in). The lengthy rules also forbid ‘heavy petting’ and we snigger at the smoochy illustration. Only Mark dares to dive from the high board twelve feet up. He climbs the ladder up and up then down into the deep end he drops, again and again. I close my eyes as he bullets through the surface making billions of tiny bubbles. Behind his goggles his eyes are open. He is without fear. It’s like he doesn’t care.