This Is Where I Am

by Karen Campbell

  I move aside to let a stout man in close to the counter.

  ‘I won’t be able to come back,’ I say to Cammie. ‘I can’t . . . I am going to go to college.’

  ‘Is that right, big man? Quality.’

  Another customer arrives at the counter, a young woman with an exposed midriff. ‘Yes, hen?’ Cammie reaches for a plastic glove. ‘Sorry, pal, I better get this.’

  ‘No, is fine. Of course.’

  ‘Gies a wee bell if you’re still on for the football, mind. Sam was saying.’

  ‘Yes, I would like that –’

  He is gone towards the whiting. I wait until he dips back near the till.

  ‘Will I give you my telephone number?’

  ‘Ho, are yous gabbin or servin?’

  Another woman is standing behind me.

  ‘Eh . . . wee bit hectic the now, pal. Just gies a ring at the store, yeah, and we’ll sort something out.’

  ‘Sure . . . It is no bother.’

  Cammie clicks his tongue, makes a reassuring phone-shape with his pinkie and his thumb. Mr Maloney, who is finished with his customer, comes back to lift my coat.

  ‘Cheers for this, Abdi. You didny need to come all the way in, though.’

  ‘I wanted to say thank you. And sorry. I am very sorry for all the confusion that I caused.’

  ‘Ach, away. No harm done. I’m only sorry you’re no coming back. I mean, don’t get me wrong, we’ll get another apprentice in – the scheme’s still running – but they’re all daft boys, you know? You had the makings of a great wee worker –’

  ‘I’m off to college!’

  There is too much brightness to my voice.

  ‘Proper college, you mean, not catering?’

  I knew it; I sounded like a child. ‘For Highers. So I can be a teacher.’

  ‘Well, son, I wish you all the luck in the world. Now don’t you be a stranger, you hear?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He smooths the folded coat which I have scrubbed and bleached.

  ‘Well. You take care then, son.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Maloney. I will.’

  We shake hands one final time.

  ‘Here, wait –’ He disappears for a second, returns with a polystyrene tray. ‘Smoked salmon. Disny even need cooked. You take that for your tea, all right?’

  ‘Thank you. Mr Maloney – can I ask you something, please?’

  ‘Fire away.’

  ‘I want to buy my friend a present. Where is a good place to go? All she likes is old things.’

  ‘Oh, it’s a she, is it? Well, you canny go wrong with perfume – try aisle seven. See down at the bottom there?’

  ‘No. Her house is full of old things. What you call antiques? But I don’t have very much money.’

  Mr Maloney scratches his head. ‘Eh . . . I don’t know. Huvny a clue.’

  Stupid refugee. Why would I think Mr Maloney should know? He is good enough to give me fish, and I embarrass the man.

  ‘It is no matter –’

  ‘Antiques, Cammie. Where would you get antiques roon here?’

  ‘Up the Gala Bingo!’ Cammie is serving the woman with no patience. She has a face on her that is narrow and foreshortened, a trace of liver-coloured veins around her nose.

  ‘Cheeky bastard,’ she says. ‘What kind of stuff you after, pal? Furniture and that?’

  ‘No. I think a vase . . . or a jug maybe. For flowers? My friend only has a bucket. I have saved up ten pounds.’

  ‘Och, you’ll no get much for that.’

  Mr Maloney is still trying to help. ‘What about a second-hand shop –’

  ‘Naw, wait. What day’s the day? Saturday? Have you tried the Barras? You get all sorts there.’

  ‘Away. He’ll get ripped off something terrible.’

  ‘No he’ll no. There’s a load of right decent stuff –’

  ‘Aye, and dodgy DVDs and stalls wi jewellery that’ll turn your skin black. Oh. Nae offence, Abdi, son.’

  I smile at Mr Maloney. ‘Where is this Barras, please?’

  ‘See if you get a 9 into Argyle Street. Then head along to George’s Square –’

  ‘Naw, naw. When you’re in the toon, get a 240. That’ll take you right out Parkheid way –’

  ‘Naw. See if you’re . . .’

  I glean enough from their argument to know one bus will take me near to the Central Station (I am better with buses now. They do not intimidate me so much).

  ‘Please. From there I can walk.’

  ‘You sure? It’s quite a trauchle. Take you a good hour, I reckon.’

  ‘Och, rubbish. The boy’s got big gangly legs on him. Half an hour max.’

  ‘No rush,’ I say. ‘There is no rush.’

  What a place is the Barras! It reminds me a little of Dadaab in its confusion, but more gaudy. It is nothing like the markets at home; there are few foodstuffs I can see, except for a wagon selling burgers and hot do-nuts – which, I admit, smell delicious. If I have enough money left from my purchase, I will buy myself a hot do-nut. People mill without urgency; I feel no threat here, despite Mr Maloney’s warnings. Yes, there are charlatans and snakes; all furtive glances and sleight-of-hand: a sensible person knows this in any language.

  ‘Awright, big man?’ A thin man drags on his cigarette, nods approvingly as I pass his stall. Which is selling prepacked processed cheese and pairs of shoes. I am wondering if, in certain situations, my height plus my blackness may become an asset in a city which is pinched and pale. The fact of this makes me uncomfortable. And still conspicuous.

  ‘Err yir sportsocks! Threefurapun, threefurapun.’

  A jaunty red-metal arch declares the perimeters of the enclosure. I know there is one at either end for I have walked the length of the market twice. It is how you might read an excellent book – devouring first at a gallop, and then retracing your steps, slower, more reflectively, to appreciate the detailed colour, the precision of the piece. And I do. Pillars of sunglasses jostle by bales of towels and rolls of carpets, men at the corners sell CDs and cigarette lighters the way you would sell khat. There are stalls outside and stalls within the collection of long brick buildings and warehouses, spilling clothes and handbags and books and life. I very much like the Barras! It has a vibrancy that fills your veins. Turning left, I find another passageway. The smell here is of damp, the lane darker. Pitched on one brick wall I see a line of paintings. Old things. I hurry down. Up close, even I can tell the paintings are cheap imitations. One is of a green-faced lady, and there are several of horses: in fields, with carts, running through spumes of water. The surfaces of these paintings are flat, they are not possessed with the rough, real life of the pictures at Kelvingrove. In front of the paintings are trestles piled with artefacts: boxes, mirrors, lots of brass and glass. Some jugs are in amongst this mess, mostly small, mostly chipped. It doesn’t have to be a jug, of course. A vase would be fine, if I can find one pretty enough.

  I pick up a jug made with the face of a black man. Immediately, he is funny, with his fat, beturbanned head and ludicrous gold hoops in his ears. Is this perfect? Will Debs laugh as I give her irony? Could you put flowers in such a thing? I think it may be too wee.

  ‘What is this please?’

  ‘Toby jug,’ says the stallholder, a man with sparse long hair. ‘Totally unique, that one. Ba-Bru, so it is.’

  ‘Baboon?’

  Well, now I am quite angry at his effrontery. I slam the jug back on the table.

  ‘Naw, ya eejit! Ba-Bru? Fae the Irn Bru adverts? Used to be a big neon one at the bottom of Renfield Street? Naw?’

  ‘I don’t know it.’

  The jug is actually very ugly. I go to walk away.

  ‘So, is it Toby jugs you’re efter, pal?’

  ‘No. Just a jug. I want a big jug to put flowers in. And no cracks. There must be no cracks.’

  ‘Ho, Stumpy!’ the stallholder shouts at another man across the way. ‘Did we no get that stuff in fae Creggans Hoose yet?’

 
; ‘Aye.’

  ‘So, how’s it no oot?’

  ‘Fucking up tae ma oxters here, Jim.’

  ‘I’m sure there were two of they big cream pitchers in wi it. Gonny have a swatch for us?’

  ‘Whit’s a pitcher?’ says Stumpy.

  ‘A fuckin big jug, ya plum.’ He shakes his head. ‘Just gies a minute and we’ll see what we can do you fur.’

  I am in no hurry. I leaf through some old books, gone rotten with mildew.

  ‘Like your history, do you?’ The man nods at where my hand rests. Centuries of Glasgow.

  ‘Some.’

  ‘So, where is it you’re from then, ma man?’

  ‘Somalia.’

  ‘Aw, right. Dinny get many Somalians in here. Yous lot are all up the Red Road, aren’t you? Sighthill, know?’ He blows on his hands. Is wearing fingerless gloves.

  ‘I live in Cardonald.’

  ‘That right? Good for you, pal. There you go, then. That’s it started already.’

  ‘What is started?’

  ‘Well . . . I mean, this is where it all started really. This is the heart of Glasgow – no all that Victorian crap roon George Square.’

  ‘Where the city began?’

  ‘Naw – well, aye, aye, it did, but I mean all the different folk. This is where they came to. You read that book you’re hauding. You’ve got your Irish, your Tallies, your Jews. Aw roon here is where they were punted – the Gorbals, the Calton, Brigton Cross. After a while, they either head back home cause it’s shite, or move onwards and upwards and the next lot arrive. So now you’ve got your Chinese in Garnethill, your Asians in Woodlands. And your Somalians in Sighthill. See – you’ve bucked the trend already.’

  ‘That is good?’

  ‘Oh aye. Stumpy, ma man. What you got for us?’

  Stumpy carries a cardboard box, brimming with treasure.

  ‘I didny know whit the fuck a pitcher looked like, so I just brought everything wi a haundle.’

  ‘Good man. Using your initiative. OK, pal, have a wee rummage, see what you fancy.’

  Already, I have seen it. Not the enamel pitchers the man is pressing on me, nor the tubby milk jugs or the turquoise vase. What I have fixed on is nothing like I imagined. An elegant, lipped urn, made possibly of stone, but lustrous; there are layers of translucent colour which shimmer as the light turns. It is green then it is blue and pearl. It is pink and sunset and the sea. It flares symmetrically, out then in, with two tiny handles at the top, like ears. Gently, I ting the rim with my fingernail.

  ‘Clear as a bell, that. Nae cracks, not a one.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Totally unique. A lustrewear ginger jar. You don’t get many of them tae the pound.’

  I glance up, eager. ‘It is only a pound?’

  ‘Eh, naw. Figure of speech, pal. Much you got to spend?’

  ‘I have . . .’ I stop. ‘How much is the bottle?’

  ‘To you . . . twenty quid.’

  ‘Ah.’ I place the urn back in its box. ‘I am sorry to have taken up your time.’

  ‘Haw – hold up, pal. Hold up. Look, I could maybe dae it for you for fifteen pounds? As a favour, like.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I repeat. ‘I have only eight pounds that I can spend.’ I hold out the ten-pound note. ‘This is all the money I possess. Eight pounds for the vase and two pounds for my bus fare home.’

  ‘Sorry, pal. I canny let it go for under a tenner.’

  The hot do-nuts are two for one pound. I wanted to get some for Debs and Rebecca as well.

  ‘Nine pounds, and I must walk home.’

  ‘Done!’

  He takes my ten-pound note, wraps the urn in newspaper. There is a moment when I am waiting for my change and he has finished wrapping that I think he is not going to give me my one pound back. I hold out my hand and smile. ‘My change, please.’

  ‘Oh, right. What was it we said again?’

  ‘You have to give me one pound.’ I make my smile bigger. ‘Or maybe it was two?’

  ‘No, no. Fair dos. Right you are. One pound it is.’

  As I am leaving the Barras, with my one and a half hot do-nuts (the other half is in my belly. Delicious does not describe it. I am thinking that they are better eaten hot. To keep just the one . . . yes, I chew down the remainder of the first one . . . yes, I fear it would become greasy if not eaten at once); anyway, I am passing under the red metal arch, when a voice calls out: ‘Big Issue, pal?’ Immediately, I turn, in case it is my rescuer, Dexy, but this man is much older.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I have only got my bus fare.’

  His focus has already glided; he is monitoring the herd. Seeking the stragglers and the slow.

  I touch his sleeve. ‘Are you hungry?’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘I have this, look.’ I unzip my backpack to reveal the salmon. The tray has become a little squashed. ‘If you would like some.’

  ‘Fucksake, man. That is totally honkin.’

  ‘It is good. Is good fish.’

  He folds his hand below his nose. ‘Naw, you’re all right. In fact, gonny move downwind of me? You’re scaring off the custom – and I’ve a tona these to shift.’

  There is a pile of Big Issues in his hand. More still in the polythene bag wedged at his feet. He has bare feet inside his trainers. Even engulfed in Mrs Coutts’s hand-knitted socks, my own toes are cold. I wiggle them, making the blood come alive. Nipping and popping. And I think.

  ‘Do you always work in the same place?’

  ‘Aye. How? Gonny come back wi a fuckin big shark or that? Look, I don’t want your fish, pal, all right?’

  ‘No. I wondered – do all the people who sell your books have their own place? I mean, if someone was selling the books in one street one day, would they be in the same street the next? If you understand.’

  ‘Aye? I’m no a fuckin numpty. How? You thinking of taking up the noble art of issuing the big?’

  ‘Pardon? Oh – I see . . . No. I am wondering if you know a man called Dexy. He sells your books too.’

  ‘Dodgy fucking Dexy?’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘Naw. Never heard of him.’

  ‘Ah.’ I hoist my backpack on to my spine. The weight of the urn presses into me. ‘I am sorry to have bothered you. Good luck with your books.’

  It was a hasty notion anyway.

  ‘Ho!’ he shouts. ‘I huv seen Dexy by the way.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Aye. There wis something up wi the printers: they only started gieing out the magazines the day. There’s a pure wad of folk doon the depot, picking up. I seen wee Dex doon there.’

  ‘Is this depot near?’

  ‘Saltmarket. Straight doon London Road, come tae a fucking great tower in the middle, hing a left and that’s you at it.’

  ‘Thank you. Would you like a –’

  ‘NAW!’

  ‘– do-nut?’

  ‘Oh. Aye. Go on then.’

  True enough, the Saltmarket is very near. The longer I have been in this day, the more I am alive. I could lope for very far: I will walk home. Maybe I will run. To feel the strength of my legs, and my heart pump, to surge with breath and be steady, steady, steady in my sway and pound and leap. To run for pleasure, not fear? Rushing. Yes, that is when you want the rush.

  Before I reach the depot, when I am only at the fucking great tower – which is in reality skinny and truncated – some men saunter across the main road. They have bags and bundles; I quicken but do not yet run. (The heavy bounce of my backpack reminds me of my nine-pound cargo.) Today, walking quickly will suffice, for it is a good day and I know he will be in that group. Otherwise, why else would God have given me this fine idea?

  ‘Dexy!’ I shout. ‘Hey, Dexy!’

  The group stop. A small, tight man who is made of knuckle and wire scrutinises me. And it is. It is Dexy.

  ‘How is it going? It is me!’ I touch my head. ‘Red hat?’

  I don’t actually know where my hat is;
I haven’t worn it since that day.

  ‘Aw aye! That’s right. On you go, lads. I’ll catch yis later.’

  His friends trundle on without him.

  ‘How you doin, pal. Ali?’

  ‘Abdi.’

  ‘Abdi!’ Said like he discovered the name himself.

  ‘I am sorry, I cannot buy your magazine today. I have no more money.’

  ‘Makes two of us, my friend.’

  ‘Business is not good?’

  ‘Fair tae shite, I’d say. Put it this way, if I don’t get this lot puntit, there’ll be nae dinner the night. Again.’

  ‘Do you like fish?’

  ‘What?’

  I open my backpack. ‘Here. Do you like fish? I have some smoked salmon.’

  ‘Fucksake. You rob Marksies?’

  ‘No, it was a present. Please. Would you like it?’

  ‘Aye. Don’t mind if I dae.’

  The entirety of my bag smells of sewage. Big fish in an enclosed pocket. Not good.

  ‘So, you like fish?’

  ‘S’all right, aye.’ Dexy peels a strip of pink salmon, drops it in his mouth. His teeth chop through it at a tremendous rate, and he delves for more. Begrimed fingers, filthy nails, and he couldn’t care less. I wonder if he has ever scrabbled rice grains from a latrine. I wonder if he would like to work indoors.

  ‘That is good that you like fish. And you are homeless still?’

  He ceases chewing, tongue still wound with salmon. ‘Fuck d’you think?’

  ‘Tell me,’ I say. ‘How do you feel about blood?’

  18.

  Back at school. First, the smell gets you. Rubbery, squeaky echoes that elide into sound as a bell rings. Overhead, a squeak of chairs dragged from desks becomes the thump of gym-shoed feet. My sister runs a tight ship – no outdoor shoes allowed. Not since they got the new lino in. Rebecca’s hand is welded to mine. We’re both a bit sweaty-palmed.

  ‘Honestly, it’s no problem.’ Lara, our friendly neighbourhood educational psychologist, was visiting the school anyway. ‘I’m not due at Southbank till eleven.’ Gill has set aside a room for us – what in my day would have been deemed a ‘medical room’ but is in fact a lovely lounge. There’s a blue couch, two green chairs, low tables, a basket of toddler toys and a set of scales, the old-fashioned kind you stand on and calibrate the weights. One of the tables has been set as if for dinner, but where the placemat would be is a pile of A4 paper, and the cutlery is coloured pencils, with more pencils and crayons waiting in a plastic cup.