Chapter Twenty-Nine

Charlie was not at the Site when Willie arrived there and the Foreman explained that some of the labourers were required to work at another Site nearby and Charlie had been sent there together with three other labourers, for the afternoon. Willie thanked the large, red-necked foreman before he set off to return home. He kicked a stone into a small round tin and shrugged complacently at his achievement, before he walked through the Site to the street ahead, admiring everything he saw as he passed. The building was truly taking shape and he was in awe of the art and craft of the workmen who could produce this edifice of quality and beauty that would last long after they were dead, unless Hitler had a hand in things and then they might not be able to finish what they had started. He came out into the street again at the other end of the Building Site and looked back. The area he surveyed would completely cover his own part of the Gorbals and he tried to imagine, but with little success, what things looked like six months BEFORE ... He kicked another stone and it was then that he saw her ... Sadie was walking arm in arm with the old man who had been at the party at their house. He could not remember his name, but he knew the face. Sadie was smiling happily up at the man as they walked together and he caressed her hand as it lay on his arm. Willie wanted to get away somewhere, where he would not be seen, but the open space cluttered with rubble gave little shelter as he stood behind a large rafter which barely hid him until they had passed him by. He could smell the strong, pungent perfume as the couple walked by and he could hear Sadie talking. They stopped almost where Willie was standing and he breathed lightly for fear of having been seen or heard. He could not hear distinctly what was being said, since Sadie had on her posh ‘Kelvinside accent’ for the occasion, as he should have expected. She seemed to be pleased about something that happened the night before and that she would be seeing him again that evening. Willie closed his eyes and wanted to puke as they kissed. He wanted to come out from where he was hiding and hit the man. How dare this old creature kiss his sister? He was old very old ... He must have been at least fifty and he thought of Sadie. What the hell was she thinking of?”

Eventually the duo parted, each going a different way and waving good-bye to each other,

“I wish he wouldn’t touch her bum like that,” he mumbled, “And in the middle of the street too. Mammy would have a fit if she saw that ...”

Sadie stopped a few yards away and started to grope around in her handbag, where she produced a small mirror and began to put on some more lipstick. Willie supposed that the old fella had licked off the first layer of the bloody stuff from her stupid lips. He wished Sadie would move on as he desperately wanted to sneeze ... and she did, just as he cracked the biggest sneeze he had for a long time before he came out from his hiding place, dusting the seat of his pants which were all covered in dust and sand. Sadie had gone from the scene, obviously dreaming of her next meeting with the old Romeo.

“What are you doing here, Willie?” Charlie had returned to the Site and had spotted the rebel emerging from his spy hole.

“Just having a look around ... Never ever saw a Site before well, not properly.”

Charlie said nothing about Sadie and her paramour and Willie presumed that as they had left in the opposite direction from which Charlie had arrived, that he had missed them. His brother stood naked to the waist with a sandwich box in his hand and he looked so handsome, that Willie wanted to spit ... Charlie’s smooth tanned skin glowed against his flaxen hair. The sun always had that effect on Charlie. His skin got darker and his hair got fairer and he smiled, where his whole face would light up. The Blair teeth never looked as good as they did when Charlie smiled. His trouser knee was missing and a copper, bony joint peeped out at Willie.

Willie stared at him as he stood in front of him and for a moment and wished he could have been born to look like his brother. Charlie had everything and he also had Rachael.

Willie paused in his thoughts as he could hear his mother’s voice as she sang to Charlie and him when they were little boys. Charlie’s song always seemed the nicer of any of the others.

‘Bonnie Charlie’s noo awa’

Safely o’er the friendly main,

Monies the heart is broke in twa

Will ye no’ come back again?’

Charlie was still smiling when Willie came back again to reality and the smell of the brick dust made him sneeze again.

“Are you alright, Willie?”

“Yes of course I am. Why do you ask, Charlie?”

“Well ye look different somehow. Ye had a strange look in your eye then.”

“You’re just daft, Charlie Blair. That’s what you are.”

“Well, that’s alright then.”

“Charlie?”

“Yes Willie. What is it?”

“Charlie ...how is it that your knee is as brown as your chest. Can you sun bathe in the nude on the Site?”

Willie’s curiosity made his brother laugh.

“Sometimes in the lunch hour way up there,” he said and he pointed to the top of the scaffolding, “We strip off and lie out in the sun when the sun is out, that is ...and that’s no’ very often. Nobody can see you. It’s too high up there and even if the lassies did look up, they’d need binoculars to see anything worth while.”

Willie thought long and hard on what Charlie had told him.

“Not very strong binoculars to see what you’ve got, Charlie Blair.” he said and Charlie threw back his broad shoulders and heaved his bronzed chest as he laughed aloud. He clapped his hands in the air, dropping his sandwich box, to hold it between his knees.

“Now you’re beginning to understand what great potentials all the Blair men have, Willie.” he chuckled and threw his arms around his brother affectionately before holding him at arm’s length to observe him approvingly. “William Anthony Blair, you’re gonna break some wee lassie’s heart and not before too long either, so be happy Willie ...Love them all but watch out for that ONE. ... For one day, she will come along and by golly ... you’ll know it.”

Willie smiled at Charlie’s comments.

“Can I come up and lie out there too, so that I could get a tan, Charlie?”

Charlie giggled and raised his eyebrows.

“It would need to be a bloody great scaffold and a great height too, for the lassies no’ tae see what you’ve got, Willie.”

“Jealous,” added Willie as he ducked an affectionate punch from his brother and skipped away.

***

Rita Watts was at her front door when Willie arrived home. She was talking to Mary and she looked very upset.

“My James has got a mark on his hand and I want to know how he got it.”

She was breathless in her enquiry and her mouth tightened.

“Do you know anything about this, Willie?” Mary Blair asked and Willie did not know what answer to give as he looked for a cue from Wattie, but he couldn’t see him anywhere. “What has Wattie I mean, James, said to you Mrs. Watts?”

Rita Watts eyed Willie suspiciously as she brought her fat face close to his.

“He says he fell over in the playground and twisted his hand under him, but I don’t believe him and if he’s been tellin’ me lies, he’ll no’ get the long breeks I’ve bought for him for the school. A lot of money I spent on them breeks, Mrs. Blair and this is how that wee boy treats my kindness. His father would turn in his grave if he knew the way that boy treats his Mammy.”

Willie quickly assessed the situation and put in his penny-worth on Wattie’s behalf, just to make sure of course, that he got the long breeks to go to school.

“I know a couple of boys did fall in the playground, Mrs. Watts and I think one of them could have been James, because he went to help them get up.” Willie glanced at his mother who was trying not to smile as he continued, whilst Rita Watts was reconsidering her conclusions with a weak smile playing around her proud lips “And I know the teacher was saying how nice it would be if all the boys in our class could wear long trousers since we are nearly men now ...”

Rita Watts swallowed the bait and mellowed immediately. The thought of her James, helping someone in distress in the playground and of him being a young man now and no longer a boy, impressed her greatly. She drew herself up to her full height of five foot one and looked around her disdainfully. Her upper lip came down around her teeth and her nose appeared to be sharper than ever.

“Yes, well of course. I’ve always known that my James gives a good impression wherever he goes and he’s always there to help anyone in need I know that too. He just needs the right clobber ...Yes, that’s all what my James needs ... the right clothes and my James could stand out anywhere.”

She walked away, sniffing and snorting, leaving Willie and Mary Blair to think what they liked for themselves, but she knew that her James was meant to climb to great heights and to make his mark wherever he trod. Her own carriage was very distinctively Upper class as she walked that day until she stood on her doorstep.

“That wee bugger’s pissed all over ma door again. I’m no’ havin’ it James, d’ye understand ...James ...James.”

She removed her turban from her hair and thought again of her son’s potentials as she closed her street door behind her. Wattie appeared from the kitchen with Florrie in his arms.

“Och! ... can ye no’ drop that wee bugger for a minute, James Yer Mammy’s got somethin’ awfy nice tae tell ye.”

Wattie looked over the top of his glasses and the little mongrel growled.

“I’ve got ye a pair o’ long breeks. That’s what I’ve done and yer Daddy would be so proud of you James Watts. He would that, son.”

***

Willie sat on the settee and reflected how he nearly bumped into Sadie that afternoon. He thought the older man was Meggie’s friend as he went through the motions of homework, with his mind on other things ... of Sadie and that old man of Cathie Coutts and her roller skates, of Wattie and his Mammy and of course, most of all, the bronzed and handsome Charlie. He did not want to think about Rachael at least not in the same thoughts that he had of Charlie, but what was he to do, he asked himself. He would never look like Charlie. Never in a thousand years and when would that ONE come into his life... that one who would look at him as Rachael Harris looked at his brother? He left the room and went into the kitchen and as he looked at his image in the mirror, he sighed in despair.

“It’s no’ fair,” he said sadly, “It’s no’ fair at awe....”