Ten

His mother was nowhere to be found. He cupped the bone-white tooth in his hand; the little incisor floated in a pool of spittle and blood, and he was sure he might die. Was this what happened now that he was seven? He was afraid to probe his teeth with his tongue should they all come loose. He needed to find her to ask. But his mother was gone.

Shuggie stood with his face against the rusty metal gate and watched a pack of pit dogs roam by. Five male dogs harassed a small black female dog. They made a high yipping noise as they prowled past, and Shuggie pushed his lips between the fence slats and sang along with them, yip yip yip. He listened to the dog’s song, and it was as if they were calling him outside. He wasn’t allowed out the front gate without telling her, but then she wasn’t here.

Keeping his plimsolls planted firmly inside, he stuck his head out and looked left and then looked right. He played a game of holding his breath and then darting out and darting back, all the while stealing glances up and down the short road to try to see her.

She wasn’t there.

The pack of dogs called him out of the gate. Shuggie picked up his dirty blond dolly and tossed her out on to the pavement. Daphne landed with a raspy crack and made a snow angel in the dust. He leapt out and grabbed her, darting back inside like a little bony fish, closing the gate with a loud metal clang. He looked over his shoulder, no one came to the window and no one came to Bridie Donnelly’s window. There was no one watching. She wasn’t there.

Shuggie opened the gate again and followed the dogs. There was a clutch of women standing in men’s slippers on the corner. They had been talking animatedly about something, but he saw how they lowered their voices as he approached. One of them turned and curtsied towards him. Trying to look casual, like he didn’t care, he made a show of dancing along the dusty road past the chapel on the hill. He made a great game of kicking plumes of dust into the sky and danced farther and farther from home. He came to the Catholic school and watched children play at their morning break. He stood in the shade of a horse chestnut tree and wondered why he wasn’t in school himself. There hadn’t been cartoons on that morning, so it hadn’t been Saturday, he knew that much, but she hadn’t laid his clothes out like she sometimes did, so he hadn’t gone, and she hadn’t said anything.

The boys were mercilessly kicking a bladder into the corner of the playground, and they saw him before he noticed them watching. “What’s that ye’ve got?” shouted the smaller of the brown brothers, the sons of the skull-faced woman, Colleen McAvennie. Shuggie instinctively hid the Daphne doll behind his back.

“Hello,” said Shuggie with a polite wave. He mimicked the swishing curtsy of the miner’s wife and gracefully extended his left leg out behind himself.

Open-mouthed, they peered through the peeling railings and drew their eyes up and down the length of him. “How come ye’re no in school?” asked Gerbil, the younger one, picking flakes of green paint from the iron.

“I don’t know,” Shuggie admitted with a shrug. The boys were only a few years older than him but were already thick-built and brown from summers spent outside, exploring marshes and throwing cats into the Pit’s quarries. He had seen them easily move heavy loads of their father’s scrap from the back of his lorry.

Francis McAvennie narrowed his dark eyes and said, “It’s a’cos your mammy is an auld alky.” He watched Shuggie’s face to see the sting of the words.

Gerbil McAvennie put a flake of iron paint between his lips. “How come ye don’t have a daddy?” His voice was already deep like a man’s.

“I d-do,” Shuggie stuttered.

Gerbil smiled. “Where is he then?”

This Shuggie didn’t know. He had heard he was a whoremaster and that he was raising another woman’s weans while he fucked every bastarding thing that sat in the back of his taxi. But it didn’t seem right to admit this. “He’s on night shift. Making money for our holidays.”

The break bell went, and Father Barry came out to line up the playing children. Gerbil reached his hand through the fence, his long fingers snatching at Shuggie’s doll. Francis gurgled like a happy baby and joined in the game till they were both grabbing wildly. Shuggie stepped back into the shade of the horse chestnut tree. “I’m telling Father Barry on ye! Ye should be in school,” they screamed.

Clutching Daphne to his chest, Shuggie turned on his heels and ran away as quickly as he could. He was out of breath by the time he came across the Miners Club, but he could still hear the McAvennie boys calling out for Father Barry.

The club was run-down and empty-looking. Shuggie pulled himself up and hung from the bars on the windows. Then he idled around the forecourt, where spent lager kegs bled out puddles of flat ale. The dirty lager mixed with petrol and made lochans of shining rainbows. Shuggie knelt down and pushed Daphne’s blond hair into the iridescent puddle. When he took her out, the shiny yellow hair had turned the colour of night, and he tutted. Where were the beautiful rainbow colours? He pushed her down again and held her under the surface longer this time. Her eyes automatically closed, like she was sleeping, but she was smiling so he knew she was OK. When he lifted the doll out of the puddle, the black liquid rolled off her face and down on to her white woollen dress. Her cheap yellow hair had turned matte black. He stared at it and realized that for a minute he had forgotten about his mother. Daphne smelled funny.

For a while he weaved in and out of the lager puddles. He peered out on to the road, and when he was absolutely sure Father Barry was not looking for him he darted across the road and into the mouth of a wooded lane he had not seen before. The lane backed a row of older-looking miners’ cottages that were joined at the back with a communal garden. At the near edge of the garden sat a large brick bin shed. It was flat and rectangular, with no windows and a dark opening, where a painted green door now hung open and broken. At the side of the bin shed lay a washing machine, the kind used in hospitals or government buildings, solid and big as a wardrobe. It was too heavy for the bin men to take away, so it lay rusting next to the shed, and fat lazy flies dipped in and out of its shadow.

Inside the machine sat a boy, with his legs above his head, curled around the drum like a broken-backed cat. “Want a spin in my carnival ride?”

Shuggie was startled to find him in there.

The boy swung inside the drum and rocked in semicircles, in one second his feet were above his head, the next his head were above his feet. “Look, it’s dead fun!” he coaxed.

Shuggie held Daphne out to him and offered her up for first go. The boy uncurled from inside the drum, pushing out his long brown legs, like a spider through a keyhole. He arched his body out backwards; straightening, he was almost as tall as the metal machine. He was a good year older than Shuggie, at least eight or nine, starting the long stretch already.

“Hiya. Ma name’s Johnny. Ma maw calls us Bonny Johnny.” he said with a tight smile. “It’s supposed to be like a wrestler’s name, but I think it’s pure shite.” He slapped his own forearm like the wrestlers on television did before a fight. He chopped at the empty air. “Whit’s your name, wee man?”

“Hugh Bain,” he said in a shy voice. “Shuggie.”

The boy was watching him, peering through half-lidded eyes the same way Shuggie had seen the miners’ children squint when he raised his hand in class. It was a blend of disbelief and disdain. He had often seen his granny look at his father this way. Shuggie turned his left kneecap inwards.

Then Johnny smiled. His face changed so quickly it made Shuggie take a step back. It was like a flick of a light switch, and his face brightened like a bare bulb in an empty room.

“Is that a dolly ye’ve got, Shuggie?” The boy was using his name like he had known him a long while. Without waiting for an answer he added, “Are ye a wee girl?” He stepped into the long grass, flattening it as he came.

Shuggie shook his head again.

“If ye’re no’ a wee girl then ye must be a wee poof.” He tightened his smile. His voice was low and sweet, like he was talking to a puppy. “Ye’re no’ a wee poof, are ye?”

Shuggie didn’t know what a poof was, but he knew it was bad. Catherine called Leek it when she wanted to hurt his feelings.

“Do ye no’ know what a poofter is, wee man? A poof is a boy who does dirty things with other boys.” Johnny was up against Shuggie now, nearly double his height. “A poof is a boy who wants to be a wee girl.”

Bonny Johnny was a dirty white colour, like he had been steeped in tea. He had sepia skin and honey-coloured hair and eyes like amber lager. When Johnny smiled he had all his big boy teeth already. Shuggie worried the gap in his own smile with his tongue. Johnny snatched the doll from him and tossed her into the drum. “See! She wants a ride.”

Johnny pressed himself into Shuggie’s back, put his arms around his waist and lifted him up into the mouth of the machine. Shuggie climbed up into the drum, and he felt a helping hand give him a final push as he tumbled in. Clutching Daphne, he looked back out into the daylight, his bare legs chilled by the cold metal.

Johnny grabbed a raised ridge inside the drum and moved it slowly from left to right, rocking it as gently as a baby’s crib. Shuggie fell over and scrambled for ballast against the swinging, he tensed all his muscles and bared his teeth, like a scared cat. Daphne slid away, clanging around the cylinder.

Johnny kept on rocking gently. “See it’s no’ that bad, is it?”

The motion came to remind Shuggie of the pirate ship ride that sat outside his grandfather’s favourite bakery. He gurgled with involuntary laughter.

“Haud on,” said Johnny. He gripped the metal ridge tighter, and bracing his body against the machine for purchase, he rocked it harder. Shuggie’s head and knees travelled in semicircles as Daphne hit the roof. The muscles on Johnny’s neck stood out as he pulled the drum round with all his might. Shuggie spun head over heels. He spun over and over, again and again, his head cracking on the metal paddles, his foot hitting him square in the back.

The drum slowed and Shuggie crashed into an upside-down heap. A thick arm grabbed one of the metal bars and stopped the centrifuge. A siren wail rose in Shuggie as the pain shot down through his crown, his split knee, and his bruised shins. From behind his waterfall of tears he could see a large hand come down again and again on Johnny’s head, the boy ducking for cover to protect his face. The attacker was too tall for Shuggie to see a face, just the angry lashings of a tattooed arm, slapping the boy’s bare neck and shoulders.

“Whit in the name of the wee man have ah telt ye about playing with that fuckin’ washin’ machine?” scolded the headless torso. With his fat thumb, the man jabbed towards the drum. “Get. That. The fuck out of there, afore ah really gie ye something to greet about.”

As swiftly as the figure had arrived, it disappeared again. Johnny stood in the opening looking like a battered dog. His smile was gone, his ears were pinned down. He reached in and plucked Shuggie out of the drum. “Listen. Ye stop that greetin’, or I’ll gie you something to greet about.”

Out of the drum the daylight was almost blinding. The pain in his head stole the colour from his sight.

Johnny looked the boy up and down. There was blood on Shuggie’s leg from where the metal had burst the skin, and bruises were already showing on his arms and legs. Johnny whipped him around the corner through the black flies and into the cool darkness of the bin shed. It smelt sour as curdled yoghurt.

In the dark, Johnny spat on his hand and rubbed it over the boy’s wet face and then down the length of his bloody leg. It made everything worse. The blood became a spittle wash, smearing further instead of wiping away. The boy grew panicked, his eyes wide in fear. He ripped a handful of large green docken leaves out of the dirt and scraped them up and down Shuggie’s leg. He scrubbed until the blood lifted off and was replaced by a thick trail of mushed green plant mucus. The chlorophyll stung the cut. Shuggie started to girn again.

“Haud still you poofy wee bastard.” All the tones of his earlier friendliness were gone. Shuggie could see his father’s red hand marks blooming across Johnny’s sepia skin.

It was quiet in the bin shed but for the buzz of fat bluebottles. Johnny rubbed and rubbed the little boy’s leg until his breathing calmed. His rubbing turned Shuggie from white to red to a deep green. As the panic left Johnny’s eyes, slowly the fake smile returned to his tanned face. It was very dark in the bin shed.

Bonny Johnny stood up again, a wiry silhouette against the bright daylight. He handed Shuggie the pulped green leaves and then he took down his gym shorts. “Stop girning,” he said, through his big boy teeth. “Now you rub me.”

By the time Shuggie had limped back to the Miners Club the sun had nearly dried up the rainbow puddles. He’d left Daphne in the machine. He didn’t ever want to go back.

As he climbed the stairs to the hallway he could hear her on the phone. “Fuck you, Joanie Micklewhite. You tell that whoremastering son of a Proddy bitch that he cannot have his cake and eat it too!” Each filthy syllable was enunciated with the alarming clarity of the Queen’s English. “You shitty, dick-sucking bastard. You are as plain and tasteless as the arse end of a white loaf.” The receiver went down with a clang, and the bells tinkled with the impact.

Shuggie reached the end of the hallway and turned the corner. His mother sat cross-legged at the little telephone table with the mug on her knee. She looked at him like he had risen from the carpet itself. She didn’t notice his missing tooth or the leg, stained with blood and spit and docken.

Plastered on her face was the glassy grimace that came from under the kitchen sink. She took her earring and threw it across the room before she picked up the phone again. “Now I’m in a mood to tell your granny where to fucking go.”

The house was only a stone’s throw from the bus stop, but Leek walked home very slowly. His legs were heavy from the day’s graft on the Youth Training Scheme, his insides heavy with the dread of what might lie at home. He only hoped for a peaceful hour so he could draw, but it had been a year free of peace since they had moved to the Pit.

He knew Catherine would not come home again tonight. She was getting adept at sneaking around under Agnes’s nose, holding her secret life with Donald Jnr away from their disintegrating mother. Instead, Catherine blamed her boss for all manner of slave-driving and told Agnes she would be late at the office and would need to stay at her granny’s. Leek saw how his mother worried over money, how she worshipped Catherine’s weekly pittance, and so she said nothing. Leek knew Catherine really was at Donald Jnr’s, lying on the blowup mattress in his mother’s spare room and trying to keep her hand locked over her modesty until Donald finally married her. After all his years of practice, Leek was angry that it was Catherine who was disappearing first.

It was still daylight, but there were harsh lights on in every room, and the curtains lay open in a shameful way. It was a very bad sign. In the front room Shuggie was idling between the net curtain and the glass. His palms and nose were pressed flat against the window, he was rocking his head back and forth in a soothing way, and no one was telling him to stop. When he saw his brother he mouthed Leek and left a grease smear on the glass.

The net curtains fluttered to life. A shadow fell across the window, and Agnes appeared behind her youngest. Leek raised his hand in a half wave and put his other on the gate in a gesture that said he was coming home. Agnes smiled out at him, the too-toothy grimace that telegraphed a thousand messages. Her eyes seemed dull to him, unfixed, and instantly he knew she was gone.

She disappeared again, back to the telephone table, back to the drink.

Leek picked up his tool bag and turned away from the house. There was an insistent chink-chink on the glass. Shuggie’s lips were wide as he overenunciated dramatically: Where. Are. You. Going?

Leek mouthed silently, To Granny’s.

Shuggie tried to steady his lips. Can. I. Come?

No. It’s too far. I can’t carry you.

What he never told Shuggie was that he had once found his real father’s address. Brendan McGowan. It was there, in Agnes’s phone book, circled in many different colours and thicknesses of ink, as if she had gone back to it, again and again, over the years. Leek had walked to this address the winter before and had sat on the wall opposite the broad Victorian tenement. He’d watched a man come home from work, a man he didn’t recognize, but who shared the same tired stoop. A man with eyes of the same light grey. The man parked his car in front of the building and then walked past Leek on the street with nothing more than a polite nod.

As the door opened, three small faces had raced down the close to greet him. Leek had watched the happy, rowdy family sit and eat at a dining table pressed against the front window. He’d watched them talk over the top of each other, the children standing defiantly upright on the dining chairs as the man laughed at their excitement. Leek had watched for a long time before he folded the address and dropped it between the slats of a storm drain.

Leek picked up his tool bag and headed out of Pithead. He turned his back to Shuggie and dared not look again at the pleading face in the window. It was going to rain and it would be a long walk to Sighthill. He was tired, he had been tired for a long time now. All he wanted was a rest.