Shuggie tried to calm himself as he smoothed his hand over the mismatched sheets. He thought how his mother would have hated these bedclothes, the off colours and patterns, layered one upon the other as if he didn’t care what people would think. This mess would have hurt her pride. Someday he would save some money and buy new sheets of his own, soft and warm and all the same color.
His armpit was dusted in a fine lint, like baby duck feathers. He brought his nose to it; it smelled sweet and clean and of nothing at all. He pinched the skin and squeezed, milking the soft flesh till it flushed red with frustration; he sniffed his fingers again, nothing. Scrubbing at himself harder now, he repeated under his breath, “The Scottish Football League Results. Gers won 22, drew 14, lost 8, 58 points total. Aberdeen won 17, drew 21, lost 6, 55 points total. Motherwell won 14, drew 12, lost 10.”
Her own adult teeth had come in small and crooked…At fifteen she begged Lizzie to let her have them all taken out. The discomfort of the false teeth was nothing when compared to the movie star smile she thought they must give her. Each tooth was broad and even and as straight as Elizabeth Taylor’s. Agnes sucked at her porcelain. Now here they were, every Friday night, these same women playing cards in her mammy’s front room.
He was a selfish animal, she knew that now in a dirty, sexual way that aroused her against her better nature…Big Shug Bain had seemed so shiny in comparison to the Catholic. He had been vain in the way only Protestants were allowed to be, conspicuous with his shallow wealth, flushed pink with gluttony and waste.
Lizzie had always known. When Agnes had shown up on the doorstep with her two eldest and the Protestant Taxi driver, she had had the instant compulsion to shut the door, but Wullie would not let her…They said it was wrong, to marry between the faiths, to marry outside the Chapel.
With his free hand he gripped her thighs and tried to pull the dead weight of them apart. There was no giving. The lock was tight. He dug his fingers into the soft tops of her legs, digging the nails in until he felt the skin burst, until he felt her ankles open.
He pushed into her as she wept. There was no drink in her now. There was no fight in her any more. When he was done he put his face against her neck. He told her he would take her dancing in the lights again tomorrow.
Shuggie lifted her lager can. He put it to his lips like it was a magical power juice. The bitter oaty flavor made him flinch, the way it tasted like fizzy ginger, milk, and porridge all at the same time. He danced for her, stepping side to side and clicking his fingers and missing every beat. When she laughed, he danced harder.
Agnes used her free arm and pulled him tighter toward her. “Shhh. Now be a big boy for your mammy.” There was a dead calmness in her eyes.
The room turned golden. The flames climbed the synthetic curtains and started rushing towards the ceiling. Dark smoke raced up as though fleeing from the greedy fire. He would have been scared, but his mother seemed completely calm, and the room was never more beautiful…Agnes clung to him, and together they watched all this new beauty in silence.
“If you cannae make Shug do right by you, at least make him do right by the boy.” Lizzie narrowed her eyes at her grandson, at his blond dolly. “You’ll be needing that nipped in the bud. It’s no right.”
“You three keep your mouths shut,” she hissed. She lowered her head into the cavernous bag and tilted it slightly to her face. The children watched the muscles in her throat pulse as she took several long slugs from the can of warm lager she had hidden there. Agnes drew her head from the bag; the lager had washed the lipstick off her top lip, and she blinked once, very slowly, under the layers of wasted mascara.
“What a shithole,” she slurred. “And to think I dressed up nice for this?”
“Aye, ah took ye for a drinker.” She drew on her fag. “Aye, the minute ah saw ye, ah spotted it. They thought you were the big I Am, all done up in sequins, like some big dolly bird from the city. But ah could see through it. Ah could see the sadness, and ah knew ye had to be a big drinker.”
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.”
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…Leek picked up his tool bag and turned away from the house.
“Well, first, never say common again. Wee boys shouldn’t talk like old women.” Leek hauched a wad of phlegm. “And you should try to watch how you walk. Try not to be so swishy. It only puts a target on your back…Don’t cross your legs when you walk. Try and make room for your cock.”
“I can manage. I can fetch messages and make sure she goes to bed on time. Besides, Sister Nurse. You never answered my question. My mother told me that my grandaddy would be going to heaven soon, and I wanted to know if he had to get a bus or if we could take him in a black hackney?”
…“Och, son. It disnae really work like that. They don’t leave on a bus…when a person goes to heaven they don’t take their bodies wi’ them.”
…“So if your body doesn’t go to heaven, it doesn’t matter if another boy did something bad to it in a bin shed, right?”
Agnes pushed out her bright lipstick and drew it across her mother’s thin lips. Rubbing a little on her thumb she smoothed it into her gaunt cheeks as rouge…“There, you look better for a little life in your cheeks.” The words stuck in her throat.
“That one is practically on call for the Greater Glasgow Taxi Livery.”
Agnes felt the sting of the words push into the bruises on her body. She lifted her mug anyway and nodded a sad acceptance of the award.
Jinty pulled the plastic bag from between her small feet and added, cruelly, “If you’re not a taxi driver, then this one’s not interested.”
Every small detail of the house told of what lay within. This evening the curtains were drawn tight against the cold and the lamps were on. His stomach lifted in hope. Shuggie opened the front door a crack, just enough so he could hear the hum of the house. He knew what to listen for.
“Well, you get a little bit stronger every day, but the drink is always there waiting. Doesn’t matter if you walk or run away from it, it’s still just right behind you, like a shadow. The trick is not to forget.”
…“I bet ye can master it,” he said plainly.
She looked up at him. “That’s why going to the meetings is important. You’ll never master it.”
…“Just wish I could have one with you. To feel normal.”
Agnes whirled as though dancing with an imaginary partner. “Get your wee arse outside and dance with your mother,” she called too loudly, her voice bounding off the miners’ houses.
Inside, in the shade of the cool bedroom, Shuggie scowled on the edge of his bed…He had never been embarrassed by the sober her before. It was a new and unwelcome feeling.
He was enjoying her attention. Something inside him flowered, and he started popping his body like he’d seen the black boys on telly do. They self-consciousness left him, and he spun and shimmied and shook in all the telly ways. He was mid Cats leap when he let out a sharp scream. It was high-pitched and womanly…Across the street, in the window of their front room, stood the McAvennies. They pressed again the large glass window, and they were gutting themselves with laughter.
…“If I were you, I would keep dancing.”
“I can’t.” The tears were coming.
“You know they only win if you let them…Just hold you head high and Gie. It. Laldy.”
…Shuggie looked at her now and understood this was where she excelled. Everyday with the make-up on and her hair done, she climbed out of her grave and held her head high.
…It was hard to keep moving again, to feel the music, to go to that other place in your head where you keep your confidence…But it was in him, and as it poured out, he found he was helpless to stop it.
She was so sure she was smiling up at Leek, so she didn’t know why her son would be so angry, why he was screaming down at her. All she understood was, he was hitting Eugene square in his thick neck with his fists. All she remembered was that another bedroom door opened, and there in the doorway was the little boy with the worried face of his own granny. His face was wet with disappointment. The front of his pyjamas was dark through with piss.
With a slow hand, he pulled the back of Shuggie’s shirt from his tweed trousers and insidiously pushed his fat warm fingers down the back of Shuggie’s underpants. Without looking, Shuggie could tell the man was still smiling at him.
“Aye, you’re a funny wee fella, aren’t ye?”
She strutted out a confident rhythmic clip and turned her head and said to the boy, “What would you like for dinner tonight?”
Shuggie looked up at his mother and did as he had been taught. “Roast chicken, please. I’m a bit tired of sirloin every other night.”
…The women said nothing as she passed, but she felt them draw their eyes over the coat, over the shoes and hair.
“Ye come here to our wee scheme thinking yer some kind of big I Am. Walking around thinking yeese are better than the rest of us, with yer hairspray and yer handbag there…Ye and that funny wee boy try and rub oor noses in it, and the whole time yeese are lying in yer own piss and fucking other wummin’s men.”
“Listen tae that voice!...Er, posh boy. Whaur did ye get that fuckin’ accent? Are ye a wee ballet dancer, or whit?”
This went down the best of all. It was a divine inspiration to the others. “Gies a wee dance!” they squealed with laugher. “Twirl for us, ye wee bender!”
Shuggie sat there listening to them amuse themselves. He took the red football book and dropped it into the desk drawer of this strange school desk. He was glad, at least, to be done with that. It was clear now: nobody would get to be made brand new.
Leek looked down at the white plastic shopping bag in his arms and undid the knotted mouth. Shuggie watched his shoulders rise behind his ears. Whatever it was, it had turned Leek’s anger into concern; it had scared him almost. Leek put his hand inside and slowly drew out the tan-coloured plastic with its looping spiral tail. “I don’t think this is a good sign.”
It was the telephone from his mother’s house.
It was an end to all contact, a sign she would hurt herself and this time she would not call for help—not to Leek’s gaffer nor to Shug nor to Shuggie. The tinned custard wasn’t a fuck-you to ungrateful sons. She was making sure her baby was fed, and now she was saying goodbye.
Her face changed then the worry fell away, and at last she looked at peace, softly carried away, deep in the drink.
It was too late to do something now.
…Shuggie arranged her hair as best he could. He tried to cover the brazen whiteness of roots, to arrange it just the way she liked to wear it. He unwrapped her dentures again and gently placed them back inside her mouth. Then, taking the toilet paper, he wiped the sick from her chin and pulled fresh paint across her lips, taking care to push the colour into the corners and stay neatly within the lines. He stood back and dried his eyes. She looked like she was only sleeping. Then he bent over and kissed her one last time.
“You know, hearing about your Calum did make me wish we could go up the dancin’ one time?”
Leanne was still swinging the dirty bag, and now she howled with laughter. It was so loud, so vibrant, it made the videocassette jakeys jump with fright. “Ha! You? Get to fuck wi’ those poncey school shoes,” she squealed. “There is no way Shuggie Bain can dance!”
Shuggie tutted. He wrenched himself from her side and ran a few paces ahead. He nodded, all gallus, and spun, just the once, on his polished shoes.
