In Shuggie Bain, black cabs (known as “hackney cabs”) function as a symbol of abandonment and abuse. They are most strongly linked to Shug’s character. His nightshift driving the cab allows him to cheat on Agnes, and his cab is also the vehicle he uses to finally leave her behind. Even after Shug abandons Agnes and their children, cabs and their negative connotations remain a motif in the story. In the throes of her alcoholism, Agnes regularly calls cabs and leaves without saying where she is going. Whenever her children see one approaching or leaving, they know that their mother has temporarily abandoned them. In more than one of these instances, Agnes is assaulted by the driver while she is inebriated. Shuggie also endures sexual abuse at the hands of a cabbie, who takes advantage of his vulnerable state when he rides into Glasgow alone in search of his mother. Agnes later dates another cab driver, Eugene, who eventually leaves her as well, but not until he pressures her to break her sobriety after a year. Drunk once again, Agnes comes home in Eugene’s wildly swerving cab—Leek and Shuggie both know as soon as the couple arrive that things have turned dark once again. Similarly, when Agnes’s drinking and paranoia later lead her to kick her sons out of her house, it is the familiar ill omen of a black cab that greets them at the door. Cabs themselves therefore symbolically represent the feelings of fear and anxiety that Shuggie himself faces on a daily basis.
Black Cabs Quotes in Shuggie Bain
“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?”
“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?”
“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.”
“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.”
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?”
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.
Black Cabs Symbol Timeline in Shuggie Bain
