Its Colours They Are Fine - Alan Spence Canons

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and drill. He really went to the Life Boys for the football. NEVER play games on the street. Where else was there to play? Mrs Stone their teacher was always on about keeping them off the streets. She was new at the school and she wanted to organise sports for them. She said it was good for them to be in the Life Boys or the Cubs. Healthy. Shuggie had been in the Cubs once but he’d been put out for stealing a scout-knife and fighting over it in the hall. Now whenever he saw Aleck with his Life Boy uniform he had a good laugh at it. Called him sailor-boy. NEVER follow a ball, hoop or playmate into the street. Playmate was a funny word. He tried to imagine himself using it, calling Shuggie his playmate. The thought made him laugh. I say, playmate!

      ‘Aleck!’ Shuggie’s voice was muffled as if he was shouting from down a hole. He had crawled along under the desks to get at a low cupboard in a far corner of the room. He had no room to crouch or turn. To get out again he would have to crawl backwards. He was kneeling there, hunched, coughing and choking on the dust he’d stirred up.

      ‘Gonnae see if ye kin find a stick or somethin,’ he said.

      Aleck looked around the room. ‘Wid a ruler dae?’ he asked.

      ‘It wid prob’ly brek,’ said Shuggie. ‘Somethin a wee bit heavier.’

      Aleck looked again and this time found a broken pointer. He held up the two bits. ‘Prob’ly cracked ower some’dy’s skull!’ he said.

      ‘Likely enough,’ said Les.

      ‘See if this’ll dae,’ said Aleck, passing the pointed end in to Shuggie.

      ‘Great!’ said Shuggie. He wedged it in at the jamb of the door and tried to prise it open. There was a loud crack as something splintered and broke, and he ducked his head from another shower of dust, and the door flapped back on its hinges.

      When the dust had settled he began scrabbling and groping in the cupboard. Then he let out a yell. ‘Aleck! C’mere an . . . Jesus! Wait tae ye see this!’

      Aleck hurried over, stooping down to peer under the desks as Shuggie came struggling out, backwards, feet first. He was dragging with him a cardboard box. Aleck tried to see what was in it. He could make out some colour, red and white, a streak of yellow. Then Shuggie was out and up on his feet, lifting the box clear, into the light.

      ‘Therr!’ he said, laying it down on the floor.

      Aleck looked and couldn’t believe it. The box was full of football jerseys, the old style, with collars. They had red and white stripes. On top was a goalkeeper’s jersey, yellow. Aleck kneeled down, open-mouthed, bright-eyed. He touched one of the jerseys, softly. It didn’t disappear. It was real. He let out a long slow breath, full of amazement and wonder.

      ‘D’ye think ther’s a full set?’ he said at last, grinning up at Shuggie.

      ‘Mibbe,’ said Shuggie, grinning back. ‘Mon wu’ll count them.’ He began, lifting them out and passing them to Aleck. They handled each one gently, lovingly, fearful in case such a treasure should crumble away.

      ‘Ten,’ said Aleck, ‘an a goalie’s jersey!’

      ‘A whole fuckin team!’ said Shuggie.

      ‘They’ve git numbers an everythin!’ said Aleck, laying them down beside the jotters.

      Shuggie searched through the pile till he found the number nine jersey. He draped it over his shoulders, the sleeves hanging down at the front, then he side-stepped past Les and dribbled the cardboard box across the floor.

      ‘Jist a minnit,’ said Aleck. ‘Whit ur we gonnae dae wi thum?’

      ‘Ah wis thinkin,’ said Shuggie. ‘Listen. Ye know how auld Stoney’s always oan aboot sports an that. Ah think we could get ur tae let us huv a team.’

      ‘God,’ said Aleck. ‘D’ye think she wid?’

      ‘Sure!’ said Shuggie. ‘Wu’ll take thum back up wi us an you kin ask ur.’

      ‘How me?’ said Aleck.

      ‘Och c’mon!’ said Shuggie. ‘She likes you. You’re good at compositions an that. If ah ask ur she’ll tell me tae go an take a running fuck.’

      ‘Jist imagine ur sayin that!’ said Aleck, laughing.

      ‘That’s whit she’d mean aw the same,’ said Shuggie.

      ‘Aw right,’ said Aleck. ‘Ah’ll ask ur. C’mon, we better get back up before ther’s a search-party oot lookin fur us.’

      Shuggie placed the jerseys carefully back in the box.

      ‘Tellt ye we’d find somethin din’t ah!’ he said to Les.

      ‘We better not forget the jotters,’ said Les.

      ‘Ach!’ said Shuggie. ‘Whit did ah tell ye Aleck? Gypsies ur ignorant. Pure fuckin ignorant.’

      ‘So you just happened to find them on a shelf while you were looking for the jotters?’ said Mrs Stone.

      ‘Yes miss!’ said Shuggie and Aleck, together. She didn’t look convinced.

      ‘How did you get yourself so dirty Hugh?’ she asked Shuggie. He had dusted himself down, but he still looked far from clean. Somehow he had managed to smear a lopsided moustache across his upper lip.

      ‘Ther wis a lot a dust ’n tap a the boax miss,’ he said.

      ‘On TOP of the BOX,’ she said. ‘Not on tap of the boax! Some of these days I’ll manage to teach you children some English!’

      But she was glad that the jerseys had been found. And it was agreed, they were to have a team. She would arrange a few friendly games for them with other schools and youth clubs. Then later she would see the headmaster about getting them into the schools league. But first they were to have a trial match. They were to pick two teams, a first and a second. The trial was fixed for the coming Saturday.

      But for now they had to give out the jotters. They had grammar to learn.

      The rest of the afternoon dragged. Aleck kept looking out the high window at the grey sky, dreaming, not really hearing Mrs Stone’s droning voice, wishing they were free so he could talk to the others about the team. He glanced across the passage at Shuggie. Inside the cover of his new jotter, he was drawing a football player, in a striped jersey, with a number nine on the back.

      They were not real gypsies, only people who travelled with the shows, moving from fairground to fairground, all over Scotland and England, and sometimes across to Ireland. But theirs was a wandering life and they lived in caravans, so people called them gypsies or tinkers.

      When they came to Glasgow, they lived on a rise of wasteground, backing on to a railway line, across the road from the school. Here they stayed for two or three months every winter, when the shows were at Kelvin Hall or Glasgow Green.

      The rise of ground had come to be called Gypsy’s Hill. Along the crest of it was a high wooden fence, each section about a foot wide and thick enough to stand on, dark wood, rotted and weathered by the years. The fence ran right round the gypsies’ encampment like a great stockade, enclosing it.

      At the foot of this stockade, Aleck and Shuggie were playing. The ground had frozen over and they had been trying to smooth a part of the slope, taking turns at sliding down it on a makeshift sledge, a chunk of linoleum they’d dragged out of a midden. But now the sun was growing warmer, thawing out the ground. Only the part of the hill in the shadow of the fence remained frozen, hard. There was practically a straight line, the line of the shadow, dividing this part from the rest, already growing soft and muddy.

      Aleck noticed it, the strangeness of it, and pointed it out to Shuggie.

      ‘Weird that, intit,’ he said.

      ‘So it is,’ said Shuggie.

      Neither of them had ever seen the like. The line was so definite, the division so sharp.

      ‘Bet

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