LITMIR.BIZ

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baby. His mother’s two other babies had been carried in it too. They would have been his big brothers but they’d both died. They would be in Heaven. He wondered if they were older than him now or if they were still babies. He was six years and two weeks old. His Wellington boots were folded down at the top like pirate boots. His socks didn’t reach up quite far enough and the rims of the boots had rubbed red stinging chafemarks round his legs.

      They rounded the corner into their own street and stopped outside the Dairy.

      ‘You wait here son. Ah’ll no be a minnit.’

      Waiting again.

      Out of a close came a big loping longhaired dog. The hair on its legs looked like a cowboy’s baggy trousers. Some boys were chasing it and laughing. All its fur was clogged with dirt and mud.

      His mother came out of the shop with a bottle of milk.

      There was a picture of the same kind of dog in his Wonder Book of the World. It was called an Afghan Hound. But the one in the book looked different. Again the steady creak of the pram. The trampled snow underfoot was already grey and slushy.

      They reached their close and he ran on up ahead. They lived on the top landing and he was out of breath when he reached the door. He leaned over the banister. Down below he could hear his mother bumping the pram up the stairs. Maybe his father was home from the doctor’s.

      He kicked the door.

      ‘O-pen. O-pen.’

      His father opened the door and picked him up.

      ‘H’hey! Where’s yer mammy?’

      ‘She’s jist comin up.’

      His father put him down and went to help her with the pram.

      He went into the kitchen and sat down by the fire.

      Dusty, their cat, jumped down from the sink and slid quietly under the bed. The bed was in a recess opposite the window and the three of them slept there in winter. Although they had a room, the kitchen was easier to keep warm. The room was bigger and was very cold and damp. His father said it would cost too much to keep both the room and the kitchen heated.

      He warmed his hands till they almost hurt. He heard his mother and father coming in. They left the pram in the lobby. His father was talking about the doctor.

      ‘Aye, e gave me a prescription fur another jar a that ointment.’ He had to put the ointment all over his body because his skin was red and flaky and he had scabby patches on his arms and legs. That was why he didn’t have a job. He’d had to give up his trade in the shipyards because it was a dirty job and made his skin disease worse.

      ‘An ah got your pills as well, when ah wis in the chemist’s.’

      His mother had to take pills to help her breathing. At night she had to lie on her back, propped up with pillows.

      ‘Never mind hen. When ah win the pools . . .’

      ‘Whit’ll ye get ME daddy?’ This was one of their favourite conversations.

      ‘Anythin ye like sun.’

      ‘Wull ye get me a pony daddy? Lik an Indian.’

      ‘Ah’ll get ye TWO ponies.’ Laughing. ‘An a wigwam as well!’

      He could see it. He’d ride up to school, right up the stairs and into the classroom and he’d scalp Miss Heather before she could reach for her belt.

      He’d keep the other pony for Annie. She was his friend. She wasn’t his girlfriend. That was soft. She was three weeks older than him and she lived just round the corner. They were in the same class at school. She had long shiny black hair and she always wore bright clean colours. (One night in her back close – showing bums – giggling – they didn’t hear the leerie coming in to light the gas-lamp – deep loud voice somewhere above them – sneering laugh – Annie pulling up her knickers and pulling down her dress in the same movement – scramble into the back – both frightened to go home in case the leerie had told, but he hadn’t.)

      The memory of it made him blush. He ripped off a piece of newspaper and reached up for the toilet key from the nail behind the door where it hung.

      ‘Jist goin t’ the lavvy.’

      From the lobby he heard the toilet being flushed so he waited in the dark until he heard the slam of the toilet door then the flop of Mrs Dolan’s feet on the stairs. The Dolans lived in the single end, the middle door of the three on their landing. The third house, another room and kitchen, was empty for the moment because the Andersons had emigrated to Canada.

      When he heard Mrs Dolan closing the door he stepped out on to the landing and slid down the banister to the stairhead. In the toilet there was only one small window very high up, and he left the door slightly open to let light seep in from the stairhead.

      A pigeon landed on the window-ledge and sat there gurgling and hooing, its feathers ruffled up into a ball. To pull the plug he climbed up on to the seat and swung on the chain, squawking out a Tarzan-call. The pigeon flurried off, scared by the noise, and he dropped from his creeperchain, six inches to the floor.

      He looked out through the stairhead window. Late afternoon. Out across the back and a patch of wasteground, over factory roofs and across a railway line stood Ibrox Stadium. He could see a patch of terracing and the roof of the stand. The pressbox on top looked like a little castle. When Rangers were playing at home you could count the goals and near misses just by listening to the roars. Today there was only a reserve game and the noise could hardly be heard. Soon it would be dark and they’d have to put on the floodlights.

      For tea they had sausages and egg and fried bread. After they’d eaten he sat down in his own chair at the fire with his Wonder Book of the World. The chair was wooden and painted bright blue.

      His father switched on the wireless to listen to the football results and check his pools.

      The picture of the Afghan Hound had been taken in a garden on a sunny day. The dog was running and its coat shone in the sun.

      ‘Four draws,’ said his father. ‘Ach well, maybe next week . . .’

      ‘There’s that dog mammy.’ He held up the book.

      ‘So it is.’

      ‘Funny tae find a dog lik that in Govan,’ said his father.

      ‘Right enough,’ said his mother. ‘Expect some’dy knocked it.’

      Nothing in the book looked like anything he had ever seen. There were pictures of cats but none of them looked like Dusty. They were either black and white or striped and they all looked clean and sleek. Dusty was a grubby grey colour and he spat and scratched if anyone tried to pet him. His mother said he’d been kept too long in the house. There was a section of the book about the weather with pictures of snow crystals that looked like flowers and stars. He thought he’d like to go out and play in the snow and he asked his mother if he could.

      ‘Oh well, jist for a wee while then. Ah’ll tell ye what. If ye come up early enough we kin put up the decorations before ye go tae bed.’

      He’d forgotten about the decorations. It was good to have something special like that to come home for. It was the kind of thing he’d forget about while he was actually playing, then there would be moments when he’d remember, and feel warm and comforted by the thought.

      He decided he’d get Joe and Jim and Annie and they’d build a snowman as big as a midden.

      Joe was having his tea and Jim felt like staying in and Annie’s mother wouldn’t let her out.

      He stood on the pavement outside the paper-shop, peering in through the lighted window at the Christmas annuals and selection boxes. The queue for the evening papers reached right to the door of the shop. The snow on the pavement was packed hard and greybrown, yellow in places under the streetlamps. He scraped at the snow with the inside of his boot, trying to rake up enough to make a snowball,

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