Poking Seaweed with a Stick and Running Away from the Smell Read online

  Then one morning before our milk break Mrs Cameron told us to behave ourselves, that she had something important to tell us and that important thing was that Fiona had a brain tumour. Timmy Strachan put his hand up and asked Mrs Cameron what a brain tumour was and so she told us. That’s when all of us wished Timmy Strachan would just sit on his arse and mind his own business. And Mrs Cameron told us the doctor would have to operate on Fiona’s head and that meant they would have to shave her hair off ’cause ‘you can’t have hair in the way when you’re operating inside someone’s head, now can you?’

  Fiona didn’t come to school for a long time after that. Then one day she did come and it was true, her head had been shaved and not only that but she walked slower than before. And when she looked at you her eyes seemed far away, and when she spoke her words came out slow.

  When playtime came around that day all of us let Fiona stand by herself in the playground by the steps at the green painted doors and she watched us all as we ran around and laughed together. As I ran with my best pal Maggie, I saw Fiona pull up the hood of her black duffle coat to keep her shaved head warm and I watched her as she pulled the coat tight around her body to keep the cold lonely air out.

  Life went along like that for Fiona for another two weeks until one morning Fiona didn’t come in through the green painted doors. That was the day Mrs Cameron told us to behave ourselves, that she had something important to tell us and that important thing was that, at only nine years old, Fiona was dead. She said that we should try not to be scared, sometimes terrible things like that just happened to people and nobody knew why and that’s when Timmy Strachan put his hand up and asked Mrs Cameron why God let terrible things like that just happen to little girls at nine years old and again we all wished he would just sit on his arse and mind his own business. Then Mrs Cameron said we should take out ‘The Folk of the Faraway Tree’ from our desks and she started to read where she’d left off the day before, but none of us had the mind for the folk of the faraway tree and their antics, what with Fiona being dead. And when we went into the playground at playtime that day none of us ran and none of us laughed and all of us stood by the steps at the green painted doors and thought about Fiona. I thought about that day I saw her standing by herself in the very spot I was standing in now and I remembered her pulling up the hood of her black duffle coat to keep her shaved head warm and then pulling her coat tight around her body to keep the cold lonely air out. And that’s when I pulled up my own hood and my own black duffle coat tight around my body and I hoped that I’d never catch a brain tumour and die like that too.

  7

  Let’s all go to the Clyde

  We used to get singing lessons at school and Miss Bright was our singing teacher. She looked like she was 95 years old and she wore aqua-blue eyeshadow and peachy-pink face powder and at three o’clock every Tuesday afternoon she would get out the tape recorder to play cassettes of recorded singing lessons called ‘Singing Together’. The singers on the tape would sing lines from songs then leave a gap and we had to learn the songs and fill in the gaps when the singers stopped singing.

  Miss Bright had been trained in classical music and she said when she was younger she could sing in any number of languages you care to mention. She was always going on about how we should all be learning to speak another language, when all we wanted to do was fill in the gaps on the cassette and go home.

  One Tuesday afternoon Miss Bright asked if anybody could name another language apart from English and that’s when Martin Sedgeworth said he knew another language and that that language was swearing and Miss Bright took the chalk from her desk and turned to the board and wrote ‘Swedish’ in big writing. Everybody laughed and Miss Bright, well, she wanted to know what was so funny and none of us dared tell her that Martin Sedgeworth had said ‘swearing’ and not ‘Swedish’ and Martin Sedgeworth was the hero of the day. Me, I got butterflies in my stomach ’cause I knew that French was another language but I didn’t dare say anything in case everybody laughed at me too, so I just stayed silent and Miss Bright put the cassette on again and we filled in the gaps and eventually the bell rang and we all went home.

  The following Tuesday, Miss Bright gave us a song-writing competition for our homework and I got nervous wondering how I was ever going to write a song and what if you had to sing it out in front of the class if you won? The song had to be about the River Clyde, which flowed all the way from Greenock to Lanark and we had to have it done by the next Tuesday at three o’clock. I was in a right state but my pal, Maggie, she got her mum to write her a brilliant song about the Clyde being magical and winding and in line two she said its name would live forever in the hearts of many. When I read that, I knew that my song was rubbish and that it would be Maggie’s mum and not me who would win the competition.

  The Monday before we had to hand in our homework I read my song over and over again and I was embarrassed to put it in the same pile as Maggie’s mum’s, what with her big words and fancy suggestions, and my song went like this:

  Let’s all go to the Clyde,

  Let’s all go today,

  Let’s all go to the Clyde,

  F-o-r a hol-i-day.

  But homework’s homework and if you don’t put it on the teacher’s desk when you’re supposed to, then you can find yourself in a world of shite and so I put it there, on the pile with the other’s, including Maggie’s mum’s, then I sat back in my chair again and Miss Bright put the cassette on and we filled in the gaps until the bell rang and we all went home.

  The next Tuesday Miss Bright said she had chosen a winner and I looked at Maggie and she looked at me and we both knew that hers would win. In the excitement a fight broke out between Timmy Strachan and Geraldine Cochrane who were fighting about whose song was the best and Miss Bright stepped in and said she’d never stand for anything like that in her classroom: if they didn’t sit down and behave themselves then she wouldn’t announce the winner for another week. So Timmy and Geraldine sat down and Miss Bright stood at the front of the class and put on her half-moon reading spectacles and cleared her throat.

  ‘Now, children,’ she said, peering at us over the rim of her spectacles. ‘This was not an easy competition to judge, but I have come to a decision and when I announce the winner it is final and I don’t want to hear one word out of any of you. Do you understand?’

  Everybody in the class nodded their heads and that meant they understood. And then she announced the winner. And she said that the winner was me. And I didn’t know where to look and Maggie turned from her seat at the front and threw me a dirty look and I thought her mum’s should have won too, what with all those big words and fancy suggestions. I looked at Miss Bright and she told me to come to the front of the class when all I wanted to do was die and when I got to the front of the class I stared at my shoes and Miss Bright wrote the words to my song on the blackboard in big writing and then she made up a tune to my song and played it on the piano and sang my song out loud and that’s when I noticed my shoelace was undone and I bent down and tied it straightaway.

  Then Miss Bright said she was going to play my song again only this time she’d only sing one line and, when she stopped, the class had to fill in the gap with the next line. And so she sang a line and when she stopped the class read the next line from the blackboard and then they sang it out loud. But I didn’t need to look at the blackboard, ’cause I already knew the words.

  It was my song.

  8

  The one about my da being quite musical

  My da’s da was a farmer and when my da was a wee boy he would get up at three o’clock every morning to muck out the byre before he went to school and if he didn’t do it properly then his da would take the brush shaft and break it over his back to teach him a lesson he’d never forget. My da got the brush shaft regularly and not because he hadn’t done a good-enough job but just because his da was angry, about nothing in particular really, and when you’re angry like that it makes you do
cruel things like break brush shafts over wee boys’ backs. My da’s da was a cruel old man and it’s no wonder my da grew into a cruel old man too.

  My da’s school was seven miles away and he walked there and back every day through fields and down dirt tracks and sometimes when he got to Billy Coyle’s field he’d stop and pull up a turnip to break his fast. Billy never minded my da doing that, Christ, he only grew the turnips to feed the cows and the sheep through the winter anyway and sure Billy did the same thing himself when he was a wee boy walking to the same school my da was walking to now.

  By the time my da got to school he’d already be tired from mucking out the byre and the seven-mile hike and maybe that’s why he hated school so much, but he was good at arithmetic and music and he dreamed that one day he’d join the school choir. On Tuesdays, after school, he used to hang back in the playground under the open window of the music room and listen to the choir rehearse and if he knew the words he’d sing along. My da loved it when the choir sang ‘Ave Maria’ but he didn’t know the words so he made them up as he went along and when he mucked out the byre in the mornings he’d sing his own version of ‘Ave Maria’ and the cows didn’t seem to mind. And those Tuesday nights my da hung back in the playground under the open window made him late back to the farm for the afternoon milking and when he finally did get home his da would get the brush shaft out and, before he knew it, my da was nursing a sore back again.

  He got the brush shaft so often for being late home on Tuesdays, that he came to associate music with pain. Later on when he was a grown man and drinking hard, he’d sing and it hurt him and he’d sing sad songs about falling to pieces with Patsy Cline on the radio and his heart was left with an emptiness that he’d fill up again with whisky night after night. Singing and drinking and pain, they went hand in hand.

  My da was dying to join that choir but he kept it to himself for fear of being called a big Jessie by his six brothers and sisters. Months went by and he was practis­ing and practising in that byre night and day until finally the desire to join the choir became too much and that’s when he decided he was going to go and talk to Mr McCorgill the music teacher if it was the last thing he did. And so he went to the staff room the next morning and knocked on the door. His heart was pounding and his mouth was dry and he was worried Mr McCorgill might ask him to sing something right there on the spot and there he was having to peel his tongue from the roof of his mouth just to speak. The door opened and Mr McCorgill’s huge frame filled the space where the door had been and my da suddenly felt out of his depth in the presence of this great maestro. Mr McCorgill looked at my da standing there with the arse hanging out of his trousers and his elbows poking through the sleeves of his jumper until my da cleared his throat and managed to find his voice and he asked Mr McCorgill if he could join his choir. Mr McCorgill looked down his nose and through his bi-focals at my da and asked him, ‘What’s your name, son?’

  ‘It’s Joe. My name’s Joe.’

  ‘Right, Joe, can you sing?’

  ‘Aye, I can sing right enough, Mr McCorgill. I’ve been practising “Ave Maria” morning and night in the byre with the cows.’

  ‘Right, I see. Well, I’ll have to hear you sing, son. You can come to choir practice next Tuesday at four o’clock after school and we’ll hear what you can do. All right?’

  My da was trembling with the excitement. An appointment with the music teacher at four o’clock the following Tuesday! He couldn’t believe his luck and he let his imagination run away with him and before he knew it he was famous the world over, with his own TV show called Let Big Joe Entertain You. He could see it all now: his name up in lights, women queuing to get his autograph, shiny new suits, one of those ruffle shirts, and maybe a velvet bow tie. The byre and the brush shafts would be tortures of the past. He looked back at the teacher. ‘Thanks, Mr McCorgill, you won’t regret it. I’ll see you next Tuesday then.’

  ‘Okay, son, and before I forget, you have to wear a white shirt to the choir.’

  And my da stood there with the arse hanging out of his trousers and his elbows poking through the sleeves of his jumper and he swallowed hard and salty tears moistened the corners of his eyes.

  ‘But I havenae got a white shirt, Mr McCorgill,’ he said, looking at the floor and shuffling from foot to foot.

  ‘I’m sorry, Joe. Nae white shirt, nae choir. That’s the rules. Can your mother not buy you one, son? I see they have them on special down at O’Donnelly’s haberdashery.’

  ‘No, sir, my mother cannae buy me one. I’ve got six brothers and sisters and we eat turnip for breakfast.’

  ‘Right, I see. Well, just see what you can do, Joe.’

  ‘Aye, I’ll see what I can do, Mr McCorgill.’

  But my da knew that there was nothing he could do and with his heart heavy and his head hung low he headed for home. With his hopes of joining the choir now dashed, the lights in his name went out one by one and not even the thought of the brush shaft across his back for being late could speed him home. As he dragged his body the last few hundred yards in the seven-mile hike he didn’t care if his da battered him to death with that fucking brush shaft.

  A life without singing wasn’t worth living anyway.

  Even though my da never got to join the school choir he’s still a brilliant singer, you can ask anybody. And my brother Andrew’s a talented singer too. I think Andrew took his talent off my da—’cause it’s certainly not off Mum. Mum couldn’t sing to save herself, although she did the backing vocals on one of Andrew’s new songs recently and funnily enough it sounded brilliant. Andrew said it’s amazing what you can do with technology these days.

  My da would have loved to have been a professional singer and to have lived his life on the stage and to have women throw their underpants at him. But none of that ever happened and instead all my da ever knew was getting up early and driving his lorry every day and drinking a bottle of scotch and shouting at us at the end of every night.

  When we were young we dreamed about what it would have been like if my da had been famous and we ­reckoned we’d probably have been the envy of our school and whenever the teacher went around the class asking everybody, ‘And what does your daddy do?’ we’d have stood up and said, ‘Oor da’s an entertainer, Miss.’ And all the other weans in the class would have looked at us in awe and when it came their turn to stand up, all they would have been able to say was, ‘Oor da drives a lorry, Miss,’ or ‘Oor da digs holes in the road, Miss,’ or ‘Oor da disnae have a job, Miss.’

  My da’s favourite singer was Neil Diamond and we loved Neil Diamond too. We used to put on his LP records every day and sing along to them when my da wasn’t home and we’d shut our eyes as we sang and it was just like having Neil Diamond right there in our living room beside us. Sometimes we used to wish that Neil Diamond was our da—and Neil Diamond had that much money, Mum said, sometimes she wished he was our da too.

  My da became well known for miles around for his singing and whenever he went to parties people would say, ‘Come on Joe, gie us a song!’ Only too happy to oblige he’d close his eyes and sing them a Neil Diamond number, sometimes the one that goes on about you being the sun and me being the moon, and everybody at the party would close their eyes too and listen to my da. When he finished everybody would tell my da he was pure brilliant and some would say my da sang the songs better than Neil Diamond himself ever could in a month of Sundays.

  And of course, my da loved to hear praise like that but sometimes it made him sad too and the sadness would set him off dreaming about what could have been and how he never made it to the big time and how he never got to stand on stage wearing a white ruffled shirt and a black velvet bow tie and sometimes Mum said that’s why he drank so much, ’cause he was living a life of regret. Other times she said he drank so much ’cause he was a prick.

  Once, on my da’s birthday, we bought him a white ruffled shirt and a black velvet bow tie and when he saw them his face lit up and he put them on s
traightaway and then he picked up the hairbrush and closed his eyes and sang ‘Cracklin’ Rosie’ and when he got to the chorus, we all sang along with him. And in some ways it made me sad to see my da so happy ’cause I wished I could have seen him happy like that more often.

  And surely seeing your da happy now and again isn’t too much to ask.

  9

  The milk round

  My da didn’t so much want to have children as breed workers.

  Back in the old days when people put their empties out at night with the cat and had their milk delivered in the early hours, my da worked out that there was a way to make money while he slept. So he went out and bought a milk run and we ran it, while he slept.

  Me and Mum and Izzy and Andrew would get up at half past three in the morning without making a sound for fear of waking him and we’d huddle around the gas fire in the kitchen, chittering with the cold and wishing we could go back to bed like normal people. Andrew said his pal John Brown’s mum took him a cup of tea in his bed every morning before school and then Andrew asked Mum why we couldn’t have a life like that and Mum told Andrew to stop moaning and to get outside and see if the diesel had frozen in the milk van or she’d give him a crack in the arse.

  Sometimes if it was cold enough the diesel would freeze and if that happened Andrew would gather up some ­kindling sticks and place them on the ground underneath the fuel tank, then set fire to them and wait for the diesel to defrost. Once it was melted he’d put out the fire and run back inside the house to thaw out his frozen fingers in front of the gas fire.

  We delivered the milk every morning of the week before we went to school and we used to collect the money every Friday night. One Friday night the rain had come on heavy and our feet were squelching in our shoes so Mum stopped in at the fish market and got a couple of empty polystyrene fish boxes and cut insoles out of them to put in our shoes. They helped to keep our feet warmer and a bit drier all right, only our feet stank of smoked haddock for a fortnight.