school photos 16

Sitting in the chair, which was squashed in beside my bed, the auxiliary nurse mopped under my big feet. I tried to make myself as small as possible, and keep dancing out of her way. I’d  dressed for breakfast, my denims dank smelling as mushroom fungi, damp on my legs.  A discarded Glasgow Herald broadsheet hid my face from the other patients. I peeked out from behind it as I turned the Sports’ pages. Nobody was taking any notice of me, which made me feel better. The matron paraded through the door and into our bay, the student nurse a step behind her managed a scattergun look that included everyone, but missed me.

 ‘I’m leaving,’ I told the matron, when she turned her head in my direction.

            ‘Yes. I know.’ The matron walked round the bed and tugged the curtain that separated my bed from Doris’s.  ‘I’ve already arranged for you to be moved to Level 4, Men’s General Medical.’ She took a deep breathe, the upside-down numbers timepiece on her chest heaved time up and down, before continuing, ‘where you should have been in the first place’.    

            I folded the newspaper and placed it between the plastic beaker and glass quarter-filled with tepid water on top of the bedside unit. She’d misunderstood. ‘Nah, Ah’m no’ goin’ to Level 4. Ah’m leavin’ the hospital.’  

            Her mouth worked like wasps buzzing their way out of a packet of pickled-onion crisps. ‘But you’ve still to get your ECG!’

A shake of my head that it didn’t matter, infuriated her even more. The student nurse looked on the verge of making a decision to smirk. The matron glanced at her sideways, gathered in her expression and spoke in a monotone. ‘Fine. You’re an adult. I’ll just get the forms for you to sign. I watched her broad back leaving and the student nurse trotting behind her.

Outside the wind blew, there was a nip in the air, but it was a cloudless blue sky and my stride lengthened. I followed the short leash of perimeter road, leaving behind the antiseptic enclosed world of concrete and glass for traffic fumes, busy roads, wide pavements and hurrying pedestrians who don’t give me a second look. I’d no money in my pockets and it was a couple of mile walk, a straight road home.

I got to Partick station. Crossing over Dumbarton Road, I decided to jump on the next train to Dalmuir. Speed-walking through the station, avoiding the eyes of the staff behind the Perspex screen, and up onto the safety of the railway platform was a familiar game. The Balloch train, when it came a few minutes later, was dotted with passengers. I got a window seat. At every station as the train slowed I scanned the commuters right and left of the platform for a ticket inspector. My luck had turned for the better. None got on. I prowled up and down the aisles in the smoking compartment until I saw what I was looking for—a used return stub. At Dalmuir station a bottleneck of passengers stood waiting for the guard to take their tickets. I sloped in among the crowd, handed him my stub, hurrying past, brushing against a man in a gabardine coat, and took the stairs outside the station two at a time. It was a short five-minute walk from the station to my house.

I was later than normal, my head wrapped up in thoughts of whether Lily would be waiting for me. The weather had held. There was no heavy rain, no snow and no reason why she couldn’t walk the last stretch of road down to the school herself.   I trotted up the Cressie stairs, taking me onto Duntocher Road, but I also felt after what Mum had said about Ally and Lily, the lost little girl might not be there for a different reason. The rules, even though I didn’t understand them, had been changed. Lily might be waiting for me, waiting for us, in my house. I dabbed my forehead, blessing myself, as I passed the front entrance of St Stephen’s church. Down the street the Police Panda car was parked near the school gates. Up ahead on the hill, whatever sunshine there was had faded, Lily was scuffing one shiny black shoe off the toe of the other, waiting for me.

I cut across the road to meet her and she ran down the brow of the hill shouting ‘Wehhhh’. I couldn’t help chuckling as she bumped into me clutching my legs.

‘Sorry Ah’m late.’ I slapped and rubbed her arm through the blazer.

‘T’is ok.’ She thrust her little hand into mine and tugged me towards the junction of the road and the school. I pretended she was too strong and she’d pulled me off my feet and staggered forward, beside her.

We stood on the edge of the pavement and looked left and right with exaggerated care and crossed the road, swinging and looping our arms up into the air. I hadn’t noticed before, but her hair was different, in little pink-banded pigtails and not a barrette.

‘Lily…’

I was going to ask her about this, but the doors in the police car clicked open and thwacked shut. The two cops that had beaten me up stood leaning against the car as if they were on home base.

‘Bad men,’ said Lily in a solemn voice, biting her lips.

I nodded, but kept a hold of her hand, but walked a little slower. ‘You’ll need to run very fast. No other kids are in the playground. But it’s ok, cause they can’t see you.’

She shivered and looked up at me, whether it was from the sudden gust of wind that sprung up behind us, the policemen waiting for us, or the realisation that I understood not everybody could see her, I wasn’t sure. I stopped and dragged at her hand so she stopped too.

‘You don’t have to go to school. You’re late. I could take you home. Where is it you live again?’

She scrutinised my face and her eyebrows arched down into a frown as she considered this for what seemed the longest time. She shook her head and tightened her eyes in a way that showed that wasn’t a possibility. The lightest touch of her little fingers in mine, urging me forward, made me fall into line, into baby steps beside her.

The fat cop that Da had punched still had a purple shiner. I knew he was the one to watch. Da and me still had to appear at court for that one, but I knew this was payback time.    The other cop that Da called a ‘lanky drip of pish’ was more of a follower and had taken a bang to the nose, but it no longer showed. He strode up towards us and made a grab at my arm. I shortened my shoulder and shrugged him off.

‘Run Lily run,’ I shouted.   

She ran as fast as her little legs could carry her. I felt my arm wrenched and my head ducked down so I could no longer see her. I expected punches and kicks, but was simply pulled towards the waiting car. The fat cop even put his hand on the crown of my head, so I wouldn’t bump it and damage the door  frame, as he shoved me into the back seats. I settled in the back and looked out the window like an old hand. We passed the white garages and boxed houses of the Holy City on Second Avenue. It was a journey I’d become familiar with, but instead of taking a right down Kilbowie Road towards the police station at Hall Street. The siren was put on. Lights flashed. Cars and vans pulled into the side of the road. We took a left up the hill. I’d no idea where they were taking me.