school photos

The little girl went down in the slush, not hard, the way adults do, but in that soft boned sprawling way kids have. She was a cute little thing in her school uniform, the gold threads of the crest of what I took to be the local school, St Stephen’s, poking through the neck of her green anorak. A barrette kept her long hair from sweeping over her forehead as she peered, with clear grey eyes, through the fall of soundless snow in my direction. She got up and slipped again and clung to McIver’s hedge, studying her feet and thick cabled socks that looked as if they’d leave her skinny legs uncovered from knee to ankle as soon as she moved. Her eyes rested on me. Wells Street had quite a gradient. I was wearing Doc Martin boots and even I was slipping. I scanned the parked cars shaped into street art by falling snow and up towards Shakespeare Avenue searching for the lumbering presence of an adult or even the bundled up presence of an older brother or sister hurrying along to catch up with the little girl.   When I got close enough she tried standing, but fell forward, grabbing for nearest thing, my pure wool coat which reached beyond my knees. I caught her wrist and gripped her cold hand and held her upright and safe. She was barely up to my hip.  I hunched down to her level, feet sliding sideways.

            ‘You waiting for your mum?’

            A shake of her head. No.

            ‘You goin’ to school?’

            A shake of her head. Yes.

            ‘Okay then,’ I said, standing up slowly.

Her shoes were black and shiny, but broad and flat-soled leather, which irked me. She might as well have been wearing skis.  We slid diagonally down towards the dentists, shunting the snow one way to where the pavement should have been and letting gravity do the rest as we moved in the other direction. She giggled as I made a game out of it.

We got safely to the corner of Duntocher Road, which was relatively flat. Kids hurried along, careless of their bodies in the grey slush, faces hidden in the private igloos of Parker hoods. Ungainly adults wearing hats and hoods, heads bowed, bowled along behind them. Cars skittered along scattering snow mush towards the side of the road, but it was all one big snow pavement now. Parents looked at them out of the corners of their eyes, resentments shaping their faces, as if they were alien to the landscape and drivers should be walkers and stumblers like them.

‘You must be new to the school.’ I helped her cross the road and we followed the others towards the school gates. I used that milky voice that we use when talking to small children or small animals. ‘What primary are you in primary one?’

She nodded in a shy way, neck bent, face hiding in her hair, as if even that small effort had been too much.

I was glad when we reached the cast-iron railings. Inside the playground children were delirious with creation, screaming in the delight of stamping and running and jumping and hustling away any patches of virgin snow.  I let go of her hand as the school bell went. But she didn’t let go of mine, grabbing at my fingers and holding on tight.

I leaned over her. ‘It’s ok darling. I won’t leave you.’

She sheltered behind my legs.

‘You scared?’

She nodded. ‘Sometimes big people don’t understand,’ she said.

‘Ah know darlin’. Ah know. But you better hurry up or you’ll be late.’

She tugged at my hand to get us moving. We were only one-hundred yards from the gates. I walked down with her and stood at the gate and watched her solemn little face as she trudged across the playground past the school kitchens and lost sight of her in a gaggle of other kids as they climbed up the four stairs that took them inside the main building.

‘You lost something?’

I whirled round a daft smile still coating my face.

Mrs Cunningham wore a long black leather coat, and hip length boots, but her head was bare. She had her back against the railing that separated road from pavement and was fish-eying me. Her sing-song voice was unusually harsh. She lived five blocks down from us and I’d never spoke to her much because, even though she was an old woman with kids, she had proper breasts and was too pretty to have a conversation with.  

I was glad of the swirling snow because it kept my cheeks from flaming. I patted the plastic bag I’d rolled up and put on my head as a hat, to keep the snow off my hair. I thought maybe that had upset her in some way. ‘No,’ I said. ‘I was just taking that wee lassie into school.’

‘Whit wee lassie?’

Mrs Cunnigham’s lips were set tight to a thousand splinters. The lollipop man knocked his wellington boots off the bottom of the fence to clear them of snow before he went into the jannie’s office for a cup of tea and to get changed. ‘Charlie, you see him with any wee lassie?’ she asked him.

The lollipop man battered his cap off the top bar of the railing and looked at me through his thick specs. ‘Probably drugs or drink,’ he said. ‘They’re all on it. I was watchin’ him.’ He put his cap back on, pulling the brim down so his eyes were shaded. ‘Or glue,’ he added.

Mrs Cunningham tugged at the lapels of her leather coat making her breasts jump. ‘That’s whit I thought. I’ve got two daughters at that school.’

‘But the wee lassie…’

Mrs Cunnningham took a step towards me. ‘Look son, I don’t like it when you keep talking about wee lassies.’

‘Or wee boys,’ said the jannie.

They looked at each other and shook their heads. She tugged at her earlobe and gold-bobble earring. ‘Look son,’ she said, in a more placatory tone. ‘Just don’t let me see you back here again. I know your Ma and you come from a good family. Let that be the end of it.’

‘But the wee lassie…’

‘Let that be the end of it!’