school photos 32

The Partick post-office branch smelled musty, a large cavernous room that echoed the sound of hurrying feet and voices but now it was relatively quiet.  Four or five customers were waiting to be served, but only one stood in front of Janine at the pay window. She was an older woman that reeked of clammy unwashed clothing. She got flustered about what she’d done with her change and muddled between the purse on the counter with notes in it and the purse in her carrier bag that carried loose-change. Janine sighed as the man behind the counter coached the old woman on which was which and what she’d done with her pension book and money. She thought her boyfriend—if he could be considered being called that now—looked a bit shifty, like a gang’s look-out, which might have something to do with the long tan Afghan coat with fur trim she’d given him to wear, the only thing that fitted him from her wardrobe and seemed, if not presentable, at least not too tight on the hips, but leaving him looking more like an unconvincing transvestite touting for business.  He slouched, nose plugged to the door, peering out at the pavement, watching the snow curling down and pedestrians stomping through the slush, ready, at a moment’s notice, and a nod from her imaginary gang leader, to turn the sign on the door from open to shut and rip the place up with the sawn-off shotgun concealed under his coat.

            The post-office assistant peered through the Perspex screen at the square of her face framed underneath the flaps of her Russian hat. Uncurling the pen from the bird’s nest elastic band that kept it flying from the counter she scratched her name on three green-printed Giros. She pushed them through the wicket between screen and counter. His fingers flew to the till with notes and circular metal trays with coins were quickly divied up and the sum she was due pushed through to her. She didn’t bother checking it, lifting and stuffing notes and coins together into her coat pocket. The woman in the queue behind her stepped into the gap she had left.  

            Gentleman John held the door open for her when they left. She slipped her arm through his, dipping her hand into the side pocket of his perfumed coat to keep warm. The pavements were becoming slippy and black bags and bins dotted the shop fronts and spilled out onto the gutters and onto the spaces between parked cars on Dumbarton Road. Pedestrians weaved grey-sludge trails between each other, jostling for space. They crossed the road, wobbling half way across, facing down a Hackney that tooted its horn at them and sprinting the last ten yards towards the safety of the station.

            ‘I’ll need to go in here for ciggys.’ Janine dragged him towards the chippy. Two mop-headed school kids pushed through the door and past them unwrapping newspaper and peeling back laughter like gulls as they filled their mouths.  The smell of vinegar and chips made her suddenly ravenous. ‘You want chips?’   

            ‘You payin’?’

            ‘Course. I’m loaded.’ She began coughing, leaning on his arm and into his body for support. Her eyes watered and she held up a hand, flapping it in a shallow wave to show that she would be better in a minute. ‘Jesus. Thought I was a goner there.’

            The chip shop also had a few tables inside and functioned as a café. They found an empty table near the plate glass window. Janine sparked a fag, and offered advice. ‘You’ll need to see the social worker in the hospital so that you can get your money sorted.’  

            John rubbed condensation off the window to look out. ‘Ah’m not that bothered. Ah don’t plan to be there that long.’ He re-positioned the place mats and rearranged the red and brown plastic bottles filled with sauce.

            ‘But it makes sense. Doesn’t it?’

            ‘Yeh,’ he conceded. Leaning back in his chair so the women, with frizzy hair, serving them could push in and plonk their order down on the table.

            Janine did more smoking than eating, leaving half a plate of fat chips congealing round tomato sauce.

He finished his pie supper started spearing her plate with his fork and making smacking noises as he supped his tea. ‘Whit you want to see Lily for?’

            ‘Who?’ Janine was trapped with her fag half way between her mouth and flicking ash into the square-metal ashtray, the bottom of it tarred with the residue of past use. Then she caught herself- ‘the little girl? It’s just,’ she explained, and her eyes drifted away from his face to a place inside herself and she couldn’t really tell him what she meant, especially as he knew nothing about her loony family.

            Outside the window the clear sound of a train horn carried and a slight shaking as the vibrations of the train coming into the station above played on the plates and cups. There wasn’t much more to be said, Janine paid the bill and they caught the next train.

            Snow lay on the ground outside Dalmuir station. John trudged a step ahead, as if clearing a path for both of them, head bent, the wind funnelled through the high flats. He gabbed on out of the side of his mouth about how it was perfect conditions, just like the first day he’d met little Lilly.

            The closer they’d got the quicker he’d walked.

‘Slow down.’ She ran, her feet clogging behind him, and pulled at his arm.

He stopped as if to get his bearings, the chain slipping down low on the padlocked gates of St Stephen’s church. Snow had stopped falling, but it covered the grass inside the grounds, turned to slush on the pavements, but the traffic kept the roads clear. He snatched a look at her; his eyes swivelling away and travelling up and across the road, past the dentists, the hop and skip and jump to where the little girl, Lily, usually stood. But there was nothing there to claim his gaze.

He didn’t wait for Janine. He bolted across the road. His heart raced as an older woman, with a scarf over her head, was escorting a young girl came out of the dentists, but the girl was pudgy and too old.   Gawking their eyes  followed him up the hill. He stopped at Kerr’s gate, crouching over, his fingers feeling the branches on the hedge as if looking for clues. Sweat ran down his face and he realised he was out of breath.   There was no more to be done. The little girl was no longer waiting. He was free.