trains

Da’s wearing his killer Sunday suit of pearl grey. The top button on his white shirt is undone because he doesn’t want to choke to death. His tie is knotted like a discarded hanky. We’re lined up on the pavement outside our close on Dumbarton Road like soldiers. Da’s checking our hands and feet. He’s big on hands and feet. Black shoes have to shine like puddles in the sunshine. Hands have to be clean and the nails not to have any shite in them, or we’ll get what for. Hair is taken for granted. Mine is short-back-and-sides, like Stephen’s. Only he’s not got a massive cow’s lick. He’s standing next to me against the brownstone tenement wall fidgeting as if he’s getting his photo taken, ready to run and jump like a swash-buckling pirate, nipping between cars with blaring horns and bigger lorries, swing onto the staging platforms at the back of one of the green and gold double-decker buses that fart fumes up and down the busy road and disappear forever. He’s done it before. He’s a history of doing it. Da keeps an eye on him. My sisters shuffle away from such scrutiny. Mum stands with the two girls beside the lamppost, a hand on each shoulder, also keeps a warm eye on Stephen. Because they’re girls our Jo and Phyllis’s hair falls down their back, they keep an eye on me because I’m wee. Our Jo can keep an eye on me and Stephen with her googly eyes going one way then the other because she’s apprenticed in our house in the top landing in the art of slapping little hands that bite nails and pick at snottery noses. She’s in her best school clobber, of school tie, shirt and grey dress and padded blue-green anorak zipped up to the neck. Phyllis’s anorak is green-blue, the same colour as mine, because hers was mine at one point in time, but she swapped for our Jo’s. They’ve got their hoods up so they look like Eskimos. Stephen’s anorak is sensible brown. He doesn’t have his hood up because he’s like Da’ and doesn’t bother with the rain. I pull my hood down too, but Our Jo darts across and pulls my hood back up for me and pats me on the head. Mum doesn’t have a hat on, just a flimsy red headscarf, tied like a kite around her chin and over her orange hair, but she doesn’t need one cause she’s mum.

Da takes my hand to take me into auld Jennie’s shop, which is on the ground floor of our house and a few steps along from Galbraith’s, where we get our milk and bread. I don’t like him squashing my hand in his, but I know better than to pull away. The shop bell tings as we enter. The shop takes a breath and sucks in the light. It’s always darker than outside and smells like a cave made out of towering tobacco and glazed jars of toppling sweets. There’s a narrow corridor and then there’s the counter piled with newspapers higher than my head. A dumpy woman with a mole on her chin, black headscarf and gabardine coat is nattering to auld Jennie. Da dinks the empty gingy bottles with horny fingernails. They’re lined up and run in racks up and along the wall behind the door and are also sprawled out creating a Solripe and Barr’s bottleneck curve on the floor opposite Jenny.

‘That’s three bottles.’ Da’ tells auld Jenny and lifts me up on top of the newspapers so that I’m standing like a king of the comic books.

‘He’s a fine boy.’ The woman with the mole on her chin has pushed up the shop and is now leaning against the faraway wall.

‘Aye, he is.’ Auld Jenny agrees.

Da lifts me down onto the ground before she tries something stupid like kissing me on the cheek, because I wouldnae let her, because she’s really a witch.

‘Whit does the boy want?’ Auld Jenny looks at Da, but then leans over the counter. ‘Whit do you want son?’ she asks me with a chooky voice. ‘Do you want the penny tray?’

‘Jist gee him toffee.’ Da’s feet are tapping.

‘You sure?’ Auld Jenny seems surprised, but she always seems that way, because of her eyebrows and chin. She goes below the counter and pulls out three bars of Cowan’s toffee.

My mouth begins to slobber, but Dessy snatches them from Auld Jennie and pulls me stumble-toed by the hood towards the door. The woman with the mole moves up the passageway and turns back towards Auld Jennie. ‘Such a lovely boy,’ she says.

Da hands Stephen a bar of toffee. He’s got the wrapper off and chewing on before you can say Kazzam. Our Jo gets a bar, but she just looks at it and puts it in her pocket for later.

‘We’ll miss the train,’ says Mum.

‘There’ll be another one.’ Da smacks the remaining bar of toffee off the lamppost making the metal sing.

‘Here.’ Da hands me one bit. He gives the other to Phyllis.

Her bit looks bigger and I’d moan about it if Da wasn’t here. He’s already turned and is walking away from us. He does that because his legs are too long and springy. Then he comes back again from the end of the buildings to see if we’ve caught up yet, but we havenae. We turn the corner and then he’s away again bouldering ahead towards Dalmuir train station. Da doesnae like trains or buses. He likes walking.

The steps in Dalmuir train station are metallic. Stephen, followed by Phyllis and Our Jo, the girls’ hair flying behind them, their feet zinging and echoing, run to catch up with Da. Mum takes my hand as we go up the stairs to the station. I’m glad because it’s mum and because the steely faced trains sparking along the iron tracks frighten me. In the safety of mum’s hand I reach the protection of the glass booth where the ticket men are kept behind a grill like watchful chickens. There are three entrances and exits and they’re ready to cluck at those without tickets. There’s a snubby two-bar electrical heater above the door misering out orange light opposite the chipped wooden bench on which my sisters sit wedged together. A man sits opposite them smoking and flicking through The Daily Record. Stephen has the door to Platform 2 partially open, letting in a draught with his head stuck out. Through the glass Da patrols, waiting for the train.

Mum sits beside the girls. I squeeze tight beside the radiating warm of her legs and lap, stuck to her like chewing gum, my feet dangling at the end of the bench. Her liquorice handbag is set higgledy-piggledy on the taut square on her long buttoned-up coat. Her hands expertly rifle through the black bowels, dissecting purses from change and packets of paper hankies for future use from Benson and Hedges and Swan Vestas matches. She lights up, blowing out smoke and the smell of her and glances at the clock above the ticket office. Her head jerks the other way, back the way we’ve come, towards the railway tracks. I sense the train’s arrival in her movements.

Our Jo and Phyllis push through the doors, holding them open. We clutter and cling onto mum, swirling round her like a ball gown until she settles once more on the seat outside, but sheltered out of the rain underneath the canopy of the waiting room. Da is standing way up along the edge of the platform. Stephen is standing slightly behind him, an arm’s grab away from him. The light shows green. The train’s coming along the track makes the world vibrate. The girls stand up together as if they’ve been practicing such a move. I cling to the bench and mum’s coat sure that the train will suck us all under its whooshing wheels. The train knifes into the platform and squeals to a stop. Mum hurries us across. She holds me up by the waist so I can press the battleship grey marshmallow button that makes the doors whoosh open. We stand aside to let a few passengers get off. Da and Stephen are hurtling down the platform to join us they’ll never make it before the doors shut. Stephen’s out of breath. The guard blows his whistle and we’re swaying and moving. I bags the best seat beside the window.