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Short Stories
TRIO - by James McGowan
From a poem by Edwin Morgan
"You canny bring that dog in here, Moira."
Neilly had never been best friends with
the little Chihuahua she had the cheek to
call Fluffy. They had joked that there
wasn’t a fluff on its entire body; Neilly
had joked that it looked like a cat after
a fight with a pair of sheep shears. But
Moira knew he liked Fluffy well enough,
despite his huffing and puffing, and the
little dog looked quite festive, in its
little Royal Stewart tartan coat. But
Moira knew that hospitals were not really
the place for animals, even though Tommy
missed it, and liked seeing it.
She offered him the dog on clasped
hands. "Just for a wee minute, come on
Neilly." She always knew just the right
tone of voice and supine pose to get
around her big brother. Neilly took the
dog and stuffed it mercilessly down the
front of his jacket. Moira smiled the
smile she wore when things went the right
way: her way. She patted the little
dog’s outline through his jacket. "Be
good for your uncle Neilly, son. No
pissing in there."
The two of them walked casually into
the impressive foyer of the Sick
Children’s Hospital. For such a
depressing place, the foyer was light,
clean, and friendly. Visitors were
buying presents from the wee shop decked
with winter flowers. The seats, which
lined both sides of the large
entranceway, were packed with kids in
pyjamas and their relatives, some of them
dragging infusers behind them like thin
shy friends. Despite obvious illness,
most of them were smiling and laughing
with relations. Moira wondered if it was
just adults who moped and grumbled and
felt so sorry for themselves. But she
soon shook the image off: these kids were
the ones on the mend, about to go home in
the next few days. For every cherub here
there were a dozen in the beds and
intensive care units upstairs in a much
worse state.
Moira and Neilly, twenty-six and
twenty-eight, felt much older as they
slipped through the foyer and into the
lift. The lift went up – to the cancer
ward, and to Tommy. Moira felt her face
drop as the lift doors opened. The
bright, colourful décor and the smiling
Disney characters did more to depress her
than anything else. The cancer ward.
Tommy had been here for four months
already, and during that time, Moira had
watched her little brother lose his hair
and grow pale as the doctor’s battled
against the leukaemia which took him a
step further away from them every day.
She glanced into the rooms as they
walked down the passage. So many kids
facing death, some of them only toddlers
who caught your eye as you passed with
eyes as old as time. Old, old eyes.
Eyes tired from staring out the Reaper
every day of their young lives. Tommy
was twelve, and he needed a bone marrow
transplant, and he deserved one. But
there was a problem.
If anyone deserved to be spared this
fate, then Tommy did, since Tommy did not
have any relatives to donate the precious
matched bone marrow material which could
turn his illness around. Tommy was not
their real brother, he didn’t have any
living relatives that anyone could
contact. He had been the child of the
young couple down the stairs when they
had lived in Atlas Street. The mother
had been knocked down by a bus, and the
father had taken to drink, and nothing
more had to be said. The times being
what they were, they had taken the baby
in. Nothing had been signed or agreed
with the authorities, Tommy had just
become Neilly and Moira’s little brother.
And then ten years later, the leukaemia.
It wasn’t fair.
Neilly glanced at her pensive face as
they got to Tommy’s door. "Cheer up your
face, Moira he’s only a kid." She
clutched his elbow with both hands, and
pasted a ridiculous smile on her face.
They went in.
Tommy sat cross-legged on the bed with
his Bay City Rollers LPs scattered in
front of him. The wall behind was
covered in posters proclaiming the
Summerlove Sensation in garish colours.
Others chanted the manta of Shang-a-Lang.
Signed photos of Les McKeown and Eric
Faulkner made up the central altar on a
shrine to the tartan troupe.
"Still listening to the Way Shitty
Rollers, wee man?" Neilly was pulling a
couple of chairs out for himself and her.
"No kidding, bro. They’re pure
cracking, and I know you sing Bye Bye
Baby while you’re in the bath."
"No chance", he said as they sat down.
A scrabbling inside Neilly’s jacket
reminded them about the stowaway. Neilly
grinned. "We brought a wee pal to see
you." He unzipped his jerkin and Fluffy
jumped out onto the bed.
Tommy was ecstatic. "Hey Fluffy boy,
you’re wearing Rollers tartan as
well...ah Moira, you should have called
him Woody like I wanted."
Moira shook her head, laughing.
"That’s no name for a dog. Here, you
better watch the nurse doesn’t see him,
or we’ll be out on our ears." Tommy
played with the little Chihuahua.
"I wanted to speak to you both, anyway,
but mostly Neilly."
Neilly looked concerned. "What have
those doctors been telling you?" Tommy
looked at him sharply. Moira felt
chilled by the look.
"We all know what’s going to happen."
Tommy glanced at them both, but Neilly
looked away. "Anyway, it’s about the
leukaemia. And about my Christmas
present. And about a dream I had last
night..."
Moira nodded sympathetically. "Were
you dreaming about your mother again?"
Tommy nodded. "I know I hardly knew
her, and Maw’s been all the mother I
could have wanted." He clutched at his
bedclothes. "It’s hard not to feel as
if... I’m betraying her or something.
But the dreams are real."
Neilly patted his legs. "You’ve got an
old man’s head on there, wee man. Kids
your age shouldn’t know about betrayal."
But you could see that Neilly didn’t feel
old. At that moment it felt like Tommy
was the oldest in the room.
"She spoke to me in the dream. She
told me she would be seeing me soon. I’m
going to die Neilly, but I’m not scared."
"Don’t be stupid, Tommy." Neilly
couldn’t handle that sort of talk, the
resigned and accepting way that Tommy
did.
Moira tried to lighten things.
"There’s every chance..."
"I know, I know... I might get better.
She said that too."
Neilly threw his hands up. "Well,
there you go then, so let’s have no more
talk..."
"She said I would be coming to her
unless you fulfilled a... sort of
promise. She told me that there is a
present you have to get me for Christmas,
a special present. If you get me the
present then I will be allowed to stay
here with you. If you can’t find it,
then I am to go on with my mother. I
think that means I will die."
"What are you talking about?" Neilly
had recovered slightly.
Moira had been in shock, but had
recovered a bit. Tommy had been fooling
them. He looked old and wise sometimes,
and it was difficult to take what he said
as the words of a child. But this silly
outrage was nothing more than the trick
of a childish mind, just a ruse to get a
special gift for Christmas.
"No more talk of dying. What’s this
thing you want me to get you? Just name
it, kid. No need to play on your
illness."
Tommy shook his head, and drew a couple
of ragged breaths. He lay back on the
bed. "I can’t tell you Neilly." He
flailed briefly at the plastic cord,
which held the alarm button, caught it
and pressed it. "My mother told me I
couldn’t tell you. That’s not part of
it. You have to find it yourself.
You’ll know it when you see it. Then I
can stay with you and Moira..." He
coughed weakly, tears streaming from his
eyes.
Neilly stood up and called through the
door for the nurse to hurry up. She was
already almost at the door, and herded
Moira and Neilly away from the bed. She
placed an atomiser mask on Tommy, and he
dropped off into a fitful sleep. She
cleared the bed, and placed the pile of
albums on the bedside table.
Moira huddled the little dog out of
view. "What’s up with him, nurse?"
The nurse ushered them out, and
switched off the light. "I would have
thought that was obvious. He’s a very
sick boy, just remember he tires easily."
Neilly nodded and it seemed to Moira that
he was tired, as he wiped his face with
his hands. "The doctor would like to see
you before you go." Tommy was sleeping
more soundly, so they began walking down
the corridor.
The doctor’s room was messy, boxes of
hypodermics and dressings and various
mysterious tubes and sealed paper packets
lay on every available surface. The
plate on the door read Dr. Sam Johnson,
by Moira knew that the Sam was Samantha,
and the painfully young blonde consultant
was engrossed in paperwork. Moira
chapped the door apologetically. "You
wanted to see us before we left?"
"Ah yes, about young Tommy." She
closed her ledger, and then paused, as if
composing what to say. "I don’t want to
alarm you. Please sit down, if you can
find any seats."
"We’ll stand. You’re alarming us
already. What is it?" Neilly was on the
defensive, his nerves already shot by
what Tommy had said to him.
She put on a pair of little round
spectacles and opened Tommy’s file, which
she must have been reading recently.
"Let me put it this way. Tommy hasn’t
been responding to the chemo as we would
have hoped. He hasn’t got any worse, but
we are not making as much progress as we
had hoped."
Neilly fiddled, looking for the pocket
of his jeans and missing it nervously.
"So what are you saying?"
"You must appreciate that having a
serious illness drains the body’s ability
to sustain itself against the everyday
rigours of life. For any other kid we
would recommend a bone marrow transplant,
but you said before that he has no blood
relatives, is that right?"
Moira answered. "That’s right, he’s
adopted." She looked nervously at
Neilly. "He had a father, but we have no
idea what ever happened to him. His
mother died. We don’t know anything else
about any other family. I’m sorry."
Dr. Johnson made a small exasperated
expression with her hands. "We can fight
the cancer, I’m sure of that. But there
comes a time in the therapy where it can
go either way quite rapidly, despite our
best efforts. A lot of it has to do with
the psychological state of the patient as
much as any physical pathology."
Neilly hammered his hip with his fist.
"Are you saying that things could get
worse again?"
"It’s possible." She saw the looks on
their faces. "Look, he is exhibiting some
signs of depression at the moment,
asthmatic bouts and fatigue. These
symptoms are not uncommon in cancer
patients, but in my opinion they should
be abating at this stage in the
treatment."
Moira held Neilly’s hand tightly. "So
what can we do, doctor?"
Dr. Johnson looked uncomfortable. "He
told me about this dream of his."
Neilly shook his head. "Oh that silly
thing, I wouldn’t take any notice of
that..."
"On the contrary. If Tommy believes
it, then it can have serious implications
on his state of mind, and ultimately his
overall health."
Neilly was close to anger, and Moira
clutched his hand tightly. At last he
said "You mean that if I can’t get his
this mystery present, then he could get
worse... even..."
"Die?" The doctor smoothed down her
hair nervously. "It’s far too difficult
to say, and I wouldn’t want to put you
under such pressure. All I can say is
keeping Tommy happy has to be our number
one concern at the moment. If he’s happy
then our treatment has every chance of
succeeding. If that means going along
with this fantasy, then I would ask you
to do so."
"But I don’t know what it is I’m
supposed to get for him!"
"I do sympathise. I really do, all I
can ask is that you try your best." She
looked at her watch. "I really must get
on, and I think you should too, there’s
only a couple of hours until the shops
close."
Moira and Neilly nodded, and looked at
each other. Dr Johnson guided them out
of the room. "I’m sure you’ll find
something."
The bus from Yorkhill into the town was
empty, considering it was so close to the
time on Christmas Eve when the shops
would close their shutters and begin
putting up their January Sales posters.
Another bus took them from High Street to
home. There was not a sign of snow,
though their breaths rasped the air as
they hopped off the bus in Springburn
Road.
Moira had been quiet on the bus, but
she felt some of the frustration and
helplessness she imagined Neilly must be
experiencing. Neilly had always tried to
be the world’s best big brother, and she
could barely imagine the mixed feelings
of confusion and desperation, and even
anger that he was feeling. Moira shared
some of his anger. Anger that the little
brother who he loved could put such a
burden on his shoulders. It felt like
ingratitude, and then when she remembered
Tommy’s predicament, she hated herself
more, and the guilt mixed with
frustration didn’t make for a good
Christmas shopping mood.
As they buttoned themselves up at the
bus stop at the Co-op, Moira broke the
silence. "Have you no idea what he would
like?"
"Not a clue, doll." He blew into his
hands. "Something to do with the Rollers
maybe? Or something for when he gets
out? Maybe one of those new skateboard
things, or a Chopper. You know how he
always wanted a bike."
"Can we afford a bike?"
"If that’s what he wants then he can
have it, no matter what it takes. I got
a bung off Big McLatchie."
"Aw Neilly, you didn’t borrow money
from that big thug?"
"McLatchie’s alright. When he heard it
was for Tommy’s Christmas present, he
gave me it no bother, no interest either.
Tommy went to school with his wee brother
before he got no well. He’s alright."
Moira was not satisfied, and didn’t
trust McLatchie. But they had bigger
fish to fry. "So do you think it’s a
bike?"
"He said I’d know it when I saw it, and
a bike doesn’t ring any bells."
They began in the Co-op, then went
methodically into every shop on
Springburn Road that might sell anything
that could be a present. The High Walk
shoe shop lived up to its name, there
were a load of platform boots in the
window. Moira thought it would take a
real hard man to wear them up this part
of town. Sellyns had some cracking
clothes that Tommy would love, including
a white Rollers suit with tartan insets
and piping. Woolies had toys and games,
and even a few bikes, but nothing special
jumped out at them.
Neilly was getting agitated. "Maybe we
should try Hoey’s."
"That shut down years ago, Neilly.
Come to grips. I don’t think we’re going
to get anything here. We’ve been up the
length of Springburn Road." She glanced
at the clock on the Quin’s building. It
was wrong, as always. "It must be nearly
six, the shops are shutting."
Neilly was overwrought. "It’s going to
be my fault, I can’t find it."
Moira was tired, and she let Fluffy
down for a sniff in the gutter. The last
of the shoppers were making their way up
the Balgray hill, and all the buses were
full on the way out of town. The wind
had begun to blow the trees across the
road at the swings, and it seemed that
the whole place was battening down the
hatches for a stormy Christmas.
Moira glanced back up Springburn Road
again at the too few lighted shops.
"Look, maybe he’ll have forgotten all
about it by tomorrow..."
And then Neilly was gone. Up and away
and under the wheels of a bus. It was
still moving when Moira screamed.
And later, after a flicker of days,
Moira began to understand. Grief for
Neilly was tempered with a fiery pride at
what he had done. The papers had been at
his funeral in Sighthill cemetery, and
there were too many willing hands to
lower him into the earth. McLatchie was
there, and Moira had wept into his arms.
A child’s life had been saved in a
stupid, needless accident. A moment’s
lapse of attention and a bus going at
country speed while still in the town.
And Neilly, just him.
Moira hadn’t even seen the young boy,
but Neilly had. And in throwing him safe
to the far kerb, he had been caught under
the wheels himself. Only Neilly, stupid
brave Neilly would have done that, but he
had saved Tommy too.
Moira had never believed anything. But
Neilly had leapt across that wide
junction at Quin’s from a sense of
something, some inborn goodness he hadn’t
needed to think or preach about. That
was worth believing in; if it meant so
much to Neilly then it was something
worth holding on to. Maybe it was that
same fate or destiny that brought the
tear-stained father of the kid to the
hospital to offer anything he could.
It could only have happened in a
Hollywood story. Who could have imagined
that the man would turn out to be Tommy’s
uncle – his real uncle, the brother of
his dead mother. And a positive bone
marrow match.
March was blowing the remnants of
winter from the cold foyer of the Sick
Children’s Hospital as Moira and Tommy’s
Uncle Jim went up to collect Tommy from
the hospital. The taxi was waiting for
them, and as they passed under the wide
canopy, Moira thought of the times Neilly
had accompanied her through here. The
lift and cancer ward held no fears for
her now. Uncle Jim had a present for
Tommy, but he sneaked it into the room.
Tommy’s hair was growing back in
patches. "Moira... and Uncle Jim!" He
hugged them both in a way uncommon in
boys of his age, then grew serious. "I
dreamed about Neilly last night." A tear
was hanging on his cheek, and Moira
smiled, her own eyes misting up.
Uncle Jim sat on the bed. "He loved
you very much, Tom. I owe him so much."
"It’s OK", Tommy said. "I’m not sad.
At least... not like before. I dreamed
that Neilly was happy. You were in it
Moira, and Fluffy. But my mother was in
it, your sister, Uncle Jim."
Jim nodded, smiling encouragingly. "I
loved her, too."
"And I think I was in it too, but I was
just a baby. It was all mixed up in
time, you know the way dreams are." They
both nodded.
"We were all walking in the town.
Moira and Fluffy, my mother and me as a
baby. And Neilly was in the middle. It
was Buchanan Street, and it was
Christmas, and the lights were.. lovely.
I’ve never seen them so lovely."
"And Fluffy had his wee tartan coat on,
and you were all laughing. And Neilly
had a present for me. He had a guitar
for me."
Moira covered her mouth with her hand,
and choked back a sob. "Oh no, Tommy,
please." She picked up the brown paper
bundle which Jim had sneaked into the
room, and broke the paper. Inside, a
milky white plastic cover swelled out
containing a brand new acoustic guitar, a
sprig of mistletoe tied to the neck.
Tommy embraced it, tears spilling onto
the torn brown paper. "Oh Neilly, I knew
you would find the right present. I knew
you would."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
COWBOY SIN - By James McGowan
"My advice to you, son, is to take that nicotine patch off, fill it with tobacco, and smoke it."
He looked at me for a moment, checking my haggard features for a sign of mirth, and finding none, smiled and shrugged. "Easy for you to say, old timer. You're already old. I might never get there if I can't kick this." He brought his fingers up to his mouth and sucked on an imaginary cigarette. "You don't smoke."
I hitched the front of my Stetson with a bent knuckle. "I used to." And left it at that while we surveyed the street. The main shopping drag was quiet, it being Sunday, the only sound a far off church bell ringing in the St. Aloysius mid-day mass. Pubs would open soon. "I used to do a lot of things."
He was nothing but a boy to me. Jobless, shiftless, hair a bit too long for a working man. But not a bad lad, not like some of them. And he didn't seem to care that I wore a hat and boots and looked as if I had just walked off a Robert Michum cowboy movie. That meant a lot to me : most people his age were intolerant of it, called me Tex and Pardner in the street. Maybe he was the son that Sherry and I never had.
"Why do you want to quit, son?"
He shrugged. "Because it costs too much, I suppose. And Jessie wants me to."
I nodded. "Now we get to it. Jessie wants you to. And you'll do it because you love her."
He frowned. "You talk funny for a guy. People from here don't love each other. We tolerate each other because that's the way it's always been. And nobody admits anything different. I'll give up the smokes because she'll stop nipping my head about it."
I laughed. Another street philosopher, a miniature version of myself in my younger day. There was one on every park bench and street corner in this city. But some things took age to know. I pulled myself up straight, and tucked my shirt in under my snakeskin belt.
"How heavy do you think I am?"
He cocked an eyebrow. "Eh? What are you on about now?"
"How heavy would you say I was, looking at me?"
He stood back and examined me critically, weighing up the lean torso in the loose silk shirt, the chicken arms, and the lanky legs thankfully hidden from view behind imported Wrangler jeans from Wyoming. He took far too long about it, in fact, and I suppose that was my punishment for asking such a seemingly stupid question, so I stood it out, saying nothing.
"I'd say about eleven stone. "
"And you'd be nearly right. I've been 150 pounds since I was 28 years of age, not an ounce either side of it."
"Impressive. Too skinny for somebody your height though."
I nodded. "Would you believe I was once twenty five stones, and had a gut and arse on me like a beached whale?"
"Really? That's amazing." I saw him unconsciously appraise his own growing beer belly. "Did you go on a diet, then?"
I laughed again. "You could say that. It was the queerest thing I ever saw. But there's a lesson in it I never forgot, and I think you should hear it too, before you go too far with these patches and chewing gum."
"Well, old man, I've got nothing else on until Shevlanes opens its doors to the world, and we all go in for a drop of the electric soup. So tell me a story."
I smiled. I hadn't told this story to more than a dozen people over the years, people I trusted. The street was empty, nobody would stop to talk to me, the lonesome cowboy. It wouldn't take long, and he might get something out of it.
"You know my wife Sherry? You know what size of woman she is?"
He grinned. "You called her voluptuous one night when you were pissed. You also said that was another word for fat, and I was too far gone myself at the time to argue."
"Aye, she's fat. A big fat Glasgow woman, like you see in etchings and prints in trendy Glasgow shops. A big washer woman, a wifie. This place is full of them, every one of them complaining about their feet and their backs. She's a big fat woman."
I saw on his face that he was unsure how to respond, so I forged on. "When I met her, she was a size six in a dress, just a slip of a girl. I fancied her with a passion. But I was a fat bastard, and she wouldn't even give me the time of day."
I remembered how she looked that day on the Balgrayhill, floral dress wrapped into her impossibly thin waist with a white leather belt. He ankles were like china, I could have circled them with my thumb and finger. I had to have her. I knew what I looked like, but I had to try.
"I asked her to come for a walk in the park with me. You understand, she was in with the crowd, you know. She was liked by everybody, all the guys in the district were after her. But she knew it, as well. You know? We were little more than children ourselves, and with it she still had that childlike cruelty that could turn a man's heart to stone."
"She knocked you back?"
"Oh aye, son. She knocked me back. She gathered her friends around her like a big pair of dragon wings and let me have it for all she was worth. It was humiliating. I can still remember every word she said to me. I ran halfway up Springburn Road with the tears streaming down my face, gasping and choking in a close until I was nearly sick with it."
"So you decided to go on a diet."
"Not right away. First I had to have a blowout, cheer me up. I went up to my mother's house and took all the week's sausages and bacon, and they were rationed in those days son. If you ate them, that was it for the week. A big dod of lard in the frying pan, and I ate the lot. I drowned myself in the grease and the comfort of food. And after that I really was sick."
"Man, that was bad. She might have let you down easier."
"She wasn't capable of it, son. You see, it wasn't just me who had a few things to learn. I gave her the benefit of the doubt, imagined that maybe she had to do it to keep face in front of her pals. Maybe if I could get her alone, she would be sorry for it, and with no pals around, might be kinder to me. So I followed her."
"It wasn't hard. We lived in the same street, I just waited until I saw her going out to the shops with her wee net bag, and waited at her close for her returning. I had a newspaper, and tried to look as natural as I could. But inside my big fat frame, I was cowering like a leaf."
"Anyway, she comes back, and I make out as if I've just noticed her. 'Hello' I say to her as she passes me. 'Hello', she says back. No too bad, I think to myself. 'If you're standing there trying to impress me, then forget it. I don't go out with men with bigger hips than me, son' I was devastated, I just stood there gaping."
"But I was in love, I couldn't believe she could be so nasty, I didn't want to believe it. But if I'm honest with myself, I looked into those blue eyes of hers and saw not one bit of compassion. She really did despise me… then. I asked her if I managed to lose the fat, would she be interested. She just laughed and went on up the close."
"So I dieted. For three months solid I ate nothing but one meal of bread and potatoes a day. And I never lost a bean, son. Not an ounce. The doctor couldn't account for it. Told me to exercise."
"So I started walking. Just up and down the main road at first. Then when I got more confidence, I went up the Balgray and back down again. The girls in the shops along there used to wave at me as I went past like clockwork. But I wouldn't give it up. I was out there, rain or shine, son, pounding the streets, long before all these joggers and such became trendy."
"And it started to come off. One day outside the florists, ach it's a hardware store now son, at the lights, the wee lassie who works in there was cutting some stems and she slipped in the water on the pavement. As luck would have it, I was just passing, and I caught her just as she was about to go right over."
"Ah we had a good laugh about it, and she thanked me very nicely, and asked me what I was doing, she had seen me going up and down a lot. So I told her I was trying to lose weight, and she stood there and told me that I was looking a lot better already. She looked me up and down much the same way as you did a minute ago, son. And then she winked at me."
"Hah, that must have been a bit of a boost for your confidence?"
"Oh aye. And I always stopped to have a wee natter with her on the way past, and sometimes with the wee lassie that worked in the butchers next door. Some days I would have a bit of a crowd out there talking away with me. It got to be quite the thing to do. And all this time I had been losing weight, and was feeling no bad."
"This one time I was passing, and a this wee slip of a thing who worked part-time in the chemists stopped to talk to me. I hadn't really spoken to her alone before, but I'd seen her a few times standing when the other lassies came out to talk to me. Anyway, she said that she thought it was a terrible thing that Sherry had done to me that day on Balgrayhill, and she wishes she had said something to her at the time, but I knew how these things went, and everything."
"I just stood there agreeing with her for a bit until she said 'serves her right she's putting on the beef herself these days'"
"I didn't know what she meant. I hadn't even seen Sherry for weeks, I had wanted to surprise her one day with my new physique, so I had been avoiding her. The beef? What did she mean? Oh aye, it turns out that while I had been losing the pounds, she had been putting them on. Seems her mother had taken her down to the doctors to get her a pregnancy test they were all so worried."
"And was she?"
"Pregnant? No. I'm not sure what was happening, but sure enough, I catch her coming out the close the very next day, not quite so fine and mighty as she had been the time before. I saw her noticing my better shape, and then trying to dismiss me with that cruel frown of hers. But she knew that I could see it was true, she was putting it on around the waist, and no baggy coat was going to hide it."
"So what did you do?"
"I didn’t do anything. I just carried on walking up and down Springburn Road. I had got into a habit you see, and when I missed a day, folk came round to the house to see where I was. My mother was angry at first, but some of these lassies who came up to check on me were no half bad, you understand. I think even she began to see hat I might find myself a fine looking wife out of all this, so after a while she encouraged visitors in the parlour."
"It must have taken me six months solid walking to get to the weight I am now. But by that time I didn’t care about the weight any more, it had become less important to me. I enjoyed my trips round the shops, I was something of a local celebrity. For the first time people liked me, and I liked them."
"It was one day, getting into winter when the wind blows, and you can feel the chill in it, but it's just warning you about the cold that's coming later. Some of us had been up to the park, and were coming back down Balgrayhill Road, arms linked like the front of a knitting pattern. And who should come waddling up the hill, but Sherry. And I mean, she had laid it on by then. It must have been something genetic, but the first flush of rosy youth had certainly passed this doll. Her arse was the size of Pinkston power station, god help the lassie."
"Well I had all these friends around me, and she was by herself, a wee fat ball coming up the hill, and I thought back to myself six months before. Then it had been her all slim and popular, and me all fat and self-conscious coming up the hill, and her coming down it with all her friends."
"So did ye slag her? Rub her nose in it a bit?"
I shook my head. "No. No. I loved her still, you see. I waited until she was about to pass us and called to her to stop. Then, gathering everyone around, I took her hand and asked her if she would like a walk in the park. I winked at some of the girls as I said it, and they smiled back at me, encouraging me. Sherry was a bit bedraggled, but oh those eyes, son. They melt me to this day."
"Aw man, that's dead romantic. And she said yes?"
I smiled. "Did she hell. I've never heard such language this side of a shipyard gate. And it takes a lot to make me blush." I laughed out loud.
He looked confused. "But… " He started laughing. "You're married! She must have said yes?"
"Oh she did. But I didn't taste a whiff of that until nigh on a year later. I don't know if it was pride, or shame, or the last wee bits of her childish streak. But she told me to go to hell."
"Oh man, that's too funny. So how did you two ever get together?"
I stood back, waving a hand up and down my delicately pressed shirt. "Why do you think I wear this bloody stupid looking get-up? She loves cowboys. I had to get her some way. I was gutted. If I'd known that at the start, it would have saved me a lot of walking."
He laughed again. "I need a fag, pardner."
So we walked down the road, pausing at the paper shop while he bought twenty Woodbine. Some kids passed me as I waited for him, and they jeered and pointed at me, the old cowboy in Springburn Road. I knew they would learn. It didn't bother me.
From a poem by Edwin Morgan
"You canny bring that dog in here, Moira."
Neilly had never been best friends with
the little Chihuahua she had the cheek to
call Fluffy. They had joked that there
wasn’t a fluff on its entire body; Neilly
had joked that it looked like a cat after
a fight with a pair of sheep shears. But
Moira knew he liked Fluffy well enough,
despite his huffing and puffing, and the
little dog looked quite festive, in its
little Royal Stewart tartan coat. But
Moira knew that hospitals were not really
the place for animals, even though Tommy
missed it, and liked seeing it.
She offered him the dog on clasped
hands. "Just for a wee minute, come on
Neilly." She always knew just the right
tone of voice and supine pose to get
around her big brother. Neilly took the
dog and stuffed it mercilessly down the
front of his jacket. Moira smiled the
smile she wore when things went the right
way: her way. She patted the little
dog’s outline through his jacket. "Be
good for your uncle Neilly, son. No
pissing in there."
The two of them walked casually into
the impressive foyer of the Sick
Children’s Hospital. For such a
depressing place, the foyer was light,
clean, and friendly. Visitors were
buying presents from the wee shop decked
with winter flowers. The seats, which
lined both sides of the large
entranceway, were packed with kids in
pyjamas and their relatives, some of them
dragging infusers behind them like thin
shy friends. Despite obvious illness,
most of them were smiling and laughing
with relations. Moira wondered if it was
just adults who moped and grumbled and
felt so sorry for themselves. But she
soon shook the image off: these kids were
the ones on the mend, about to go home in
the next few days. For every cherub here
there were a dozen in the beds and
intensive care units upstairs in a much
worse state.
Moira and Neilly, twenty-six and
twenty-eight, felt much older as they
slipped through the foyer and into the
lift. The lift went up – to the cancer
ward, and to Tommy. Moira felt her face
drop as the lift doors opened. The
bright, colourful décor and the smiling
Disney characters did more to depress her
than anything else. The cancer ward.
Tommy had been here for four months
already, and during that time, Moira had
watched her little brother lose his hair
and grow pale as the doctor’s battled
against the leukaemia which took him a
step further away from them every day.
She glanced into the rooms as they
walked down the passage. So many kids
facing death, some of them only toddlers
who caught your eye as you passed with
eyes as old as time. Old, old eyes.
Eyes tired from staring out the Reaper
every day of their young lives. Tommy
was twelve, and he needed a bone marrow
transplant, and he deserved one. But
there was a problem.
If anyone deserved to be spared this
fate, then Tommy did, since Tommy did not
have any relatives to donate the precious
matched bone marrow material which could
turn his illness around. Tommy was not
their real brother, he didn’t have any
living relatives that anyone could
contact. He had been the child of the
young couple down the stairs when they
had lived in Atlas Street. The mother
had been knocked down by a bus, and the
father had taken to drink, and nothing
more had to be said. The times being
what they were, they had taken the baby
in. Nothing had been signed or agreed
with the authorities, Tommy had just
become Neilly and Moira’s little brother.
And then ten years later, the leukaemia.
It wasn’t fair.
Neilly glanced at her pensive face as
they got to Tommy’s door. "Cheer up your
face, Moira he’s only a kid." She
clutched his elbow with both hands, and
pasted a ridiculous smile on her face.
They went in.
Tommy sat cross-legged on the bed with
his Bay City Rollers LPs scattered in
front of him. The wall behind was
covered in posters proclaiming the
Summerlove Sensation in garish colours.
Others chanted the manta of Shang-a-Lang.
Signed photos of Les McKeown and Eric
Faulkner made up the central altar on a
shrine to the tartan troupe.
"Still listening to the Way Shitty
Rollers, wee man?" Neilly was pulling a
couple of chairs out for himself and her.
"No kidding, bro. They’re pure
cracking, and I know you sing Bye Bye
Baby while you’re in the bath."
"No chance", he said as they sat down.
A scrabbling inside Neilly’s jacket
reminded them about the stowaway. Neilly
grinned. "We brought a wee pal to see
you." He unzipped his jerkin and Fluffy
jumped out onto the bed.
Tommy was ecstatic. "Hey Fluffy boy,
you’re wearing Rollers tartan as
well...ah Moira, you should have called
him Woody like I wanted."
Moira shook her head, laughing.
"That’s no name for a dog. Here, you
better watch the nurse doesn’t see him,
or we’ll be out on our ears." Tommy
played with the little Chihuahua.
"I wanted to speak to you both, anyway,
but mostly Neilly."
Neilly looked concerned. "What have
those doctors been telling you?" Tommy
looked at him sharply. Moira felt
chilled by the look.
"We all know what’s going to happen."
Tommy glanced at them both, but Neilly
looked away. "Anyway, it’s about the
leukaemia. And about my Christmas
present. And about a dream I had last
night..."
Moira nodded sympathetically. "Were
you dreaming about your mother again?"
Tommy nodded. "I know I hardly knew
her, and Maw’s been all the mother I
could have wanted." He clutched at his
bedclothes. "It’s hard not to feel as
if... I’m betraying her or something.
But the dreams are real."
Neilly patted his legs. "You’ve got an
old man’s head on there, wee man. Kids
your age shouldn’t know about betrayal."
But you could see that Neilly didn’t feel
old. At that moment it felt like Tommy
was the oldest in the room.
"She spoke to me in the dream. She
told me she would be seeing me soon. I’m
going to die Neilly, but I’m not scared."
"Don’t be stupid, Tommy." Neilly
couldn’t handle that sort of talk, the
resigned and accepting way that Tommy
did.
Moira tried to lighten things.
"There’s every chance..."
"I know, I know... I might get better.
She said that too."
Neilly threw his hands up. "Well,
there you go then, so let’s have no more
talk..."
"She said I would be coming to her
unless you fulfilled a... sort of
promise. She told me that there is a
present you have to get me for Christmas,
a special present. If you get me the
present then I will be allowed to stay
here with you. If you can’t find it,
then I am to go on with my mother. I
think that means I will die."
"What are you talking about?" Neilly
had recovered slightly.
Moira had been in shock, but had
recovered a bit. Tommy had been fooling
them. He looked old and wise sometimes,
and it was difficult to take what he said
as the words of a child. But this silly
outrage was nothing more than the trick
of a childish mind, just a ruse to get a
special gift for Christmas.
"No more talk of dying. What’s this
thing you want me to get you? Just name
it, kid. No need to play on your
illness."
Tommy shook his head, and drew a couple
of ragged breaths. He lay back on the
bed. "I can’t tell you Neilly." He
flailed briefly at the plastic cord,
which held the alarm button, caught it
and pressed it. "My mother told me I
couldn’t tell you. That’s not part of
it. You have to find it yourself.
You’ll know it when you see it. Then I
can stay with you and Moira..." He
coughed weakly, tears streaming from his
eyes.
Neilly stood up and called through the
door for the nurse to hurry up. She was
already almost at the door, and herded
Moira and Neilly away from the bed. She
placed an atomiser mask on Tommy, and he
dropped off into a fitful sleep. She
cleared the bed, and placed the pile of
albums on the bedside table.
Moira huddled the little dog out of
view. "What’s up with him, nurse?"
The nurse ushered them out, and
switched off the light. "I would have
thought that was obvious. He’s a very
sick boy, just remember he tires easily."
Neilly nodded and it seemed to Moira that
he was tired, as he wiped his face with
his hands. "The doctor would like to see
you before you go." Tommy was sleeping
more soundly, so they began walking down
the corridor.
The doctor’s room was messy, boxes of
hypodermics and dressings and various
mysterious tubes and sealed paper packets
lay on every available surface. The
plate on the door read Dr. Sam Johnson,
by Moira knew that the Sam was Samantha,
and the painfully young blonde consultant
was engrossed in paperwork. Moira
chapped the door apologetically. "You
wanted to see us before we left?"
"Ah yes, about young Tommy." She
closed her ledger, and then paused, as if
composing what to say. "I don’t want to
alarm you. Please sit down, if you can
find any seats."
"We’ll stand. You’re alarming us
already. What is it?" Neilly was on the
defensive, his nerves already shot by
what Tommy had said to him.
She put on a pair of little round
spectacles and opened Tommy’s file, which
she must have been reading recently.
"Let me put it this way. Tommy hasn’t
been responding to the chemo as we would
have hoped. He hasn’t got any worse, but
we are not making as much progress as we
had hoped."
Neilly fiddled, looking for the pocket
of his jeans and missing it nervously.
"So what are you saying?"
"You must appreciate that having a
serious illness drains the body’s ability
to sustain itself against the everyday
rigours of life. For any other kid we
would recommend a bone marrow transplant,
but you said before that he has no blood
relatives, is that right?"
Moira answered. "That’s right, he’s
adopted." She looked nervously at
Neilly. "He had a father, but we have no
idea what ever happened to him. His
mother died. We don’t know anything else
about any other family. I’m sorry."
Dr. Johnson made a small exasperated
expression with her hands. "We can fight
the cancer, I’m sure of that. But there
comes a time in the therapy where it can
go either way quite rapidly, despite our
best efforts. A lot of it has to do with
the psychological state of the patient as
much as any physical pathology."
Neilly hammered his hip with his fist.
"Are you saying that things could get
worse again?"
"It’s possible." She saw the looks on
their faces. "Look, he is exhibiting some
signs of depression at the moment,
asthmatic bouts and fatigue. These
symptoms are not uncommon in cancer
patients, but in my opinion they should
be abating at this stage in the
treatment."
Moira held Neilly’s hand tightly. "So
what can we do, doctor?"
Dr. Johnson looked uncomfortable. "He
told me about this dream of his."
Neilly shook his head. "Oh that silly
thing, I wouldn’t take any notice of
that..."
"On the contrary. If Tommy believes
it, then it can have serious implications
on his state of mind, and ultimately his
overall health."
Neilly was close to anger, and Moira
clutched his hand tightly. At last he
said "You mean that if I can’t get his
this mystery present, then he could get
worse... even..."
"Die?" The doctor smoothed down her
hair nervously. "It’s far too difficult
to say, and I wouldn’t want to put you
under such pressure. All I can say is
keeping Tommy happy has to be our number
one concern at the moment. If he’s happy
then our treatment has every chance of
succeeding. If that means going along
with this fantasy, then I would ask you
to do so."
"But I don’t know what it is I’m
supposed to get for him!"
"I do sympathise. I really do, all I
can ask is that you try your best." She
looked at her watch. "I really must get
on, and I think you should too, there’s
only a couple of hours until the shops
close."
Moira and Neilly nodded, and looked at
each other. Dr Johnson guided them out
of the room. "I’m sure you’ll find
something."
The bus from Yorkhill into the town was
empty, considering it was so close to the
time on Christmas Eve when the shops
would close their shutters and begin
putting up their January Sales posters.
Another bus took them from High Street to
home. There was not a sign of snow,
though their breaths rasped the air as
they hopped off the bus in Springburn
Road.
Moira had been quiet on the bus, but
she felt some of the frustration and
helplessness she imagined Neilly must be
experiencing. Neilly had always tried to
be the world’s best big brother, and she
could barely imagine the mixed feelings
of confusion and desperation, and even
anger that he was feeling. Moira shared
some of his anger. Anger that the little
brother who he loved could put such a
burden on his shoulders. It felt like
ingratitude, and then when she remembered
Tommy’s predicament, she hated herself
more, and the guilt mixed with
frustration didn’t make for a good
Christmas shopping mood.
As they buttoned themselves up at the
bus stop at the Co-op, Moira broke the
silence. "Have you no idea what he would
like?"
"Not a clue, doll." He blew into his
hands. "Something to do with the Rollers
maybe? Or something for when he gets
out? Maybe one of those new skateboard
things, or a Chopper. You know how he
always wanted a bike."
"Can we afford a bike?"
"If that’s what he wants then he can
have it, no matter what it takes. I got
a bung off Big McLatchie."
"Aw Neilly, you didn’t borrow money
from that big thug?"
"McLatchie’s alright. When he heard it
was for Tommy’s Christmas present, he
gave me it no bother, no interest either.
Tommy went to school with his wee brother
before he got no well. He’s alright."
Moira was not satisfied, and didn’t
trust McLatchie. But they had bigger
fish to fry. "So do you think it’s a
bike?"
"He said I’d know it when I saw it, and
a bike doesn’t ring any bells."
They began in the Co-op, then went
methodically into every shop on
Springburn Road that might sell anything
that could be a present. The High Walk
shoe shop lived up to its name, there
were a load of platform boots in the
window. Moira thought it would take a
real hard man to wear them up this part
of town. Sellyns had some cracking
clothes that Tommy would love, including
a white Rollers suit with tartan insets
and piping. Woolies had toys and games,
and even a few bikes, but nothing special
jumped out at them.
Neilly was getting agitated. "Maybe we
should try Hoey’s."
"That shut down years ago, Neilly.
Come to grips. I don’t think we’re going
to get anything here. We’ve been up the
length of Springburn Road." She glanced
at the clock on the Quin’s building. It
was wrong, as always. "It must be nearly
six, the shops are shutting."
Neilly was overwrought. "It’s going to
be my fault, I can’t find it."
Moira was tired, and she let Fluffy
down for a sniff in the gutter. The last
of the shoppers were making their way up
the Balgray hill, and all the buses were
full on the way out of town. The wind
had begun to blow the trees across the
road at the swings, and it seemed that
the whole place was battening down the
hatches for a stormy Christmas.
Moira glanced back up Springburn Road
again at the too few lighted shops.
"Look, maybe he’ll have forgotten all
about it by tomorrow..."
And then Neilly was gone. Up and away
and under the wheels of a bus. It was
still moving when Moira screamed.
And later, after a flicker of days,
Moira began to understand. Grief for
Neilly was tempered with a fiery pride at
what he had done. The papers had been at
his funeral in Sighthill cemetery, and
there were too many willing hands to
lower him into the earth. McLatchie was
there, and Moira had wept into his arms.
A child’s life had been saved in a
stupid, needless accident. A moment’s
lapse of attention and a bus going at
country speed while still in the town.
And Neilly, just him.
Moira hadn’t even seen the young boy,
but Neilly had. And in throwing him safe
to the far kerb, he had been caught under
the wheels himself. Only Neilly, stupid
brave Neilly would have done that, but he
had saved Tommy too.
Moira had never believed anything. But
Neilly had leapt across that wide
junction at Quin’s from a sense of
something, some inborn goodness he hadn’t
needed to think or preach about. That
was worth believing in; if it meant so
much to Neilly then it was something
worth holding on to. Maybe it was that
same fate or destiny that brought the
tear-stained father of the kid to the
hospital to offer anything he could.
It could only have happened in a
Hollywood story. Who could have imagined
that the man would turn out to be Tommy’s
uncle – his real uncle, the brother of
his dead mother. And a positive bone
marrow match.
March was blowing the remnants of
winter from the cold foyer of the Sick
Children’s Hospital as Moira and Tommy’s
Uncle Jim went up to collect Tommy from
the hospital. The taxi was waiting for
them, and as they passed under the wide
canopy, Moira thought of the times Neilly
had accompanied her through here. The
lift and cancer ward held no fears for
her now. Uncle Jim had a present for
Tommy, but he sneaked it into the room.
Tommy’s hair was growing back in
patches. "Moira... and Uncle Jim!" He
hugged them both in a way uncommon in
boys of his age, then grew serious. "I
dreamed about Neilly last night." A tear
was hanging on his cheek, and Moira
smiled, her own eyes misting up.
Uncle Jim sat on the bed. "He loved
you very much, Tom. I owe him so much."
"It’s OK", Tommy said. "I’m not sad.
At least... not like before. I dreamed
that Neilly was happy. You were in it
Moira, and Fluffy. But my mother was in
it, your sister, Uncle Jim."
Jim nodded, smiling encouragingly. "I
loved her, too."
"And I think I was in it too, but I was
just a baby. It was all mixed up in
time, you know the way dreams are." They
both nodded.
"We were all walking in the town.
Moira and Fluffy, my mother and me as a
baby. And Neilly was in the middle. It
was Buchanan Street, and it was
Christmas, and the lights were.. lovely.
I’ve never seen them so lovely."
"And Fluffy had his wee tartan coat on,
and you were all laughing. And Neilly
had a present for me. He had a guitar
for me."
Moira covered her mouth with her hand,
and choked back a sob. "Oh no, Tommy,
please." She picked up the brown paper
bundle which Jim had sneaked into the
room, and broke the paper. Inside, a
milky white plastic cover swelled out
containing a brand new acoustic guitar, a
sprig of mistletoe tied to the neck.
Tommy embraced it, tears spilling onto
the torn brown paper. "Oh Neilly, I knew
you would find the right present. I knew
you would."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
COWBOY SIN - By James McGowan
"My advice to you, son, is to take that nicotine patch off, fill it with tobacco, and smoke it."
He looked at me for a moment, checking my haggard features for a sign of mirth, and finding none, smiled and shrugged. "Easy for you to say, old timer. You're already old. I might never get there if I can't kick this." He brought his fingers up to his mouth and sucked on an imaginary cigarette. "You don't smoke."
I hitched the front of my Stetson with a bent knuckle. "I used to." And left it at that while we surveyed the street. The main shopping drag was quiet, it being Sunday, the only sound a far off church bell ringing in the St. Aloysius mid-day mass. Pubs would open soon. "I used to do a lot of things."
He was nothing but a boy to me. Jobless, shiftless, hair a bit too long for a working man. But not a bad lad, not like some of them. And he didn't seem to care that I wore a hat and boots and looked as if I had just walked off a Robert Michum cowboy movie. That meant a lot to me : most people his age were intolerant of it, called me Tex and Pardner in the street. Maybe he was the son that Sherry and I never had.
"Why do you want to quit, son?"
He shrugged. "Because it costs too much, I suppose. And Jessie wants me to."
I nodded. "Now we get to it. Jessie wants you to. And you'll do it because you love her."
He frowned. "You talk funny for a guy. People from here don't love each other. We tolerate each other because that's the way it's always been. And nobody admits anything different. I'll give up the smokes because she'll stop nipping my head about it."
I laughed. Another street philosopher, a miniature version of myself in my younger day. There was one on every park bench and street corner in this city. But some things took age to know. I pulled myself up straight, and tucked my shirt in under my snakeskin belt.
"How heavy do you think I am?"
He cocked an eyebrow. "Eh? What are you on about now?"
"How heavy would you say I was, looking at me?"
He stood back and examined me critically, weighing up the lean torso in the loose silk shirt, the chicken arms, and the lanky legs thankfully hidden from view behind imported Wrangler jeans from Wyoming. He took far too long about it, in fact, and I suppose that was my punishment for asking such a seemingly stupid question, so I stood it out, saying nothing.
"I'd say about eleven stone. "
"And you'd be nearly right. I've been 150 pounds since I was 28 years of age, not an ounce either side of it."
"Impressive. Too skinny for somebody your height though."
I nodded. "Would you believe I was once twenty five stones, and had a gut and arse on me like a beached whale?"
"Really? That's amazing." I saw him unconsciously appraise his own growing beer belly. "Did you go on a diet, then?"
I laughed again. "You could say that. It was the queerest thing I ever saw. But there's a lesson in it I never forgot, and I think you should hear it too, before you go too far with these patches and chewing gum."
"Well, old man, I've got nothing else on until Shevlanes opens its doors to the world, and we all go in for a drop of the electric soup. So tell me a story."
I smiled. I hadn't told this story to more than a dozen people over the years, people I trusted. The street was empty, nobody would stop to talk to me, the lonesome cowboy. It wouldn't take long, and he might get something out of it.
"You know my wife Sherry? You know what size of woman she is?"
He grinned. "You called her voluptuous one night when you were pissed. You also said that was another word for fat, and I was too far gone myself at the time to argue."
"Aye, she's fat. A big fat Glasgow woman, like you see in etchings and prints in trendy Glasgow shops. A big washer woman, a wifie. This place is full of them, every one of them complaining about their feet and their backs. She's a big fat woman."
I saw on his face that he was unsure how to respond, so I forged on. "When I met her, she was a size six in a dress, just a slip of a girl. I fancied her with a passion. But I was a fat bastard, and she wouldn't even give me the time of day."
I remembered how she looked that day on the Balgrayhill, floral dress wrapped into her impossibly thin waist with a white leather belt. He ankles were like china, I could have circled them with my thumb and finger. I had to have her. I knew what I looked like, but I had to try.
"I asked her to come for a walk in the park with me. You understand, she was in with the crowd, you know. She was liked by everybody, all the guys in the district were after her. But she knew it, as well. You know? We were little more than children ourselves, and with it she still had that childlike cruelty that could turn a man's heart to stone."
"She knocked you back?"
"Oh aye, son. She knocked me back. She gathered her friends around her like a big pair of dragon wings and let me have it for all she was worth. It was humiliating. I can still remember every word she said to me. I ran halfway up Springburn Road with the tears streaming down my face, gasping and choking in a close until I was nearly sick with it."
"So you decided to go on a diet."
"Not right away. First I had to have a blowout, cheer me up. I went up to my mother's house and took all the week's sausages and bacon, and they were rationed in those days son. If you ate them, that was it for the week. A big dod of lard in the frying pan, and I ate the lot. I drowned myself in the grease and the comfort of food. And after that I really was sick."
"Man, that was bad. She might have let you down easier."
"She wasn't capable of it, son. You see, it wasn't just me who had a few things to learn. I gave her the benefit of the doubt, imagined that maybe she had to do it to keep face in front of her pals. Maybe if I could get her alone, she would be sorry for it, and with no pals around, might be kinder to me. So I followed her."
"It wasn't hard. We lived in the same street, I just waited until I saw her going out to the shops with her wee net bag, and waited at her close for her returning. I had a newspaper, and tried to look as natural as I could. But inside my big fat frame, I was cowering like a leaf."
"Anyway, she comes back, and I make out as if I've just noticed her. 'Hello' I say to her as she passes me. 'Hello', she says back. No too bad, I think to myself. 'If you're standing there trying to impress me, then forget it. I don't go out with men with bigger hips than me, son' I was devastated, I just stood there gaping."
"But I was in love, I couldn't believe she could be so nasty, I didn't want to believe it. But if I'm honest with myself, I looked into those blue eyes of hers and saw not one bit of compassion. She really did despise me… then. I asked her if I managed to lose the fat, would she be interested. She just laughed and went on up the close."
"So I dieted. For three months solid I ate nothing but one meal of bread and potatoes a day. And I never lost a bean, son. Not an ounce. The doctor couldn't account for it. Told me to exercise."
"So I started walking. Just up and down the main road at first. Then when I got more confidence, I went up the Balgray and back down again. The girls in the shops along there used to wave at me as I went past like clockwork. But I wouldn't give it up. I was out there, rain or shine, son, pounding the streets, long before all these joggers and such became trendy."
"And it started to come off. One day outside the florists, ach it's a hardware store now son, at the lights, the wee lassie who works in there was cutting some stems and she slipped in the water on the pavement. As luck would have it, I was just passing, and I caught her just as she was about to go right over."
"Ah we had a good laugh about it, and she thanked me very nicely, and asked me what I was doing, she had seen me going up and down a lot. So I told her I was trying to lose weight, and she stood there and told me that I was looking a lot better already. She looked me up and down much the same way as you did a minute ago, son. And then she winked at me."
"Hah, that must have been a bit of a boost for your confidence?"
"Oh aye. And I always stopped to have a wee natter with her on the way past, and sometimes with the wee lassie that worked in the butchers next door. Some days I would have a bit of a crowd out there talking away with me. It got to be quite the thing to do. And all this time I had been losing weight, and was feeling no bad."
"This one time I was passing, and a this wee slip of a thing who worked part-time in the chemists stopped to talk to me. I hadn't really spoken to her alone before, but I'd seen her a few times standing when the other lassies came out to talk to me. Anyway, she said that she thought it was a terrible thing that Sherry had done to me that day on Balgrayhill, and she wishes she had said something to her at the time, but I knew how these things went, and everything."
"I just stood there agreeing with her for a bit until she said 'serves her right she's putting on the beef herself these days'"
"I didn't know what she meant. I hadn't even seen Sherry for weeks, I had wanted to surprise her one day with my new physique, so I had been avoiding her. The beef? What did she mean? Oh aye, it turns out that while I had been losing the pounds, she had been putting them on. Seems her mother had taken her down to the doctors to get her a pregnancy test they were all so worried."
"And was she?"
"Pregnant? No. I'm not sure what was happening, but sure enough, I catch her coming out the close the very next day, not quite so fine and mighty as she had been the time before. I saw her noticing my better shape, and then trying to dismiss me with that cruel frown of hers. But she knew that I could see it was true, she was putting it on around the waist, and no baggy coat was going to hide it."
"So what did you do?"
"I didn’t do anything. I just carried on walking up and down Springburn Road. I had got into a habit you see, and when I missed a day, folk came round to the house to see where I was. My mother was angry at first, but some of these lassies who came up to check on me were no half bad, you understand. I think even she began to see hat I might find myself a fine looking wife out of all this, so after a while she encouraged visitors in the parlour."
"It must have taken me six months solid walking to get to the weight I am now. But by that time I didn’t care about the weight any more, it had become less important to me. I enjoyed my trips round the shops, I was something of a local celebrity. For the first time people liked me, and I liked them."
"It was one day, getting into winter when the wind blows, and you can feel the chill in it, but it's just warning you about the cold that's coming later. Some of us had been up to the park, and were coming back down Balgrayhill Road, arms linked like the front of a knitting pattern. And who should come waddling up the hill, but Sherry. And I mean, she had laid it on by then. It must have been something genetic, but the first flush of rosy youth had certainly passed this doll. Her arse was the size of Pinkston power station, god help the lassie."
"Well I had all these friends around me, and she was by herself, a wee fat ball coming up the hill, and I thought back to myself six months before. Then it had been her all slim and popular, and me all fat and self-conscious coming up the hill, and her coming down it with all her friends."
"So did ye slag her? Rub her nose in it a bit?"
I shook my head. "No. No. I loved her still, you see. I waited until she was about to pass us and called to her to stop. Then, gathering everyone around, I took her hand and asked her if she would like a walk in the park. I winked at some of the girls as I said it, and they smiled back at me, encouraging me. Sherry was a bit bedraggled, but oh those eyes, son. They melt me to this day."
"Aw man, that's dead romantic. And she said yes?"
I smiled. "Did she hell. I've never heard such language this side of a shipyard gate. And it takes a lot to make me blush." I laughed out loud.
He looked confused. "But… " He started laughing. "You're married! She must have said yes?"
"Oh she did. But I didn't taste a whiff of that until nigh on a year later. I don't know if it was pride, or shame, or the last wee bits of her childish streak. But she told me to go to hell."
"Oh man, that's too funny. So how did you two ever get together?"
I stood back, waving a hand up and down my delicately pressed shirt. "Why do you think I wear this bloody stupid looking get-up? She loves cowboys. I had to get her some way. I was gutted. If I'd known that at the start, it would have saved me a lot of walking."
He laughed again. "I need a fag, pardner."
So we walked down the road, pausing at the paper shop while he bought twenty Woodbine. Some kids passed me as I waited for him, and they jeered and pointed at me, the old cowboy in Springburn Road. I knew they would learn. It didn't bother me.
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