2007 - A tale etched in blood and hard black pencel (18 page)

Martin’s response had, in fact, been anything but disdain. They weren’t gravity-defying pneumatics, which was definitely no bad thing, but it was needlessly harsh to invite him to agree with the term ‘droopy’. If anything, he preferred how they looked—and certainly how they felt—to most of the girls he’d slept with of late. For a start, it was a relief that there was some give when you squeezed them. It even half-occurred to him to say as much, to tell her she would look better than Becky Soleno if there were thirty people working on the photo-shoot for her, too. He didn’t, though. When it came to it, he didn’t want to sound solicitous or anxious to please. He felt like it would come across as weakness, and that she would in that same moment silently declare victory for herself.

He hears the shower being turned off. Seconds out, next round, the really tough one: facing each other in the daylight. He sits up and gets his bearings. They’re at her place, above the pub, a surprisingly sprawling maisonette, testament to the days when the inn offered accommodation to travellers.

He looks at the clock as Jojo emerges, wrapped in a towelling dressing-gown. It’s eight-fifteen. “You’re up early,” he says, compelled to say something.

“Aye. Need to be sharper if you want to sneak oot before I get up. Kids could be back any time. Well, Alison could. Jason’s half-man, half-mattress these days since he hit his teens. But still.”

The details come flooding back. The kids are fourteen and twelve. They stay at their dad’s most Fridays, Tam McBride. Martin didn’t know him. He was a couple of years older and went to the High. They’ve been apart for six years. Jojo got the weans and the pub in the divorce.

“It’s okay,” he says, swinging his legs out of the bed. “I know ‘get out’ when I hear it. I don’t want to put you in an awkward spot. I’ll get my stuff and you can skip to the part where you pretend this didn’t happen.”

Jojo shakes her head. “You really don’t think much of me at all, do you? But that’s nothin compared to how little you imagine I must think of you. Well, you’re wrong. I wasnae very nice to you once upon a time, boo-hoo. A lot of people werenae very nice to me, either. Do we write them off for good? Who the hell wants to be judged for life on how they behaved as kids?”

“Well, Noodsy’s putting a lot of store by it,” he replies, buttoning his shirt. “But otherwise, point taken.”

“We’re not the people we were, and we didnae know those people very well, either. Look at Eleanor. All we saw was the wee, smelly, angry lassie. We’d no idea what was behind that. Even Robbie. He was horrible to everybody, but nothin like as horrible as his father and his brothers were tae him. Bad weans don’t necessarily turn intae bad adults. And the same goes for the good yins.”

No kidding, he reflects.

On his way out, he passes an open door into Jojo’s son’s bedroom, catches an eyeful of an image-bedecked teenage wall. There’s a St Mirren crest, some yellowing sports-page clippings, posters of Blink 182, The Offspring, Bowling for Soup, Green Day, and a few FHM girly pull-outs. Yup, Kara’s up there. Jason’s wanking off to her when the door’s shut.

Martin’s had the real thing and Jason’s mammy on consecutive nights.

It’s appropriate he’s at the Railway Inn. His life right now is a fucking train-wreck.

A
fternoon playtime lasts only ten minutes, officially, though it can be anything between twelve and fifteen depending on when the teachers decide to bail out of the staff room. It’s still not a lot, especially for a game of fitba down on the pitch, where it can sometimes take ages for the ball to make it from one end of the park to the other, and Jamesy is keeping an anxious eye on his watch. He’s scored two goals today, both during lunchtime, and is confident he’s considered to be having a good game overall, especially that jinky wee run where he got the cross in and Matt Cannon scored with a header. It looked pure gemmie, and Matt didn’t forget Jamesy’s due, saying, “Some baw, wee man.” But he’d love to score three, to be able to say he’d got a hat-trick. He’d done it a few times up on the concrete, but the space was smaller and there was always hunners of goals in those games: forry-eight-each affairs. Goals were harder to come by down on the pitch, and it felt more exciting when there were proper lines on the grass, not to mention posts and a crossbar instead of jackets or drainpipes. They were playing with an old brown tube today, too, which made a pleasing ‘whump’ when you booted it, and was easier to control because it didn’t ping around like a plastic ball or even a new leather one. Plus, it never hurt when it got stoated off you, because it was old and all the enamel had come away, leaving only soft leather underneath.

They’ve been doing a lot of defending because Matt Cannon got kept behind by his teacher. Not only has this weakened their team, but the other lot have had that wee bit of extra purpose as they try to get back from now only two goals down. It’s funny how that happens. You can be getting pure scopped and you just play on, not bothered about the score, but then you get a couple back and suddenly everybody’s trying harder because there seems something to play for. It’s at times like this you need somebody on the park to rally your team, but with Matt absent, nobody really carries enough respect.

Time is leaching away. Worse, they’ve swapped ends since lunchtime, so the opposition are kicking into the end away from the buildings, which seriously adds to retrieval time after a goal or if it goes behind. The other end is close to the Annexe, the modern one-storey bit joined on to the Main Building, which houses the Primary Sevens and the staff room.

He really wants that third goal. Nobody’s scored for his team this playtime, with the other team clawing back their lead, so not only would it complete his hat-trick, but it could be the goal that stops the fightback and ensures victory. The ball has been booted clear a few times, but right over his head, bypassing the midfield and going right to the other end, and that’s no use because the only player they’ve got up there is Robbie. Moochers only mooch because they’re shite and they’ve got no chance of scoring otherwise, so they always get robbed of the ball; either that or they try for goal themselves. Same difference: the ball ends up back in the keeper’s hands.

Then, for once, Mick Garvie manages a decent drop-kick and Jamesy picks it up out wide, where he likes it. He goes past a couple of players and heads for the box. Folk are shouting, “wee baw, wee baw,” for the pass inside, but there are too many players around them for there to
be
any point. They’re just shouting like they do any time their own teammate has it. A few call him a ball-greedy bastard but he knows he’s right to keep it and make for the byline—then it’ll be worth a pass. Besides, if he passed it now, one of the eejits would probably try for glory, despite everybody knowing you seldom beat Colin with a long shot. Colin always milks it like fuck, and dives around making it look spectacular when he could as easily stop a shot with his feet, but he’s still a good goalie, no denying it.

Jamesy sees Martin coming out to meet him as he nears the byline. Martin beat him to a ball at lunchtime when he blootered it into the Wasteland, but that one had been much nearer Marty, and this time Jamesy has the ball under control. He jinks past him and looks up, sees loads of folk pouring forward into the box. He takes a swing and makes sure he gets his foot under it, sending it in high and hoping somebody sticks the noggin on it. Most of them shite out of it, and of those who jump, all but one get their timing wrong and it goes over their heads. Gary Hawkins is the exception, clearing the danger with a glancing header to send it out for a corner. It’s hard to tell if he meant it, but it looks good anyway.

Matt normally takes all the corners and free-kicks, no matter what area of the park, same as Stephen Rennie on his team. They both take all the penalties too, even if it’s you who got brought down (though sometimes, if they’re winning comfortably, they’ll let one of the hard-cases take it, just to sook up to them, or maybe the guy whose ball it is). With Matt not playing, it’s up for grabs, or rather it’s up for grabs to the best fighter out of all who want it.

Jamesy doesn’t want to take it. He wants a goal, and you don’t score from corner-kicks, despite Matt and Stephen always trying since they saw a Brazilian do it on the telly.

Graham Wilson gets to take the corner. He’s not a good fighter or anything, but it’s his ball. He takes a runny and gives it a big welly into the area. Colin jumps for it, but there’s too many folk in his way. He does well to get a touch, but doesn’t get close to catching it. The ball drops behind him, on the edge of the six-yard area, falling just in front of Paddy Beattie. He only has to side-foot it in with his left and it’s the decisive goal to end the fightback. Jammy bastard, Jamesy thinks. But instead of just stroking it home, Paddy decides to take a touch so he can change foot and pure leather it in with his right, because some folk think hitting it in dead fast from six yards is somehow impressive. He blooters it as hard as he can, but by this time wee Marty has dived in. Most folk think Martin’s a poof and a shiter because he can’t fight, but the same folk would be jumping out of the way of a shot like that. Martin is a bit of a shiter, to be honest, in other ways, but at football, he never does less than he possibly can, no matter the score. The ball skites off him with so much speed and loft that it clears the bar in a split second, before continuing to climb and loop right up on to the Annexe roof.

“Aw, fuck,” everybody agrees.

There is less accord over what will happen next. Nobody is going to dispute that it’s a corner, but getting the ball back in order to take it is a trickier matter, and the question of whose problem that is, trickier still.

“You’ll need tae get that,” Paddy is insisting.

Martin looks worried, but in this case marginally more by what retrieval would entail than by crossing the otherwise extremely intimidating Paddy.

“No I shouldnae. It came off me, but you’re the one that took a big blooter at it.”

“Aye, an if you hadnae got in the way, it would have been a goal instead ay up on the fuckin roof. You’re no gettin oot it, ya wee poof. Go an fuckin get it.”

“Aye,” agrees Richie Ryan. “It came aff you last. On you go.”

“Aye, get on wi it,” chimes in Charlie Russell, who sits next to Richie.

Jamesy has often heard folk say, ‘The baw’s on the slates’, meaning something’s ruined and can’t continue. He understands where it comes from, but in his experience, as slated roofs are always sloped, the ball going on to one only has this result if it gets stuck in the gutter rather than rolling clean off. The low-rise Annexe, however, is a flat-roofed affair (an architectural decision even his nine-year-old mind finds baffling, given the average rainfall), and in his opinion ‘The baw’s on the bitumen’ has a far more final ring to it.

Janny Johnny is supposed to go up there if a ball gets stuck, or at least that’s what the teachers say when you tell them, but the lazy bastard seldom does. As a result, at best the owner can be waiting weeks to get his ball back, but more likely the local big boys will nick up there in the evening or over the weekend and fuck off with it.

Still, this is regarded as a known risk to anyone who chooses to bring their ball into school (the corresponding benefits including taking the odd corner and very occasional penalty). It is expected that you climb over into the Wasteland if you put the ball over the wall, but up on the Annexe roof is different. The appreciable threat to life and limb, in combination with the thought of how mental the teachers would go, means that it is normally regarded as a lost cause.

Right now, however, folk are suddenly acting like this isn’t—and hasn’t aways been—the case. They’re all starting to gang up on Martin and making out that it is expected that you go up there, which is total shite. The rules haven’t changed. None of
them
has ever been up there, unless it happened when Jamesy was off sick, which he doubts. They’re just doing it because Martin’s never in trouble and they think he’s a poof. They were probably all hoping he’d get caught going over the wall at lunchtime because he’s never had the belt. They know there’s no chance of him doing it, but that barely matters because it’s a slagging for him if he cries off, which is a result for them, too.

It’s a pure sin. Martin never does anything to hurt anybody. It’s not right that they all gang up on somebody because he’s nice and not a bastard to folk. Jamesy wants to help, wants to head this off. He also wants that hat-trick, and with time running out there’s only one chance of getting it. “I’ll go up,” he announces.

“Don’t be daft, Jamesy,” says Paddy. “Let that wee poof get it.”

But Jamesy is already running, his mind made up. He considers himself a good climber, and has already been on a higher roof, back during the October Week holiday, when he and his pal Stewpot were playing along at Braeside Primary.

“Somebody keep the edgy and give us a shout if any teachers come,” he says, then heads around the back of the Annexe. He thinks about using the big bins to get up under the gutter, but there’s a sturdy iron drainpipe that will do fine. It’s perfect, in fact: the joins, brackets and offshoots providing footholds as his hands grip the white-painted metal. The wall is roughcast, too, which gives good grip against his trainers. There’s a wee heart-attack moment at the top as he gets both elbows over the edge and feels himself sway backwards for just a sec, but it passes and he makes it up okay.

He can’t see the ball at first. The roof is mainly flat, but there are these big see-through plastic pyramid efforts, six of them, sticking up to about waist height. Jamesy keeps one eye on the doors to the Main Building as he scuttles along between the two rows of pyramids, then spots the ball nestling against the base of one of them. He has a swatch down as he passes the first pyramid, and can see into one of the Primary Seven classrooms. It’s different from the ones he’s always been taught in: they have wide tables and plastic chairs in wee groups instead of individual wooden desks. There are Formica worktops around the walls, too, and the floor is carpeted instead of wooden. It looks dead flash and modern. Primary Seven must be gemmie.