Handstands In The Dark: A True Story of Growing Up and Survival (38 page)

I HAD DECIDED
to start running to keep fit. All my adult life had been spent being on one diet after another. I was never terribly overweight but I wanted to be skinny. I would get a pang of jealousy when Sean looked at the long skinny limbs of the young women who drank in the bar and I wanted to be like them. How I wished I was tall and slim; unfortunately I stayed small, dark and curvy. No matter how much weight I lost, my breasts refused to diminish in size. So I started running. I ran every night for six weeks until I was doing four miles a day. Sean encouraged me all the way. He took me out shopping to get running shoes and even backed me up when I enrolled in an expensive gym. I started to get really fit and healthy. I loved the feeling and energy that I had gained since I started my regime. It also gave me an immense confidence boost. My hair was shiny, my legs were toned and I looked better in my clothes. Life was looking up. Sean and I were getting along fine and the money was being paid to Old George for the building. I never took much notice of the fine details and left all that to Sean. He seemed to be in control again.

Then, one night, Sean and I were woken up by fire engines’ sirens screaming through the streets and we saw flames across on the other side of the London Road. I jumped up, pulled on my housecoat, ran down all the stairs and fled across the busy main road. There on the pavement was blind Jonah, standing in his bare feet and underwear, looking shocked and disorientated, his right hand raised, trying to find something to hold onto to give him stability. His partner Jackie was standing beside him, shivering in a coat over her underwear, holding their wee baby Cheryl in her arms. The only neighbours who offered any help were Colin and Andrew who, just as I approached, ran down and wrapped them up in blankets from their bedroom.

‘Fucksake, Jonah,’ I asked. ‘What happened?’ I tried to lift baby Cheryl from Jackie’s arms but she was scared and held onto her mother tighter.

‘I think it was an electrical thing,’ Jonah mumbled. ‘I could smell it fucking burning, Janey. Jackie wouldn’t listen to me. Aw day I huv been telling her I could smell it.’

‘Yeah. He
did
say that, he
did
,’ was all Jackie could say, shocked.

Sean and I led them across the busy main road to our flat. Behind us, Jonah’s flat still belched smoke and flames from every window. We took them up to our flat that night. Jonah sat in my living-room chair, smoking and drinking tea until morning came, then an ambulance took him to hospital for observation. Local people claimed his house had been firebombed but I think, if it had been, the whole block would have gone up in flames.

* * *

By now, yet another Christmas was approaching and I realised another year had passed so quickly. Sean went to the hospital for one of his regular check-ups because of his diabetes insipidus. That night, he told me, ‘I saw my dad today at the hospital; I saw him walk from his car at the car park.’

‘What was he there fur; did ye ask him?’

‘No he was a bit away and I just watched him go into the main building at the hospital. Must be his diabetes, I suppose. But I kinda wished I had caught up with him and spoke to him.’

I pulled out my running shoes and lay them on the floor for the morning.

‘Well Sean, call him now; it might make ye feel better.’

He looked at me as he took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. I had watched him do this so many times; it had become a ritual that, when he was worried or stressed, I would wait for him to pull off the spectacles and rub his eyelids with his thumb and forefinger.

‘I did call him, but Sandra said he wasn’t there. I asked why he was at the infirmary today and she just hung up on me.’ Sean stared at the floor and added, ‘He called me yesterday and told me to keep an eye on Old Wullie as he wasn’t very well.’

‘What’s wrong with Old Wullie then?’ I asked.

Sean sat staring, still fiddling with his glasses. ‘He looks ill, Janey. I did call the doctor and it’s his blood pressure, but he just keeps on smoking and drinking.’

‘He does look more and more like
The Ribena Man
,’ I agreed. ‘He is almost bright purple at times: that cannae be a good thing, Sean.’

Old Wullie’s room and Ashley’s playroom were next door to our flat. I often heard her chatting to him as he went in and out with his big blonde Alsatian dog Sara. I shook my head remembering the state the old man got himself into recently, climbing just the one flight of stairs to his flat.

Over the following two days, Sean became more and more worried about his father. Despite calling four times a day, there was no answer or explanation from Sandra as to
where
Old George had gone. Sean eventually called his brother Philip to be told bluntly that their father had gone into the Royal Infirmary on the day Sean saw him – for a major heart bypass operation. The operation had gone fine but Old George had had a major stroke during recovery and was now lying very ill at the infirmary. No one outside the immediate family was to know: ‘Absolutely no one,’ Philip impressed on Sean. That same night, all the other Storrie sons were informed of the situation. We did not tell Ashley or any of my family. I suggested that maybe Old George’s old flame Patsy Paton should be told or even some of Old George’s brothers or wider family. If he was very ill then this might be their only chance to see him again alive.

‘No, Janey, tell no one,’ Sean shouted at me. ‘OK? No one!’ He went to visit his dad that night. When he came home he was very pale and drawn.

‘Janey, he is incapable of communicating. He looks angry and frustrated just sitting there, but the doctors say he can make progress with the right treatment.’

I could see the fear in Sean’s eyes. My heart lurched, I felt dreadful for him, for Ashley, for his six brothers and for all the other children in this big fragmented family. They were all held together by Old George. The brothers had never really got on; their father bound them all together like human duct tape.
If he goes, God knows what will happen
, I thought.

It was a nightmare trying to remain calm and focused on the bar while worrying sick about Sean’s father. As it stood, we were told that only his family could visit him. I assumed that meant only his sons, not me, and was annoyed when I discovered that Sandra and other daughters-in-law had been to the hospital but I was not allowed. I accepted that Old George had never really liked me much, but I had never heard him say many nice things about his other daughters-in-law either. When I thought about it, though, I didn’t really want to visit him: the thought of seeing Old George incapacitated actually scared me. I had always known him as this big strong man who took control of any conversation and every situation. But I couldn’t understand the need for secrecy. If my father had been ill in hospital, I would have had no problem telling his close circle of friends. Perhaps it was to prevent anyone knowing George and his family were terribly vulnerable. I tried to talk to Sean about it: ‘What if he stays in hospital for a long time recovering from the stroke? What will you tell people to cover up his absence?’

‘Shut the fuck up, Janey. He will recover. He looks better every day. He can move his fingers now,’ Sean told me, pulling off his glasses and rubbing his eyes.

I had to carry on getting ready for Christmas. Ashley had written a letter to Santa asking for a train set and it was now my job to buy and assemble the thing. I decided to set it up in her playroom on Christmas Eve. That way, she could keep it on the big board it was fixed to and play with it at her leisure. Meanwhile, Old George was into his second week of intensive care and Old Wullie was getting sicker. He had never liked anyone coming into his room and I respected his privacy.

‘Wullie, d’ye want me to take the dug a walk?’ I would shout through his door.

‘Naw, ahm fine!’ he would shout back, then his whole body would break into a deep hacking cough. I would stand there and wait for the coughing to subside then shout again:

‘Wullie! It’s Janey! D’ye need anything?’

‘Naw! I will put yer pot ootside the door later. The mince wiz shite – even the dug didnae like it!’ he would growl from what used to be my living room when I first moved into the building 13 years before. I would stand out there in the hall laughing: he was a cantankerous old bastard who loved getting a dig at me.

‘OK, ya ungrateful old fucker!’ I’d yell. ‘Let me know if ye need anything. I will be next door an’ ye know the doors are always open!’

Sean was barely holding it all together; he became more distraught each time he visited his father. Old George was not progressing enough to even contemplate coming home for Christmas. The other brothers were getting increasingly annoyed at Young George and Sandra’s closeness; everyone knew Sandra had been Young George’s girlfriend for years before his father took over the saddle; they suspected that they might be ‘seeing’ each other again.

I just kept running. Each morning, I would pull on my running shoes and pound along the Glasgow Green, down towards the River Clyde. The Christmastime cold would shock my lungs as I started into the run, I would dodge the traffic and run across the Salt Market and make my way down the Clydeside walkway to run along the hard cobbles that lined the dockside all the way beside the river to the Glasgow Exhibition Centre. There I would take off my backpack and go into the Moat House Hotel and swim for an hour before I headed back towards the Weavers in my running shoes. This kept me focused and busy. I loved running and it really did help me beat the stress.

I was also trying to keep Ashley’s spirits buoyed up. She was now aware something was happening in the family but I could not tell her that Grandad George was ill as she might tell someone else by accident. I told her that Grandad George was away at his caravan at Wemyss Bay on the Firth of Clyde and would be back home after Christmas. She seemed to accept this, but became very clingy to her dad. Each night she would sit on his knee till she slept. Sean would sit there and hold her in silence. It was as if they were both comforting each other without knowing why.

When Sammy came over to see us, Sean did tell him about Old George’s illness. He sat in my kitchen and hung his head in silence. Sammy had always called Old George his uncle and Old George was fond of Sammy. He looked on him as one of his family and he knew that his son Paul and Sammy were very close as they had lived and worked together for so long with Sean and me. I felt awful for Sammy and, despite the grief he was giving me, I hated knowing he was in pain.

The Weavers was fully decorated for Christmas and the old tree dressed with all the old familiar ornaments. Sean was on a huge emotional rollercoaster. He was happy with his dad’s progress one day and shocked to the core the next. I was also getting more concerned about Old Wullie; he was very quiet and hadn’t shown his face for a few days. I would regularly bang on his door.

‘Wullie? Ye OK?’

If there was no answer, it would scare me because I knew he hadn’t left the building – I would have heard the dog bark as he went downstairs.

‘Wullie! Are ye OK?’ I would yell again and, eventually, he would shout through.

‘Ahm fine! … Noo fuck off!’

I knew he was getting worse. Then one day Ashley came in to see me: ‘Mummy, Old Wullie wants you to come right now,’ she told me, standing holding her tiny wee teapot. ‘Is he going to die?’

‘Ashley no. What makes you say that: he is just ill.’

‘He shouted:
Ashley tell your mum I am gonna die!
I heard him say that, Mum.’ She fiddled with her wee teapot. I could have shot Old Wullie, the insensitive old fucking drama queen. Ashley was only seven. I went onto the landing and into the flat next door, striding up the long hallway, making sure he could hear my footsteps, and then I opened his door. I stepped into his room. It smelled of stale smoke and old fish. Wullie had always shoplifted tins of salmon. The opened cans were now gathering together up at the window and he didn’t own a fridge.

‘Wullie, fucksake! The smell in here! Let me get a bin bag and I will clear this room a bit!’ I put my hand to my mouth. He was generally clean and always kept the bathroom tidy with his razors and stuff all up high as he knew Ashley used it when she was in his flat playing.

‘OK,’ he mumbled. ‘And then can ye take the dug oot fur me? The doctor is coming later. Sean called him fur me.’ Wullie stood there, frail, in a bright blue Paisley-patterned satin housecoat. I used to joke this was his ‘smoking jacket’; it looked so posh on this old purple-faced, hard-drinking Glaswegian.

‘Wullie, do me a favour? Stop shouting yer gonnae die, will ye? Ashley is freaked.’

‘Aye, but it made ye come here quick eh?’ he said, his big purple face creasing into a smile and then he laughed and coughed while he held his chest and laughed and coughed again.

I cleaned his room and took Sara the dog for a walk with Ashley. She tried in vain to stop the gentle yet very big blonde Alsatian from dragging her along. The dog was desperate to pee and ran along the grass looking for its favourite place.

Christmas Eve eventually arrived and, after teatime, I sneaked next door and walked up Old Wullie’s hallway with Ashley’s train set under my arm. I spread the instructions out and set about clipping it all together. I had a big green board and miniature trees, tiny people and wee pretend brick bridges all to set the scene of a country village with train station. I was loving it. It was a great present and she was going to adore this toy.

Whisky the cat sat quietly and watched me; I stopped for a break, picked him up and looked out of the big bay windows. I could see all the way across Glasgow Green and into the Gorbals. The big flats were gone; they had been demolished with explosives the year before, but I could see the twinkling lights of the houses beyond the beautiful church spire of St Francis in Cumberland Street where the gangs used to fight. Frost was starting to sharpen up the corners of the windows, making the street lights twinkle. I looked around the room; it was covered in toys, dolls, crayons and loads of paper and children’s books. Although this was Old Wullie’s flat, this was Ashley’s playroom. The walls were painted with bright Disney characters, some done good (mine!), some done squiggly (Ashley’s), loads of coloured hand prints (Ashley’s), lots of high-up hand prints with Celtic and Rangers written on them (Paul and Sammy’s). This was her room to enjoy and play in as she wanted. I finished putting together the train set and tried it out. The old-fashioned steam train went off round the track and trundled towards the wee brick bridge.