My Temporary Life (10 page)

My morning walks with Hardly suddenly resume. I don’t ask him why he chose to walk without me, or why he’s back now. I just enjoy the fact that he’s back in his usual spot, standing at the lamppost at the end of his street when I get there. After three or four days, I notice a change in him. The same change that happened before, and I can’t stop myself; I have to say something. I just have to acknowledge it.

“
You’re back to yourself these past few days. It’s good. It’s good to see.” I keep walking with my head down, kicking the rock in front of me, and although he pauses before answering, he does the same, kicking and missing at his rock.

“
I stopped, if that’s what you mean. Nae booze. Don’t need it, doesnae help.”

He means it, and he sticks to his commitment. In the mornings he doesn’t smell like booze, and at dinnertimes he doesn’t sneak away to drink. Life almost becomes normal.

In the evenings, my father and I talk about fitba, and his new job, or we work in the small garden that we share with our neighbours. Second Form is harder than First Form was, but the answers to the lessons still come easily to me, and present few new challenges. I do the mandatory homework of reading and writing and studying, and in between I practice my best smile in the small mirror in our bathroom at home. Bashfully, I try it out on Nan McHendry, as she walks past me in the dinner hall, or from across the school yard if I think she happens to be looking in my direction. Once, she stops, with her two girlfriends hovering beside her, and actually speaks to me while I sit with Hardly, eating my mashed potatoes and mince.

“
Hello Malcolm, did you have a nice summer in Canada, then?”

Her voice seems different, different from the way that she talks to the others. It seems as though it’s a tone lower, and it’s meant just for me. As she speaks, she flicks her dark, silky hair back, peering at me shyly. I quickly try to empty my mouth of potatoes and answer her, but her girlfriend halts my little fantasy, quickly reminding me of who I really am.

“
What’s wrong with yer teeth, anyways, Malcolm? The way yer always lookin’ at Nan, showin’ her yer teeth like that. It’s no’ right. Neither of youse are right in the heed if you ask me.” She shakes her head, and looks at the two of us distastefully, trying to pull Nan’s arm away.

I don’t answer. I just scoop another forkful of potatoes and put them into my mouth, and pretend that I haven’t heard anything. Nan leaves of course. She lets her girlfriend pull her away, then turns and admonishes her with a scowl, telling her to leave us alone, and mind her own business. She doesn’t laugh at me though, or even smile at her girlfriend’s comments; she just walks away, leaving me alone once again, with Hardly.

Hextall is not our Master for any classes this year, but he still patrols the school grounds at dinner time, his trusty cane at his side, preying on the weaker children as they play their harmless games. I watch him as he avoids the bullies of the school, and walks past McGregor and Douglas or any of the young criminals in my class. He speaks to me once and, although it’s only a few words they pierce me in a way that’s hard to ignore.

“
No trees this year, Mr Wilson. No trees for you this year.” He’s smiling as he says it and taps his cane against the side of his leg as he walks past. I don’t detect the smell of piss this time, but it’s not far off. I know that it’s there somewhere.

Lunch times are either spent walking around the school with Hardly, talking about the masters and our classes, or I run. Mr McRae takes me aside early in the school year and tells me that I’ll be running with the track team. He sees my newly acquired long legs and strong arms and I suppose thinks that I’ll be a runner for the school. He’s right and he’s wrong. I enjoy running. In fact, I like it very much. It starts with my legs being stiff and inflexible for the first few minutes as I run around the school yard with the rest of the team, but then after a while they lighten up and I feel no resistance at all. It almost feels like I’m running on air. It doesn’t even feel like running. It’s more like I’ve found a way to move and cover distance that I’ve never known before. So, yes, he is right. I am a runner, but I’m not a runner who will win races for him. I have no interest in whether I can run faster than anyone else on the team. I run to get the feeling-the feeling of weightlessness and levity that comes from running long distances. I settle into the middle of the pack and try to find my pace. Sometimes I pass other runners and sometimes they pass me. I’m never last or even in the last part of the pack, but I also never win. I just have no interest in it, no interest at all.

The only time that I exert any extra effort is if I pass an area on the grounds where Nan might be sitting with her friends. I hunch my body forward a little and push myself harder, trying to get every inch of air to pass by me as quickly as possible. She sees me once or twice, but I don’t look over. I pretend to be so intent on running against the others that I don’t notice her. I know that she’s there, of course, and I know that she isn’t just watching us do our regular laps around the school grounds. Her eyes are firmly on me, and once, I’m sure she smiled and spoke. Staring at me, she mouthed my name and smiled that beautiful, sweet smile as I put every bit of effort into cutting between two of my competitors and flying around the course.

Yes, everything can be normal, monotonous and normal, and then your whole life can change in just one day. You can take every single thing that you know, or think you know, and forget about all of them. This is how it happens, you accept the changes that happen to your body and your mind, and tell yourself that you’re fourteen, almost fifteen, and you’re changing. That’s all that it is, just changes. You start out by being someone who’s thirteen and scared, then the next minute, you’re older and stronger and braver and everything might just be alright; now life might just get better. Just when the girl that you like is starting to smile at you and say your name, and your best friend has stopped drinking, and your Dad is actually whistling to himself and talking to you. All that can change. Because just around the corner, there is that smell again, that smell that seems to have some kind of control over you, that lingering smell of piss.

Hardly doesn’t come to school for two weeks. My morning walks become guessing games of wondering what’s happened to him, and when he’s going to be back. His desk at school sits empty, and nobody else seems to notice as his name is called, and the response doesn’t come. I try not to worry. I try to pretend that everything is normal. He’s sick, or is off visiting a relative. He’s got some normal, regular reason for not being at school. I’m sure of it.

When he does return, he’s leaning against the lamppost, and to my relief, he still looks sober, and clear-eyed. I smile as I reach him, wondering whether or not I’ll get a reason for his absence. It only takes a moment for me to realize that the reason is all over his battered face. He has purple bruises on his cheeks, and by his right eye there’s a yellow stain with a heavy imprint around it. He’s been hit several times by something heavy, by the look of it, and the wounds are healing, healing enough for him to return to school, I suppose.

I walk and he limps, almost the whole way to school, without talking, and it isn’t until we reach the grounds that he finally stops and speaks.

“
I didn’t drink. It wasn’t that. He just loses his temper. They both do. I’m a burden, their burden. Five and a half more months to go, then I’m gone. The Army if they’ll have me or the shipyards, I don’t care. I’ll just be gone, and I’ll never come back to this, any of this.”

We’re at the entrance to the school, and just stand there, neither of us looking at the other. We just stare vacantly at the day ahead of us, as he tells me the plans that he has for his fifteenth birthday.

“
I have to run this dinner time. I can’t get out of it, but wait for me. Wait for me by the dinner hall. I’ll be there. Just wait for me.” I keep staring ahead and clenching my teeth as I speak, not wanting to look at his bruises, but also not wanting him to think that I don’t care. He nods back at me, as he walks ahead into the grounds. It’s hard to watch him, as he tries so hard to walk straight, every once in a while favouring his good leg and limping with the other.

The morning is a blur of more assignments and reading and watching the back of Hardly’s head as he goes through the day as though it were any other day. When dinner time comes it’s lashing with rain, but Mr McRae still makes us run. We do our mandatory laps around the grounds and I lead the pack for once, anxious to finish and meet my friend. As I pass the entrance to the dinner hall I see him there, sitting under the shelter at the entranceway and I signal how many laps I have left. Then, the next time around, he anticipates me coming and holds up his hand telling me the amount of times around remaining. He’s smirking through his bruises and the heavy imprint around his eye is shiny from the rain water that’s dripping on him. The next time around he’s not alone though; Stuart Douglas is standing over him, in front of a group of boys with, of course Gordon McGregor, goading him on. The rain is soaking all of them and Douglas is laughing, and kicking at the air, narrowly missing Hardly’s head. Hardly just sits there, holding his hands up and cowering away, as though he’s waiting for yet another hit to come.

You don’t think about it. You just do it. That’s how it happens. You just do it.

I veer away from my running route, and can hear McGregor yelling something at Douglas, then Douglas turning and smiling, as I come charging towards him.

He doesn’t move. He just steps back, sideways almost, and lifts his hands in the air, waiting for my challenge. He seems to be bouncing on his feet, up and down, up and down. He’s not scared at all. In fact, he looks happy, happy that I’m coming towards him.

He doesn’t have a chance, of course. I have the advantage of my rage and the overwhelming memory of the scent of piss almost choking my lungs. I can’t make out all of the voices, as the other kids form a circle around us. Mr McRae, or maybe it’s Hextall, is yelling at me, telling me to stop, but it’s too late. I land the first blow and my fist is striking Douglas on his face, harder than I’ve ever struck any bag of wet leaves. He hits me back solidly enough to hurt but I can’t feel anything right now, especially not pain. My blows are relentless and persistent. I keep aiming at the spot behind his head, just as my Dad taught me, and I know that nothing will stop me from hitting the boy. He goes down from one of my punches, crumples almost, and I have no control over my hand anymore. I crouch over him and keep striking his head and his face over and over. When I feel the arm trying to pull me off, I know that it must be McGregor, the laughing son of the butcher. I don’t look back. I keep my attention on Douglas. I just fire my elbow back to shake McGregor off of me. I elbow him so hard that I can feel the bony part solidly striking his chest, sending him flying backwards.

Douglas is done. His face is a bloody mess. He lays there, rain pouring down on him, crying, asking me to stop. When I look back, McGregor isn’t on the ground but is actually standing away from the two of us beside Nan. Their faces are white with shock, and lying behind me is Hextall, holding his chest, with his cane at his side. Mr McRae is standing over him and looks at me with the same look of disgust that Nan now has, as she lets McGregor lead her away.

My knees are weak and my hands are sore, but I lift myself up and make my way over to sit beside Hardly, who’s still on the step. I try not to look at Hextall, as he attempts to sit up, grabbing the ground beside him, searching for his cane. I don’t want him to be lying there. I want it to be McGregor. It should be McGregor. In my mind I knew it had to be him. It had to be him, backing up Douglas. It isn’t though; he’s long gone, with Nan by his side.

Hardly is giggling and nudging me with his elbow. He’s drunk. I can smell it. The piss smell is gone and now all I can smell is the liquor on his breath. Somehow between morning and dinner time, he drank and he’s back on the booze.

Through slurred words and tears, he points to the imprint around his eye. “It was the iron. They hit me with the fucking iron. That’s why there’s lines there. I can’t get rid of the lines, Malcolm. The fucking lines won’t go away.”

I can’t look at my friend. The smell coming from him and the mess that I’ve caused is just too much to bear. I’m cold and sore, and as I start to think about the consequences of what I have just done, I can’t bear to look at it anymore, none of it. I turn my head to the side, away from Hardly, away from all of it, and throw up whatever is in my stomach, letting the pounding rain wash it all away.

CHAPTER 12

My Dad and I call all the schools in the area. There are three secondary schools in Kilmarnock, one in Stewarton, one in Dundonald, and one in Galston. We call Ayr and Troon and even try a couple in Glasgow, but they all tell us the same thing. A pupil can bully and beat other pupils senseless. He can carry a knife to school concealed in his duffle bag. He can climb up a tree and piss on his classmates, but under absolutely no circumstances can he hit one of the masters. And if you do happen to strike one of them, even in error, and you are a few months away from being able to leave school, then the Ayrshire school district will simply wait it out until they are no longer obliged to offer you an education.