My Temporary Life (9 page)

He can see my look of concern and answers before I can even ask. “Don’t worry, I told you. I know a guy.” He almost smiles, and I try to smile back. It’s the best that I’ve seen him in days, and all of a sudden it almost feels like me and George again, me and George riding to work in his big car, listening to loud music.

With his big hand gently pushing on my back, he leads me to the back of the stage. Then, with a nod to a man who is even larger than George, we slide past generators that are humming and step over large power cords until we are standing directly off to the side. There are a couple of young men pulling on cords and checking wires, but for the most part we are alone. We have the perfect view and our timing is ideal. George pushes me in front of him, and I put my hands on the lip of the stage, just as the boys pick up their instruments and the drummer half stands, half sits, and bangs his sticks together in time.

I don’t know if they are good or bad. There are two of them playing electric guitars. One stays towards the back, and then sheepishly ventures out from time to time, before retreating back to his microphone. The other is more flamboyant and winks at the girls, while wandering along the front, tilting his guitar towards the crowd. He sings most of the songs. There is another boy who sports a very fine wispy moustache, playing what looks like an electric piano, and he sings too. And of course the drummer is at the back, in a world of his own, hitting his drums with amazing accuracy and rhythm. The young people in the crowd grow noisier and yell louder when the popular songs of the day are played, but offer only polite applause when the band announces their own, original music. I enjoy it all. I enjoy watching them each contribute in their own way to the sound, and I enjoy feeling George’s hand resting on my shoulder from time to time. It isn’t until near the end of their show, when they play their last song, that I start to feel it though. I start to feel the way that I felt that first time in George’s car.

The lead singer is controlling the music this time. Smiling playfully, he nods to each of his band mates for a moment, before a final definitive nod to the drummer, who’s waiting patiently, perched once again, half-standing, half-sitting, on his little stool behind the drums. Then, with his nod, the music begins, but it doesn’t sound like it did before. It doesn’t sound like four young boys each playing their own instruments. Instead, it sounds like one solid piece of music blasting in waves from the stage right over me and into the whole park. There are no gaps as the sound from the guitars meets the melody of the piano while the rhythm of the drums holds it all together. I don’t know the song and it doesn’t matter. It’s all just music. It just sounds right, and I realize that I’m holding onto the stage as though letting go would cause me to fall. The flamboyant guitar player sings the song, but never seems to forget about the other boys in the band. They’re all a part of every word that comes out of his mouth, as he looks almost pleadingly towards them, coaxing the right music from their instruments. He wanders towards the other guitar player, or the keyboard player, and somehow pulls them into the song by smiling a secretive smile at them, or just nodding, nodding as though there’s something going on that only they can sense, only they can feel. He’s wrong of course because I can feel it too. I feel part of it, part of whatever magical thing is happening up on the stage. Finally at the end he looks over at the drummer, and from our vantage point I can tell what he’s doing. I can tell what he’s saying to the drummer, even though there are no words exchanged. He’s asking him if it’s time. He’s asking if it’s time to stop, or do they keep going, keep whatever it is that they’ve just created alive for a moment or two longer. Somehow an agreement is made and with sweeping thumps along every drum that is balanced in front of him, the drummer ends the song while the guitar player looks one last time at each of the other members, before flipping his sweaty head towards the crowd and mock bowing to the applause.

It’s not just the music. The music is important, I can see that, but it’s more than that. The music is just part of it. It’s the relationships. It’s the relationship that the music forms between the boys that are playing, and it’s what they do with it. They played music all night, but somehow in that last song, for four or five minutes, they created something else, and that was what George had wanted me to experience. That’s why he brought me, that part I know for sure.

The crowd edges its way over towards us and there are young people now standing beside me, witnessing the music, calling out for more. I have to almost pry my hands from the stage, as I’ve been so intent on listening to the band, feeling their music, that I forgot for a moment where I was or what has been happening for the past few days. George’s hand is gone from my shoulder and when I look back his face is wet with tears. When he tries to speak the big man has to lean down and press his head against mine so that I can hear him, as the crowd around us keeps cheering for more.

“
It’s got nothing to do with you and me, Mal. It’s got nothing to do with us, remember that. It’s her and me, and you and her, but it’s not me and you. Me and you is a different thing, a different thing altogether. You and me is here and now, and that last song, and how it makes us feel, and there’s nothing, Mal, nothing, that she can do to change that.” Tears run down his face as he speaks to me, and I can feel their wetness against my own cheeks. I don’t even try to stop from crying. I just let the tears come. And when he puts his arm around me, leading us away from the crowd and back to his car, I let him, wishing that we could just stay that way for a long, long time.

Never underestimate the healing power of a torrential Scottish rainstorm. It really is a wonderful thing to behold. As we ride the bus home from the airport, my Dad is telling me about the changes that he’s made since I left, while I watch the rain falling angrily from the magnificent black sky. He’s working as a janitor now. The pay is higher and the work is regular. Things are better now, much better. We might be able to move to a bigger place, get our own phone line installed, and perhaps even buy an automobile. He’s right of course. Things will be better. I can tell already. He talks about Celtic, our fitba team, and all of the things that have happened in the neighbourhood. He pauses from time to time, and I expect him to ask me about Canada, or why I’ve come home early, but he doesn’t. Mercifully, he just keeps telling me, in his own way, that he’s missed me. I’m too tired from the flight to turn towards him, so I just rest my head against the window and listen.

The rain buckets down, and lashes against the houses that we pass, as though it’s trying to wipe the greyness right off them. I’m dressed in clothes that George has bought for me, a pair of shorts that I seem to be outgrowing already and a tee-shirt from the concert the night before. The music is fainter in my head now, and it’s not boys jumping up and down on a stage that I see. It’s rain, just rain, bleeding its wondrous colours through the mud of the Kilmarnock streets. I know these streets and what happens on them. There are few surprises here, and when I think about Canada and Brutus and George and Terry and Marvin, and of course my mother and all the things that happened, none of it really makes any sense to me. So, I decide that I’m glad to be home. I’m glad to be back in the safety of my black and white world. I’m glad to be back with my Dad.

CHAPTER 11

School Picture Day always seems to come far too early. It should be sometime after Christmas. It should be once we’ve had time to settle into our classes, once we’ve realized that the little bit of freedom that summer gave us, is gone. It’s not though; it’s the same every year. At the beginning of September, we’re marched, class by class, into the gymnasium, where a terrified looking photographer waits to take our pictures.

Hextall, with his cane tapping at his side, and Mr McRae, the Physical Education Master, line us up on a shaky old set of bleachers according to our height, tallest to shortest. I’ve moved this year. Instead of being in the middle row, I’ve made my way all the way to the back, standing with the tallest boys in my class. So, either everyone else has shrunk, or I really am growing very quickly. Hardly, on the other hand, the shortest boy in our class, is in the same spot he always occupies, right in the middle of the bottom row. I haven’t spoken to him since school re-started. I’ve tried, but when I reach the end of his street, to walk to school with him, he’s never there. Then, during class or in the hallways, he turns away, or just nods and keeps on walking. Perhaps he doesn’t want to remember the events of last school year, or perhaps he thinks he stands a better chance of getting through Third Form if he’s by himself.

The bleachers creak and groan under our weight, and I can’t help wonder what Terry would think if he could see me now. While he’s studying at his private academy on Vancouver Island, I’m wedged between two of the hard boys in our class, Derek Robertson and Jim Miller. In front of me, one half of the Craven twins, Kev, is trying to touch a scab on the end of his nose with his tongue. His sister, Ang, never far from him, is a row below, glaring at the cameraman, daring him to take her picture.

“
Don’t point it at me. Don’t be pointing that effin’ thing at me.” She’s furiously scratching her head, while yelling at the photographer, and from my vantage point two rows above, I can see red welts where she’s dug her nails deep into her scalp.

Hextall hesitates as though he’s going to say something to her, but turns away, choosing instead to usher the rest of us into place. “Right, you lot, get yer smiles ready. We want nice smiles for your mithers and faithers, those of you that have mithers and faithers that is.”

No, I can’t imagine Terry in a place like this. He’s more likely to be surrounded by healthy Canadian boys and girls, boys and girls who don’t carry knives or pick at scabs, or yell at photographers.

This is an important year. Most of us will turn 15 while in Third Form, and at that point, we no longer have to stay in school. We can join the ranks of the workers who populate the local factories or head to the shipyards of Glasgow. The two knife-carrying boys beside me will have fewer options. Their future likely lies in whatever criminal enterprise their families are involved in. The rest of us, if we maintain our grades, will stay in school, and try to remain at a level that will allow us to qualify for grants, and in turn head to university. My father tells me to keep studying, and if I keep bringing home the marks that I’ve been getting, there will be many schools that I can qualify for. It’s good advice. It sounds like good advice.

Most of the other classes have had their pictures taken, and innocently mill around the outside of the gym, waiting to be dismissed back to their classrooms. Gordon McGregor and Stuart Douglas are amongst them of course, menacingly standing off to the side of the photographer.

“
C’moan, gie us a big smile. Smile for yer Mammys and Daddys, those of ye that have Mammys and Daddys that is.” Douglas mocks Hextall’s words while McGregor confidently goads him on, standing back, laughing at us.

Their words don’t bother me and as usual, the whole process is over very quickly anyways. The man says
smile
and
next
almost as though they were one word, with only the glaring light of the camera’s flashbulb separating them. Then we’re quickly ordered to climb down from the bleachers.

I slowly make my way down from the top level, and can see that Douglas has spotted Hardly, and is leaning into him, waving his hand in front of his mouth, wafting at his breath. Gordon McGregor is still beside him, smiling, with his arms folded, looking every bit like his father, the butcher, as he stands behind his glass counter serving the housewives of our neighbourhood.

All of a sudden, something strange happens. In between trying to keep my balance and not getting shoved off the creaky old bleachers, I smell something. I smell piss. There’s no mistaking it. It’s piss. I mean, I know it’s not there. There’s nothing covered in piss, and although our gymnasium has a wide array of semi-unpleasant smells, it’s never smelled like piss before, but in my mind I can smell it. It’s piss, just piss. The smell and the memory that it brings back infuriates me, and I quicken my pace, actually jumping from the last bleacher, trying to make my way towards Hardly.

It’s too late though. By the time I brush past the rest of the kids, the doors of the gymnasium have opened and everyone’s crowding out into the hallways. Douglas and McGregor are leading the charge, shoving their way out, and Hardly has somehow disappeared into the crowd himself.

It’s strange. Last year I would have cowered behind someone else who was lingering on the bleachers, until Douglas and McGregor had finished with him, but this time I didn’t. This time, I made my way towards them. I don’t know what I’d intended to do once I got there, or what exactly motivated me to try and reach them. I really don’t know. I only know that once I smelled that piss, that same piss smell that I was covered in last year, I couldn’t wait to get there. I sit on the bottom bench for a moment where Hardly sat, and realize that the smell is gone and has been replaced by a smell that I know all too well. It’s alcohol, stale, foul, alcohol. I recognize it from my time with Hardly last year, and I know that’s why Douglas was wafting at his breath, and tormenting him. While I had my own demons to deal with this summer, Hardly has surely had his, and once again, he’s back on the booze.