Nicking Time (2 page)

“What’s for dinner? It’s not that yellow fish, is it? The disgusting salty one that tastes like evil?”

“I feel sorry for him,” says my mum. “Ham and macaroni. He doesn’t seem to have anybody – you don’t see any family coming to visit. It’s terrible to be that lonely when you’re old.”

“Who are you talking about?”

“A new neighbour – Mr Murphy. He’s got the Browns’ old house. And that yellow fish, for your information, is very expensive.”

“Another old guy, Dad.”

“I know. Glasgow Corporation definitely has a factory that makes them and sends them here.”

“Yes – he’s not long moved in. And he’s on his own. You nip up to see him on your way out after dinner, James, and ask if there’s anything he needs.”

“Aw, Mum – not tonight! It’s the start of the holidays. I’m only back for dinner.”

“Tomorrow then. In the morning.”

“OK, in the morning I will.”

“So, the holidays at last. D’you have lots of plans
with Bru and that lot?” asks my dad when we sit down to eat.

I nod, my mouth full of macaroni.

“What plans?” asks Kit. She’s my sister. She’s really nosy.

“Stuff,” I answer, scooping in another mouthful.

“That’s the door,” says my mum. “How quickly do your friends eat?”

It turns out not to be Bru as expected, but Skooshie. He’s still eating, in fact. The remains of a giant sausage roll in a City Bakeries bag.

“Hullo, Mrs Laird. Hullo, Mr Laird.”

“Sit down in the living room, Mark. James isn’t finished yet.”

Instead Skooshie leans in the kitchen doorway, up for a chat while we eat.

“D’you want a drink, Skooshie?” I ask.

“No, thanks. I’ve got one here.” He produces a can of Irn-Bru.

“Skooshie – how d’you get that name?” asks my dad.

“Well, from McCuish. Mark McCuish – Cush – Skoosh – Skooshie.”

“Aw, right,” says my dad. “So what about Bru? Where’s that from?”

Kit and I look at each other, like he’s daft.

“Because he’s ginger,” we say at the same time.

“Aw, I get it… And Hector is…”

“And Hector’s called Hector because there are three Alans in our class,” says Skooshie. “It would be confusing to call them all Alan,” he adds helpfully.

“Right…”

“And James is Midge because it’s Jim backwards, I’m guessing.”

Kit chips in, “No, it’s Midge short for Midgie – because he’s small, noisy and annoying.”

“Yeah and I bite!” I lunge at her and she squeals.

“Behave, you two,” says my mum. “Lemur’s the one that’s always confused me. Why d’you call him that?”

“From the polis alphabet,” says Skooshie, trying not to rift. The ginger bubbles force their way out of his nose instead, noisily. My mum gives him a Look.

“Eh?” says my dad. The whole ginger-nose-bubbles thing has made Skooshie’s last comment a bit hard to follow.

“You know, Mr Laird. When they have words for the letters, so the polis don’t get the wrong spelling? So, his initials are CL – in polis talk that’s Charlie Lemur.”

“Is that right?” My dad takes a swig of his tea and looks amused.

I roll my eyes. “What can you do, Dad? We’ve given up telling Skoosh it’s
Lima
. Lemur’s just stuck.”

“Lemur suits him,” says Skooshie. “They’re wee monkeys, aren’t they? Always jumping about the place.”

“So you’d be Juliet?” says Kit, grinning like the evil panda she is.

“Shut up, Cursed-y. That’s Bru at the door, Mum. Can I go?”

“Yes. Take some biscuits for pudding. Be back before it’s dark. What are you all up to tomorrow?”

“Dunno yet. Bru’s … eh, he’s not … around for a few days. Monday we’re all playing football at the recs,” I say, getting out the biscuit tin and prising the lid off.

“Big game,” says Skooshie.

I’m presuming she meant biscuits for everyone? I don’t want to be rude just sitting eating on my own. I cram five mint Viscounts in my pocket. The biscuit tin’s looking a bit empty after that, so I space out the ones that are left with my finger, then jam on the lid hard and put it back in the cupboard. My mum raises her eyebrows, then decides to be pleased I’ve tidied up and gives me a smile.

“Thanks, Mum. See you all later.”

“Midge, can we play Go when you get back?” Kit yells.

“OK,” I yell back.

“Is that the game where you travel round the world collecting souvenirs?” says Bru. “The one we played at Christmas?”

“Yeah.” We’re going down in the lift because we’re all still a bit full. “Kit and I played it every single day in the Christmas holidays, if not with you then with my mum and dad. Then it disappeared. But Kit found it again on top of the wardrobe the other day and we’re back into it.”

“It’s funny how toys do disappear like that
sometimes
,” says Bru. “Or break really unexpectedly. It happened with my brothers’ guns – remember those ones that lit up and went WA-WA-WA-WA-WA? One day – fine; next day – no lights, no noise, nothing. My mum said it was because they’d used them too much and maybe next time they’d learn. I said it might just be the batteries but she said it definitely wasn’t, she’d checked and so had Dad, and it definitely was just one of those things, what a shame.”

“Why
is
Hector called Hector?” Skooshie asks, as we walk up the hill.

“After the soldier in the Trojan War,” says Bru. “D’you not remember Mr McKie telling us the stories in Primary 5?”

“Did the Trojans not lose the war?”

“Yeah, they did,” I say. “But only because the Greeks were dirty cheats. That whole horse thing.”

“Oh, yeah. I remember our Hector always wanting to play the other Hector when we had the battles,” says Skooshie.

“Yeah.” We don’t say anything for a minute, remembering. Our class had been the Trojans and 5B had been the Greeks. We’d rewritten history on more than one occasion.

“They were good, those fights,” says Skooshie.

“Yeah,” Bru agrees. “And so after that Hector was Hector for evermore.”

“And what’s Lemur’s real name?” asks Skooshie.

We think hard.

“Charlie,” I say. “I think it might actually be Charlie.”

“I thought it was Callum,” says Bru, shrugging.

“Maybe it’s one of those names that are really a surname,” says Skooshie. “You know, like Crawford or Cameron or Colquhoun. He’s posh enough.”

“Colquhoun?” Bru snorts. “D’you not think if his name was Colquhoun, we’d’ve come up with a better nickname than Lemur?”

“Colquhoun,” says Skooshie with his thinking face on. “Colquhoun, Colquhoun, your neighbourhood loon.”

“I never saw him as a Colquhoun,” I say. “We’ll have to ask him.”

“It must be bad, whatever is it,” says Bru with a grin, “if he’s kept it that quiet.”

By the time we get to the den, we’ve forgotten. Hector and Lemur are arguing about the best way to get into Cathkin and they’re in dire need of our opinions. There’s just too much on our minds to be bothering about trivial things. We do find out later though. It turns out not to be Colquhoun, in case you’re wondering.

With the constant talking about Cathkin, we’re really in the mood for a proper game of football. We can’t do much about that till we get Bru back. We spend most of the next three days cursing Mrs
Whistle-Blower
and her evil influence and moaning about the unfairness of Bru being kept in. We take turns saying, “I mean,
right at the start of the holidays
!” and “I know – unbelievable!” Luckily we’ve got Monday to look forward to.

There’s nowhere to play football round the flats – there’s plenty of grass, but it’s all hilly. When I look out the living-room window at the perfect green of the Cathkin pitch, I think, “So near and yet so far.” Ironic, eh? (I used this as an example of irony in my entrance exam: As I am a football fan, it is ironic that I live within spitting distance of a former professional football pitch that nobody wants to use and where I am not allowed to play. I didn’t say “spitting distance” – I said something like “right next to”. But I reckon I
could
spit the distance. If you took the window-locks off so I could get some momentum.)

To get a proper game, we have to go to the recs. They’re between us and Queen’s Park: six grit football pitches surrounded by loads of grass. You have to time it right – Sunday afternoons are hopeless, with all the local amateur teams out playing in their competitive leagues. During the holidays, when they’re all at work, you’ve more chance. Monday morning we reclaim Bru and set off, armed with a ball and some bottles of water so we don’t collapse in the heat.

It’s a fair way but we don’t mind the walk. It’s become more interesting recently, since we did Mary, Queen of Scots at school. Before then I hadn’t really wondered why the area by the recs is called Battlefield. We were amazed to find out something interesting had actually happened around here.

“So this is the route Mary’s army would have followed on the way to the battle,” says Hector, inspiring us to set up a forced march. Our stomping feet hit the pavement in rhythm,
left, two, three, four, left, two, three, four
in honour of the soldiers that hoofed it up Prospecthill Road and down the other side four hundred years ago.

“Ooof!” says Bru, when the marching comes to a ragged stop after a short distance. “I wouldn’t fancy doing that in armour!”

He then nudges me sideways, and punches me hard in the arm. “Free Punch!” he shouts.

I’m annoyed I’ve been caught. The metal covering in the pavement is small but the letters FP are clear enough and should have been really obvious to me. He nudged me to make me stand on it, which is fair. And when I stood on it, he had the right to punch me. I can’t punch
him back. That’s the rule with fire hydrants: you stand on one that says FP, somebody’s allowed to give you a free punch; if it says FH, they get a free hit, which is the more fun one of the two because it gives you a bit more scope.

“Which one’s your house, Lemur?” Hector asks.

Lemur waves vaguely in the direction of May Terrace, a small road set back from the main road and shielded from it by a row of trees. It’s hard to see which one he means. The houses in May Terrace are big and the people living there have expensive cars. “They’re a bit pan loaf for us,” my dad says. He had to explain that one for Kit. “We’re plain loaf kind of people – rougher made and with harder crusts.”

“I’d invite you all in,” says Lemur. “But my parents aren’t there and I don’t have a key.” We’ve never been to Lemur’s house. It’s true we’re a generally mucky group, and a bit clumsy. Maybe his mum’s worried we’ll make a mess. Come to think of it, I’ve never been to Skooshie’s either. It’s not really on our way anywhere and Skooshie’s always the first to suggest hanging out at our houses.

“Did you know,” says Hector, “that after the Battle of Langside, the dead soldiers were buried in nearby marshland? Marshland that would later become the Queen’s Park boating pond…”

“Whoah! We need to go back there soon!”

“Do you think if you leaned over the edge of the boat and looked into the water you might see them, looking up at you?”

“Or find some of their swords at the bottom of the pond?”

This gem of information is definitely one of Hector’s finest offerings. He walks the rest of the way smiling, quietly pleased with the effect it’s had.

“I reckon it’s the pitch right at the end on the left. Just before the pedestrian crossing to the park,” says Bru.

Every time we come here we debate this. It is important because it affects where we play, presuming we have a choice of pitches. Today we do.

“D’you not think,” says Hector, like this is the first time he’s really thought about it, “that it’s more over to the right? I think that’s more likely.”

“Based on what, Hector?” I ask, because somebody has to.

“Well.” He puts his hand to his forehead and scans the land. He’s either doing it to keep the sun out of his eyes or he’s trying to get into the role of army commander. “It just feels like it would be more over to the right. Douglas of Drumlanrig’s cavalry sweeps down from the hill there.” (This accompanied by big sweeping gesture.) “Herries’s cavalry advances to stop him there.” (This accompanied by big stopping gesture.) “Yeah. I think they would’ve clashed right by that goal post.”

To be honest, there must’ve been horses all over the place in the Battle of Langside. I’m not convinced it comes down to one pitch or another. But I’ve tried this argument before and nobody listens.

“We played on that one last time,” says Bru. It’s his
football, which kind of means he has dibs on choosing. But he never picks fights, Bru. He just bides his time, not backing down.

“Yeah, we did,” says Hector at last, and he starts to walk towards Bru’s pitch.

I’ll pass over the bit where they debate who should play in what direction because it’s just more of the same. This on top of the fact that five’s an awkward number for football, so we’ve got plenty to discuss and decide without bringing in historical factors. We’re still debating who’s on which side and whether somebody should be a referee or whether we should take turns being goalie and do four-on-one striking practice when we’re interrupted.

“Hey. D’you want a game?”

It’s a gang of lads, six of them, about our age. (What would be a good collective noun for that, I wonder? My teacher said collective nouns would be big in the grammar exam, so I had to learn a lot of them. Maybe
a litter of lads. A boisterousness of boys. A squabble of squirts. A posse of pals
. I file them away, meaning to tell them to Kit later and see what she thinks.)

“Yes,” says Lemur. “Us against you?”

“You’re on.”

I got it wrong. The phrase I was looking for was
a batallion of boys
. Because when we start playing it’s very clear that this is a battle. And it doesn’t look like we’re on the side that’s going to win.

Because it hasn’t rained for a long time, the pitches are dry and throw up clouds of orange dust when you run, when you pass, when you fall. And we fall often. They’re determined to win and they don’t care how. They tackle hard. I feel like a soldier in the thick of things. Sometimes I think I may have mislaid my sword and shield. We do fight back but, in what seems like no time at all, they’ve managed to slip the ball not once but twice past our defences and into the goal.

“Half-time!” yells Lemur. We stop running about and collapse on the grass at the side of the pitch, a strategic distance from the other team. All you can hear for a minute is the sound of eleven boys panting and the glurping of water. Then Lemur calls us to attention.

“We haven’t been playing as a team,” he says in a hushed voice that won’t reach the enemy. “But we’re only 2–nil down. We can turn this around. Bru, you go wider on the left – they look a bit weak there. Skooshie, you go forward with Bru and get the ball to him whenever you can. Midge, focus on blocking the big lad who scored the two goals – pass it forward when you get the chance, but stay back. Don’t go forward yourself – it makes us too vulnerable at the back. Hector – the goals weren’t your fault – we all slipped up. I’ll be right in front of you. Tell me where you need me to move to help stop them scoring. OK? Everybody keep talking to each other so we know what we’re doing.
C’mon!
”

We don’t question any of it. To be honest, he’s not that great a player, Lemur, but as a captain we trust him.

“Let’s give it laldy, lads,” says Skooshie as a final morale-booster and we trot back onto the pitch.

This half starts with a skirmish in the centre, which ends with Skooshie sitting on his bum in the dust. He looks like he’s going to punch somebody but Lemur runs over and pulls him up, shouting, “
C’mon
, let’s play!” Skooshie wipes his hands on his shorts and scowls with determination. The next minute he’s got the ball. Bru’s calling for it. Skooshie passes wide, a confident, clean shot that finds its target. Bru’s round the last defender and the ball’s in the net. Yes!

We restart.

They’re down in our half now. I manage to intercept a pass and get the ball out to Bru, but he’s tackled and loses it. The ball comes back, over my head, falling between Lemur and a ginger kid on the other team. They both go for it, colliding and sprawling on the ground. Even as they’re falling, Lemur’s shouting to me. I dive back, retrieving the ball. I look up. Bru’s covered but Skooshie’s in a space and he’s waving wildly – he wants me to pass to him. I dummy to the left but chip the ball straight to Skooshie. He charges forward, flips the ball sideways onto his right foot and shoots. GOAL!

The other team is looking tired. We’re tired too – but we’re also feeling like we could do anything. We pause for an unofficial break, taking swigs of water. By now it’s really really hot.

“The next goal wins it?” says the captain of the other team.

“Agreed,” says Lemur.

They come at us with the force of cannon fire. I don’t know where they’ve got the energy from. Maybe it’s the thought that this is it, if they can just score
once more, it will be over. We’re pushed right back into our half, but Lemur waves Bru and Skooshie away. We – me, Lemur, Hector – need to stop them and give Bru and Skooshie the chance to win the game for us. The ball powers through, just beyond my reach. Lemur lunges at it but misses it too. It’s all on Hector – he dives, arms outstretched, hitting the ground hard. When the dust clears we can see him hugging the ball tightly to his chest, his grin the only white thing in his orange face.

“Hec–tor! Hec–tor! Hec–tor!”

Skoo-shie’s chanting, punching the air with relief.

From Hector to Lemur. A neat pass to me. I take it forward – it looks like there’s space for me to go by myself. But I see Skooshie tying up the attention of two of the other team as he darts about and Bru unmarked. I punt the ball up the field in Bru’s direction. He collects it on the run. He’s got their attention now, but it’s too late. He’s running fast into the gap, the ball at his feet – and then it’s shooting into the net. 3–2!!!

“Thanks for the game.” The losers limp off, the forces of evil defeated.

We’re stained orange-red with the efforts of battle: our shoes, shorts, t-shirts, knees, elbows. Lemur’s hair even looks bloodied with it. We are ecstatic. We’ve enough money between us for celebratory ice cream from the Mount Florida Café on the way home.

We walk back up Prospecthill Road, groaning at its steepness, and, licking our ice creams, we re-live the highlights of the match.