Nipper (13 page)

Mum soon puts me straight about what happened between them back then when she and Dad broke up. She tells me
Dad kicked her out in the snow when she was pregnant with Tommy and that none of her own family would take her in: as far as they were concerned she had made her bed leaving home and getting pregnant, so she could now lie in it.

She was freezing and scared about being out all night so she turned to my Aunt Molly who was also pregnant. She took Mum in for a few days until Dad would let her come back. Women in those days had no chance in society.

She must have been very down and depressed when she broke up with Dad but she somehow got through it and I think that’s what’s made her such a strong character now. She could have gone under and resorted to drink, but her attitude was, ‘He left me in a worse state that anybody could have left anybody but he would have won if I’d just given in to it and ended up a drinker like him.’ She coped and she was determined not to be beaten by him.

By now Mum has remarried for the third time – the first was Dad and the second was Blake, who was the dad of my younger brother Bobby. He’s a good kid, Bobby, but still too young to know what’s going on in life. He’s eight now – the age I was when I ran away from Mum’s.

Her third husband is Dale. I get on well with him – he’s a bricklayer, tall, placid and easy-going, someone who likes a quiet life.

When I see what Mum’s really like, I feel guilty for having thought badly of her. But to be honest, before seeing her again all I’ve thought about for most of those six years between the
ages of four and ten was myself – it’s been all about whether I’m going to die or if Dad will die. I haven’t thought about my mum or my gran or my brothers – even though I’ve missed my brother Tommy.

We have half a brain each – that’s what everyone says once we get together again – and I’m remembering that from when we were young. I’m now starting to remember how I felt like a twin who had been torn away from his other half and that’s the only thing that really got to me at first about going with Dad instead of Mum when I was four.

Tommy and I start staying together for nights – at Mum’s one weekend and at Dad’s the next. And having been separated for six years, when we finally meet each other again we bond like the long-lost brothers we are. We even finish each other’s sentences, just like twins, only he’s two years older than me. If he has an idea to go and do something I am already packed and raring to go.

The things Tommy and I get up to are unbelievable. We’re a bit like a juvenile version of the Krays. We take a couple of golf clubs and a torch into the woods sometimes looking for rabbits with Mixy – it’s a disease that leaves rabbits blind. We’ll shine the torch in the rabbit’s eyes and then smack! The golf club head will connect with the rabbit’s head and, hey presto, it’s out of its misery.

Even though this anger is building up inside me I still kill those rabbits out of kindness, whereas Tommy really seems to enjoy whacking their heads off. You can see it in his eyes,
that he has something eating him inside as well. As I later find out, Mum has told him what Dad did to all of us when he was young and although I’m the one who has been bullied and battered all these years, Tommy is outraged and bitter about Dad and it’s getting to him as much as it gets to me.

Tommy has a different personality from me. He isn’t able to cope with things like I’ve learnt to. His attitude once he knows what Dad has done is: how dare he, the fucking bastard, I won’t let him get away with it. He’s a great brother to have but once he’s angry there’s no saying what he’ll do.

When Tommy stays over with me at Dad’s it’s better for me as far as beatings from Dad are concerned, at least to begin with. I can see that Dad’s on his guard in the early days, putting up a kind of wary but peaceable front for Tommy’s sake. But you can see that look behind Dad’s eyes. The sudden turn, the nasty, evil side when he gets drunk, he can’t hide it and Tommy soon starts to see what he’s really like. For a long time though he doesn’t beat me when Tommy’s around.

Tommy in turn is obviously scared of Dad, but not nearly as scared of him as I am, and as the months go by, the bottled-up hostility and hatred on both sides comes bubbling to the surface. Tommy’s much more fiery than I am and will stand his ground with Dad and occasionally answer him back, but he’s still too young to beat him in a fight so he manages to keep an uneasy peace with Dad. But they’re both watching each other, watching and waiting. Sometimes you could cut the mood between them with a knife.

A lot of young kids we know, including us, are being treated so badly and abused so much that it has turned a whole generation into time bombs, just waiting to go off. They would (including me) attack and destroy anything in their path.

We’re only kids but most adults would regard some of the games we play as horrendous and would certainly have complained to the RSPCA – though we simply find them fun. They include putting live frogs on barbecues, and inserting a straw up a frog’s backside and blowing it up like a balloon until it explodes. One of Tommy’s friends has drawn a circular target on a wooden garden shed with blackboard chalk. We’ve found a birds’ nest in a hedge with chicks in it and decide to throw the chicks at the target.

When Tommy and I start spending more time together we stay at Mum’s every other weekend. Her house is in a place in Charleston called Butters Loan. She’s been there for a few years. Mum still has blonde hair and her blue eyes are as bright as ever. Not surprisingly, she’s much smaller than I remember her and she always wears a lot of jewellery, including a gold cross and real gold bracelets. You can hear them jangle when she does the dishes.

Mum doesn’t go to church and we’re not practising Catholics – though I do get confirmed as a Catholic and occasionally go to church when I’m at school, for instance at Christmas. When she gets drunk she’s nuts – out of control – but in a silly, joky way not a violent way like Dad. She’s very
upfront and outspoken and speaks her mind, so if someone’s telling her their story and she knows they’re lying, she won’t be diplomatic – she’ll just say ‘What are yi lying for?’

She’s fearless like I am when I’m not around Dad. She just doesn’t care. You can say, I think you’re out of order and she’ll just say fine. But in any case I adore my mum, and worship her to bits. Now I know the truth I don’t blame her for not getting me back all those years. I know she fought for me every way she could and at this time I don’t blame her either as I’ve never even thought about not having a mum – it’s never even bothered me.

When she goes out for the night with friends we have a babysitter who’s about eighteen and who’s supposed to look after us for the night. Dale goes out with his friends and Mum goes out with hers, but half the time the babysitter seems to be zonked out on dope and pills or whatever else she takes with her boyfriend and always seems to crash out around ten o’clock watching TV. That’s when Tommy and I make our exit. We lower ourselves out of the second-floor back window of our bedroom, narrowly missing the washing line in the back green. It’s pitch black at this time of night as it’s an enclosed grassy area behind four sets of tenement blocks, which form a sort of square.

We synchronise our watches to get back into the house before 2.15 a.m. as Mum gets in between 2.30 and 3 a.m. We’re so organised for these escapades that we even carry torches on us during the day. I think Tommy always has to
be prepared for sticky situations as the places we explore are often pretty dark and dingy.

On this particular night when we climb out of the window I don’t have even a clue where we’re going. Tommy’s the man with the plan and I’m his tagalong sidekick. It feels fantastic having a big brother again – I hadn’t realised how much I’ve missed him all these years – especially as he’s so crazy and fearless.

‘Come on, Charlie, get off your arse.’

When I drop out of the window I fall backwards and land in a load of mud that Mum’s next-door neighbour has dug up for worms when he goes fishing.

‘Where are we going, Tommy?’

‘Cat burgling, have you got your torch?’

‘Yep, it’s up my sleeve.’

‘Good lad, check the batteries, try it.’

I twist the end of it and it instantly lights up.

‘Turn it off quick, I’ve just heard something. Stay still.’

It goes quiet for a minute.

‘Right, let’s go, wee man.’

‘Where are we off to, Tommy?’

‘Don’t worry, just follow me, come on.’

We head across the grass towards an alleyway between two of the tenements, then over a couple of fences towards the shops. On the left of the shops, across a road and some steel railings, is what Tommy calls ‘The Swag Factory’. It’s actually Charleston School. We jump over the railings and look
for a way in but all the doors and windows look pretty impossible to get in as we are only two tiny little people who think of ourselves as cat burglars, but we’re hardly professionals.

Tommy has seen a massive tree branch on an old oak tree sticking over onto the school roof. ‘Charlie, come here and I’ll give ya a hiesty.’

He clasps his hands together, I put my foot on them, and he shoves me up the tree onto a low branch; then I pull him up a bit until he gets one hand hooked on and pulls himself up. He crawls along the branch above the roof to see if it’s safe, drops onto the roof and I go next.

‘Come on, wee man.’

When we’re on the roof I’m thinking,
How the hell are we gonna get into the school from up here?

Then a light bulb suddenly appears out of nowhere above Tommy’s head and he’s looking at these dome-shaped plastic things, which, I later find out, are roof vent lights.

His plan is simple. ‘Charlie come ’ere. What we’ll do is jump on these domes and see if they’ll break, then we’re in. I’ll hold your arms. You stand on the dome and bounce up and down and if it breaks I’ll have a hold on you so you won’t fall into the classroom.’

‘Good plan, Tommy,’ I reply and stupidly begin climbing onto this plastic see-through death trap.

I bounce and bounce on this thing for about two minutes but it just isn’t happening. It’s making a lot of noise as well so Tommy pulls me back down off it.

‘Let me try,’ he says. ‘Tommy, give me your arms.’ As he climbs on he doesn’t get the chance to grab my arms, the thing must have weakened from all my bouncing and with his extra weight he just disappears with an almighty crashing noise. I poke my head down and peer into the dark classroom through the hole we’ve just made – well, he has made.

‘Tommy! Tommy! Are you alright?’

‘Yeah, I’ve just got a bit of a dead arse.’

I start laughing nervously then as I know he’s OK, but don’t know if someone’s heard us. You would have had to be pretty mutton Geoff not to hear that noise, or pretty pissed and used to loud bangs. Lucky we live in Scotland is all I can say. Tommy puts one desk on top of another desk and tells me to climb down. I climb into the dome and lower myself in, waiting for my feet to actually touch something. But being four feet high I’m never going to reach those desks even with a stepladder.

‘Charlie, your feet are only about ten inches away from the desk, just drop down.’

I let go my hands really quickly. ‘Holy shit,’ I scream. It’s more like another four feet to the desks and all I can feel is fresh air and then –
bang
, I slip sideways and Tommy catches me, pissing his sides laughing.

‘It’s the only way I could get you in, wee man. You would have bottled it if I’d told you the real height.’

‘Yeah thanks for that, arsehole.’

‘OK, I’ll take one side of the corridor,’ he says. ‘You take the other.’

We take off around the school, trying doors and cupboards looking for the loot. I don’t have a clue what we’re looking for but Tommy’s the man and we’re on a job together – that’s all I care about. In the back of my mind I’m thinking if we get caught I’ll never be able to see Tommy again and then I’ll be taken home to Dad and he hates police and if I bring them to the door then it might be curtains for me.

Tommy’s gone on ahead into a room at the end of the corridor. It’s the last door he’s tried on his side of the building.

‘Charlie,’ he calls out, ‘look at this, you fucking beauty.’

He comes out of the room with a massive biscuit tin in his hands. I can’t believe he’s getting that excited over biscuits – I mean, I like biscuits but he’s taking it a wee bit too far.

‘Big deal, you found some biscuits. Pocket some and let’s get out of here.’

‘It’s no biscuits, you tube, it’s money.’

‘Let’s see. Wow!’

I stare inside the tin. It looks just like treasure. I’ve never seen so many coins in one box. I feel like a pirate out with his first mate. Tommy puts the lid back on and we climb back up to the roof via the piled up desks and back down the tree, not dropping a single penny. We run back over the grass behind the tenements, up onto the bin shelter and back in the window that little Bobby has left open for us. We manage to sneak back into the house undetected.

*   *   *

The next morning we’re out of the house at 8 a.m., not the norm for us on a Saturday but we have to get the treasure chest out of Mum’s house. We walk around to the shops which are five minutes from the house. They’re run down if not derelict – well, only one of the four shops on the row isn’t boarded up and that one has steel grates over the whole shop front and concrete bollards cemented into the ground so cars can’t ram-raid it. It’s the Spar shop, the only one to survive. I think that’s down to the fact that it’s more secure than Fort Knox. Even the cameras have cameras.

I stay outside with the biscuit tin in a carrier bag while Tommy goes into the shop. He’s taken some money in to buy sweets and bars of chocolate. He comes back out and we start munching Aeros, Mars bars, Marathons, etc. Soon I’m feeling as sick as a parrot, but Tommy’s like a human dustbin, I’ve never seen anyone eat so much chocolate. All Tommy’s friends turn up at the shops around 8.45 and we show them the loot. We buy nearly every child in Charleston a bag full of chocolate bars. We’re a right couple of Robin Hoods, or, as my mum and the police put it, thieving little bastards.