the adorata
Not so much a novel as a full-blown exorcism… a searingly intelligent, compassionate and unflinching look into the eye of female obliteration. The characters are among the strongest in modern fiction and the prose crackles with occult power and gnostic outrage. Peter Murphy, author of John the Revelator (forthcoming from Faber and Harcourt)
A 4-D map of a brain (with a city injected into it) made with words. It’s bloody gorgeous, though some readers may have a fit, faced with Joyce’s great grand-nieces expostulating like a Celine with Charlie Chaplin’s limbs grafted on. But let x = x. The book is brave and epic. Steven Augustine
<!–[if gte vml 1]> <![endif]–><!–[if !vml]–><!–[endif]–>
Add to Technorati Favorites <!–[if gte vml 1]> <![endif]–><!–[if !vml]–>
<!–[endif]–>Save This Page to del.icio.us
a mannerly apology
Righto.
Milky tea, a cigarette and a bleary session of masochistic daydreaming, a fairly heavy session, and something happened that she’d forgotten was even possible. She couldn’t suspend her disbelief. She could not fall for the next scenario she had in mind. No way would a dozen hairdressers bother to stalk and scalp her. What the hell was wrong with her? What kind of freak conjured maniacs out of nowhere?
A self-murder story, then: Kirsty Laing and yours truly.
Apologies are due in advance for the stuff about Jesus Christ, the Holy Ghost, Auld Hornie, the God stuff in general. Due also for the bits about Sheena Easton, the Fab Four, Mo Johnston, Glasgow City Council’s Parks and Recreation Department, Bible John, Richard Burton, the great Harold Bloom, the Great McGonagall, Nicholas Fairbairn, David Wilkie, Tiger Tim, Liberace and many more. Also the humming, tickling, bounding, big muscles and obscenely swollen lips. Sorry if you feel some parts breach the Racial and Religious Hatred Act. I’m sorry if you’re married. Sorry for anything I’ve left off this list. Mea culpa.
So be it. Try seeing through my eyes.
* * *
intro: jan
St Mungo’s Public Baths in Glasgow, Saturday the 6th of May 1989, the quiet interval between the last early morning fanatics and the first classes for beginners.
A homeless drunk, a pope, took his seat in the empty cafe north of the pool. Every day he sat there footering with his suit and beard and balding scalp. Flies liked him. His name was Pope Uncomfy. He’d something to show the attendants.
Patrolling poolside were Kirsty Laing, eighteen and a royal ride, and Jan Garvey, who was twenty-two. Her hair looked a bit rained-on.
‘A question for you, Jan,’ said Kirsty. ‘If it’s okay to ask.’
‘It’s okay to ask.’
‘How come there’s no electricity in the countryside?’
Jan said, ‘But there is.’
‘I mean in the countryside itself. In the fields and hills. There’s nowhere to plug stuff in.’
So Jan talked Kirsty through the rural plug status quo, citing cost, danger and what might happen to the aesthetics of the countryside experience if all and sundry began plugging in irons, televisions and hairdryers. Then came a devil’s advocate depiction of plug usage by farmers and possibly also foxhunters and then a ‘How about hunt saboteurs?’ line of enquiry that left her slightly lost, so she peered into Kirsty’s perfect blondeness and droned soft Mms and Nns to suggest she wasn’t finished but didn’t want to hog the floor.
Water spurted from the mouths of the fountain’s cherubs. Diagonal sunrays boinged off the western tiling and spectating benches.
‘Fair enough,’ said Kirsty. ‘A tougher question then. A city question.’
‘Fine,’ said Jan.
Kirsty picked a piece of sleep off Jan’s eyelash and examined it in the sunlight. ‘Damp is the scourge of Glasgow’s schemes, they say, ruining people’s lungs and hair and general spirits. Perhaps you’ve even visited the schemes in person.’
‘Of course.’
‘But imagine it was this sunny all the time. Don’t you think the damp would go?’
‘The damp would go,’ said Jan. ‘I think.’
‘I think you’re right. So let’s see what we can do to keep the sunshine. Please speak from the heart.’ Kirsty pointed at the Parks and Recreation crest on Jan’s tee shirt and then over at Pope Uncomfy, who was sniffing at his knuckles. ‘In order to keep this weather and end the damp once and for all, would you or would you not be willing to marry that fine gent?’
Jan gazed at her trainers.
‘(a) Yes please or (b) not my style,’ said Kirsty, ‘What’s it to be?’
‘No,’ said Jan. ‘My answer’s no.’
‘(b) it is. Are you speaking from the heart?’
‘Yes,’ said Jan. ‘Sorry.’
‘Don’t be sorry,’ said Kirsty. ‘I should be the sorry one for having asked. I find the subject quite intriguing, that’s all, what we’ll do to help the poor and what we won’t.’ She checked the front bench for wooden splinter potential and sat and patted a spot for Jan to sit as well.
‘My answer’s still a firm no,’ said Jan. ‘You’re right though. It’s a tougher question.’
‘And more revealing.’
Jan sat next to Kirsty.
‘Ach Jan, just imagine Glasgow sunny forever. The Dear Green Place maybe not so green as before but finally free of damp, certain depressions and addictions too, maybe even free of grief in general. But never ever does God grant desires for nothing. He demands sacrifice. One of us must wed Pope Uncomfy. Then and only then will the sun shine for good and end the damp. A chance like this doesn’t come along too often. Are you sure you wouldn’t volunteer?’
‘Pope Uncomfy, Kirsty…’
‘Pope Uncomfy. At least he’s nice and slim. And look at his soft blue eyes.’
‘Pope Uncomfy…’
‘Remember your Bible. Remember God’s impatience and thon Flood.’ Kirsty added sadly, ‘All for the sake of a wedding night that wasn’t.’
‘That’s not in the Bible.’
‘Oops.’
‘And why’s it all down to muggins here?’ said Jan. ‘Why’s God not asking you?’
‘You have a point. Ask me then.’
They looked at one another. Jan’s eyebrows needed plucking.
‘Ask me to marry him,’ said Kirsty. ‘Do you Kirsty Laing take Pope Uncomfy as your lawful wedded husband?’
‘Do you Kirsty Laing,’ Jan said warily, ‘take Pope Uncomfy as your lawful wedded husband?’
Kirsty said, ‘If you’re taking the piss here…’
Jan went to cross her heart, then scratched her neck instead.
Kirsty squinted up at the angelic scenarios that adorned the roofpanes, the cloudless sky above and pure bonus morning star. Hums pulsed along the pipes. Pope Uncomfy stood. Kirsty crossed her fingers, bowed her head and said, ‘I do.’
A splinter pierced Jan’s thigh.
‘And then I’d ask for a divorce,’ said Kirsty. ‘So there you go, chum. I could set aside my scruples. You too, I bet. Surely to end the damp forever you’d let the man escort you to the pictures.’
‘The pictures. I suppose so.’
‘And you’d ‘marry’ him too, surely.’ Kirsty winked.
Pool mist went down Jan’s throat, the chlorine nice and fresh, some hideous evaporated tile cleaner in there too.
‘Do you Jan J. Garvey,’ said Kirsty, ‘take Pope Uncomfy as your lawful wedded husband?’
No matter how long you lived, the cleaning ladies said, these vile synthetic Highland Heather-flavour globs never really left your lungs. Jan crossed her fingers and said, ‘I do.’
A wheezing laugh from Kirsty.
‘Oh dear,’ said Jan.
Kirsty whooped and snorted.
Chanting sounds from the cafe.
Pope Uncomfy was standing on his table, whirling something, in a Glasgow monotone chanting ‘Holy holy holy…’ He was whirling the tail of a decomposing mouse.
The girls stood and stared.
‘Mon then.’ He punched the air. ‘MON.’
The morning star twinkled.
* * *
A fresh pine smell rushed up Jan’s nostrils. She’d fallen asleep again in the pool’s changing room, she thought. A wasp swerved towards the window then changed its mind. She was in the hills outside the city.
Heads loomed in and out of focus, beefy Russ Geddes at the wheel in his attendant gear, in the passenger seat his young daughter Coco, who scrunched her face and tried to brush her curly hair flat. Alongside Jan a rosy-cheeked Kirsty watched Coco’s efforts and nodded to herself like she now understood hair’s place in the larger scheme of things. Evening sunlight fired through roadside trees and bounced off her seahorse earrings. In the distance the Clyde’s westward-floating blobs of froth looked discoloured, strangely pink.
Jan and her brother Jon hiked up here once and enjoyed themselves, one spot especially, the crumbling seminary with the reservoir and ace view. She described the spot to Kirsty, who said it sounded ace but that she hated midges and asked if they’d be able to light a fire. Jan said she hated midges too and yes no bother, the spot was miles from human habitation. She pointed out a ridge. Russ undid his ponytail and beeped the horn, accelerating.
Drink went round, and bonbons and mini Mars bars. Sweat oozed and puddled, the upholstery stuck to your skin like gum. A pine tree air freshener swung from the rear-view and went about its patient work. Eventually Kirsty quit her atonal anti-harmonies off the engine’s hum and nudged the back of Russ’ seat. He took the can off Jan and said, ‘Congratulations on your marriage.’
Jan stared west and let sunrays blot the others out.
What a glory this country is in May. Chaotic lamb and bunny ceilidhs, trout and salmon pogos, birds of prey doing cartwheels, all sprinkled or infused with or trailing beads of light. The car passed the hill known for The Attraction, the attractive way it rid itself of rain, channelled beneath a lay-by and blasted out sideways and then miraculously blasted up. Except without rain it was a total non-event, a spasmodic dribble, the signs for miles around a real embarrassment. They reached the reservoir feeling slightly flat, sat in the empty car park and let Radio Clyde’s DJ Tiger Tim and his Eurovision patter work their magic.
Her mum was watching the Eurovision Song Contest by herself, Jan realised. She left the car. The rest followed her around a crumbling building and applauded the fantastic setting, a square water basin lined with concrete benches and grass verges and then bushes spaced apart their height exactly, beyond them crags and then west-facing hills. A trap and a half for the evening sun. Beyond the reservoir’s island of standing stones, water fell away nice and loudly…
Coco handed Jan a picture book open near the start, a sketch of a waterfall falling on a bathing girl. Back home in Berwick, Russ complained, no one appreciated how up to bloomin’ date his hair was. Laughter bounced around the crags, nervy or maybe horny. Many leaves still held sunlight.
Later in the picture book the same girl let insanely long hair hang from the window of her tower, unclear why. Panicked quacks and squawks went round the crags.
On the book’s final page an old woman bent over a rusty mincer and squeezed out meaty strings that grew spines and blaspheming mouths. Jan lay flat, blinked at the starry dirty protest overhead, closed her eyes and snuffled.
Wind blew, leaves glittered, Kirsty’s blondeness glowed.
She carried Coco to the car and waited for a bit.
With a crestfallen expression Russ jogged towards the car.
At one point he turned and jogged backwards and saluted back at snoring Jan, and then the three of them were gone for good. Crags echoed with their aborted ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’.
1: heliopolis
Monday the 8th of May, around two o’clock in St Mungo’s dusty office, which Kirsty had been dodging since thon slog through the manager Miss Clegg’s photo albums, snap after snap of the Dennistoun Palais’ early 1960s Tall Ladies Club, beanpole after beanpole Twisting and eightsome-reeling. It was the most intensely boring experience of Kirsty’s life, a million forced smiles and nods, the thought eventually coming out of nowhere, ‘This must be how black holes form.’ So boring it near came around to the opposite, and she spent the rest of her shift on a floating li-lo, kind of giddy with boredom shell-shock.
The carpet had the faintest smell of turnip. You knew you’d be remembering this office for many years to come, each time mashed turnip dolloped on your plate. Miss Clegg handed over a white tee shirt and shorts, a smudged pair of Dunlop Green Flash trainers and a whistle on a string, and told Michelle the new attendant how to deal with pool incidents progressively. ‘At St Mungo’s we blow once for Who and Where,’ she said, ‘and once for Why.’ She brought her whistle to her lips and out peeped an accusing Who and Where, shrill and crisply cut. The Why peep was more conciliatory. Clegg frowned in mild confusion and blew a note that quivered and then dipped in disappointment, before ending suggestively, like her eyebrows, curling upwards: Why?
Kirsty’s stomach rumbled.
Clegg peeped out a small one for the hell of it, winched herself down to the girls and said, ‘Michelle Spence meet Kirsty Laing.’
The girl shook Kirsty’s hand.
Twenty or so, too much make-up, brown hair up in arty bunches, ace figure jiggling in a fine polo shirt and a pair of cheapo pedal pushers. Liked her sleep, you could somehow tell.
‘Nice to meet you,’ Kirsty said.
‘Michelle will be working here part-time,’ said Clegg, avoiding Kirsty’s eyes. ‘Jan’s help is needed in the family business. She won’t be back.’
A guilty smirk from Kirsty, wiped from her face when she felt Michelle staring.
Clegg shut down Jan’s file on the Macintosh computer screen and opened up a new one, her sigh silent against the machine’s rampant fan-whirrs. She handed back Michelle’s swimming certificates and handwritten CV, plus a sponsorship sheet for tomorrow evening’s jamboree. ‘Kirsty will train you in today and you can start properly tomorrow morning. Good to have you at St Mungo’s.’
With the bumph and work gear in her satchel Michelle followed Kirsty out. A peep stopped them at the door, soft as Who and Wheres went.
Miss Clegg was examining a framed Tall Ladies groupshot in the room’s patch of sunlight. ‘Was your mother a Nicholl?’ she said. ‘One of the Riddrie Nicholls. Six-foot-two and a bit.’
Blank stare from Michelle.
‘Babs Nicoll,’ said Clegg, and then kind of strained, ‘Wed big Greg Spence.’
Michelle swivelled her eyes at Kirsty and said, ‘Mum never married. And she’s um petite. Sorry.’
They got out of the office and made their way through the Tanning Area behind the diving boards, which wasn’t a separate area at all and normally had people like themselves wandering through gawping at the bods, which meant people kept themselves quite covered up, which meant they hardly tanned. The wait for a sunbed was two hours minimum.
Kirsty said, ‘I love old Dolly.’
Punters’ yells made Michelle flinch a bit. ‘What dolly?’ she said.
‘Dolores Clegg. The willowy woman who just gave you a job.’
‘Oh God.’ Michelle wrinkled her button nose. ‘What’s that stench?’
‘Which one?’
‘Like plants or flowers, but not. Not.’
‘Sickly sweet but burns away half your throat?’
‘That’s the one,’ said Michelle. ‘Pure synthetic.’
‘It’s tile cleaner,’ Kirsty said. ‘Called Highland Heather. Ten pee a gallon. That’s quite a bargain, isn’t it?’
‘Mm.’
Formally Kirsty said, ‘Your attendant experience please.’
‘Ten months at St Vinnie’s in Paisley,’ said Michelle. ‘Part time. Aye… I’m studying architecture at the art school up the hill.’ She gestured in the direction of Sauchiehall Street.
‘So you’re going to write a thesis on us. On St Mungo’s.’
‘Possibly. It’s a nice enough building.’
‘You use the word nice, I see.’
‘Who doesn’t?’
‘Exactly,’ said Kirsty. ‘We have so much in common already. I’m going to have magic fun with you, Michelle Spence.’ She sat on the front bench. ‘I have to say you’re a total ride. Am I a ride?’
Michelle sat and examined Kirsty’s headband, green and gold stripes with small dragons dotted through it — she was the first girl in Glasgow to wear such a thing. ‘Your herr’s something else.’ She got out a compact and re-did her lipstick, something a bit savage there in her final pout and toothy grin.
Kirsty took in St Mungo’s dowdy grandeur through Michelle’s slightly vacant eyes. Glasgow’s deepest and longest pool, aquamarine tiling across the floors and up the walls, four huge rows of tinted windows topped off by the most splendiferous roofpanes, it was said, of any baths in Britain. Five to two, said the cubed clock suspended eighty feet above the water. Sunrays reached the southern wall’s bank of multicoloured triple-glazing, a dainty feature added in the 1920s, and bounced about inside. Couriers and diggers and sandblasters, lunchtime hi-viz vest types in general, began to leave the cafe and return to work.
Kirsty went, ‘Welcome to St Mungo’s Public Baths, the jewel in Parks and Recreation’s crown.’ Then feeling oddly proud, ‘Ever dragged a pool and netted a pigeon wing or lucky foot?’
Michelle swivelled her eyes at no one.
‘Say you’re homeless,’ Kirsty went on, ‘and you fancy some daytime shelter. Somewhere to drink the hours away and gibber to yourself in peace.’ She indicated the scene ahead. ‘Who’s going to mind a gibber?’
Barked instructions, dive entries, raucous laughter, songs and chants, wail after wail, all these sounds could be made out at first, then into the rhythms of the water, the PA’s Merseybeat and each other’s echoes each sound bled and dissolved.
‘We call them the popes,’ said Kirsty. ‘The dipsos who hang around the cafe. For the sake of our insurance premiums please don’t let them swim. The odd one’ll slip through of course, smuggling a lucky foot or whatever. Nobody’s flaming perfect. Just use your discretion as best you can.’ Counting on her fingers, ‘Pope Ming, Pope Slope, Pope Bernard, Lady Muck, Tarzan in Tibet, the Bad Bad Man, Mr Whippy, Judas Iscariot, the Awkward Squad, the Screaming Heebie Jeebies, Bible John…’
‘Why don’t you get rid of them? Or ask the police to.’
‘The police like them in one place, I think. And why would we want rid of them? They’re a flipping hoot.’
Michelle said, ‘Why are they popes?’
‘The drink.’
‘But why are they called popes?’
‘Just cos,’ said Kirsty. ‘Cos they are.’
Michelle squinted at underwater sunlight separating into colours, the fake pope pity and amusement fading from her eyes.
Someone entered the water perfectly, it sounded like. They turned around and looked.
Up the deep end Ayesha the pool’s young star surfaced with a vexed expression, her eyes already shielded to read the waves she’d made diving off the boinging springboard.
‘So was St Vinnie’s rough?’ said Kirsty.
‘Not really,’ said Michelle. ‘Dead manky though. Crawling with big gellocks.’
‘Please define gellocks.’
‘Brown beasties with pincers. Can’t stand them.’
‘As run-down as this, eh?’
‘Nowhere near.’
Kirsty sighed. One of her father’s hobbies was to take half-jokey phrases he’d overheard and try them out while he was shaving. The way he said them wasn’t straight exactly, but almost, a sort of jokey jokiness, having some kind of private dig at whoever it was he’d overheard. Before he was smeared for forty feet by a drunk driver called Des Wright, she once calculated, he’d said Chop-chop over three and a half thousand times. When Kirsty herself said Chop-chop it was something else again, though whether a joke at her dad’s jokey jokiness, or a tribute, or plain jokey, or she just liked saying Chop-chop, wasn’t even clear to her. She quickly stood: ‘Chop-chop.’
A skinny ned in trunks was wrestling a boy in school uniform, punters and popes commenting — Pope Hygienus commentating — on the grabbing technique on view. Finally the boy broke free and ran for the revolving door, and in they traipsed a few seconds late as usual, the ancient security guards Chick and Rocky. They identified the skinny ned as the one they wanted, refunded his thirty-five pence admission fee as the law required, and hauled him towards… almost split him squabbling over which door to throw him out. The security really didn’t like each other. (But really liked watching each other. All you ever saw on security tapes was one or other guard reading comics, sleeping, drinking, making breadcrumbs parade along his bellyfolds, etc. Pretty creepy, to be honest). Everyone in the water began to splash about again.
‘Total ride,’ said Michelle. ‘Him in the trunks.’
‘The ned? He was just skin and bone.’
Michelle nodded and went, ‘I wonder why we call them neds.’
A high frequency whine entered Kirsty’s head. ‘Because that’s exactly what they are. Wee terrors with bumfluff moustaches.’ She sat on a cafe barrier and through the southern windows saw froth float along the Clyde like um cherry-coloured frothy lilypads, maybe. Somebody dived from the southern bank and entered the water badly, froth erupting like a frothy rose.
She pointed at a nearby cafe table and said, ‘There’s Pope John VIII aka Pope Joan.’ Long blond hair, a joke-shop beard, a stretched tee shirt with Mr Happy on the front claiming Glasgow’s Miles Better. ‘Poor thing believes she’s some ninth-century woman who worked her way up through the Church disguised as a man.’ Pointing at the ragdoll in the person’s lap, ‘And got pregnant and de-frocked.’ She turned to face the corner table, where a man was snoring on a pile of jotters. ‘That gent comes in every day at eleven sharp to write his memoirs. Pope Pius XIII, he calls himself.’ A strong snore sent the man’s pencil rolling from the table.
Kirsty climbed down onto the sticky flooring, waited for Michelle to follow and then led her through the cafe. A wave of throat clearings, sniffs, scratches and mutters went round the popes.
Not the cheeriest, the cafe colour scheme, a streaky olive brown faded by years and years of too bright striplights and rebounding sunrays, or so you guessed at first. Scrape away the tea and coffee and beer and whisky splashes and the growths that fed off them, long dodged by the cleaners, and you’d find the scheme had once been a sparkling bronze and blue. Kirsty stood in the airstream from the cafe’s whirring fan, made her lips wobble and fingered her locket, imitating the nearby sad-haired woman mumbling a lightning-fast Lord’s Prayer. One of the woman’s hands held a plastic rosary, the other a spoonful of the cafe’s very nice rice pudding. The woman licked the spoon clean and savoured those pudding flavours, her lips still gently wobbling, and drank from the bottle of vodka doing the rounds and washed the rice blobs down. ‘Lady Muck,’ Kirsty said to Michelle, and blew warmly on the woman’s tiny bald spot.
‘Miss Clegg mentioned some jamboree,’ said Michelle.
‘Tomorrow night,’ said Kirsty. ‘David Wilkie’s judging me off the highboard.’
Michelle’s face lit up. ‘He won an Olympic gold.’
‘Dolly will expect you to swim or dive as well. The better you place the more money you raise for the Sheena Fund. Don’t kill yourself finding sponsors.’
‘I won’t,’ said Michelle. ‘What Sheena Fund?’
‘The Sheena Easton Fund. Dolly wants her to perform here next year. A City of Culture tie-in with the pool’s centenary.’
‘Sheena Easton.’
‘If we can raise the cash.’
‘Performing in this tip.’
‘It’s true!’
It was!
‘I think you get the general picture,’ Kirsty said, feeling a hit of anticlimax.
A Chinese pope picked a gellock off his filthy dressing gown and dropped it in the vodka. A few popes booed. Michelle rolled her eyes.
Kirsty peeped a shaky Who and Where, followed by a textbook Why.
* * *
Four o’clock or so, Kirsty and Michelle with the rest of the day to themselves.
They wandered in the sunshine till they found the park’s tiny pitch and putt course. The equipment girl was sleeping so they took clubs and balls and left her a can of Red Stripe.
They stood on the first tee scanning in confusion. All nine greens seemed reachable from where they were. And there were no flags in the holes. Kirsty invited Michelle to choose which one they’d aim for first.
* * *
Halfway down the first fairway, i.e. ten yards from the tee, Kirsty stopped to apply suncream and knot her denim shirt at her ribs. ‘So what are your first impressions of St Mungo’s?’ she said.
Michelle cleared her throat and swallowed with an mngg sound that echoed through her ribcage. ‘It’s crank city alright.’
‘Please elaborate.’
‘That Chinese bloke was plecto.’
‘Define plecto.’
‘It means mental. Bananas.’ Michelle took the suncream off Kirsty and rubbed some on her cheeks and nose. ‘The other popes seemed harmless enough.’
‘They did, didn’t they?’ said Kirsty. ‘Must be saving it for the jamboree.’ To the south heat rose in wavy lines off St Mungo’s and its roofpaneless twin the Kelvinhall, seemed to emerge from the red brickwork like… no simile was forthcoming. ‘So which pope was your favourite?’
Michelle handed over the suncream and her sponsorship sheet and pointed at Harvey’s name. ‘He seemed pretty mild. Is he maybe Tarzan in Tibet?’
‘Harvey’s the Brahan Seer. Tarzan wasn’t in today.’
£20 worth of sponsorship popes had pledged Michelle for the jamboree. Pope Leonard the pool’s official bookie had scribbled 5-1 to show. Kirsty checked again. Pope Joan and Pius XIII were indeed how them two had signed their names. She did a kind of nod in reverse and gave Michelle her sheet back.
‘You mentioned Bible John,’ said Michelle. ‘As in the serial flipping killer Bible John. Is it Wilf?’
‘Wilf’s the Angel of Mercy. That was a fib about Bible John. He’s given readings in the cafe, they say, but not for years.’ Kirsty pointed out Michelle’s ball in the daisies.
Michelle shivered and began her backswing and Kirsty hummed off-key. Michelle groaned and went, ‘Kirsty.’
‘Sorry,’ Kirsty said and hummed again, one bum high note and one low.
‘Kirrsty.’
‘Sorry.’
Michelle’s pitch landed five feet short of the green. She knew how to put backspin on her ball.
Kirsty began her swing and Michelle said, ‘I got fired for treating a girl… not very nicely.’
Kirsty’s ball landed on the green. From nowhere came a flash of her budgie Leatherface freaking in his cage.
Michelle got out papers and tobacco and rolled a cigarette. ‘St Anto’s in Paisley this time last year.’ She lit her roll-up, had a puff and went, ‘Name of um Beckie.’
* * *
Again Michelle tried and failed to whack her ball out of the bunker, not a flicker of frustration showing in her big doe eyes. Kirsty’s heart had gone out to her when she saw those pedal pushers, cos of their slight crapness and the contrast with the neato shirt. Weird, she thought, how Jan’s really crap clothes had left her cold. She placed a freebie mini Mars bar on top of the Daily Record in Michelle’s satchel. Mojo Misses His Mince Pies said the headline above a photo of the footballer Mo Johnston on a beach in France.
Kirsty kicked her ball onto the second green and gave her lower legs a rub. The skin down there went peculiar sometimes when she thought of Jan’s name, like the follicles were excreting or emitting a kind of balm or glow in place of shaven hairs. And each time she pictured Jan’s face a cold flush ran down her calves. She’d just felt the muscles shrivel picturing tomorrow’s Janless jamboree.
The thing was, Jan Garvey could be so maddening it was almost genius. Like her near daily ‘Are you positive you’re not all that holy?’ Like going on and on about the pure desolation of whale’s mating calls. Like her invented game of Architectural Pinball, which meant launching a perpetual motion steelie round every tiled surface and hopefully back to your waiting palm. Which meant Jan standing there frowning as imaginary stray steelies went round and round and round… A warm squirt shot through Kirsty’s bloodstream and she wondered if Jan did this stuff knowing how much you hated it and half loved hating it and did it anyway as some kind of favour, losing no self-respect in the process cos she’d so little to lose in the first place. Maybe in some sophisticated way you only understood once you reached twenty, degrading yourself was a way to gain some latitude, e.g. from blame and expectation. Interesting.
* * *
High but not, the sun, a May angle reserved for this country only, the perfect angle to catch blown leaves and boing light into your waiting eyes. A few miles to the south-east you’d the parish of Burnside and Kirsty’s cottage, her home since leaving Aviemore last summer. Gulls sailed over a riverside spa due to open in the autumn and landed on a bench beside a down and out. All along the river steam was rising off the cherry froth, evaporating with a slinky languor, like a snake emerging from a basket or em yes like a slinky cherry genie from a lamp.
‘Well, he claimed Tiger Tim was his cousin and I was drunk and I believed him,’ Kirsty said, explaining her one and only time with Chick. She tapped her ball into the third hole and moved two strokes ahead.
A few hairs fell across her eyes. The tiniest of throbs in her left kidney — a first. She blew the hairs away.
Eef eef eef.
She turned around.
Marching straight towards them was a man with long blond dreadlocks.
He hadn’t shaved for days, the dreads were dull with filth and the black leather trousers were an outrage, making an irritating eef sound with every mincing step. For a second the whole pitch and putt course, the man included, sort of froze in time. A Mo Johnston gleam there in the eyes.
Eef eef eef.
He lay on the eighth green and curled up like a babbie.
* * *
‘Sounds like an interesting Saturday,’ said Michelle. ‘All I did was watch the Eurovision Song Contest.’
‘She lives over there.’ Kirsty pointed her putter at a row of tenements and The Monkey and Typewriter, the basement bar owned by the Garvey family.
They set off for the fourth green, Kirsty picturing Michelle in a foreign cafe in thirty years playing herself at chess. ‘Ned means non-educated delinquent,’ she said tenderly. ‘I looked it up.’
‘Cheers.’
You could just make out Sauchiehall Street’s sandblasters and streetpreachers and thon pests promoting Mayfest, the city’s annual festival of artiness. On the eighth green the dreadlocked gleamer snored.
‘Oh dear!’ Kirsty suddenly shouted in Jan’s voice. ‘Umpteen! Let’s play (a), (b) or (c)!’
Michelle made a queasy face.
Kirsty smiled. ‘Russ started smoking for a few days, okay, even during pool rescues, swimming up to screaming punters with a fag hanging from his lips.’ It was Kirsty herself who’d done this. ‘Then he stopped smoking for a week, acting really crabby and going to Jan, “I bet I won’t be able to stay off that um bloomin’ nicotine.” Jan says, “I bet you will,” so Russ says, “I bet I won’t. Not even for another day. I bet you a million quid.” So Jan goes, “A tenner says you last another day.” So next day…’ Kirsty smiled again. ‘So next day Russ comes in smoking a huge cigar.’
‘Did Jan pay up?’
‘Of course she did. And Russ doesn’t even smoke.’
Michelle smiled at the grass.
Her hair’s volume wasn’t all it might be, Kirsty sensed, so she stuck a finger in and twirled some up and out. ‘You should see the hideous way Jan drinks.’ She dropped her tongue towards her chin and let Red Stripe splash off both.
‘Or runs.’ She began to circle the green, chopping her hands and bounding like the final stages of a long-jump run-up.
Michelle bounded after her and went, ‘Oh dear!’’
‘Righto!’
They collapsed together.
* * *
‘A week as Nicholas Fairbairn MP’s chambermaid,’ said Kirsty, ‘or a Gay Gordon danceathon in the arms of Jimmy Mauchline?’
‘Jimmy Mauchline?’
‘Orangest quiz show host on earth,’ said Kirsty. ‘Or else Nicholas Fairbairn.’
‘The week,’ said Michelle. ‘Easy.’
‘Excellent decision. Lose two cup sizes from your amazing breasts or sail down the Nile with slaves fanning your brow and lapping at your feet, but oh dear there by your side it’s that man again, Mr Jimmy Mauchline?’
‘Lose them. Lose the cup sizes. Easy.’
‘Eat a bowl of lemon curd every day till you die or marry Logie McCube?’
‘Who?’
‘I’d eat the curd, Michelle.’
‘I’ll eat the curd then. Who’s Logie McCube?’
‘Actor,’ said Kirsty. ‘Panto villain. Bit parts on telly. Used to play the same barman every year in Scotch and Wry. Clegg went and invited him to the jamboree.’
‘I think I know the one. His herr’s quite… bouffant.’
Kirsty’s nose wrinkled. ‘How about Tiger Tim?’
‘Tiger Tim’s not disgusting.’
‘Would you marry Tiger Tim or eat the daily curd?’
‘Marry Tiger Tim. Easy.’
Kirsty smiled. She was warming to this student.
Michelle’s pitch landed on the fifth green.
Kirsty addressed her ball.
‘Eat the daily curd,’ Michelle asked her, ‘and marry Frank Cotton?’
Kirsty swung and whiffed. ‘Who?’ she said, as if.
‘Him in Hellraiser,’ said Michelle. ‘Him in Hellraiser who I know for a fact you like. The dodgy dude who cuts off yer woman’s nightie. His picture’s inside your locker. Before he lost his skin.’
A bird flew past.
‘Well?’ went Michelle.
Kirsty began a huge backswing.
‘Well?’
‘I am try-ing to pitch.’
* * *
Twenty crows left the trees and flew overhead, doubled and then tripled back on themselves like an unravelling crow ampersand. Michelle shut her eyes and held the melted mini Mars bar aloft until a fat crow swooped and wheeched it.
Kirsty lay in a bunker and cupped her right hand over her left bicep, bent her left arm and crushed its veins, crushed them some more and then released her grip. The left forearm veins were now throbbingly exposed, popped, and would stay that way forever. She’d done the right arm last May the night before her English exam (and then slept in, sad to say). Her tum filled with imported lager, her lungs with air that was almost clean, warm sun on her skin and hair, no real problems in the head department… She could stay right here in this bunker. Nibble on bunker beasties and think hard and see into the future, a world-famous Bunker Seer with a queue awaiting tips on everything from the weather to when we’ll next see Jesus…
On the other hand she was one up with three to play. More snoring from the gleamer, really quite disgusting. A final swoop and the crows took off for good.
* * *
Since March Kirsty had been sensing after weekend drinking that she’d done something wicked at some point but couldn’t remember what it was, while knowing she’d done nothing of the kind. Saturday night was slightly different: snuffling gave Jan’s lips a sort of Elvis sneer that Kirsty maybe wiped by tugging downy hairs above her lip, but maybe not cos certain memories were still fogged in alcoholic blackout.
For some reason her putter seemed reluctant to strike the ball. When it did so the ball went shooting past the seventh hole. She stamped her foot.
‘Aw,’ Michelle said not all that sincerely. ‘Poor Kirsty has the Yips.’ She got a coin from her purse and placed it beneath her ball, which she rubbed clean on her satchel.
Kirsty yawned. She’d been up since six o’clock.
Michelle replaced her ball and holed her putt. She turned away and mouthed a Yes.
Kirsty said, ‘One time during Women Only Hour a shortsighted wifie told Jan to leave.’
‘How come?’
‘Maybe cos of her grim hair.’
‘Jan has grim herr?’
‘She has.’ Kirsty’s eyes closed. ‘She came back one time after a day off sick, okay, and there was um Lady Muck bounding about the cafe with lard smeared through her hair.’
‘Mon Kirsty,’ said Michelle. ‘It wasn’t Lady Muck, was it?’
A petted lip from Kirsty. ‘Sorry.’
‘So why the lard in your herr?’
Kirsty had a think. ‘Well, it was as if by taking that day off she… Hm. It’s hard to explain to a newcomer, Michelle, but in a sense Jan couldn’t have been more responsible if she’d smeared it through my hair herself. Too much perfect staff hair, see, stops St Mungo’s being St Mungo’s. No offence.’
‘None taken.’
‘Want to see some more?’
‘More what?’
Kirsty put her clubs down. ‘Perfect hair.’
‘Okay.’
Kirsty opened her locket and cupped it in her hands. Five of her baby hairs sat on a photo of her father. She asked Michelle for a rolling paper, sprinkled in the hairs and tobacco and rolled a droopy fag.
Michelle lit the thing and Kirsty puffed and gave it over.
Michelle puffed and went, ‘Tastes quite… innocent.’
Kirsty’s tongue went round her gums. ‘Perfect.’
They lay on the grass and smoked and drank in comfortable silence.
* * *
Kirsty got a pair of nail scissors from her bag and went, ‘I’m snipping us a dreadlock.’
At the edge of the eighth green she waited for a bit. The dreadlocked man let rip a mighty snore.
She crept right up and knelt beside him. Late twenties, maybe. The respectable bum had been spoiled by the evil leather trousers, the once-fine face by cuts and smudges and of course the foolish hair. Dirty biker boots, magic tan, so-so arms, and a pong of rotten flowers. Kirsty focused on a lock, gently pinched it where the dye began and waited for a second.
And snipped.
And edged backwards, eyes fixed on the man until she reached the ninth. Mm.
* * *
On the final green Kirsty bit her nails and hummed. Her ball’s position provided an ideal guide for Michelle’s deciding putt, which she was taking absolutely yonks with.
* * *
Jan was cooried up on the Thinking Couch with her mum Bathsheba, a wiry wee thing in her forties with black bobbed hair, squinting eyes and a crumpled face in general.
Her eyelids fluttered and her head began to sag. Before her dram spilled the sag reversed itself and her features cranked out a sloppy grimace. In a classic Glaswegian nasal rasp: ‘I was a beauty once. The bonniest lassie around, me.’
‘I know,’ said Jan.
‘When I was twelve Poseidon dragged me down to his underwater cave and made me cook a nice fish tea. Strange but true.’
‘I know he did.’
‘I wasn’t half perplexed.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘I’m happy. Isn’t it fun to blabber one on one?’
‘Yes it is.’
‘Yes it is. Whit could be better? Whit in this life is better than blabbing with your only daughter and hearing the latest drivel the world’s splattered in her heid?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Your early twenties are a very bad time, pet, a very silly time if truth be told. The occasional nugget of sense may form in that heid of yours, but you haven’t a clue how to pluck it out. And that’s a pity.’ Rubbing an eye, ‘An unbelievably entertaining and informative place, mum’s tiny shackie up in Thurso. Unbelievably. An idyllic upbringing in many ways. Ach Jan, where can you turn for wisdom if not your mother? Yer animal kingdom? Ra little birdies? Fish?’ Baring her teeth, ‘Men?’
‘Not men, no.’
Bathsheba blessed herself, drained her glass and Aahed. ‘Who’s everyone’s favourite Beatle?’
‘Ringo.’
‘Who’s yer man thought he was Jesus?’
‘John.’
‘Who was most cosmic but?’
‘George.’
‘Who’s yer man looked a bit simple but apparently wasn’t?’
‘Paul.’
‘Was apparently the driving-force when their art was at its toppermost?’
‘Paul. Paul McCartney.’
‘How fascinating are the sixties? One to umpteen.’
‘Umpteen.’
‘Nervy yet about the jamboree? All trembly and feart. Eeh?’
‘I’m fine, thanks.’
‘Who wouldn’t be feart? Prancing about half-starkers in front of all those maniacs. There’s still time to change your mind, love.’
‘I’m going to dive.’
‘Watersports are camp. Dead affected and effete. English, kind of. Jesus says so.’
‘I’m going to dive.’
* * *
Around eight o’clock in The Monkey and Typewriter, a foosty old bar with an alcove for showing films.
Kirsty’s hair was hidden in a pope flat cap, her figure in a pope tweed suit, her delicate hands (bit ham this) in pope fingerless mittens, all courtesy of the pool’s Lost Property. Her facial hair was hair hair snipped off Michelle and then glued onto her jowls. Whichever drunken brainwave had brought them here was long forgotten. Joining the punters in the rows around her, she growled at the cartoon on the screen:
A cherub in a hoodie flew over a valley of white roses, miles and miles of roses bowing at the horizon where something huge and purple was trying to reach the sky. A miniature of whisky fell from the cherub’s hand and broke a rose’s neck. A neighbouring rose sniffed the bottle and had a drink, let a whistle out and spewed earthy sick. Then came a lengthy close-up as the rose weighed up the pros and cons of having another sip. It had a couple and stood up straight and frowned at the horizon and then the miles of bowing flowers. The close-up on the rose’s face continued for a time, then you saw a neighbour drink and spew and straighten up. Adjacent roses too, more near them, and so on as more mini bottles fell. The purple thing began to wobble.
Leaving the valley fast the cherub made the film’s one and only sound — a wail of sheer glee pitched so high you could barely hear it. Everything began to lose its light and colour till finally the screen was black.
Michelle set off from the bar, on the way pinching the non-bum of a skeletal boy who Kirsty recognised from somewhere, possibly the pool Christmas party. Mid-twenties, floppy red hair and the same dopey grin as Jan.
Jon. The Garvey bag of bones.
Michelle handed her a double rum and lime and went, ‘Christ but I’m monged.’ She wasn’t in disguise.
Kirsty said softly, ‘Jon hasn’t mentioned…’
‘Saturday.’ Michelle shook her head and got settled next to Kirsty, her eye and mouth co-ordination so horny it was savage. ‘I wish he’d do something with his herr. It just hangs there doing precisely nothing.’
Someone Hygienus was addressing threw a pint against the wall. Glass and beer rebounded onto the projector and rafters but no one seemed to mind.
‘Hey,’ went Michelle. ‘See thon bloke with the dreads?’
‘He’s another MoJo, that yin. Pure Mo Johnson. Same gormless gleam. Same Messiah complex. Take my word for it. The man is MoJo.’
‘It’s Johnston with a tee. And I think Mo Johnston’s on the ginger side.’ Before Kirsty could reply, ‘You didn’t notice anything like this?’
‘Fucksake.’
Bottom lip folded over to expose its wet innerness, top lip covered with a half-folded tongue — it was the blubberiest pout possible, just disgusting. Michelle’s eyes glazed over. Too much drink, maybe. ‘Obscene…’ she said as she came around. ‘He just slipped out of the bar, your MoJo, with unbelievable lips on him. Obscenely swollen lips.’ She rubbed hers together to absorb saliva.
Kirsty had a few thoughts and feelings flying round inside her, including an urge to try the blubbery pout herself. A man with a good head of side-parted hair sat to her right. ‘That’s the Smiler,’ she whispered to Michelle. ‘Something McGrain. I thought he was in Barlinnie.’
‘Martin McGrain. Got his doctorate so they released him.’
‘Shhh,’ someone went behind them. The next film was starting.
You could hardly even call it a short. Grainy old picture and no sound: a young woman in sixties make-up and a Mod army jacket spoke to the camera in a foreign language and then chomped into a pancake. And that was it. Punters clapped a bit, looked left and right and stopped.
‘Popes Dudley and Hygienus,’ Kirsty told Michelle, indicating the blind man in front with the grey-blond perm and the drunk who’d described the film for him. She sipped her rum and tapped Martin McGrain’s shoulder. ‘Please ignore the facial hair,’ she said. ‘I’m actually a royal ride. My name is Kirsty Laing. Great to see you out and about, all nice and rehabilitated.’
He sucked in his paunch and broke out in a smile way too open for a man his age, just like he used to do for the TV cameras outside court.
Twirling a pump, ‘I’m putting a fund together to fly Sheena Easton over to St Mungo’s Public Baths. A fiver…’ He shook his head. ‘Fine. I’m diving at the pool’s jamboree tomorrow. Fancy popping in to watch?’
The magic thing about his drunken features was they seemed aware of their own self-revolted twitches and general warpings, which of course they found revolting, which made them twitch and warp all the more. It was pretty fascinating. ‘I doubt it, Kristy. My garden needs a weeding.’
‘I thought Barlinnie had a gym,’ she squeezed his arm and said. ‘I once knew a biker who kept telling me to worship his massive muscles. What was all that about?’
‘Don’t push your luck.’
‘And it’s Kirsty. He had a point though. A hairy thug of a man but by Christ those muscles were stupendous.’
The alcove went quiet. It was time for the night’s main feature.
‘One last question, boss. How does Glasgow’s gangland feel about the heatwave?’
He bared his bad teeth and ran fingers through his thick, thick hair. ‘I think they’ve had enough,’ he said. ‘One burnt kid launched himself off a Possil highrise and tried to butt the sun.’
‘Shhh.’
The first character to appear onscreen was a handsome gent in a leotard with HOLY GHOST stencilled across the chest. He peered over a fence into a rodeo-type compound and wolf whistled loudly. Five plump middle-aged women strolled elegantly through the dust plucking at wee lyres, starkers apart from a sash that said Beauty, Justice, Love, Reason or Truth. The Holy Ghost spoke and a rumbling West Country voice silenced the bar.
‘THEE IDEARS CA’GOREE.’
Forestry Commission jeeps parked by the compound gate and gangs of naked men jumped out, necking and spraying beer and whooping at the sky. Most had erections, all had sashes with their names: the Buddha, Confucius, John the Baptist, V.I. Lenin, John Lennon, Moses, Savonarola and the like.
‘THEE THINK’RS CA’GOREE.’
The thinkers entered the compound and got stuck into the ideas/women. ‘Don’t you be considerin’ blabbin’… You thought you was dead trendy… The great part being the pliability of yer flesh…’ they remarked as they humped away, quaintly toned and phrased lines that in West Country accents suggested something halfway between innocence and jokey jokiness, the word on the tip of Kirsty’s tongue, something French that began with f… The women left the compound and punters clinked glasses and slammed their contents down their throats. Michelle turned towards Jon, ready with a wave if he was embarrassed on her behalf, but his eyes weren’t moving from the screen. An exhalation flapped his fringe.
On the screen the Holy Ghost pranced around in jodhpurs and cracked a whip and another line of women strolled into the compound, this time much thinner and plucking mandolins, naked but for sashes: Absences Don’t Beget Anything, Dialectic Versus Repetition, The Glamour of Structure, Nothing Need Be, Opposites Exist Only in the Abstract, Something Happens So It Happens Again, and Things Are Sometimes How They Seem. Thinkers drained their cans and charged.
Punters debated which ideas had had enough and which hadn’t nearly and booed any breaks for wipes or scrubs or breath. ‘Ever had a thinker?’ Kirsty thought of poking Michelle and asking, but didn’t in case it spoiled her suspension of disbelief.
Dudley turned and told Martin McGrain, ‘The prodigal son will soon return to Paradise.’ He reached towards Kirsty’s glued-on hair and said, ‘Pornography is for gents. Are you a gent?’
She placed the snipped dreadlock in his hand and nodded. The whine in her head was back.
Dudley’s perm seemed to glow and his blue eyes gazed deep into her forehead. He rubbed the dread and dropped it in a pocket. ‘That gent in the mirror is your enemy for life,’ he said.
The Holy Ghost marched onscreen in a tartan bikini and help up a big card that said 3. The thin women trudged out of the compound. The next lot were anorexics with guitars. Confucius got started on Ecstatic Mutuality, Gurdjieff on History Resolves Problems By Ending Them, John the Baptist on It’s All About Prayer, V.I. Lenin on Three-quarters of Yer Time Is Spent in the Womb, John Lennon on Poetic Justice, John Milton on Umpteen — just Umpteen, just an emaciated woman with a sash with Umpteen on it — and Ernst Schrödinger on Whiling Away the Hours.
Ancient men in mortar boards and gowns sat on the compound fence, peered through pince-nez at the thinkers and started jotting notes. A tuxedoed Holy Ghost pointed a baton at them.
‘THEE EUNUCHS CA’GOREE.’
And conducted in the next group of women, all shapes and sizes, plucking unalphabetically at no instrument at all: A Good Clear Message Plus Some Illustration or Else, Magic Realism, Melted Realism, Real Realism, Hardcore and Soft, Climax and Anti, Low Production Values, Get to the Point, Truth back for more, An Inoffensive Title, A Polite Apology, A Small Prologue, Misleading Blurbs, and Bob’s Yer Uncle. The Buddha, warming to the theme now, went through them all.
Punters got to their feet and roared. Eunuchs dropped their quills and fainted. Pope Dudley got to his feet and roared. Pope Hygienus toppled over. Jon tapped Michelle and muttered, ‘Cellar.’ Kirsty knocked back her rum and the projector’s whirrs went plecto.
Bingo caller, lollipop lady, fat medieval pope pope… in guise after guise the Holy Ghost ushered more and more women into that flipping mental compound. Many of them weren’t real ideas, strictly speaking, plus they were changing so fast only a few were sinking in: Don’t Sulk If There’s Not Much Drama in Your Life, The National Assembly of the Church of Scotland, The Charge of the Light Brigade, Muddying the Waters, Ghosts Can Only Fly Along Straight Lines, Titters, Moustache = Bigot, Pamphleteering, Smoking While with Child, Word Salad, What About Christ’s Interlude in Egypt?, The Prevailing Wind, Children: Use a Pea-sized Amount for Supervised Brushing to Minimise Swallowing, a sash that went round and round a woman’s body with a ballad thinkers sang as she twirled out, then The End, and then a final group whose sashes had the credits.
<!–[if gte vml 1]> <![endif]–><!–[if !vml]–>
<!–[endif]–>
2: higher than jesus
Next day around seven o’clock, the jamboree about to start, Jan and Bathsheba in the front seats of the minibus parked outside St Mungo’s. Cranberry-flavour air freshener was making the pong of stale drink worse.
Bathsheba finished her fish tea and said, ‘I will always love you. Even if you lose tonight.’
‘Let’s go home.’
‘How about a soothing massage for the heid?’
‘I’m going home.’
Bathsheba wiped her greasy hands. ‘A few hours and you’re up on the highboard, pet.’
‘I’m not diving.’
‘It sounds much busier than last year’s jamboree. Excited?’
‘I’m away off home.’
‘Ho ho. Check out the Awkward Squad’s antics in the revolving door. Great stuff.’
‘Great stuff,’ said Jan. ‘Let’s go home and finish off Noise 9. Please.’
‘See you inside.’ Bathsheba coughed up a long blonde hair and spat it on the pavement.
* * *
At the trophy table north of the pool Mrs Forbes the manager from the grim popeless 70s nattered with local micro-celebrities Kount Tornado the plate-spinner and Logie McCube and old Martin McGrain himself, given place of honour by a starstruck Clegg, resplendent in her ballgown and tiered ’do. David Wilkie smiled hard and fought the urge to do a runner. Stretching and praying in the Tanning Area south of the pool were all those who’d still to swim or dive.
The more or less respectable spectators sat on the ten Drones’ Benches to the west, about three hundred in all, tons of them in baggy all-white clothing, a banner above their heads proclaiming ST. MUNGO’S 99th ANNUAL JAMBOREE. The swimmers sat here once they’d changed, Michelle included, wearing a captain’s armband with a big C. In front of her three giantesses fanned themselves with Glasgow Heralds. The off-duty cleaners and secretary and relatives gossiped further down with the relatives of the caterers and security, who were working tonight for free. Brownie, Cub, Guide, Scout and Boys Brigade groups mixed and compared badges. Crews and Teams and Fleets of neds discussed which Scout they’d jump outside. It was also great to see so many of the lunchtime crowd out of their hi-viz workclothes. Rightin the middle of Bench5, cushioned by polystyrene floats, Parks and Recreation’s top executives talked football and Eurovision with Radio Clyde and local rag reporters and NATO’s Culture City Reconnaissance Corps.
On the ten eastern benches a hundred popes faced the full glare of the sun. Mythic figures like the Crooners and Pope Hothering Galoot had made the effort, Zander the Groggy even, who everyone thought was in the Clyde. The barred Pope Uncomfy was there in disguise, was known to be there, but was behaving, comparatively speaking, so Miss Clegg let him stay. The real surprises were Jan Garvey and the gleaming weirdo with the dreadlocks, but there they were alright, her rosy-cheeked and expressionless on a papal bench with a crowd from her parents’ bar, her hair slightly shorter than on Saturday, and him on his tod with fairly normal lips. Dotted east and west were various barmen, anti-polltax/Faslane/fluoride protesters and apprentice-pope streetpreachers asked along by Kirsty. No sign of Kirsty but.
Miss Clegg incorporated the result and sponsorship from the Under 16 Girls’ Individual Medley into the Sheena Fund and handed a computer printout to Russ, who chalked the latest total up on the blackboard. Coco then chalked up the house scores, Rangers’ lead over Celtic now a healthy nine points thanks to Ayesha, who’d won the medley by a length. Officially the two competing houses were called the Basking Sharks and Killer Whales but at lunchtime all the team wristbands had disappeared except the blue and green, ensuring the night would be spiced with Old Firm fervour. From popes came reasonably good-natured cheers or boos, biceps pumps or I’ll Medley You shoves, depending on which team they were supporting, which depended on where they’d placed their bets or goneto school.The western benches tutted. The acoustics cheered and booed and tutted back.
‘HIY!’ went a male voice as the medley eightsome neared their changing room. Everyone turned to the back of the western benches, where Ayesha’s pigeon-chested father stood and glowered. He pointed angrily at her lane and waved his hand in ugly patterns, ridiculing her medley strokes and gurning his disgust, then with sleek hand moves showed how he’d like them swum in future.
Next we had the raffle. Third Prize, a lemon flan, went unclaimed. Second Prize, donated by Bass plc, was a month’s supply of Tennent’s Lager. Mrs Forbes announced a number into the mic. The sight of popes examining raffle tickets from every angle brought cackles from Jan’s wiry mother, who’d bounced in a while back and charged straight up to Logie McCube for a hiss in his panto villain face. A blonde woman in too much make-up stood and waved her raffle ticket. Parks and Recreation’s union liason’s wife, word went round. Her husband took the crates out to the family car to a torrent of papal boos and jeers.
First Prize, the invite written by the man himself, was an audience with Archbishop Winning. Mrs Forbes announced a number and a cry of joy rang out from the cafe, then one of fury. Rocky milked drone applause and waved his ticket. Chick reached above his head and wheeched it.
While everyone watched the security chase each other Pope Dudley lobbed marshmallows in the water and Judas Iscariot sneaked off to his AA meeting. An extra-thick bank of Highland Heather floated across the western benches, provoking Fucksakes and coughs and splutters. Michelle sneaked a puff of a roll-up and blew smoke at a fly crawling up her arty smock, stubbed the roll-up out and killed a yawn. Odd how Kirsty kept going on and on about this jamboree and then this afternoon just vanished. Miss Clegg caught up with Chick and Rocky and made them hug.
A four-man rowing machine was carried in by beefy boys and their angelic coxswain, all in matching mini-trunks. They set the machine down before the trophy table and revved up with chants and backslaps. Miss Clegg tore the archbishop’s invite in two and gave a half each to Chick and Rocky. ‘Please welcome the young gentlemen from Hutcheson’s Grammar School,’ she announced. ‘They’ve raised a thousand pounds!’
Gasps and light applause followed, kids from posh schools pretty much unheard-of at St Mungo’s. A couple of Under 12 girls wolf-whistled. Pope Dirty Wee Nyaff sprang to the nearest pillar and rapped its NO SKIMPY COSTUMES sign. ‘No house points up for grabs of course,’ Miss Clegg said joke-sternly. ‘What follows is just a little exhibition of first-rate rowing.’ Lob-happy Pope Dudley found the pool with the Pastor Jack Glass-alike spud that was doing the rounds.
A Shhh went round the benches and the boys began to row. Other than the odd pope snore, the crew’s own grunts and the gentle urgings of their coxswain, the place went quiet and uniquely eerie, even for St Mungo’s. ‘I love this place,’ said a pale-skinned slink beside Michelle.
Sunlight hit the trophies and sprayed across the building, a kind of glitterball effect that gave Michelle a hit of pleasure. The pleasure partly came from knowing how the architecture caught this spray, organised and tamed it, but mainly came from the exact flipping opposite, from how little she still knew about the interplays of line and depth and blah. In third year, the rumour went, you learned to hear the sound rebounding light makes in buildings with sharp acoustics, an extremely high-pitched ‘b-zoingg’. The popes began to blur and merge and she went into a mini trance involving epic sleeping and TV-watching and ten minute services and complete no-shows and her absentee so-called father, infamous as the laziest minister in the Hebrides (which was half of the attraction,her mum had once confessed). She stood and set off for the trophy table.
A drunk-looking Martin McGrain was posing for the press photographers by the pool, making his jaw clamp attractively, you could hear, by grunting ‘sage’ or maybe ‘savage’. ‘That’s a splendid robe, Dr McGrain,’ Michelle said on her way past. ‘Sort of Lawrence of Arabia. Very dashing. Welcome to St Mungo’s.’ She approached David Wilkie with her head bowed and a pen and bus ticket ready for his autograph, whipped off her and signed by Kount Tornado, the T crossed with a tiny spiral.
The Under 16s’ shields were double the size of the Under 12s’, the Seniors’ double that. There were loads of special trophies for marginal activities like water polo and diving, also the Dolores Clegg Awards for Hardest Tryer and Best Loser. The largest trophy of all was of course the House Cup, a bronze sculpture of an upright whale and shark balanced on their tails, one fin round their rival’s shoulder, one flicking up a thumb. A refreshing breeze was blowing from the open northern windows. A twitch of the Wilkie moustache sent a shiver down Michelle’s spine.
‘You swim elegantly,’ Miss Clegg told her. ‘Please stay. We need to discuss your choice of footwear while on duty.’
‘My Green Flash are full of uh growths.’
‘And your eye-rolling.’
Logie McCube glared at the attention the photographers were lavishing on Martin McGrain, whose every pose was copied seconds later by the popes on the bottom bench. Michelle rolled her eyes.
‘I know,’ said Miss Clegg. ‘But they’re human beings like the rest of us.’
Mrs Forbes snorted.
‘Look at Wilf there,’ Miss Clegg said. ‘That’s the St Mungo’s spirit.’
Following Miss Clegg’s finger Michelle saw the plump pope with the Santa Claus beard, the Angel of Mercy, crawl under benches putting litter in the pockets of his dungarees.
Miss Clegg said, ‘Is Kirsty still at the play?’
‘What play?’ went Michelle.
‘A school play, she said. Watching her cousin.’
Michelle shrugged.
‘I moved the girls’ dives for her,’ said Miss Clegg.
‘To last?’
‘Yes,’ said Clegg. ‘After the relays.’
Michelle nodded in reverse. Her arty bunches boinged up and down.
McGrain and popes posed. The rowing machine’s scrapes and grates bounced around the building, plus forlorn-sounding grunts from the beefy crew.
‘I couldn’t help overhearing the two of you this afternoon,’ said Miss Clegg. ‘I could hardly believe my ears.’
‘Jimmy Mauchline is terrifying.’
‘Jimmy Mauchline is a national treasure.’
‘JIMMY MAUCHLINE IS TERRIFYING.’
McGrain removed a sock and shoe, hammed a surprised expression and dipped a big toe in the water. Popes removed theirs too.
The photographers were first to get their heads out the open windows, followed by wheezing staff and rowers and VIPs. It wasn’t just the smell of pope feet. It was the mixture of pope feet and Highland Heather…
* * *
As the jamboree wore on certain scowlers put their flat caps back on, got up from the western benches and set off for their local bars where they were characters, where their drunken wisecracks didn’t have to compete with popery.
Which was pretty mild, to tell the truth, for jamboree night. Those down the front experienced a delayed reaction, a kind of shellshocked gibber, to the first sight of their feet since God knows when (the feet mercifully back inside their gym shoes). The slaggings from the rest about blisters and athlete’s foot turned into mumbled war stories about chronic dehydration, chronic exhaustion, lost body parts, lost identity, medical indifference, the general health issues of the long-term homeless, none too cheery.
Another factor in the subdued mood was Kirsty’s absence. Likewise the sun, which was flipping unrelenting. Jamboree ties were loose or off, and shirts, and still the Brylcreem and alcoholic sweat flowed into eyes and cuts and sores. Pius thrashed at imaginary wasps attacking those in front and basked in their freakouts’ shadow. Pope Bernard, an ultra-wreck tanned to the Scottish limit, crawled beneath his bench and stayed there. The Awkward Squad stood and sat at random during races, obstructing and unobstructing sightlines and forcing those around them to do the same. The eastern benches rippled like the pool itself.
The high spirits of blind Pope Dudley attracted a few comments. Pope Hygienus was drying out in the Royal Infirmary and without his input otherwise, the consensus went, for Dudley this year’s jamboree was just business as usual. Squabbles about the superstrengths of respective supermarket ciders, schoolboy smut about the pics of Ming’s wife and daughters on Bondi Beach, ancient gags about chlorine’s pH after Catholics or Prods had swum… over and above this tired old stuff, these observers speculated, on Planet Dudley teams of popes were bunnyhopping, conga-streaking and diving off the springboard clutching dowsing rods, as described each year by Pope Hygienus.
The Monkey and Typewriter gang were discussing whether clinical depression could be said to ease at all during alcoholic blackouts. Three white-haired popes tried to remember whether the Book of Revelations mentions froth. The way Pope Joan licked Lady Muck’s spoon said they were more than just good friends. Michelle reached the near empty Blue Nose Bench. Two bloody days she’d been employed in this plectorium.
Jon was drunk. ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘How did you do in the backstroke?’
‘Second-last.’ She kissed his cheek and shoved him to a patch of bench that wasn’t sticky. ‘Please tell me, Jon without an h. Why are they popes?’
He folded his teeny arms tight like he was trying to snap them. ‘They just are,’ he said.
‘But why? Do they call themselves popes? Why the religious thing?’
‘These are religious men, Michelle. They see God absolutely everywhere. They’re popes.’
‘Why. Called. Popes.’
‘They always have been. It’s a St Mungo’s tradition.’
‘Says who?’
‘Says my sister. She never shuts up about them.’
Much barging for space on the top bench’s southern end, which the diving boards had begun to shadow. Michelle tickled Jon’s jaggy knees and went, ‘Last night was pure sordid.’
‘No tickling please.’
She bared her teeth and Jon’s pinkie smeared saliva across her gums. ‘I don’t mean to boast,’