Demo (27 page)

Son, she's shoutin, Here, son, gonny tell me somethin? Gonny tell me where you take all this rubble when you've finished? Son!

Why is it you need to know that, hen? my da says.

She looks at him as if she's no noticed him afore, as if she's no noticed anybody. Her eyes are kinda wild and her mouth's a hard line, like she's determined. I want a bit of it to keep, she says. A memento. I reared my family in they flats. Four
weans. My youngest boy's in the army. Last time he was hame on leave, he says, Ma, I want a brick fae our house when they knock the flats down. Her face goes soft, and her eyes. Know what he done? He broke intay the flats and went to our old house and he chipped away some a the plaster in the livin room; scraped away at it till he was down to the bare concrete. And then he taen a paintbrush and some paint and he wrote his name on it in big red letters: ALAN. He says, Ma, I'm goin back for that concrete block. Find out where they take the rubble.

She turns to the demolition men again and shouts, Here, son, gonny tell me where you take all this when you're done?

Come on, my da says to me, let's go hame.

But they've no did our one yet.

One's enough. He takes my arm and starts to weave back through the crowd. I hang on to him.

Why was that man cryin afore?

He stops and turns round to me. His face is so tired. It was his boy jumped off the high flats last year, he says.

What was it like, Farkhanda says, the high flats coming down?

We're sittin in English, waitin for Mr Forbes. He's ayeways late and when he comes in he shouts and bawls at us for no gettin on with the work. So we've baith got our copies of
Sunset Song
open on our desks, kiddin on we're readin. The boys in the back are carryin on as usual, pingin bits a chewed up paper at the ceilin, makin them stick. The whole ceilin is covered in them, like a bad case of acne.

Och, it was nothin spectacular. I only really seen the one tower properly; my da wanted to go hame. I looked back at the exact same time the second one was collapsin. It just like – sunk down on itsel and the dust came up in a big cloud. Nay massive explosions, nay flames leapin intay the sky. A bit borin.

My dad wouldn't let me come. Stay away from buildings being demolished, he said. It's dangerous. I argued with him, but he wouldn't listen. You don't know who's going to be there, he said. And Shenaz chimed in, You should listen to Dad, Farkhanda; it's no safe for Muslims to be out among crowds like that. I hate her.

No you don't. She's your sister.

Aye, I do hate her. She's never off my back.

I looks at Farkhanda. She sounds dead serious. I don't think she's forgave Shenaz for makin her wear the hijab to school. I was mad at Shenaz too, when Farkhanda telt me. She's got such beautiful hair, dead thick and black and shiny, wi a smell like flowers. We used to take turns brushin each other's sometimes. When I did hers it would be normal to start with; like mine, a wee bit wavy and tangled, hard to get the brush through. Sometimes Farkhanda would yell and tell me no to be so rough. And then it would turn smooth as dark water runnin down her back; and if I kept goin it would crackle and like blue sparks come off it. A couple a times we plaited a bit of her hair and mine thegether, just to see what it looked like, the red and the black.

I nearly burst out greetin the first day she came in with the headscarf on. All her lovely hair under a horrible white scarf. White or black she's allowed, to go with the school uniform, and she has to pin it under her chin. It makes her face round and her eyes look dead sad, starin out fae under that cloth. It was hard enough for her before, some a the boys callin her Paki cow and stuff. Now it's like:
Osama, Osama in excelsis Deo…
in assembly. And they run up behind her in the corridor, slap her on the bum and yell,
Jee-haad!
I says to her when she started cryin, Look, never mind they morons; it's just the same as them callin us lezzies when we were brushin one another's hair.

Aye, but that was the two of us, she says, and a big round tear ran down her chin and soaked into her headscarf.

I think that was when I decided about the dreads.

Mr Forbes comes in then, stinkin a fags, shoutin, Right, who is going to delight us today with a reading from our favourite book?

He's dead sarcastic, old Four Baws, and he thinks he's bein funny. He goes to his desk and picks up his copy of
Sunset Song
. I'm sick to death of this book. By the time it gets to the exams, I'll know the whole thing off by heart. This is like the second time we've went through it.

Farkhanda, he says, will you do the honours? He often asks Farkhanda, cause he says she speaks better English than some of the rest of us. No scruffy Glasgow; more polite. Ooooooh! the boys all shout. It used to get up my nose sometimes, like you canny speak right if you come fae here. But no now; now she needs all the encouragement she can get, even fae old Forbesy. He's talkin shite anyhow; Farkhanda was born in Glasgow too.

From where we left off yesterday, please, he says.

‘…Chae Strachan came up to Blawearie one night with a paper in his hand and a blaze on his face, and he cried that he for one was off to enlist, old Sinclair would heed to the Knapp and to Kirsty. And Ewan cried after him,
You're havering, man, you don't mean it!
But Chae cried back
Damn't ay, that I do!
And sure as death he did and went off, by Saturday a letter came to Peesie's Knapp that told he had joined the North Highlanders and been sent to Perth…'

I think Farkhanda likes readin out loud; she ayeways gives it loads of expression and puts on the different voices. She even does the teuchter accent better than Mr Forbes.

Then one or two a the boys start up. State a her! they says.

Sir, sir, what's
havering
?

Read that bit again, Farkhanda,
Damn't ay, that I do!

No, it's a sin for her to say they words. She'd get a public whippin off the Taliban if they heard her.

QUIET! Turn round and be quiet, Thomas Docherty. Listen and learn.

It's no me daein the whippin, sir.

It'll be me doing the whipping in a minute, boy, if you don't be quiet.

You're no allowed, sir, you'll get the jail.

Ayeways the same; they run rings round old Forbesy and we get one paragraph done if we're lucky. I'm glad I read the book afore we started it in fifth year. When my da heard we were gonny dae
Sunset Song
, he went intay the room and came back out with this old hardback,
A Scots Quair
. There, read that, he says, the hail trilogy; greatest Scottish book ever, especially the third part,
Grey Granite
. So I reads it. To please my da as much as anythin. And I dae like it, at least I did afore we started it in school, but it's dead old-fashioned; all that country stuff and farmin. Naybody I know lives like that.

The bit I remember best is out the middle section,
Cloud Howe
, I think. It's more like a poem or somethin.

Funny and queer that you were with a man!

You did this and that and you lay in his bed,

there wasn't a thing of you he might not know,

or you of him, from the first to the last.

It comes back to me when I think of bein with Julian. Only I canny imagine knowin him that well. Or Julian knowin me. If I say the words in my mind, I'm back in that room in Florence, watchin him sleepin, his dreads spread over the pillow. That
feelin pure hits me in the gut, and my head goes hot. I wind one of my own locks round my finger; it makes a wee twizzly noise when I rub it.

I don't realize Mr Forbes is talkin to me till I feel Farkhanda nudgin my arm with her elbow.

Would you care to grace us with your presence, Miss Kilkenny? Hmm? Miss Roberta Marley? Sometime this century? He leans on my desk on his knuckles. His shirt has wet patches at the oxters and his blue tie is hangin in front a my nose. I feel like givin it a good yank, but he's already too close to me. Instead, I look at my book, lyin next to his hand. The fingers are yellow with nicotine and his breath's pourin down on my head like ash.

I says, it's about the conflict in the community and whether or no the men should be enlistin to fight in the First World War. I can half see Farkhanda beside me, crossin her eyes, makin hersel skelly, and I have to bite my lip so he willny see me smilin.

Yes? And? he says.

And Chae's went and joined up, but Ewan thinks he's off his head.

Chae's WENT and joined up, has he? You know better than that, Clare. What have I told you about the Glasgow past participle? You'll never get your Higher English if you persist in using it.

Chae has GONE and joined the army; Ewan thinks he's GONE quite barmy.
Baahmy
, I says, rhymin it with
aahmy
. I get away with bein cheeky, cause he knows fine I can dae the work. I look up at him. He's smilin. He takes his hands off my desk and goes back to his seat. Thank fuck! I look at Farkhanda; her eyebrows are up under the edge a her white hijab and her mouth's twitchin. She looks like a wee woodland creature wi her round black eyes, peepin out fae under the snow.

I canny wait to get home and wash the smell of ash out my hair. Then I remember I canny, cause a the dreads. And even if I could, I canny; Farkhanda and me's goin to the anti-war vigil in George Square straight after school. She never asked her ma and da; she thought, no way were they gonny let her go. But the second time we went, Shenaz was there too. So it was alright. She tells her ma now that Farkhanda's goin wi her, so Farkhanda doesny have to lie any more. I think she's glad. What do you dae? I says. Us Catholics say a few Hail Marys and we're OK. No that I dae that but. Farkhanda ayeways says she doesny like to talk about her religion.

Well, you're no allowed to eat pork, I says, so I suppose you're no meant to tell porkies either.

Aye, very funny, she says. Heard the one about the mean Scotsman and the stupid Irishman?

God, you're so prickly! OK, sorry, I says. I didny mean it. It's just… we've been pals since second year and I still haveny a clue what Muslims dae.

Aye, you do. We blow up buildins, chop people's heads off and eat babies.

She can be dead fierce sometimes, Farkhanda; makes me feel it's my fault Muslims get a bad name. All of a sudden, her face goes dark like a storm cloud. No unlike my brother, Danny, come to think of it.

We threaten civilization as you know it, she says.

George Square's no exactly hoachin when we get there, but it's early yet. The faces of the people already here are gettin quite familiar. There's a CND guy and a few Christian
swords into ploughshares
-type older women, wearin purple cords and pink scarfs, and one or two Palestine supporters all hangin about on the red tarmac. There's some guys fae other schools too. Boys even. We couldny persuade the boys in our school
to get involved. I suppose the lassies have fell away too but. Maybe people are savin theirsels for the big demo. And the nights are gettin lighter now as well; it was mair fun when a crowd of us came here in the dark and burnt candles. The wax all runnin down ontay the cardboard tray, people's faces lit up.

I look at Farkhanda. She's changed intay a dark red velvet hijab and stuck her white school one in her bag. It suits her far better. It's no pinned under her chin either, just draped over her shoulder. We walk round the edge of the square to see if Shenaz is here.

The statues are all standin about, towerin above us, dark in the eerie light. I don't even know who the half of them are, except the big tall one's Walter Scott. There's a seagull perched on Queen Victoria, another one on Burns.
A man's a man for a' that
, my da would say.
Sceptre and crown Must tumble down, And in the dust be equal made With the poor crooked scythe and spade.
He's aye quotin bits a poems, my da. The seagulls look like ghost birds in this light.

Are there any speakers tonight? Farkhanda says.

I don't know. Don't think so. No sign a Tommy, anyhow.

There's a few more folk gatherin. Scottish Socialists, Stop the War Coalition. I can't see Danny's lot. And I keep lookin but Julian's never came either. Danny doesny talk much about him, and Laetitia's movin wi Julian into a different flat in a few weeks. Bankrolled by their mummies and daddies, Danny says. I think he's just pissed off but, cause Julian's takin Laetitia away fae him. Again.

There's Shenaz, Farkhanda says, and she walks over to a group a Muslim lassies standin thegether all laughin and talkin at once in Urdu. As long as Farkhanda checks in wi her big sister, she's alright. A lassie I've no saw afore, in a black hijab, comes ower and holds ontay her shoulders and talks to her nineteen to the dozen. Next thing I know, Farkhanda's greetin
and the lassie's huggin her and wipin her face wi the tail of her scarf. I want to go over, but I don't know what to say. Farkhanda seemed alright a wee minute ago. Maybe a bit quiet on the bus comin down, but that's no unusual.

I stay where I am and wait. There's no really that many more folk came, while we've been walkin round the square. Same old faces. A boy comes up to me and asks if I want to buy his paper. He's haudin them up in front of his chest. No, you're alright, I says. The headline in big black letters is:
PLEASE MR BLAIR, DON'T TAKE US THERE
. Which is a bit mair polite than some a them! Underneath, there's a picture a dead weans lyin in the dust. The guy wanders over to the next punter. I've got a whole pile of leaflets and stuff about the war, lyin at hame; I never seem to get round to readin them all.

I try to get a look at what's happenin with Farkhanda, without them clockin me. She seems to have calmed down a bit and stopped cryin. I even hear her laughin at somethin one a the lassies says to her. She's got a great laugh, Farkhanda, dead giggly and sorta like musical. Like it could be the notes of a song you've no heard afore, but you would sing it too, if you knew it. Only the next time she laughs, it's that wee bit different, so you can never ever learn it.