Demo (38 page)

Then I sat on my bed wi a box a matches and the tray on my knee. I laid Julian's dread out straight. It was startin to look a bit grubby again since the last time I bleached it. Tarnished. I lit a match and held the flame to the end a the dread. The hair sizzled and crackled and spat. The stink was pure revoltin. The whole operation took at least fifteen minutes and maist a the box a matches. It was worth it. I watched the dread meltin and turnin black and frizzlin away to nothing. Then I opened the window.

So that was that.

Elvis was funny the first time he seen me without my dreads. I come through the door and he charges at my legs as usual, wraps his arms around them. Kay-kay, he shouts, Kay-kay. I pick him up and smoothe back his quiff and he looks at my face wi big brown eyes. Then he keeks round the back a my head, baith sides, to see where my dreads are hidin. He looks at me again and his face pure crumples and I feel a wail getting ready to start. I have to shoogle him up and down and sing to him afore he gets the picture it really is me. Eventually he puts his wee fat hand up to feel my spiky hair, touches my face and laughs, that deep throaty chuckle he does.
Uh-huh-huh.
And that's it. He never mentions it again – if you know what I mean. Weans, they just accept you, don't they, whatever you're like.

I look out the bus window. We're on a mair open stretch a road now, runnin alongside the Gare Loch. There's snow on the hills and you can see towns and cranes, all a sort a hazy blue round the edge of the loch. I'm wonderin if one a them's Helensburgh; we must be gettin near it by this time. I could
ask somebody, I suppose. The woman in the seat across is no there now; she must a got off somewhere along the line and I didny even notice.

We come round a bend and the sun breaks through a narrow gap in the blue haze and lights up one a the towns in the distance, turns it gold. Just the one.

Excuse me, I says.

The bald man two seats in front looks round.

Is that Helensburgh?

Aye, he says. That's it now. Looks like the sun's shinin there.

Aye, it does, I says.

Right. OK. I'm no gonny take it as a sign.
Pathetic fallacy
and all that. I'm no daft. It cheers me up anyway but.

So.

So, I'll take Barney for walks on the front. Spend some time wi Patsy. I've no spoke to her for ages. Last time Laetitia was there wi Elvis. The time before was when she came through to Glasgow to help my ma look for Danny. They went off in her car, my ma worried sick, Patsy haudin on tay the steerin wheel for dear life, and Barney sittin up in the back seat, as if he was directin operations. If I hadny been so worried mysel, it would a been funny.

And I'll see what the town has to offer. It's no exactly Florence, but it'll make a change fae sittin in my room. I'll maybe even check out the Peace Camp at Faslane. There's gonny be protests there just before the G8 this summer. Jed says three women got into a wee blow-up dinghy a few years back, steered it out to one a the nuclear submarines, climbed up and done some damage wi wirecutters and glue; jammed winches, wrecked computers, chucked stuff ower the side. The Trident Three. One a them was over sixty! Another time two women
swam
out and boarded a submarine to protest
against weapons of mass destruction. Must a been pure freezin in that water, but they done it.

OK. Couple a weeks in Helensburgh. And that'll be me.

Then back to Glasgow and

who knows.

Acknowledgements

The Creative Writing course run jointly by Glasgow and Strathclyde Universities gave me the impetus to turn my secret vice into a public one. Thank you to all the staff, especially my tutors, Zoeé Wicomb and Janice Galloway, whose writing and teaching always inspired; Willy Maley, whose unfailing optimism nudged me towards publication; Liz Lochhead for her enthusiasm and encouragement; and to the students, particularly my editorial group, Ailsa Crum, Griz Gordon, Ann MacKinnon, Heather Mackay, Clare Morrison and Maureen Myant, for their creative criticism and friendship.

Thank you to my editor, Judy Moir of Penguin, for liking the book after part one and having faith that parts two and three would follow.

The time I spent in Castlemilk is woven into the fabric of my life; the people I worked with gave me so much. I heard echoes of conversations I had there every time I sat down to write. Thank you all. In particular, thank you to Janette Shepherd, whose generosity of spirit has touched so many people.

My friends kept me going when I faltered; Usha Brown, Mary Patrick, Maureen Sanders, Allison Linklater, Anne-Marie McGeoch, Jean Barr, Cynthia Fuller deserve special mention.

Ewa Wojciechowska and the group listened to my first attempts at prose and helped me on my way; Eileen MacAlister too.

Staff in Great Western Road Costa, the Tinderbox and
especially Stravaigin provided a constant flow of cheer, as well as good coffee, food and wine.

Leanne Crisp at Controlled Demolition Ltd was very helpful.

It was in my Orkney family that I developed – among all the other things – a love of words and a fascination with the workings of groups. Thank you to my mother, Irene, to Stuart, Catherine, Maggie, and Iain Miller and, in memory, my father, Sonny, and brother, Alan. Thank you also partners and next generation: Gordon, Helen, Rachel, Lewie, Sonny, Lana, Darren, Alan, Gemma.

Extra thanks to Maggie Miller for taking the photos in front of the peat shed door.

Last and foremost, my Glasgow family, Liam, Norna and Ewan Stewart gave me the love and encouragement that saw me through.

Alison Miller

April 2005

Permission to quote ‘She Moved Through the Fair', Padraic Colum, sought from Music Sales Limited.

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‘Orcop Haiku', Frances Horovitz, from
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‘Redemption Song', Copyright Bob Marley. Reproduced by kind permission of Fifty-six Hope Road Music Ltd/Odnil Music Ltd/Blue Mountain Music Ltd administered by Fairwood Music Ltd.

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‘The Shooting of Dan McGrew', Robert W. Service.

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