Three . . . Four
Joe had grown tired of farming and he was using his soldiers as soldiers. They took over the cornflakes packet and killed some of the animals for food.
Five . . . Six
Joe made aeroplane noises and dive-bombed the farm with stones and clods of earth. The soldiers and animals were scattered, the fields churned up, laid waste.
Seven . . . Eight
Aleck wondered why dandelions were called peethebeds. Maybe you wet the bed if you ate them.
Nine.
Aleck’s mother opened the window and shouted him up. That meant it must be time to get ready for Sunday school. About half past one.
He gathered up his things.
‘Mibbe see ye efter,’ said Joe.
‘Prob’ly,’ said Aleck.
As he crossed the back court towards his close, he decided that the time told by a dandelion clock was magic. That was why it was different from ordinary time. If you caught one of the seeds you could make a secret wish. That proved they were magic. Only special people knew how it worked. Like Jesus and witches and medicine men. Magic time.
He could see his mother working at the sink, the window slightly open. He stopped and cradled his toys against him with one arm, almost dropping them as he waved up at her.
The theme music for the end of Family Favourites was crackling out above the rush of the tap. Behind the sports page, his father absently was singing along, adding the words here and there.
‘With a song in my heart
Da da dee, da da dee, da da dee . . .’
His mother, at the sink, was washing and cutting vegetables for soup, a pot with a bone for stock simmering away on one gas ring. On the other, a kettle of water for Aleck to wash himself was just coming to the boil.
‘Ah’ll let ye in here tae get washed in a minnit son.’
‘Och ah’m quite clean mammy. Ah’ll jist gie ma hands ’n face a wee wipe.’
‘A cat’s lick an a promise ye mean! Naw son, ye’ve goat tae wash yerself right. Ah mean yer manky. Ye canny go tae Sunday school lik that.’
‘Da da dee da doo
I will live life through
With a song in my heart
FOOOOR YEW!’
On the last line of the song his father stood up, arms outstretched, still holding the newspaper, hanging on to the long nasal concluding note, crescendo drowning out the radio, hearing himself as a miraculous combination of Al Jolson and Richard Tauber and Bing Crosby.
‘Whit a singer!’ he said, patting his chest.
‘Whit a heid ye mean!’ said his mother.
‘Ah’m tellin ye, ah shoulda been on the stage.’
‘Aye, scrubbin it!’ they replied, in unison, and they all laughed.
She shifted the vegetables on to the running board, emptied the basin and unclogged the sink of peelings. Then she cleaned out the basin and poured in hot water from the kettle.
‘Right!’ she said, handing him a towel.
Stirring the water with his hands, he made ripples and waves, whirlpools and storms. He squeezed the soap so that it slipped up and out of his grasp and blooped into the basin. He slapped the water with his palm, ruffled it up till its surface was a froth of bubbles. Then he washed his hands and arms, face and neck.
‘Aboot time tae!’ said his mother. ‘Yirra mucky pup, so yar.’
She laid a sheet of newspaper on the floor in front of the fire and lifted the basin on to it.
‘Feet an legs!’ she said. He looked down at his grubby knees and didn’t bother to complain.
Sometimes he didn’t mind being clean. It could give you a warm feeling inside, like being good. It was just so much of an effort.
His mother laid out his shirt and his suit, his heavy shoes and a pair of clean white ankle socks.
This was the horrible part, the part that was really disgusting. The clothes made him feel so stiff and uncomfortable.
Slowly, sadly, he put them on.
The shoes were solid polished black leather and he consciously clumped round the kitchen. He found it impossible to feel at ease. Clumpetty shoes and cissy white socks. He glowered down at his stupid feet, his shirt collar chafing his neck. He put away his blue socks and white sandshoes. They were what he liked to wear. When he wore them he could run fast, climb dykes, pad and stalk like an Indian. Playing football he could jink and dribble without making one wrong move. Blue and white flashing. A rightness. A sureness of touch. The feel of things.
Clump!
‘Whit’s the matter?’
‘Eh?’
‘Yer face is trippin ye.’
‘Nothin.’
‘Yer no gonnae start aboot thae shoes’n socks again ur ye?’
‘Naw. Ah’m awright mammy, honest.’
He knew he couldn’t explain and he knew if he tried she would just go on about how lucky he was to have a decent set of clothes to wear. Then his father would chip in about when he was at school – bare feet or parish boots.
His father had laid down the paper, so he picked it up and looked for the jokes and cartoons. Oor Wullie. The Broons. Merry Mac’s Fun Parade.
Oor Wullie, Your Wullie, A’body’s Wullie. That always made him snigger because of the double meaning.
Wullie and Fat Boab were being chased by PC Murdoch because they’d knocked off his helmet. As usual, everything ended happily. As usual, Murdoch had a kindly knowing twinkle in his eye. As usual, Wullie was on his bucket in the last frame, slapping his thighs and laughing.
Real policemen didn’t wear helmets any more. They wore caps with black and white checks. They swore at you and moved you on for loitering and booked you for playing football in the street. Joe had been booked about three weeks before and he was waiting for a summons to go to court. There had been about eight of them playing, but only Joe had been caught. He’d been using his jacket as a goalpost and when he’d stopped to pick it up he’d fallen behind. The others had charged through closes and escaped across the Hunty. Aleck had torn his knee on some barbed wire and he’d worn an ostentatious bandage for a week. When anyone had asked what was wrong he’d tried to look sinister like a gangster and spat out his reply.
‘Ah goat it runnin fae the polis.’
And he’d hoped it conjured up a picture of himself, gun-toting masked desperado in a running shoot-out across Govan. Wanted. Hunted.
Clump!
‘An mind an keep thae shoes clean an don’t go gettin them scuffed playin football.’
‘Ah kin jist see me playin football in Sunday school!’
‘Less a your cheek boy! Yer mother’s right. We canny be forever buyin ye new shoes wi you kickin the toes outy them.’
In one frame, Wullie was skulking, head hung, shoulders hunched, and above his head was the word GUILTY.
That was the name of one of Aleck’s comics. It had JUSTICE TRAPS THE in small letters across the top, with GUILTY in big red print above blue-uniformed American policemen machine-gunning their way into a roomful of gangsters. Into a plastic bag his mother put a little of each of the vegetables she was using for the soup. Carrot, turnip, potato, celery, onion, leek. This