Alex Gray - Glasgow Kiss

For a moment Julie looked blank then as Sam picked up her bag and began to walk away, she pulled her back. ‘It is true,’ she said. ‘Only. .’ Her voice trembled and she shook her head, tears starting up in her eyes.

‘Jules.’ Sam was back at her side, a new tone of concern in her voice. ‘What happened? What really happened?’

‘Oh, Sam.’ Julie flung herself into the other girl’s arms, sobbing now for real. ‘It wasn’t proper sex. He raped me.’

Maggie Lorimer glanced up as the whispering began. This close-reading test had to be done today in order to gauge exactly what level her Standard Grade pupils were going to achieve. At the back of her room she could see the two heads bent together: Samantha Wetherby and Julie Donaldson, the girl she had seen tearing downstairs away from Eric. Clearing her throat in an exaggerated manner caught their attention and she noticed with relief that Samantha moved away. The last thing Maggie wanted was to reprimand them in the middle of a test. But just as Julie glanced up at her, Maggie caught something in that girl’s expression that she didn’t like at all — a knowing, self-satisfied little smile that was hiding something. For two pins Maggie would have wiped that sly look off her face, but experience told her to let it pass and preserve the peace and quiet for the rest of the class.

When the bell rang Maggie called out, ‘Stop writing now, please. Make sure your names are on the papers and hand them down to the front.’

As Julie and Samantha passed her at the classroom door Maggie was tempted to pull them back. What was all that whispering about? Maggie wondered, watching the two girls walk along the corridor, seeing Samantha sling an arm around Julie’s shoulders as if she were consoling her friend. There was something going on, that was for sure. And it had absolutely nothing to do with their English close-reading test.

It was only the second day of term but already Kyle felt as if the summer holidays were a distant memory. Write about the best thing that happened to you during the holidays , the teacher had asked them. Their regular maths teacher hadn’t left any work and the man at the front of their class was from the English department, covering just for this period. Mr Simpson was okay, really, a bit old and frayed at the edges but a good sport and always ready for a bit of a laugh. A short bald man, Simpson had the sort of merry face that Kyle associated with Christmas. Put him in a red suit and he’d make not a bad Santa Claus. Kyle had been in the top maths class at the beginning of June when the official new term had begun and they’d gone up to Fourth Year. But his teacher wasn’t here this period. Had some sort of meeting, Simpson had told them. He supposed it would be okay doing English during a maths period, since they were expected to be working towards a really good folio this year. He was glad the older man wasn’t his regular English teacher. Simpson always took the dunderheads, the ones who weren’t expected to go on to gain any useful qualifications like Advanced Highers. The bright kids in Mrs Lorimer’s class were the ones who would rise to these lofty heights in Sixth Year, maybe go on to university. Would that be him in a couple of years’ time if he worked harder at his other subjects? Or did his ambitions really lie elsewhere?

He chewed his pencil. The other kids seemed to be really into this bit of writing, Kyle thought, glancing at his classmates bent over their jotters, earnestly scribbling away. They’d probably be telling all about holidays in Spain or Florida. He’d overheard plenty of them boasting about family fortnights that always seemed to have been somewhere with sun, sand and sex, if you believed them. He grinned to himself; they wouldn’t be letting their teachers know anything about their quick fumblings down on a darkened beach. But what could he write about? The only place he’d been apart from his gran’s in Partick was to Dawsholm Park, near the Vet School. And being back home with his da, of course, though that was the last thing he’d ever write about. Then it came to him. The Argo. He could write about that, surely? The best thing that happened to you , Simpson had written on the old chalk board in his fine, sloping handwriting. He’d had a great fight that night, hadn’t he? Scored more points off Gordon than he’d ever done before. And it had been a proper fight, not just a three-minute bout. With growing excitement, Kyle began his essay: The best thing that happened to me . .

‘Whit ur ye doin?’ Da had pulled his jotter away before Kyle even realised he was in the room.

‘It’s homework. I’ve to finish it for the morrow,’ he replied, willing his da to hand back the blue-covered jotter. It was still in pristine condition, with just his name and English section on the front. By Christmas it would probably be covered in doodles and graffiti like everyone else’s but for now it was clean and fresh, and Kyle didn’t want his da to muck it up. ‘Can I have it back?’ he muttered.

‘No yet, want tae see whit ye’re doin. Ah’m no havin any snotty teacher tellin me ah dinna take an interest,’ he sneered.

Kyle’s heart sank. His father had never attended any of Muirpark’s parents’ evenings in his life, but the boy remembered how his Year teacher, Mrs Lorimer, had pointedly reminded him about the one coming up this term. Kyle’s face had been bruised enough lately, the old man taking his temper out on his youngest son. He’d not be letting on about a parents’ night to Da, that was for sure. Kyle shuddered to think of Tam Kerrigan sitting with his teachers, glowering at them, inwardly sneering at their correct pronunciation. Mrs Lorimer meant well enough, he knew, and was simply doing her job but most of the teachers didn’t have a clue what really went on nowadays in the Kerrigan household. Only Finnegan in PE seemed to understand Kyle and the kind of home-life he was now leading.

So Kyle held his tongue and waited for his father’s reaction. The old man’s lips were moving as he read the couple of paragraphs Kyle had managed to write so far, his finger tracing each line. Old man Kerrigan’s education must have been pretty patchy, Kyle thought suddenly. And he’d never taken any opportunity to try to improve himself in the jail, had he? All his stories about the Bar-L were big-man stuff, if you accepted half of it: wheeling and dealing with the Glasgow gangsters who had gained a notoriety that the likes of Kerrigan aspired to. That was the only kind of education his father had gained.

‘What’s this? Who wis ye fightin? How did ah no hear aboot it if it wis that special? Eh? No tellin yer auld man whit ye’re up tae? How’s that, then?’

The swipe came before Kyle had time to duck, a hard blow catching him just below his right eye.

‘Wee nyaff!’ His da threw the jotter on the floor and shambled off, cursing as he went. Kyle caught the tail end of his muttering as he disappeared down the hall, ‘No bliddy son o mine. .’

Sitting on the edge of his bed, one hand against the stinging pain, Kyle trembled, hearing the familiar words. No son of mine, his da had said often enough since he’d been home. And was it true? Kyle didn’t feel as if he belonged in this family of drunkenness and drug dealing, but was that really what Da meant? Or had he actually been fathered by another man?

Kyle turned slowly to face the wardrobe door with its rectangle of mirror. He lifted his head, considering the boy that stared back at him. Fit, he was certainly fit, he told himself, appraisingly. Beneath the washed-out black T-shirt he saw a muscular pair of shoulders that gave him the appearance of the man he might become, strong and ready to defend himself. Kyle’s eyes stared at the face in the mirror; it wasn’t a weak face, though the full lips and thick eyelashes were sort of girlish. They’d ragged him about being a cute wee boy in primary school but he’d grown into his looks now. His skin was clear and fresh, not acne ridden like Tam’s had been all through his big brother’s adolescence. The figure in the mirror was stroking his chin and he could feel the stubble, a testament to his burgeoning manhood. His forehead creased, leaving eyebrows like twin arcs above a pair of sea-grey eyes as he came to the same decision as the boy in the mirror.