He used to knock her about; broke her arm once. I already know all this. He was one of those men — they can't be unique to Glasgow — who know in their hearts that for all their edgy, belligerent llardness they are just unhappy kids, emotional retards. They can drink and they can fight, but even they know that's not enough, and the only other way they have to prove they're men is by knocking as many weans out of their wives as possible. Betty has an amusing story of being chased round the flat by her Jack; he was after the packet of pills he'd discovered and she'd snatched away from him. He caught her eventually, and threw them on the fire.
Her best story, the one that makes me most angry, but one that she tells with a sort of baleful irony, is of the time she was sent down for three months for soliciting, by a judge who'd been one of her clients.
I was incensed; I'd always regarded the law on prostitution to be almost as stupid, almost as guaranteed to bring law in general into contempt, as the law on drugs (with the laws they still have on homosexuality running a distant third), but to discover an act of such gross, such focused hypocrisy being perpetrated on somebody I knew and liked made the arrant nonsensicality of our supposedly shared values far clearer for me than they ever had been before. I wanted to get that judge's name and expose him; get him, somehow.
Betty couldn't understand why I was so angry. She told me to stop being daft. Occupational hazard. She'd met worse bastards than that. I think she decided then not to risk telling me about some of the really bad experiences she's had, in case I took off after some violent client with an axe.
Anyway, I'm glad she could tell me about that, even if there are all those things she won't talk about. I think she has at least one kid, but she won't talk about that either. Maybe in another few years.
Betty and I have a very simple and satisfactory relationship; we screw, and I pay her. I remember that I used to think that any man who had to pay for it was a rather pathetic creature, and could not understand that quite a few of the rich, not unattractive men that I knew did just that. I think I understand now. The physical need is dealt with, but emotional commitment never even arises. Just a transaction. Easy to get along with. Clean and simple.
It's only recently I've started to worry about exactly why I'm doing this. Betty might be a mother figure to me. She doesn't look very similar, but there is a vague similarity. Worse, there's her man and my da.
Because he too was in the Bar-L. For most of my childhood, in fact.
You want to hear a sad wee story? I was five years old, having my birthday party in the flat in Ferguslie Park; my ma and four or five of my brothers and sisters. My ma had made a special effort for me, buying a cake and putting candles on it. I had a present, we all had paper hats, there were lots of bottles of skoosh to drink and that cake to eat, once I'd blown the candles out.
Only I never got a chance to, because my da came home after being down the pub, and he'd heard a rumour — I don't know; probably just somebody making a joke or some thoughtless remark— that my ma had been seeing some other man. He practically kicked the door in, stormed through to the kitchen, and picked my ma out of the seat. Us kids just sat and watched, amazed, frightened.
He held her by the chin, swiped her across the face with his other hand. I can still see her hair flying out, still hear the noise her head made as it cracked against the kitchen cabinet, smashing glass, sending cups and saucers flying. She fell, he picked her up and hit her again, shouting and swearing. She tried to beat him off, but he was too strong. He threw her down and started kicking her.
We were all just young. We sat on our seats and screamed, tears streaming down our faces, howling. Steven, a year older than me, jumped off his seat and went to help ma; he was battered across the face and fell back against the formica table, spilling our lemonade. My da stood over ma, kicking her and shouting and throwing mugs and cups and plates down at her; she was crumpled against the cupboard under the sink, sobbing, arms over her head, all curled up like a baby, blood flowing from her head. My da kicked her a few more times, then heaved the kettle out through the window. He turned the table over, skelped me and the others he could reach round the ear, then walked out.
We clustered round ma eventually, going down to where she lay on the lino, in that same position, and all of us were crying, close to hysterical.
Happy fifth birthday.
And I never did get to blowout my candles.
My da reappeared three nights later, with some flowers he'd stolen from a garden, brimming with contrition and tears. He hugged my ma and swore he'd never raise his hand to her again ... but then he always did that.
I must have taken it bad. I went to school that autumn, and did all right except that I wouldn't say or write or use the number five. For me, the numbers went; one, two, three, four, (blank), six, and so on. I wouldn't say the word, I wouldn't use the figure.
It was a blank space, something I didn't want to think about.
Took a school psychiatrist two years and a lot of patience (and tea and biscuits) to worm that out of me. I wouldn't think about it. I couldn't remember anything anywhere near my fifth birthday. I had terrible nightmares, about being chased by a lion or a bear or a tiger, and being beaten and mauled before I died/woke up, but I wouldn't remember anything about that birthday.
By the time I was persuaded to dig up that memory, my da was safely in Barlinnie prison. Killed a man. Nobody in particular; just a guy who annoyed him one night in a bar, and who happened to have a thin skull. Hard luck really. He'd been a regular visitor to the local nicks since before I was born; for stealing, assault; always when he was drunk. Not really a violent man, just a stupid one, a weak one. He knew he became belligerent when he drank, but he always thought that next time it would be different and he'd stay in control. So he kept on getting drunk and he kept on getting violent and he kept on getting into fights and he kept on getting sent to jail.
Here's my joke about my da. It so happens that he really did despise education; thought all students were wasters and poofs. He used to boast that he'd been to the University of Life (no, honestly; he really used to say that). Well my joke is; my da went to the University of Life... but he kept getting sent down.
Funny,eh?
He was eventually transferred to Peterhead prison, before Betty's husband went to Barlinnie, so they could never have met, which I think is a pity. He got out ten years ago. My ma took him back; by that time he was a wee, grey, broken man, and now he sits in their new house in Kilbarchan and stares at the telly all day. He won't touch drink or go out, and he goes to bed when my ma tells him. I don't know what they did to him to make him like that, but in my less charitable moments I can't help feeling it was no more than he deserved.
But maybe I'm just a callous bastard.
'Yer a bit pale yerself.'
'Hmm, what?' Betty rescued me from my memories. 'Pale?'
'Aye; ye look like ye've been in the jile yersel, so ye dae. An what's this?' Betty picked up one of my knuckle-skinned hands, inspecting it briefly then letting it fall back to the sheets. 'Didnae think you were a fighter. Whit ye been daein?'
'Nothing.' I looked at the grazes on my fingers, and flexed them.
'Aye ye have. Ah know whit fighter's hauns look like. Ye've been fightin, haven't ye? Whit wiz it aboot?'
'I haven't been fighting. I was climbing something and I grazed my knuckles.' (But I'm starting to wonder; did McCann tell the truth? Did I hit somebody? What about after McCann left me; I went to get a take-away curry somewhere after we split up. What happened after that? Was I in a fight? I suppose I could have been ... But no; I don't know how to fight. A street-wise twelve year old could probably take me, even when I was sober. I'd remember something as traumatic as... as a fight... wouldn't I?)