from his scratchy-wool jumper. His breath is sleep-smelling breath, the way breath gets in the mornings.
The hotel corridor. My eyelids open and close on Heels. She is kneeling, chin twitching with tearfulness. She is sucking and jutting, rifling through my satchel, the cigarette packs it contained stacked at her feet. The higher the stack grows— three storeys high—the louder she sucks the air.
“Boys will be boys,” the Senior Sergeant says and thanks Winks for the crate of beer at his feet. Winks is holding me. He tosses me tighter into his chest for a better grip. His chest is warming me.
Weaning? What’s all this nonsense about weaning?, Heels wants to know. It is morning. She’s jutting and scratching, saying that no one could be so stupid as to expect her to believe such tripe. You’re not a half-wit, are you? You’re supposed to be a clever boy for all your stutter speech. Too clever for your own good. Your weaning story is just that—a story, a cock and bull story, a load of hooey. They have never turned you against others, she says—horis or otherwise. They, as responsible parents, have simply told you the facts as they see them. Don’t try and make your own mother and father feel guilty for opening your eyes to the world. And never ever accuse them of driving you away—this so-called weaning business. As for your stealing, you are a little thief, young man, someone who stole cigarettes and then got it into his head that he should run away from home which is a kick in the teeth for her and a kick in the teeth for your father. No one could know what pain is till they are a mother who nearly died having their child and then are kicked in the teeth by that child running away from home. What shall they do!
Perhaps a word with Dr Murchison is called for, merely to enquire about seeing someone, one of those psychiatrist types, Winks suggests. Never , Heels flares. Never, never, never. “I’d die from embarrassment. No son of mine needs a psychiatrist,” she says. No use in thrashing you, though she’d like to see it. What good has it done? They’ve decided to do the following: you will go to work after school with old Hugh McPherson washing bottles in the liquor store. You will learn some responsibility. You will learn to pull your weight. You want to make your own way in the world? Start at the bottom and work your way up. Start by washing bottles and flagons with Hugh McPherson. Now, give your mother a hug and say how sorry you are. A bit more convincing please. Now a kiss. A bit more meaningful please. That’s better. Eat your breakfast.
Start at the bottom and work my way up. I have no intention of starting at the bottom. I’m better than that. I have been given every advantage in life and have been given that advantage so that I would not have to start at the bottom like Heels and Winks. They themselves have always made that clear. Washing beer bottles and flagons for refilling—that’s old Hugh’s job. That’s all he’s good for. How can he be in charge of me ?
“Don’t go easy on the boy,” Winks orders Hugh, old Hugh with his gargling Scottish voice and purple scribble of veins on his nose and cheeks. He’s staff . He’s so bald I can see the thin brown baby-hairs sprouting on his shiny crown. Yet he’s telling me what to do, this old man with a solitary black strand of hair swept over his head and hooked over his ear and around his earlobe. He sweats and loses his breath just from saying hello to customers coming to the counter past the buzzing robotic eye.
I sit on a crate in front of the bottle-washing contraption in the backroom. The air reeks of washed-out beer. Hugh instructs me to push a beer bottle onto each brush claw then to push this little button here and set the water awhisk. The glass is washed, rinsed, dried with a blow of hot air. When this red light here lights up, pull the bottles from the claws and place them upside down in this rack for refilling with
The hotel corridor. My eyelids open and close on Heels. She is kneeling, chin twitching with tearfulness. She is sucking and jutting, rifling through my satchel, the cigarette packs it contained stacked at her feet. The higher the stack grows— three storeys high—the louder she sucks the air.
“Boys will be boys,” the Senior Sergeant says and thanks Winks for the crate of beer at his feet. Winks is holding me. He tosses me tighter into his chest for a better grip. His chest is warming me.
Weaning? What’s all this nonsense about weaning?, Heels wants to know. It is morning. She’s jutting and scratching, saying that no one could be so stupid as to expect her to believe such tripe. You’re not a half-wit, are you? You’re supposed to be a clever boy for all your stutter speech. Too clever for your own good. Your weaning story is just that—a story, a cock and bull story, a load of hooey. They have never turned you against others, she says—horis or otherwise. They, as responsible parents, have simply told you the facts as they see them. Don’t try and make your own mother and father feel guilty for opening your eyes to the world. And never ever accuse them of driving you away—this so-called weaning business. As for your stealing, you are a little thief, young man, someone who stole cigarettes and then got it into his head that he should run away from home which is a kick in the teeth for her and a kick in the teeth for your father. No one could know what pain is till they are a mother who nearly died having their child and then are kicked in the teeth by that child running away from home. What shall they do!
Perhaps a word with Dr Murchison is called for, merely to enquire about seeing someone, one of those psychiatrist types, Winks suggests. Never , Heels flares. Never, never, never. “I’d die from embarrassment. No son of mine needs a psychiatrist,” she says. No use in thrashing you, though she’d like to see it. What good has it done? They’ve decided to do the following: you will go to work after school with old Hugh McPherson washing bottles in the liquor store. You will learn some responsibility. You will learn to pull your weight. You want to make your own way in the world? Start at the bottom and work your way up. Start by washing bottles and flagons with Hugh McPherson. Now, give your mother a hug and say how sorry you are. A bit more convincing please. Now a kiss. A bit more meaningful please. That’s better. Eat your breakfast.
Start at the bottom and work my way up. I have no intention of starting at the bottom. I’m better than that. I have been given every advantage in life and have been given that advantage so that I would not have to start at the bottom like Heels and Winks. They themselves have always made that clear. Washing beer bottles and flagons for refilling—that’s old Hugh’s job. That’s all he’s good for. How can he be in charge of me ?
“Don’t go easy on the boy,” Winks orders Hugh, old Hugh with his gargling Scottish voice and purple scribble of veins on his nose and cheeks. He’s staff . He’s so bald I can see the thin brown baby-hairs sprouting on his shiny crown. Yet he’s telling me what to do, this old man with a solitary black strand of hair swept over his head and hooked over his ear and around his earlobe. He sweats and loses his breath just from saying hello to customers coming to the counter past the buzzing robotic eye.
I sit on a crate in front of the bottle-washing contraption in the backroom. The air reeks of washed-out beer. Hugh instructs me to push a beer bottle onto each brush claw then to push this little button here and set the water awhisk. The glass is washed, rinsed, dried with a blow of hot air. When this red light here lights up, pull the bottles from the claws and place them upside down in this rack for refilling with
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