swinging on its thread from the ceilin, backwards and forwards like it’s been hit by an enemy bomb. Mayday! Mayday!
THUD.
Duncan’s boots on the boards. I should’ve taken those clodhoppers off. He starts bellowing like a bloody foghorn and Rascal barks. He gets feart when Duncan’s drunk, daft jugal!
‘AH CAN FUCK! FIGHT! AN’ HAUD A CANDLE TAE ANY MAN!’
The echo ae Duncan’s words, heard a million times, gies me an empty feeling, a twist inside. Curly’s lighter steps make their way over tae Duncan. She’s barefoot, cautious ae gettin skelfs, wary when he’s taken a drink too many. The wee kinchins’ll be awake too. I hear the rise and fall ae Curly’s voice, the relief in it as she talks Duncan quiet again.
I yawn. He’ll have woken half the Lane, the great drunken eejit. And here’s me lying in bed with my hand in my breeks, jingies the size ae Jesus!
SPACEDUST
Wee Betsy, 1954
Monday is the best night of the week. The wireless stays in Granny’s room, but tonight we’ve shifted it cause she wants a bit of shush. Uncle Jock has heaved the old thing into his room and we’ll sit on the bed and listen together, just me and him. When Uncle Jock fiddles with the dials he gets creases in his forehead, but Jock’s wrinkles don’t stay there all the time. He can wipe them off with a hand, not like Granny with her mashed-tattie face.
‘Not a peep, pet,’ Uncle Jock says over the buzzing wireless. ‘Maybe it’ll nae work here.’
I‘m already on the bed waiting, and I fold my arms over my chest and kick a heel into the mattress. But he hasn’t stopped trying. He twiddles away and I watch the wee orange marker sweep left and right over the dial. It crosses names of places we only hear of in the news and at the picture palace: Paris, London and Rome. There’s a strange one, Bud’p’st, and near the middle is Scotland, where Journey into Space should start. But all that’s in the box tonight is a swarm of bees.
We’ve never missed a single episode. The music at the beginning makes my ears screech and I always hold my breath till the voices start. That’s what it’s like when you’re flying in a space machine. Everything’s fast and screaming loud, and the air is funny. Special words are used up there which I didn’t know before, but Uncle Jock explained all the hard bits. He knew what Mitch and Jet meant by ‘Over’ and ‘Check’ and ‘Earth Control’.
Now I know the right words, I sometimes play The SpaceGame. I say things like ‘Hello, Lunar 142. Landing Control, please.’ Wee Rachel gets in a huff cause she can’t join in. But it’s her own fault. She can’t sit still long enough to listen to the wireless.
‘Aha!’ Uncle Jock says all of a sudden. The box makes a pop and then goes clear. He’s fixed it just in time. The posh voice is doing the introduction.
‘The BBC presents Jet Morgan in Journeeey intoooo Space .’
The music starts. I clap my hands for Jock. He kicks off his
shoes and jumps on the springy bed beside me so I bounce. We pull a coat over us and Uncle Jock reaches to turn the volume up, which makes the wireless crackle again but not too badly. There are mannys shouting in the Lane and we don’t want to hear their racket. I lean my head on his chest and he kisses me, pulls the coat higher over my shoulders. A space suit.
This is the best feeling in the world. It’s just us, our breathing, the smell of soot that’s in our hair and clothes and bed sheets. Our Mission Control. And them. The voices in the box that come from the future in the clean, cold sky.
Dawn
The music in the church was leaking from a keyboard set on Wurlitzer and an old lady swayed plumply at the piano stool. The minister was standing nearby, nodding in time. He couldn’t have met Shirley. She hadn’t set foot in a place of worship in years, Dawn was sure of that. Aside from family there were about twenty friends and neighbours at the funeral, which seemed a lot
THUD.
Duncan’s boots on the boards. I should’ve taken those clodhoppers off. He starts bellowing like a bloody foghorn and Rascal barks. He gets feart when Duncan’s drunk, daft jugal!
‘AH CAN FUCK! FIGHT! AN’ HAUD A CANDLE TAE ANY MAN!’
The echo ae Duncan’s words, heard a million times, gies me an empty feeling, a twist inside. Curly’s lighter steps make their way over tae Duncan. She’s barefoot, cautious ae gettin skelfs, wary when he’s taken a drink too many. The wee kinchins’ll be awake too. I hear the rise and fall ae Curly’s voice, the relief in it as she talks Duncan quiet again.
I yawn. He’ll have woken half the Lane, the great drunken eejit. And here’s me lying in bed with my hand in my breeks, jingies the size ae Jesus!
SPACEDUST
Wee Betsy, 1954
Monday is the best night of the week. The wireless stays in Granny’s room, but tonight we’ve shifted it cause she wants a bit of shush. Uncle Jock has heaved the old thing into his room and we’ll sit on the bed and listen together, just me and him. When Uncle Jock fiddles with the dials he gets creases in his forehead, but Jock’s wrinkles don’t stay there all the time. He can wipe them off with a hand, not like Granny with her mashed-tattie face.
‘Not a peep, pet,’ Uncle Jock says over the buzzing wireless. ‘Maybe it’ll nae work here.’
I‘m already on the bed waiting, and I fold my arms over my chest and kick a heel into the mattress. But he hasn’t stopped trying. He twiddles away and I watch the wee orange marker sweep left and right over the dial. It crosses names of places we only hear of in the news and at the picture palace: Paris, London and Rome. There’s a strange one, Bud’p’st, and near the middle is Scotland, where Journey into Space should start. But all that’s in the box tonight is a swarm of bees.
We’ve never missed a single episode. The music at the beginning makes my ears screech and I always hold my breath till the voices start. That’s what it’s like when you’re flying in a space machine. Everything’s fast and screaming loud, and the air is funny. Special words are used up there which I didn’t know before, but Uncle Jock explained all the hard bits. He knew what Mitch and Jet meant by ‘Over’ and ‘Check’ and ‘Earth Control’.
Now I know the right words, I sometimes play The SpaceGame. I say things like ‘Hello, Lunar 142. Landing Control, please.’ Wee Rachel gets in a huff cause she can’t join in. But it’s her own fault. She can’t sit still long enough to listen to the wireless.
‘Aha!’ Uncle Jock says all of a sudden. The box makes a pop and then goes clear. He’s fixed it just in time. The posh voice is doing the introduction.
‘The BBC presents Jet Morgan in Journeeey intoooo Space .’
The music starts. I clap my hands for Jock. He kicks off his
shoes and jumps on the springy bed beside me so I bounce. We pull a coat over us and Uncle Jock reaches to turn the volume up, which makes the wireless crackle again but not too badly. There are mannys shouting in the Lane and we don’t want to hear their racket. I lean my head on his chest and he kisses me, pulls the coat higher over my shoulders. A space suit.
This is the best feeling in the world. It’s just us, our breathing, the smell of soot that’s in our hair and clothes and bed sheets. Our Mission Control. And them. The voices in the box that come from the future in the clean, cold sky.
Dawn
The music in the church was leaking from a keyboard set on Wurlitzer and an old lady swayed plumply at the piano stool. The minister was standing nearby, nodding in time. He couldn’t have met Shirley. She hadn’t set foot in a place of worship in years, Dawn was sure of that. Aside from family there were about twenty friends and neighbours at the funeral, which seemed a lot
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