Its Colours They Are Fine. Alan Spence

slush from the side of the road but the cold made his bare fingers sting, red. It felt as if he’d just been belted by Miss Heather.

      Annie’s big brother Tommy was clattering his way across the road, trailing behind him a sack full of empty bottles. He’d gathered them on the terracing at Ibrox and he was heading for the Family Department of the pub to cash in as many as he could. Every time the pub door opened the noise and light seeped out. It was a bit like pressing your hands over your ears then easing off then pressing again. If you did that again and again people’s voices sounded like mwah . . . mwah . . . mwah . . . mwah . . .

      He looked closely at the snow still clogging his gloves. It didn’t look at all like the crystals in his book. Disgusted, he slouched towards his close.

      Going up the stairs at night he always scurried or charged past each closet for fear of what might be lurking there ready to leap out at him. Keeping up his boldness, he whistled loudly. ‘Little Star of Bethlehem’. He was almost at the top when he remembered the decorations.

      The kitchen was very bright after the dimness of the landing with its sputtering gas light.

      ‘Nob’dy wis comin out tae play,’ he explained.

      His mother wiped her hands. ‘Right! What about these decorations!’

      The decorations left over from last year were in a cardboard box under the bed. He didn’t like it under there. It was dark and dirty, piled with old rubbish – books, clothes, boxes, tins. Once he’d crawled under looking for a comic, dust choking him, and he’d scuttled back in horror from bugs and darting silverfish. Since then he’d had bad dreams about the bed swarming with insects that got into his mouth when he tried to breathe.

      His father rummaged in the sideboard drawer for a packet of tin tacks and his mother brought out the box.

      Streamers and a few balloons and miracles of coloured paper that opened out into balls or long concertina snakes. On the table his mother spread out some empty cake boxes she’d brought home from work and cut them into shapes like Christmas trees and bells, and he got out his painting box and a saucerful of water and he coloured each one and left it to dry – green for the trees and yellow for the bells, the nearest he could get to gold.

      His father had bought something special.

      ‘Jist a wee surprise. It wis only a coupla coppers in Woollies.’

      From a cellophane bag he brought out a length of shimmering rustling silver.

      ‘What dis that say, daddy?’ He pointed at the label.

      ‘It says UNTARNISHABLE TINSEL GARLAND.’

      ‘What dis that mean?’

      ‘Well that’s what it is. It’s a tinsel garland. Tinsel’s the silvery stuff it’s made a. An a garland’s jist a big long sorta decoration, for hangin up. An untarnishable means . . . well . . . how wid ye explain it hen?’

      ‘Well,’ said his mother, ‘it jist means it canny get wasted. It always steys nice an shiny.’

      ‘Aw Jesus!’ said his father. ‘Ther’s only three tacks left!’

      ‘Maybe the paper-shop’ll be open.’

      ‘It wis open a wee minnit ago!’

      ‘Ah’ll go an see,’ said his father, putting on his coat and scarf. ‘Shouldnae be very long.’

      The painted cut-out trees and bells had long since dried and still his father hadn’t come back. His mother had blown up the balloons and she’d used the three tacks to put up some streamers. Then she remembered they had a roll of sticky tape. It was more awkward to use than the tacks so the job took a little longer. But gradually the room was transformed, brightened; magical colours strung across the ceiling. A game he liked to play was lying on his back looking up at the ceiling and trying to imagine it was actually the floor and the whole room was upside down. When he did it now it looked like a toy garden full of swaying paper plants.

      Round the lampshade in the centre of the room his mother was hanging the tinsel coil, standing on a chair to reach up. When she’d fixed it in place she climbed down and stood back and they watched the swinging lamp come slowly to rest. Then they looked at each other and laughed.

      When they heard his father’s key in the door his mother shooshed and put out the light. They were going to surprise him. He came in and fumbled for the switch. They were laughing and when he saw the decorations he smiled but he looked bewildered and a bit sad.

      He put the box of tacks on the table.

      ‘So ye managed, eh,’ he said. He smiled again, his eyes still sad. ‘Ah’m sorry ah wis so long. The paper-shop wis shut an ah had tae go down nearly tae Govan Road.’

      Then they understood. He was sad because they’d done it all without him. Because they hadn’t waited. They said nothing. His mother filled the kettle. His father took off his coat.

      ‘Time you were in bed malad!’ he said.

      ‘Aw bit daddy, themorra’s Sunday!’

      ‘Bed!’

      ‘Och!’

      He could see it was useless to argue so he washed his hands and face and put on the old shirt he slept in.

      ‘Mammy, ah need a pee.’

      Rather than make him get dressed again to go out and down the stairs, she said he could use the sink. She turned on the tap and lifted him up to kneel on the ledge.

      When he pressed his face up close to the window he could see the back court lit here and there by the light from a window, shining out on to the yellow snow from the dark bulk of the tenements. There were even one or two Christmas trees and, up above, columns of palegrey smoke, rising from chimneys. When he leaned back he could see the reflection of their own kitchen. He imagined it was another room jutting out beyond the window, out into the dark. He could see the furniture, the curtain across the bed, his mother and father, the decorations and through it all, vaguely, the buildings, the night. And hung there, shimmering, in that room he could never enter, the tinsel garland that would never ever tarnish.

      Sheaves

      The patch of wasteground had always been called the Hunty. Nobody knew why. Nobody even knew what the name meant. It was roughly rectangular, the same length as the tenement block that backed on to it. There had once been a line of walls, railings and middens separating the Hunty from the actual back courts, but progressive decay, wind and rain, and several generations of children had eroded this barrier almost completely.

      Aleck and Joe had crossed into the Hunty and were crouching down playing at farms. Aleck had a toy tractor and a few plastic animals, and Joe had a Land-Rover and trailer, and some soldiers to use as farmworkers.

      Using bits of slate, they scraped up a patch of dirt and divided it into fields which they furrowed with lollipop sticks. Joe crammed some scrubby grass into his trailer and Aleck made a primitive farmhouse out of a cornflakes packet.

      They were both wearing T-shirts and khaki shorts, and for the first time since the start of the endless summer, Aleck suddenly shivered. The wind was cold. His clothes were too thin. That morning his mother had said it was the first day of autumn.

      ‘Gawn tae Sunday school this efternin?’ asked Joe.

      ‘Ach aye,’ said Aleck. ‘Mightaswell. Anywey, it’s harvest the day.’

      There had been a harvest service on the wireless that morning. Aleck had been half listening to it during breakfast. That was probably what had made him think about farms and bring out the toys they were playing with.

      ‘We aw slept in fur chapel,’ said Joe. ‘Huv tae go the night.’

      Apart from the rough grass, all that grew on the wasteground were nettles and dandelions. Aleck plucked a dandelion clock. Fluffy ball that had once been a bright yellow flower. Peethebed. He began