back!’
Ella enjoyed the praise at first, but since they got out of the school gates it’s giving her a funny feeling in her stomach. She’s trying to ignore the children in the crowd who are looking or pointing at her, the ones who are whispering to their parents, who turn to look. She hasn’t seen Kevin or his parents. Maybe he went home.
Ella feels heavy, like she can barely lift her feet off the ground. Perhaps it’s the folded paper sitting in her pocket like a girder. She can’t stop thinking of the note, awaiting her father’s signature like a pact with the devil. Two weeks of no playtime, eating her lunch in the headmistress’ office and reading quietly while the sounds of the playground ring at the window.
‘I don’t want to go home.’
She says it quietly, and she’s not sure if Rene has heard her. She whispers because she doesn’t want anyone to hear, but also because it’s an admission of weakness. Rene draws a little closer and puts her arm around Ella.
‘I’m sorry …’
Most kids in their year are met by parents, but she and Rene live so close to the school, in adjacent Bedlay Street, they’re allowed to walk home together. They go to one of their houses, and whichever mother it is will give them something to eat. They do this every weekday except Wednesday, when Rene goes for her guitar lesson with Mr Veitch and her mother picks her up later.
Rene comes to school in the morning with the guitar in its case, smaller than a full-sized one, but still huge compared to Rene, painted blue with an apple tree on one side, done by her dad. Of all Rene’s possessions, this is the one that Ella envies the most, and the one which first convinced her that the Mauchlen family must be wealthy.
Ella has seen the guitar only once, because Rene is under strict instruction not to open the case until her lesson after school. But Ella has a very good memory. Like a camera, says her dad. (Sometimes, when Eleanor wants to remember something, she makes a little click under her breath like she’s taking a picture with her eyes, though she’s never held a real camera.) Ella can close her eyes and see the guitar. The body is the colour of caramel, the tuning pegs shine like six pearls in the dark case, which is purple velvet. The guitar even smells expensive. She ran her fingers over the strings, just once, and listened to them purr before Rene shut the case nervously.
Ella speaks again, feeling the shape of her plan before she knows what it is.
‘If we didn’t go home, we could go to the park …’
Rene takes her hand silently and keeps walking.
‘And if we went to the park … we would be late … Mam would be worried …’
Rene looks around for her older brother, Robert. Ella can’t see him in the crowds.
Ella can’t remember a time when Robert wasn’t around, though it feels like they’ve said no more than a dozen words to each other in all that time. Robert is like Rene’s shadow. He usually walks near to them on the way to and from school, making sure they don’t stray. But sometimes he stops to talk to a friend.
When they’re at Rene’s house, Robert is often sitting in the corner with a book from the library. Books with no pictures. Books with covers the colour of dust. Ella thinks he must be very clever. She’s impressed and irritated by the thought. She thinks Robert must look down on them – all of two years younger than him – as simple creatures. Ella wants to prove to him that she’s not a baby, but also wants to know what’s so interesting in all those books.
‘We’d get in trouble,’ Rene says.
‘I’m already in trouble …’ Ella lets this point hang in the air, leaves the ‘for you’ unspoken.
‘Yes,’ Rene concedes. ‘But … why do you want to be late? We could play in front of the fire. Mama might make us griddle cakes.’
This is a good point. The house alternates, and today it should be Rene’s house. Rene’s mother makes them hot cakes with butter, or brings out biscuits and cheese. Sometimes, she will fry them each a sausage, which they eat with slices of bread dipped in the fat. They have to share with Robert, but he doesn’t talk much and offers Ella the biscuit tin first. If the food is not as good at Ella’s house, Rene never says anything about it.
Her stomach rumbles, and for a moment Ella thinks about ditching her plan. But no – the note weighs heavy in her pocket, tugging one side of her cardigan lower than the other. Her father is a quiet man, which makes his temper all the more frightening. Ella wishes he would just yell at her, but his anger stays bottled up. The sandstone tenements tower either side of them like a canyon, and she can’t escape the feeling that this tide of bodies is washing her to her doom.
‘No, we should go to the park. Not far, just over the hill.’
Rene’s hand loosens on hers for a second, and Ella thinks she will lose her to the tide. But then she grips tight again.
‘Okay. We’ll go to the park.’
Ella smiles – she feels better right away. She’s sure that this plan is a good one. It’s so good, it’s like she didn’t even think of it herself. They will go to the park. They will hide until Ella is sure they’re going to be missed. Then they will go home. Her mum will be so relieved to see her that she won’t care about the note from the headmistress. She’ll just be happy that they’re safe.
* * *
‘Can we go now?’ Rene asks, for the fifth time.
‘Just five more minutes,’ Ella says, for the fifth time.
The park is empty, or near enough. It’s not really a park, just some open land at the top of Bedlay Street which crests into a small hill. Down on the other side are more tenements and Sighthill Church, where they go on a Sunday to hear about God. To the east, separated by a metal fence, is Petershill Football Ground. There aren’t any trees here, but everybody knows it as ‘Paddy’s Park’ and nobody knows why.
They aren’t far from Springburn Park, with its bandstand, Winter Gardens, and overflowing baskets of flowers. But even Ella wouldn’t dream of wandering that far. In Paddy’s Park they look like what they are – a couple of kids playing out after school.
Ella isn’t sure how much time has passed. It feels like hours, but there’s no clock in sight. She’s good at reading the time and likes clocks. She likes pressing her ear to her dad’s watch, listening to the ticking inside, the invisible mechanism hammering away like a tiny factory, forging the present moment.
Ella looks at her friend, who is sitting on the hill facing north, away from Bedlay Street, playing with the buckles on her satchel. They can see the church from where they are, and it’s hard not to feel that it’s watching them back. Ella believes in Him but is still on the fence about His rules and regulations. She thinks the priest might be exaggerating to stop her having any fun.
Rene coughs.
Rene Mauchlen is everything that Ella isn’t – blonde, rosy-cheeked, and (to Ella’s mind at least) rich. In later years, it will seem ridiculous to Ella that she ever thought of Rene’s family as wealthy. They live on the same street, in the same kind of two-room tenement flat. But in addition to a radio they have a gramophone, and more than a dozen shiny black records to play. They always have powdered chocolate in the cupboard for cocoa, and biscuits in the tin. The door on their cast
