she recognized to be the same as her mother’s, burnt and still smoking. Counting in twos she found the sixteenth floor and saw that all the lights were on and the windows were flung open at this late hour. It was not a good sign. Chances were that her brother Leek wouldn’t be home. If the night had gone as she expected, he would have seen it coming at dinner and sloped off and hid. He was good at that. Being quiet nobody missed him much.
But she had to find him. She couldn’t face their mother alone.
There was a dark alley with the iron railings of Saint Stephen’s on the right and the chain-link fence of Springburn Pallet Works on the left. It was known as a dangerous walk; once you had started down the path there was no turning back till you reached the far end. Gangs loved it. About halfway down the alley an old drunk couple was staggering through the windblown rubbish. Catherine could hear the woman whispering dirty promises to the old man. She hurried along and then dipped down and crawled under a gap in the chain-link fence. The fence caught the back of her hair, and for a panicked moment she thought they had a hold of her. Catherine pulled, the hair ripped, and as she freed herself she fell backwards into the mud. Wet and scalped, she watched her hair hanging there like animal fur and thought about the ways she could take it out on Leek.
Inside the pallet factory there were thousands of stacked cubes made up of blue shipping crates. Each cube stood around thirty feet tall and was as wide as the foundation of any tower block. The foreman had arranged them like tenemented streets, ten blocks wide by ten blocks deep, set with just enough space in between to move a little pallet truck up the aisles. She counted the way as Leek had grudgingly taught her. It would have been easy to get lost amongst the pallets in the daytime and was much easier in the dark. Spotlights mounted on the side of the warehouse cast a weak glow down the north-south lines of pallet cubes, but turn a corner and it was instantly as black as night.
By the time she noticed the orange embers dancing in the dark it was too late. She tried to turn, but the wet heels of her suede boots slipped, and she slid further into the darkness. Hard hands grabbed her arms and pulled her towards the swarm of fireflies. She made to scream, but a hand closed over her mouth. She could taste the nicotine and glue that lingered on the fingers. Many hands moved on to her body, roaming and searching. There was a swishing sound of corduroy as a pair of legs moved closer behind her. The legs pressed into her, and she could feel the man through the thinness of his tight trousers. He was bloating with blood and excitement.
One of the burning embers came closer and glowed ominously in front of her face. “Whit the fuck do ye want?” it asked.
“It’s goat nice tits,” said the embers to her left. All the burning fireflies laughed and danced.
“Gies a feel.” She felt a small hand, almost like a woman’s, pull at her work blouse.
A silver light cut through the darkness, and Catherine felt cold metal press against the side of her face. The dirty hand over her face moved down to her throat. The silver fishing knife touched the side of her mouth and pushed inside a little. It tasted metallic, like a dirty spoon. “Celtic or Rangers?”
Catherine let out a sad whine. It was an impossible question: if she answered wrong the blade would leave her with a Glasgow smile, a scar from ear to ear, a marking for life. If she answered right she might just get raped.
Many nights Catherine had sat up in bed, brushing her long hair, and watched Leek ask the same nonsense of Shuggie. Leek would straddle his baby brother with his lanky limbs and pin him to the floor. He would make two fists, holding them inches from Shuggie’s face, and would ask, “Cemetery? Or hospital?” It was pointless. All answers gave the same result. You were going to get whatever the bad bastard on top of you wanted to give.
“I’m no gonnae ask you again.”
The gutting knife rattled against her teeth as it tested the inside of her cheek. A single tear escaped her left eye. Catherine thought of the gluey fingers and forced a guess. “Celtic?”
The man huffed in disappointment. “Lucky answer.” He drew the knife out slowly from between her lips; he was enjoying the terror on her face. Catherine put a finger inside her cheek, tasting the warm salty tang of blood, but the skin was still blessedly together.
A bright light shone directly into her face, and she shrank back against the man behind her. “Fuck me!” said the voice. “It’s wee Leek’s sister.” It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the torchlight; she put her hand on the tip and angled it down to the ground. The men standing around her were only boys, younger than her and probably younger than Leek. They had been smoking and waiting in the dark. With no peace at home they were waiting for someone to molest or for a chance to knife the night watchman.
Her hand shot out and connected with the owner of the silver knife. She felt no better, so she made another fist and rained it down on his neck, head, and shoulders. The boy covered his head and danced away, laughing.
Catherine pushed through the boys in disgust and ran the last block of pallets. She could hear feet, fast and flat, behind her. She grasped the wall of rough blue wood, and as quick as she could, she hauled herself up the stack of pallets. Behind her she felt a hand wrap around one of her new boots; it gave a quick tug, and her foot came free from its ledge. It took all of her strength to hold on to the splintery wood. She swung her boot back and heard it crack off a thick skull bone, and lifting her knee she found some purchase and scrambled up the rest of the tower.
The torchlight shone up her skirt, trying to illuminate her gusset. They were taunting her, their voices pitched, ready to break, the dangerous sound of little boys coming into the intoxicating power of manhood. She pulled herself the last ten feet to the top. She wanted to lie down for a moment and catch her breath, but she forced herself to stand up and look defiantly over the side. There were five of them, pockmarked and fuzzy-faced. They were grinning up at her, as the eldest was pushing his forefinger into a donut hole he had made with his other hand. Catherine spat over the side on to them. It was a wide shower of white foam, and the boys shrieked like the children they still were and scattered like laughing rats.
Standing on top of the flat pallet stack, she looked over the uniform fields of bright blue wood. The boys had made her lose count, and she hoped she had climbed the right tower. Leek could leap the eight feet or so between the stacks, but she never could. In wet boots she would slip and fall to the ground. She shuddered to think what the neds would do to her body as she lay there with a broken neck.
Catherine counted four from the fence and counted five from the turning. It was right; she hadn’t lost count. Searching the top of the stack, she decided on a pallet that was about four by four in from the southeast corner. Checking over her shoulder, as she had been taught, she bent over and lifted a blue pallet free from the rest. A flickering light shone from somewhere within.
Catherine put her head into the opening and whispered her brother’s name in the direction of the faint light. “Leek, Leek!” There was no answer. She called for him again, and suddenly the flickering light was snuffed and it went dark in the hole. Rain dripped from the end of her nose as she peered closer into the void. Suddenly a white face with small pink ears shot up at her from the darkness. “Boo!”
Catherine fell backwards. If she had been closer to the edge she would have fallen over the side. She hauched a wad of spittle into Leek’s white face.
“Aw, fuck’s sake!”
“Well, what the fuck did you try to scare me like that for?” Catherine pulled her knees together and searched her red hands for blue splinters. The fear and shame flooded her then, and her face was awash in frustrated tears.
Leek wiped his mouth with his jumper
