handed Joe one of his arrows.
‘Here,’ he said. ‘That’s us git wan each.’
Past a pub with a cluster of neon grapes above the door, past a mission hall called Bethel, left off Govan Road and along a narrow lane, through the docks to the ferry steps.
Ferry steps. They were often invoked as part of a prophecy, against the drunk and incapable. Spat out like a curse – ‘That yin’ll finish up at the fit a the ferry steps.’
Aleck and Joe sat at the top of the steep slippery wooden steps, waiting for the ferry to cross from the Partick side.
‘Imagin slippin fae here,’ said Joe. ‘Ye’d jist tummel right in.’
They looked in silence, down to where the steps disappeared into black invisible depth, the oily river lapping softly.
‘Here it comes!’ said Aleck.
They stood up and watched as the squat brown ferry chugged across towards them.
The water swirled up the steps as it bumped and thudded to rest.
The ferry had the same kind of low dumpy bulk as a tug, though it was much smaller. It had a long low deck with sides to a height of about three feet running along its whole length and open at each end. Spanning the middle section was a canopy. This gave shelter for the passengers in the rain and also covered the pilot’s wheel-house. The whole ferry, including the canopy, was painted the same dull brown.
Aleck and Joe went to the front and leaned over the side. Smoke phutted from the chimney as the ferry chugged its way out. Joe had left his bow at home but Aleck had brought his with him, the one remaining arrow tucked under his belt. He trailed the bow in the water, watching the wake ripple out behind it, the boat rocking gently beneath them, the feel of the deck through their thin-soled shoes.
Towering along both banks were the great jutting cranes of the shipyards, a tanker further downstream, gulls circling overhead.
They’d been told a little about the river in school. How it began as a trickle away in the southern uplands and wound its way down through sheepfarms and mining towns and eventually flowed through Glasgow and beyond to the firth and the open sea.
‘Funny tae think ’n aw this watter comin fae a wee stream up ’n the hills,’ said Aleck.
‘Intit,’ said Joe.
‘Ah mean, the same watter,’ said Aleck.
They were silent, looking down at the oily flow. Grey with colours. Like the pigeon.
The journey was too quickly over. At the Partick side they charged up the steps then stopped and looked around them. The ferry started back across.
Miss Riddie had told them about Partick and Govan growing side by side. The deepening of the river. Shipbuilding. Cheap houses for the shipyard workers. She had said they were like reflections, Partick and Govan, with the river like a mirror in between.
The grey buildings looked the same, but they were not their own. They felt lost and threatened. The strange streets and unfamiliar faces were hostile. At the corner opposite, a group of men loafing. Boys their own age, playing, looking towards them. They would have to go past them to get clear of the ferry.
‘D’you know anywherr tae go?’ asked Aleck.
‘Naw. No really,’ said Joe.
‘D’ye fancy jist gawn back?’
‘Comin?’
‘Right, c’mon!’
They squatted on the steps waiting. If Partick and Govan were on opposite sides of the mirror, only one side was real. It depended on where you had been brought up. And for Aleck and Joe, Govan was the only reality they knew. When they were back once more on the steps at the Govan side, Joe turned to Aleck.
‘Hey! D’ye fancy jist steyin oan the ferry an gawn back an furrat a coupla times? Jist fur a wee hurl?’
‘At’s a great idea!’ said Aleck. They jumped back on to the ferry just in time before it moved off.
The low sun was bright on the water and the shadows it cast were long. ‘Heh Aleck,’ said Joe. ‘Ye could haud up the driver wi yer bow ’n arra an get um tae take us tae America or Africa or wherrever it wis.’
‘Imagine!’ said Aleck. He looked at the bow. ‘Och wid ye lookit the state ae it!’ The string had split the cane at one end and the split had continued half way down its length.
‘Never mind,’ said Joe.
‘Disnae really matter, ah suppose.’
At the Partick side they decided to jump off and join the oncoming passengers for the journey back, just for the sake of the leap from the deck to the steps. But when they tried to get back on the pilot blocked their way.
‘Right!’ he said. ‘Yizzur steyin aff. Yizzuv bin up an doon aff this boat lik a fuckin yoyo. D’ye think it’s jist fur playin oan? Noo goan! Get!’
They stood helpless, watching as the ferry moved off towards their home shore.
‘Whit’ll we dae noo?’ asked Aleck.
‘Ther’s another ferry up at the Art Galleries,’ said Joe. ‘We could walk it up.’
‘Wull that no take us a while?’ said Aleck.
‘Nothin else we kin dae.’ Joe looked out after the ferry, now almost at the Govan side.
‘Bastard!’ he said.
‘Cunt!’ said Aleck.
He threw his split bow and his last arrow into the water and watched them being swirled out by the current. He wondered how far they would be carried. Out past the shipyards, past Greenock and Gourock to the firth, past the islands, out past Ireland, out to the Atlantic, out . . .
Aleck suddenly shivered. The sky was beginning to darken. The river was deep and wide. They were far from home, in an alien land.
‘Fuckin Partick,’ said Joe.
They began the slow climb to the top of the ferry steps.
Gypsy
‘Gypsies ur worse than cathlicks!’ said Shuggie to Aleck. ‘Nae kiddin. They havnae a fuckin clue.’
Les the gypsy said nothing. He just laughed and carried on tearing open packets of jotters and stacking them on an old table. The storeroom was thick with dust and a yellow winter light filtered in through the one window, which was small and grimy with bars on the outside. There was a single light bulb but it had fused and the janitor hadn’t got round to replacing it.
Shuggie and Aleck were savouring the few minutes of freedom from the classroom, clambering over packing-cases and ancient desks, all chipped and battered, scrawled on and carved. They climbed and rummaged, poked and dug, from the highest
