‘Whit did ah tell ye Aleck? Gypsies ur ignorant. Pure fuckin ignorant.’
‘So you just happened to find them on a shelf while you were looking for the jotters?’ said Mrs Stone.
‘Yes miss!’ said Shuggie and Aleck, together. She didn’t look convinced.
‘How did you get yourself so dirty Hugh?’ she asked Shuggie. He had dusted himself down, but he still looked far from clean. Somehow he had managed to smear a lopsided moustache across his upper lip.
‘Ther wis a lot a dust ’n tap a the boax miss,’ he said.
‘On TOP of the BOX,’ she said. ‘Not on tap of the boax! Some of these days I’ll manage to teach you children some English!’
But she was glad that the jerseys had been found. And it was agreed, they were to have a team. She would arrange a few friendly games for them with other schools and youth clubs. Then later she would see the headmaster about getting them into the schools league. But first they were to have a trial match. They were to pick two teams, a first and a second. The trial was fixed for the coming Saturday.
But for now they had to give out the jotters. They had grammar to learn.
The rest of the afternoon dragged. Aleck kept looking out the high window at the grey sky, dreaming, not really hearing Mrs Stone’s droning voice, wishing they were free so he could talk to the others about the team. He glanced across the passage at Shuggie. Inside the cover of his new jotter, he was drawing a football player, in a striped jersey, with a number nine on the back.
They were not real gypsies, only people who travelled with the shows, moving from fairground to fairground, all over Scotland and England, and sometimes across to Ireland. But theirs was a wandering life and they lived in caravans, so people called them gypsies or tinkers.
When they came to Glasgow, they lived on a rise of wasteground, backing on to a railway line, across the road from the school. Here they stayed for two or three months every winter, when the shows were at Kelvin Hall or Glasgow Green.
The rise of ground had come to be called Gypsy’s Hill. Along the crest of it was a high wooden fence, each section about a foot wide and thick enough to stand on, dark wood, rotted and weathered by the years. The fence ran right round the gypsies’ encampment like a great stockade, enclosing it.
At the foot of this stockade, Aleck and Shuggie were playing. The ground had frozen over and they had been trying to smooth a part of the slope, taking turns at sliding down it on a makeshift sledge, a chunk of linoleum they’d dragged out of a midden. But now the sun was growing warmer, thawing out the ground. Only the part of the hill in the shadow of the fence remained frozen, hard. There was practically a straight line, the line of the shadow, dividing this part from the rest, already growing soft and muddy.
Aleck noticed it, the strangeness of it, and pointed it out to Shuggie.
‘Weird that, intit,’ he said.
‘So it is,’ said Shuggie.
Neither of them had ever seen the like. The line was so definite, the division so sharp.
‘Bet ye that’s thae gypsies,’ said Shuggie.
‘How d’ye mean?’ said Aleck.
‘Hauf ae thum’s witches an that,’ said Shuggie. ‘They know aw aboot magic an spells an stuff.’
‘Fortune tellin,’ said Aleck.
‘Tell’n ye,’ said Shuggie, ‘therr’s prob’ly aw kinds a bad magic aboot here. That’s how the grun’s still aw frozen here an naewherr else.’
They looked up at the fence, looming, the thick upright sections like standing stones against the bright, watery sky.
‘Ma da says gypsies wid cut yer throat for a penny,’ said Shuggie. ‘Thur always kidnappin weans tae.’
Aleck didn’t really believe it. He shivered, but only from the cold. He remembered from somewhere a bit of a poem.
My mother said I never should
Play with gypsies in the wood.
Never play games on the street. Never follow a ball, hoop or playmate.
‘Think wur gonnae go up in a puff a smoke any minute?’ he said, laughing.
‘Naaa!’ said Shuggie. ‘Ah’m no feart ae gypsies ur tinkers ur naebody!’ and he went to the foot of the fence, Aleck following. They went to where there was a knot-hole a couple of feet from the ground. The hole had been worn away and was big enough for a foot-hold. Aleck crouched down and peered through.
‘Therr’s wee Valerie,’ he said. Shuggie crouched down beside him.
Valerie was another reason Shuggie hated the gypsies, especially Les. She too was in their class at school. She had blonde hair, long and soft, parted in the middle and tied back from her face. Shuggie had always fancied her, but she had no time for him. She preferred Les, another gypsy, English like herself. They watched her now, framed by the rough oval of the hole in the fence. She was playing at shops, by herself. She had a few old bottles, filled with dirt and small stones. She was emptying these on to scraps of newspaper, wrapping them into small parcels and arranging them along the wooden steps leading to the door of a caravan. They watched her, moving before them, lost in her own world. Then Shuggie put his fingers to his lips and let out a piercing whistle. She looked up but couldn’t see them. She was too far away and the hole was too small. She went back to her game.
Shuggie climbed up on to the fence and reaching down helped Aleck up after him. They sat, straddling the fence, their legs dangling down on either side. From here they could see the whole camp spread out, huge vans and lorries, caravans with windows and doors and smoke rising from tin chimneys, gruff-looking men and women, going about their mysterious business, everywhere children and dogs.
Shuggie called out Valerie’s name in a high-pitched, mocking voice. She looked up, saw them and turned her back, very deliberately going on playing. He called out again. This time she went up the steps into the caravan and a moment later a man came out. He had a thick sandy moustache. He was dressed in dungarees. He waved his fist and shouted at them.
‘Gaan! Get dahn ourra that!’
Shuggie gave him the V-sign, a last act of bravado, but as he started towards them they were glad to scramble down from the fence, down to the foot of the hill and clear across the back courts, scared that the man would strike them down with a curse, shrivel them to ashes as they ran.
Saturday morning was clear and cold. Shuggie and Aleck were the first to arrive at the pitches, at the far end of Bellahouston Park. Four or five other games were already under way and the sounds carried over, the sounds that were always so strangely empty in such an open space. Voices shouting. Leather against leather. Shuggie had brought his ball, specially dubbined and laced, blown up hard. They tapped it about to each other while they waited and gradually the others arrived, singly and in small groups. Mrs Stone was there to act as referee, and a few girls from the school, to watch. The teams had been picked from their class, which was the qualifying, and the one below. The first team had already been issued with the jerseys and they all wore their strips under their other clothes which they just had to slip off to be ready. Some had boots, others made do with heavy shoes.
Among
