My Temporary Life Read online

  The old tree becomes our refuge and nobody seems to mind, or if they do, they don’t say anything. Hardly still gets teased and mocked, and Stuart Douglas or Gordon McGregor routinely bump their shoulders into him sending him sideways, as he walks down the hallways, but now he has something. We have something. Morning and afternoon breaks don’t quite leave us enough time to get to it and get settled without anyone seeing us, but dinner time is different.

  We quickly eat our school dinner of watery powdered potatoes and ground up mincemeat, or tatties and mince as they’re known, and then as cautiously as we can, we run to our tree.

  Some days we see nothing. Bored kids run aimlessly around the fields, while others congregate in little groups, cherishing the fact they have somewhere they belong, somewhere they feel safe. Other days there are things happening. There is activity, arguments, shouting. And there are fights. There are always fights.

  The main objective when it comes to fighting at Kilmarnock Secondary School is to grab your opponent’s hair and pull their head down, so you can kick at it. Then, get as many kicks in as you can, before the master pulls the two of you apart. This usually involves an initial kick to the groin or the knee to unsteady your adversary and then a clutch for their hair. The crowd of children circle around of course, hoping that the fight gets to the head kicking part before the master who is on patrol, can intervene.

  The teachers have different methods of separating the fighters. Mr McRae, the Physical Education Master, athletically pounces in and gets between the two before any harm can be done. Others manage to intervene before the grab for the hair, and separate the two. Hextall is different though. He waits until one fighter has over-powered the other, has his opponent’s scalp firmly in hand and has applied a kick or two, before moving in and breaking it up. I’m not quite sure if he wants to see the blood or if he’s just afraid of being hurt himself in the scuffle.

  It’s a day without fights, when we can see little activity from our vantage point, that Hardly starts asking me questions.

  “Why are you here anyways? Why aren’t you in Canada with your mother or somewhere other than here? Why would anybody want to be here?” He tries to spit, but the saliva slips from his mouth and dribbles down his chin. He’s gesturing towards the school grounds, looking over the playing fields at the faded grey walls of the building with disgust.

  I pause before saying it, although I know the answer, and think about it every day of my life. “She didn’t want me. We got to Canada and she decided that she didn’t want me. So, she sent me back here to my Dad.”

  I don’t look up at him as he sits on his higher branch, but I know that he hasn’t moved. I know that my answer hasn’t really answered him at all. “It’s complicated. It’s not easy to explain. They split up. She was never really happy here I guess, always wanted to go back to Canada, that’s where she’s from. I’m half-Canadian.”

  He sniggers sarcastically. “Mine is easy, not complicated at all. Neither of them want me and they remind me of that every day, actually, probably more like every minute.”

  I resist the urge to look up, and I let him continue talking.

  “My old man is just an angry old fucker, hits, hits, hits. Hits everything. That’s his answer. Just hit till the noise all stops. And her, my ma, she takes it, and then hits me to show him that she agrees with him. And then they send me to this shit hole five days a week, one big, happy fucking family.”

  He’s still staring at the old building that looms in front of us. “You should have stayed in Canada, Malcolm. You should have found a way to stay there. Look at this place. I mean it’s supposed to be 1976 not 1936. Anything’s gotta be better than this.”

  He isn’t just talking about school of course. He’s talking about all of the things that make up our lives. He’s talking about the things that eat us up inside and make us run and hide in a big, safe old tree every opportunity we get.

  Living with my father is living with silences. It’s living with a shared sadness at being left. I get my height from my Dad, but where I am thin and boney; he’s broad and strong with the muscles that come from building other people’s houses year after year. We’re a strange pair, I suppose, this big, strong, quiet man and a scared, passive, almost-man living together and apart at the same time.

  “My Dad’s okay. He just doesn’t say anything. My mother though, she’s different. She talks. She talks to everybody.”

  He wants more. I can tell from his silence, so I give it to him.

  “She moved us into a motel, in Vancouver. That’s in Canada. That’s where she used to be from. There was one big bed, and we shared it.” I wonder if he’s sniggering again. “I was ten then. I wouldn’t do it now. I was just a kid,” I say, underlining that fact that I’m 13, three long years from being a ten year old.

  “There were sparkly things on the ceiling. They were embedded right into the plaster on the ceiling, and they’d shine even in the dark. They were amazing; they looked like little diamonds that someone had left there. I got this idea that if I could pry those diamonds out of the ceiling, I could sell them and get back to Scotland.”

  This time he does laugh, just a small, short snicker.

  “I was ten, remember.” I almost laugh myself and it helps me for a moment to forget how much pain there had been that day.

  “She was out in the hallway, talking to a man from another room. She was complaining about my Dad, about Scotland, telling him things that I didn’t remember, things that just didn’t make sense. The other man was laughing and being nice to her. I couldn’t see them, but I could hear them. I could hear everything.”

  “So did you get the diamonds? Is that how you got back here?” He’s laughing now but it’s a kinder laugh, the type that invites you to join in.

  “I suppose in a way I did, yes.” I stop to think about that day again, and I can remember the look on my mother’s face as she came back into the room to find me unsteadily teetering on a chair, trying to reach the ceiling.

  “She threw herself on me, before I could reach them, and we both landed on the bed. Then she started hitting me, over and over. They weren’t hard hits,” I say, remembering the beating that he’d endured from one or both of his parents. “She was just frustrated I guess, and tired. We were both tired, just really tired.”

  “I told her that I wanted my Dad. I told her that I missed Scotland.”

  “You missed this? How could you have missed this?” I look up and see him perched forward on his branch now, peering down at me.

  “It wasn’t this that I missed. I just didn’t know how to say what I meant. It was her and him and me that I missed. It was us being together that I missed. It was “normal” that I missed. She just didn’t understand.”

  Plans were made quickly after that. She told me that if I missed that ‘boring old Scotsman’, then I could go back to him. She made arrangements to send me back before the school year began, and said she’d see me in the summertime, by then she’d be settled. It would be better by then, better for both of us.

  I was at the airport four days later, and held my face hard and rigid, determined not to show any feeling. She was carefree and friendly to everyone around us, and made it sound as though I were going on an adventure, and that I should be happy. After all, I was getting what I wanted.

  I was through the first line-up, and with my small carry-on bag in my hand, I looked back, hoping to see some kind of remorse from her, some kind of reaction, some kind of anything. It took a minute before I spotted her in the crowd, leaning over and flicking back her long blonde hair, and smiling. She was talking to a man, oblivious to the fact that I was about to fly halfway around the world.

  “She wanted me gone. So, I was gone, back here. I told you it was simple.”

  We sit in silence until the bell rings and then make our way down the tree. I sometimes feel as though he’s going to fall when he jumps and lands on the ground. He doesn’t though. He rights himself just in time, somehow
staying upright. Then, he stumbles forward, and runs reluctantly towards the sound of the bell, and back to school.

  CHAPTER 3

  We’re almost always able to reach our tree during dinner hour. In order to get there undetected, we have to be amongst the first students to leave the dinner hall. To accomplish this, we quickly eat whatever they serve us, and then make our way across the yard to our safe haven.

  It’s a routine that’s become familiar to us. Hardly leaves first, dropping his plate into the large metal bucket, then runs to the door, as I trail a few feet behind him, trying not to look quite so anxious. Sometimes, a few heads turn and there’s murmurs of, “Hardly,” or “Hardly drinking,” but we still make it. We almost always make it. There’s only one day that we have obstructions.

  We follow our usual routine, but once Hardly is outside, he’s met by McGregor and three of his cronies, and they quickly corral him into a corner. I stop in my tracks, and sit at an empty table, dropping my head, pretending to be engrossed in the design of the table top. The door to the dinner hall is propped open, and I can see him, through the opening, cowering in a corner. My forehead sweats, but I’m not sure if it’s from anger or fear, or just frustration at being held up, and not able to get to our tree. I can hear McGregor’s booming voice. He speaks, then pauses, waiting for the inevitable laughter from his lumbering sidekicks.

  “Is that why you walk funny, Hardly? Are ye always on the booze?”

  Hardly doesn’t answer. He just keeps staring down, shuffling his feet and trying to walk between them. They keep it going, not wanting to let him off the hook, as they bounce him back into the corner as though he’s a ball and it’s all a game. I look up occasionally, from the safety of my table, looking for Stuart Douglas, wondering why he isn’t with them, involved in their performance.

  McGregor is tall and bulky, but Douglas is the fighter. Douglas has a litheness and arrogance that make the rest of the school fear him. He has an unpredictability and rage that can erupt without provocation. I’ve seen him amble down the halls, swinging his gangly arms, only to start slapping or even punching the heads of boys that he passes. From our vantage point up the tree, I’ve seen him fight too. He attacks with no warning, running towards whatever boy seems to be in his disfavour that day, and mercilessly beats him. He has no qualms about size either. He routinely picks boys who are as tall and broad as him or even larger. Douglas is the one that I’m really afraid of. He’s the one who’ll hurt you just for the sport of it.

  McGregor is still being entertained by Hardly and keeps pushing on, showing off for his crowd. Nan McHendry brushes by them, leaving the dinner hall with her girlfriends, trying to take no notice.

  “Nan, luk at this yin. I’ve found me a drunk in oor school. Come and see me kick his arse.” The son of the butcher is larger than life now, and Hardly is reduced to just standing, pinned against the wall, staring, once again, at the ground.

  She refuses to encourage McGregor, and backs away, grabbing her girlfriend’s arm. “Leave him alone, Gordon. He’s no daeing you any harm, none at all.”

  For a moment, I think she might be looking back at me, and then back at her girlfriend. I start to stand, and I’m sure that I have every intention of doing something, anything, when I hear Douglas’ voice, coming from beyond them, out in the yard.

  “Right, Gordon, it’s done. We’re right as rain, mate.”

  I don’t know what they’re talking about, nor do I care. All that matters to me is that I’ve avoided yet another confrontation. I wait until McGregor and his cronies saunter towards Douglas, dismissing Hardly as though he’s a piece of litter lying at the side of the road, before I make my way to my friend, trying to make apologies for my tardiness.

  “It’s fine. You can’t do anything anyways. There’s too many of them. There’s no point in both of us getting into it with them.” He knows. He might not have seen me cowering back at the empty table, but he still knows.

  We don’t have enough time that day to reach our tree unnoticed, so, we spend it in our previous manner, walking from open space to open space, trying to be invisible to the Douglases and McGregors of the school yard.

  The next day I’m excited, anxious to get back to our routine of watching the world while sitting hidden from the rest of the school. Our schedule has been disrupted, and I feel as though I’ve missed something. I need to get back to the safety and security of our stand-alone tree. We glance at each other while wolfing back our dinners in anticipation. Hardly has an earnest look on his face, and when he does look at me, he smiles, sharing in our secret.

  Thankfully, there are no obstructions at the door this day, and we quickly make our run across the open grass. It feels the same way that it always does. I can feel the dampness from the uncut field soaking through my school shoes, but it doesn’t matter. Our tree looms invitingly in front of us. If I’d slowed down a little, I might have seen the rope before we got there, or I might even have heard them, but I don’t. All I can think about is helping Hardly up that first branch, and then hoisting myself up behind him.

  He’s up and on his way, and I’ve just reached the first branch, when I hear it. First, there’s the cry of, “Fire,” from a voice up somewhere in the tree. Then, the steady stream of liquid comes at us from different directions. I make the fatal mistake of looking up only to be met with a mouthful of warm piss.

  The laughter is unmistakable. McGregor and Douglas and whoever is tagging along with them are up our tree, cocks hanging out, pissing all over us.

  I slide down as fast as I can, falling to the ground, covered in their piss, but Hardly stays. I look back up, wiping my forehead and rubbing my stinging eyes, but still he doesn’t move. He just sits there on the tree branch, letting them aim at him, laugh at him.

  “Hardly...Gerald. Fuck...Hardly, come down. Come down.” I can’t reach him. I just stand at the bottom, listening to the sounds of their piss bouncing off of him, too disgusted and scared to climb back up.

  Finally, when they exhaust their supply and the sounds of their laughter is almost unbearable, he looks back up at them, then climbs down the tree with purpose, jumping to the ground and gaining his balance without any help from me. It’s then that I notice the rope hanging from the branch at the back of the tree. The planning for this venture has obviously been in the works for some time.

  We know we can’t return to the school, smelly and wet, so we cross the road as quickly as we can, trying to ignore the maniacal sounds of the boys who are still sitting up our tree, and make our way home. Hardly doesn’t talk, and when we reach the street that leads to his house, he just keeps walking as though he’s been alone all along.

  “I’ll see you in the morning, then. Hardly, don’t worry about it. They’re assholes, just a bunch of assholes.”

  When you’re 13, almost 14, everything lasts forever. You have no concept of things ending or changing. You’re trapped in a monotony of bleak days at school and silent night-time suppers. Then, a tree presents itself, and becomes a bit of light in the darkness and you grab onto it and use it as hope and promise and optimism. And then, just as suddenly as it appears, it’s taken away. We’ll never be up our tree again. I know that, and Hardly probably knows it too. What I don’t know is how we’re going to cope without it. The one place in our lives that we can hide just disappeared.

  It isn’t unusual for my father to be home during the day. He takes work when he can get it, and that sometimes means working on weekends, and often having no work at all during the week. He’s working in the yard in front of our house when he first sees me, and stares, stares as though I’ve just wandered in from another planet. I try to ignore his expressionless look and just keep walking sluggishly towards our front door, hoping for once, for the familiarity of his silences.

  “Is there no school? Are you no well?”

  I’m almost past him, when he must have caught a whiff of my clothes, and he grabs me as roughly as I can ever remember him touching me.
/>   “What is that? What’s the smell, Malcolm?”

  I’ve had enough. I’ve had enough of waiting for phone calls from Canada that never come and nightly silent treatments. I’ve had enough of trying to fit in where I know I never will. I pull away from his strong grip, and stand my ground, almost gagging on the stink that is coming from me.

  “It’s piss. They pissed all over us. We had our tree, and they took it, and then they pissed on us. They had a rope to get up there, and now we don’t have a tree. It’s piss, just piss.” I don’t remember ever yelling at him before, but still he doesn’t flinch. He doesn’t look away. I can’t tell if he’s angry or concerned or even hurt. He just keeps staring at me.

  “Go, get cleaned up Malcolm. Then, get back out here. Get that stuff off of you.”

  I’ve never been afraid of my father. Previous to my mother leaving him, he’d been a good, kind, attentive Dad to me, rarely raising his voice. The man that I met when I got off the plane in Scotland this time is different though. This Dad doesn’t show emotions. He just seems to exist, working when there’s work, and doing the bare minimum to live in a house with a son that he hasn’t asked for.