Its Colours They Are Fine. Alan Spence
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‘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 the girls was Valerie, who had come with Les. Les was at left back for the second team. Although he lacked a fanatical devotion, he sometimes liked a game, and he had put down his name and been picked. Shuggie was at centre forward for the first team, Aleck at outside right. The jerseys were all the one size so Aleck’s was too big for him, the sleeves coming down over his hands, and Shuggie’s was a bit tight, the cuffs stopping short of his big bony wrists. They laughed at each other. Aleck pranced up and down like a male model and Shuggie threw the ball after him, both performing for the girls watching as well as for each other.
At last they were ready, the coin tossed for choice of ends, everybody more or less in their positions. At the centre, Shuggie rubbed his hands together, flexed his legs, jumped up and down on the spot. Then he hunched over the ball, ready, and at the first blast of Mrs Stone’s whistle, he kicked off and the game began.
They played half an hour each way, stopping for five minutes at half time. The frozen bone-hard pitch was rutted and uneven, the grass rough and sparse, and the ball difficult to control, especially for the bigger, heavier defence of the second team, who floundered and grew more shaky and haphazard as the game went on. The other team were generally more nimble, surer on their feet, and in the end they won easily by six goals to two, Shuggie scoring three. At the final whistle they leapt in the air, threw up their arms, rushed to hug and slap each other on the back. It didn’t matter that it was just a stupid trial. They had won. They were entitled to strut and parade in their glorious red and white.
Mrs Stone had to go then. That was why the game hadn’t been a full ninety minutes. But most of the boys decided to stay and play on.
‘Wonderful game boys!’ said Mrs Stone. ‘Wonderful! I’ll be seeing you all on Monday morning then. And don’t forget to bring back the jerseys.’
They watched her go. Some of the girls went with her, but a few stayed, to go on watching, a giggling huddle on the touch-line. They re-shuffled the teams, to make things a bit more even. Four of the boys had gone so they were down to nine-a-side.
They had been playing about twenty minutes when the ball broke to Aleck just on the half-way line. He moved infield and pushed it through the middle. Shuggie ran on to the pass. He shuffled past a defender and he was clear, moving on towards goal, but Les had moved back to cover. As he came in to tackle, Shuggie dummied to the left, expecting Les to follow, then swerved to the right again with the ball. This should have left Les stranded and off balance, but he was slow and instead of following Shuggie’s feint, he lunged forwards clumsily, missing the ball, catching Shuggie below the knee with a heavy tackety boot. Carried forward by their own momentum they collided, crashing together and falling to the ground.
Shuggie was up first, hobbling, gritting his teeth against the pain in his leg, easing it by spitting out a steady rhythmic barrage at Les.
‘Gan ya durty fuckin black enamel bastard ye!’
Les was just getting to his feet when Shuggie threw the first punch, catching him on the jaw and laying him out again. Then Les was up and they were swinging at each other. A few of the other boys tried to break it up and pull them apart. The girls were shrieking with delighted horror. The ball had rolled a few yards away and lay where it came to rest, unnoticed and forgotten.
On Monday morning some of the girls had been talking to Mrs Stone. She was looking grim and righteous as she sent Aleck next door to fetch the boys from the other class who had played in the trial.
‘And tell those who have jerseys to bring them,’ she said. The others had been called out to the floor in front of her desk, without explanation. They waited, shuffling, awkward. She went on with some corrections. When Aleck came back with the rest she put down her pen and looked at them.
Then she began. She was horrified. The girls had told her about the scuffle, about the amount of swearing that had gone on.
‘And I was disgusted,’ she said. ‘It seems I just can’t turn my back on you for a minute but you’re behaving like the lowest of animals.