“New
Writing Scotland remains the most accurate barometer of new trends in
Scottish writing.”
– Simon Hall, The Herald |
New
Writing Scotland is an annual volume publishing
poetry and prose from both emerging and established writers. Every piece
appears here in print for the first time, and has been drawn from a wide
cross-section of Scottish culture and society.
My first
published short story, Pandrops was included in the New Writing Scotland collection Full
Strength Angels in 1996.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Full-Strength-Angels-Writing-Scotland/dp/0948877316
It wasn’t
a crime story, but a comedy. Ian Crichton Smith launched the collection in
Waterstones Argyle Street branch and after his short speech he came over to ask
me if I had written Pandrops. I was a big fan of his work, so I was a little
overawed. He told me he had really laughed when he read it. You can imagine how
pleased I was about that.
The first
piece you get published is the one you will always remember. It certainly is
for me.
New
Writing Scotland’s collections over the years have given voice to so many new
writers.
I urge
you to send your work in this time round.
Click
here for details of how to submit your work to New Writing Scotland.
~o~
Pandrops
Of all my friends from school I remember Janice the
best. For a while she was my best friend
but that’s not the reason.
It was the
summer of sixty four. We were both thirteen, but Janice was nearer eighteen, if
you know what I mean. Next year would
see her dancing at the Cragburn in Gourock, having downed a vodka and lime and
a Carlsberg Special before she got there.
It was July, the school holidays and that weekend we were going to
Kilgreggan to Guide Camp. We were catching the boat from Gourock. There were twenty of us. We were told to meet under the clock under
the big glass dome of the station. My
dad left me at the entrance and I ran down the echoing glass tunnel, as if I
was late, my bag hitting my legs. The
sun shone through the glass roof and I was hot. The tunnel of light ended at
Miss McBeath.
The stairs from the pier to the boat were
slimey green. I remember looking down
and thinking about slipping slowly between the rotten planks into the dark
water. The metal rail shook under my
tight grip. It’s funny. They wouldn’t allow that now. The rickety stairs and the rusted rail.
Then I covered my fear with laughter,
now I know I have vertigo and I wasn’t just a coward.
When we
first got a car, a wee green Morris Minor, we drove out on a Sunday just for
the fun of it. My dad would drive along
Greenock pier. We were miles from the
edge but I was sick with fear all the time.
At least when you’re older you can say no. No I don’t want to drive along the pier
because I suffer from vertigo.
Miss McBeath
moaned at us most of the journey across but we didn’t care. You can’t spoil a journey like that. We sat
at the very front. The way the water whipped over the front of the small boat
and made us scream. The taste of salt on
our tongues. Like ready salted crisps.
Every time
the boat hit a small wave we screamed, showing off to the old man in the wee
cabin and the boy who helped with tying up at the pier. The boy was a bit older than us, not
much. I remember his hands because they
were oily round the nails. I’ve always
looked at hands, men’s hands. I
discovered when I was in my twenties that I had to go out with hands that were
big and square but looked as if the could touch gently. I don’t like soft hands on men and I hate
filed nails and pinky rings. Hands are important. They don’t have to be clean but they have to
be right.
The water at
Kilgreggan pier had a bit of a swell on and the boy had to help us step over
the side. I remember he wiped his hand
first on his blue jersey and his face flushed at the touch of us.
We stood outside the shop while Miss McBeath and the other
Leader went to order the milk and bread.
Some of the local boys came along and shouted at us from across the
street. One of them looked like the boy
from the boat but brave now. When Miss
McBeath came out they walked away.
We set off
along a dirt track up a hill. The hedge on either side was high. Catriona was breathing funny so I had to stop
with her a while until she got her breath back.
I think she had asthma but she never said anything about it. We were behind the others now. I told her not to hurry it didn’t
matter. I could see Janice’s red hair in
the distance anyway.
There was a
noise in the hedge beside us and one of the boys, not the one from the boat
stuck his head over and shouted something.
It sounded like ‘Fuck you,’ but I
told Catriona to ignore it. My heart was
pounding but I wasn’t frightened. It did
cross my mind that at the next gate one of them might show us his willy like
that stupid man at the Larkfield shops. I told Catriona not to look round it
just encouraged them.
When we
caught up with Miss McBeath she was making everyone walk in twos and we had to
put our berets back on. Janice hated
that beret. She made a face at me and
pinned it on the side of her head. I saw
Miss McBeath look over but she wasn’t in the mood to argue. The other Leader didn’t care. She just did what Miss McBeath said.
The hedge on either side of the dirt track became trees. The nearer we got to the end of the road, the
thicker the trees became. We were
walking through a tunnel and all the time the light seeping through onto our
shoulders.
The gate to
the field was closed. We scrambled onto
the bars and looked in.
What can I say about the field. A green womb of a place. The sun dripping
through the leaves dancing on the grass.
In shafts of light, tiny flies billowed in clouds. And the smell of the
place. A thick heady smell of damp
earth. I could smell it growing.
It made me
scared, scared and excited at the same time.
The tents were in a big pile in the middle. Miss McBeath made us sit round her and she
gave us our orders. We scurried about
like ants. We had practised the tent in
the back garden already but we pretended not to be sure, shouting ‘Miss
McBeath, is this right?’ every five minutes.
After we put the tent up, our group; Janice, me, Catriona and Kirsty
were told to dig the toilets. I’m sure
it was because Miss McBeath was annoyed at Janice’s beret. We didn’t mind. We
went down to the bottom of the field with the spades.
‘You have to
dig deep or else!’ Kirsty held her nose.
‘It’s
disgusting,’ said Catriona. ‘I won’t be able to go all weekend.’
‘In France,’
Janice said, ‘they have bogs like this in... well everywhere.’
‘No.’ I couldn’t believe that. Janice was always telling us things like
that. She told me there was no God, for
example and that there had once been a volcano in Edinburgh. I didn’t believe her, especially about God.
We looked
down into the holes and giggled. The holes gaped back at us in anticipation.
Catriona
straddled over one. ‘What do you do with your knickers?’she said.
God!
We exploded
in laughter at the thought.
Janice never
really worked at the holes, not really, or the tent. But when Miss McBeath appeared she always
looked busy. It didn’t make Miss McBeath
any less suspicious.
‘Have you
done your bedroll, Janice?’
Janice
always had an answer. ‘Just starting that Miss McBeath.’
When we finished our tent, we flattened the ground sheet,
threw our sleeping bags in and crept inside.
I loved it. The way the sun danced on the
green canvas and dappled it like the field. If you put your hand on the canvas
you could feel the beat of the sun. And the smell had followed me in. Warm
grass. You could hear it rustle under
the ground sheet when you moved. We put our sleeping bags along the sides. I wanted to go to bed right away.
Miss McBeath
told us to go and get ‘freshened up’ before tea. The washrooms were in the opposite corner
from the toilets or latrines as Miss McBeath called them. You had to pour some cold water into a basin
and splash it under your arms. No one
wanted to take off their shirt. I opened
three buttons and poked in a wet hand with a rub of soap on it then stuffed in
my towel and dried myself.
I was
sharing my basin with Janice. Janice
waited until I was finished with the water and then unbuttoned her shirt and
took it off. She pulled the bra straps
off her shoulders and pulled the bra down to her waist and leaned over the
basin.
Her breasts
were big and creamy white. The ends were
pink circles. I remember wanting to touch one.
I’d never seen a real breast before.
One you could cup in your hand.
One that would weigh something.
I was
staring. Although the others were behind
me I knew they were staring too. Janice
ignored us and rubbed soap on her facecloth and carefully circled the breasts,
then lifted her towel and patted them dry.
‘Watch
this,’ she said, and lifting one in each hand she pointed the pink eyes right
at us.
In those
days, bras were made of white cotton.
The cups were concentric stiffened circles that ended in a point. Except no one could fill that point, no one
was that shape so the point curved inwards, a concave. Janice had finished tucking the breasts
inside the cups. Even she didn’t fill those end points. She reached in her
toilet bag and pulled out a packet of pandrops. She opened the packet and took
out two pandrops and pushed one down into the tip of each white cup, popping it
forward.
‘Keep these warm for later,’ she said and we
laughed. I turned away. My face was pink
and in my heart was the sharp green stab of envy.
After tea we sat on the ground round the fire, our knickers
damp from the grass.
‘We’ll get
piles from this,’ Catriona whispered in my ear.
We sang
‘Land of the Silver Birch, Home of the Beaver’ in three parts. It was my favourite but my mind wasn’t on
it. I was wondering what it felt like to
roll over in bed with breasts that size and I wanted to be in my sleeping bag,
lying in the tent in the dark, thinking.
Later on;
‘We all have
one you know.’ Janice was the only one who didn’t whisper.
There was a
short silence and then Kirsty’s voice said.
‘What d’you
mean?’
‘We all have
a v..u..l..v..a.’ Janice said the word carefully making it longer and
sharper than it was.
When the
word finally escaped her lips it rose above us and hung there waiting for
somebody brave enough to pluck it down.
You see we all knew if we asked for more that’s exactly what Janice
would give us. More. Then things would
have to be faced. Things would have to
be thought about.
‘What’s a vulva?’
This time the word was staccato.
I tried to
guess the owner of the voice. Was it
still Kirsty? My heart was beating
faster. I laid my hand on my chest
looking for the suggestion of a curve.
‘I thought a
vulva was a car.’
The puzzled
voice brought screams of hysterical laughter, while the word floated away
beyond our derision.
‘Shssssh. Miss McBeath will hear us,’ I said.
We smothered
our laughter with the sleeping bags.
‘Catriona!
Don’t be stupid!’ said Janice. ‘You’re thinking of a volvo.’
We felt
Catriona shrink back in embarassment and sent out waves of comfort into the
darkness, but Janice held us now, close to her, like the pandrops.
‘A vulva,’
she said. ‘is a secret place in women, that men like, because it’s moist and
inviting.’ The words were chanted like a
poem committed to memory.
We thought
about it. I remember thinking it sounded
like the field to me.
‘Where.
Where is it?’ Catriona had returned,
undefeated.
‘Between
your legs of course.’
I felt my
legs move together, the sharp knee bones grind against one another. So there was more than the softness of heavy
breasts.
‘Does Miss
McBeath... have one?’
There was an
intake of breath. It was something I wanted to ask myself. Kirsty’s forthrightness impressed me.
‘Of
course.’ Janice was matter of fact. We were beginning to bore her with our silly
questions. She yawned loudly and turned
on her side. ‘She’s probably playing with it right this minute.’
I closed my
eyes and tucked my hands under my pillow to stop them from slipping between my
legs and tried not to think about what Miss McBeath might be doing.
The next day was Sunday and we had to go to church.
Janice
pinned up her long thick auburn hair in a bun on top of her head.
‘You won’t
get your beret on that,’ I said. ‘Miss
McBeath will go mad.’
Janice
reached up and patted the bun, then pinned the beret jauntily on one side. The blue material of her shirt pulled itself
tightly across the cotton pyramids. I
noticed the pointy ends and wondered if the pandrops were still there.
We began to
line up in twos. I tried to get with
Catriona, knowing I would be included in Miss McBeath’s wrath, but my luck was
out. Catriona and Kirsty were already together at the front.
‘Janice
McVeigh. Put your beret on properly.’
Janice
looked innocent. ‘I can’t get it any flatter Miss McBeath, my hair’s too
thick. If you like I’ll take my hair
down again but it’ll take me five minutes.’
Miss McBeath
tutted, her lips thin. ‘We’ve no time now, Janice. We’ll be late for church.’
A green
gleam of triumph shone in Janice’s eyes.
We marched in twos down the leafy lane.
At the bottom of the lane three of
the boys sat on a fence, waiting for us. The boy with the blue jumper was
there. I remembered his hands and looked
down. I wondered if his jumper still smelled of the sea. Everyone stopped talking. I suddenly felt
silly with my beret and my blue tie and my brass badge. And I kept thinking about things like
standing over the toilet hole and what we spoke about in the tent the night
before.
The boys
started to wolf whistle.
Miss McBeath
and the other Leader marched on, ignoring them. Janice slowed down, slanting
her eyes towards the boys then away again.
‘Nice baps,’
the boy with the blue jumper said. The
other two laughed.
Janice
stopped. Suddenly we were left behind as
the rest squashed past, anxious to get away.
Janice was staring at the boy in the blue jumper. I tried to walk on.
‘Come on Janice.’ I said, tugging her arm.
She’d
begun to unbutton her shirt. The boy’s face changed. His hands let go the fence and he sprung
down. He was close now. I could smell oil and salt from him. A flush
began to spread up his cheek.
Janice
slipped her right hand inside her open shirt.
‘Give me
your hand,’ she said.
The fingers
were thick and the nails circled black.
‘Here,’ she said, dropping the warm
white pearl into his hand, ‘have a pandrop.’
~o~
