Marabou Stork Nightmares Read Online Free Page B

at first; I remember he took me to Easter Road for the fitba. He left me and Tony and Bernard and my cousin Alan in my Uncle Jackie's car ootside a pub. They bought us coke and crisps. When they came out they were pished from drinking beer and they got us pies and Bovril and mair crisps at the fitba. I was bored with the fitba, but I liked getting the pies and crisps. The backs of my legs got sair, like when my Ma took us tae Leith Walk tae the shops.
    Then I got a bad battering fae my Dad and had to go to the hospital for stitches. He hit the side of my head and I fell over and split it on the edge of the kitchen table. Six stitches above the eye. It was barry having stitches. The auld man didn't understand that it was only clipshers I put in Kim's hair. — It wis jist clipshers, Dad, I pleaded. — Clipshers dinnae sting.
    Kim just gret and gret like fuck. She wouldnae stop. It was only clipshers as well. Just clipshers. It's no as if it was bees. They have these pincers at the back, but they dinnae sting. I think Devil's Coach-Horses or Earwigs were their real names.
    — Look at hur! Look what yuv fuckin well done tae yir sister ya silly wee cunt! He gestured tae Kim, whose already distorted face twisted further in contrived terror. The auld man thumped me then.
    I had to tell everyone at the casualty that I was mucking aboot wi Tony and I fell. I had headaches for a long time eftir that.
    I remember once watching my Ma, Vet, scrubbing the tartan nameplate on the door of our maisonette flat. Somebody had added an 'E' to our name. Dad and my Uncle Jackie went around the stair cross-examining terrified neighbours. Dad was always threatening to shoot anybody who complained about us. Other parents therefore always told their kids not to play with us, and all but the craziest ones complied.
    If the neighbours were terrified of my Dad and Uncle Jackie, who was really just Dad's mate but we called him 'Uncle', they were also pretty wary of my Ma. Her father or grandfather, I could never remember which one, had been a prisoner-of-war in a Japanese camp and he had gone slightly loopy; a direct result, Vet claimed, of his cruel incarceration. She grew up indoctrinated with tales of Jap atrocities and had once read this book which contended that the orientals would take over the world by the turn of the century. She would scrutinise the eyes of my few friends, proclaiming them unsuitable if they had what she considered to be 'Jap blood'.
    I think I was about nine or ten when I first heard the auld man mention South Africa. It seemed that no sooner than he mentioned it, we were there.
    — See us, Vet? Meant fir better things. Me wi aw they security joabs. Nae prospects. Like ah sais, meant fir better things. This country's gaun tae the dogs. Aw they strikes; cannae even git yir fuckin bucket emptied. They trade union cunts: hudin the country tae ransom. Sooth Efrikay, that's the place. Like ah sais, Sooth Efrikay. Ah ken thuv goat problems in Sooth Efrikay n aw, but at least thuv no goat this fuckin Labour Governmint. Ah'm gaunny see aboot gittin us ower thair. Oor Gordon wid pit us up, nae danger. Ah'll take us oot thair, Vet. Fuckin well sure'n ah will. Think ah'll no? Ah'm askin ye! Think ah'll no?
    — Nae Japs . . .
    — Aye, bit git this though, Vet. Thir's nae Japs in Sooth Efrikay. Nane. That's cause it's a white man's country, like ah sais, a white man's country. White is right oot thair, ah kid ye not. Like ah sais: Sooth Efrikay, white is right, Dad sang, all high and animated. His large flat tongue licked at a stamp which he stuck on a letter. It was probably a letter of complaint to somebody. He always wrote letters of complaint.
    —Jist as long is thir's nae Japs . . .
    —Naw bit this is Sooth Efrikay. Sooth Fuckin Efrikay Vet, if yi'll pardon ma ps n qs.
    — Somewhair ah kin git tae dry clathes . . . they Pearsons . . . eywis in the dryin green . . .
    — Eh! Ah fuckin telt that cow! Ah fuckin telt hur! Ah sais tae