My Summer Holiday

Every year it was always the same. It would be raining. So I’d have to pick out my new blue quilted anorak. Mammie would adjust the fit of it on me, pushing and pulling as if I was a tailor’s dummy, and fiddling with the zip. I’d know when Mammie was finished, because she’d pull me, so that I’d almost trip towards the talcum cushioned goodness of her and she’d give me a brief-push-away- hug. The clock on the mantle piece, above the fireplace, would be cosily ticking, squirreling away to itself, the last of summer time. Mammie would sigh, in that funny way she had, like steam escaping through her nose, and pat me on the head.

Mammie’d stand on the edge of the doorstep, with a tea towel still in her hand and adjust her spectacles. And she’d watch me. I’d pull my hood closer up around me, to protect my lovely long red hair, because I knew that’s what she wanted me to do. And just when I almost out of out street and around the corner into Glendevon Street, just when I thought she wouldn’t, because I was too old now, she’d wave. Even though I was with my friends Molly and Karen and Mary, who’d roll their eyes and look at each other to confirm what they already knew, I’d stop And I’d wave and wave until Mammie turned away, to go inside, in case my nonsense made me late for school.

Molly and Karen and Mary always thought I was lucky because I got new school clothes every year, and they just got hand me downs from their big sisters, or even in Mary’s case, a torn bugsy looking brown anorak from her big brother, Gordon. And I thought I was lucky too, but I’d have never had said so, because that would be bad manners. Not because I’d new school clothes, but because when I waved to her, I knew, I’d the best Mammie in the world.

Mr Jordan was my new teacher in primary school. But everybody already knew him. I’d done a drawing of him, when I’d just started school, in primary 1. It was a big circle, for his fat body and a small circle for his baldhead. I’d also given him a red crayon coloured carrot for a nose, a black top hat, and a black broomstick. Mr Jordan no longer taught gym, because he was too fat, but his head had thawed out a little and looked smaller, but he hadn’t changed very much. He still barked at us on our first day as if we were to put the skipping ropes and the beanbags down and stand at the outside door. But I knew he was a proper teacher when, after a morning of tedious arithmetic, he asked us to write a story, in the afternoon, for English, called ‘what I did with my summer holiday’. All the teachers asked us to do that. And when they read it, they always marked it v.good and put a gold star at the bottom of the page. Mrs Summreville, my last teacher, had even read mine and John McCrossan’s out to the rest of the class and asked them to clap when she’d finished. I felt a bit silly, clapping my own story, especially as John McCrossan’s was so much better, but I was determined to beat him.

When I got my story back the next day I quickly scanned to the bottom of the page, looking for the v. good and the gold star, but looked up quickly, because I was far too old for paper stars. But there was only a stupid message written in red pen:

‘Please see me at the end of school today’.

I read the message. Then I read it again. Then I read it again. The words scalded my brain. I couldn’t wok out what it meant. I wondered if I’d spelt something badly. I checked. But I was always the best in the class at spelling-apart from John McCrossan, of course- or if I’d made a mess of the story and it turned out like some snottery thing Noel Behan would have written. I wasn’t sure what to do and thought maybe Mr Jordan would try and give me the belt, even though Mammie had said that I wasn’t ever to get the belt. And if any teacher had a problem with this, I was to be very polite, in the way that I’d been taught, and ask them to see her. I always carried a note in my school satchel for that contingency, but I’d never needed to produce it. All of my teachers already knew Mammie. But I wasn’t so sure now Mr Jordan did.

When the bell went at four o’clock, desk lids banged down with joyful abandon, and the rest of the class silently filed out, before filling the air outside with the pent up noise of a flock of hungry seagulls around the sewerage ship. Molly Kelly was the exception. She dawdled on the cusp of the door and the classroom, as if testing her bravery, whilst waiting to walk home with me.

But when Mr Jordan spotted her idling there he barked loudly, ‘away with you,’ so that she turned and ran, as fast as she could, but not near as fast as me, down the steps and out into the sunshine of the school playground.

I was at the middle of the classroom, three rows from Mr Jordan’s desk. His harsh words to Molly also fell on me, like a physical blow, so that I also wanted to run away like a scaredy cat and almost started crying, even though I was sure I hadn’t done anything wrong.

But Mr Jordan didn’t even seem to know that I was still in the room. He pulled open his desk drawer, and took his spectacles off, squelching up his eyes, to peer into its contents. He rattled and rummaged through his desk for something and then triumphantly pulled out a match. He put his feet up on the desk, as if he was at home and it was a mantelpiece and he lit his pipe, nodding to himself contentedly.

I didn’t know what to do, but I knew Mammie would be waiting for me, so I asked politely, ‘May I go now Mr Jordan?’

Mr Jordan coughed and looked at me, as if seeing me for the first time that day.

‘No,’ he said, puffing away on his pipe, so that he seemed like a real man.

‘Bring a seat up here, and sit beside me.’ Mr Jordan scrapped his chair a little over to the side of his desk, with more noise than actual movement.

I really didn’t want to sit with Mr Jordan, because he seemed to scratch a lot and smelled as if he’d missed his weekly bath in the tin tub. But I stood up straight, as I’d been taught, and picked up the chair that sat beside the blackboard.

‘Oh, and your story,’ said Mr Jordan, stabbing at the air with his pipe.

I was glad to be away from him and back at the sanctuary of my desk. I pulled open the lid of my desk. And my story was still sitting, waiting for me, done in my best joined up handwriting, with all the capitals, like sentries, just so. I picked it up carefully and carried it up to where Mr Jordan was sitting, putting it down carefully in front of him.

‘Sit down,’ said Mr Jordan.

I’d rather have stood, but I squeezed myself into the little seat, beside the bulk of him.

‘Right,’ said Mr Jordan, ‘your mother is not your mother because your big sister is your mother because she like elves.’

Mr Jordan looked at me over the top of his specs, so that I stood up. ‘Yes.’ I said. But he kept looking at me, so I felt I had to explain. ‘Mammie said that she wasn’t my mum, that my big sister Anne was my mum, because her boyfriend looked like Elvis and she didn’t know what she was doing.’

‘I went on the bus to stay with my new mum in Eglad but she did not want me and sent me up the road to my old mum because iw as bad.’

‘Yes,’ I said, standing tall, becoming more confident.

‘You travelled down on the bus to England?’ asked Mr Jordan, ‘who went with you?’

‘Oh,’ I said, ‘Mammie took me to the bus station and asked the conductress to keep an eye on me. I slept most of the way and my big sister mum Anne met me at the bus station in England.’

‘And what did you do that was bad?’ said Mr Jordan furrowing his brows.

‘Oh, I didn’t do anything, but my sister mum Anne said that I was spoilt rotten and too hoity-toity and she was sending me back’.

Then I remembered. I had done something bad. I knew that I’d have to tell Mr Jordan because I’d always been taught to tell the truth.

I took a deep breath and stared down at the shiny buckle in my clean black shoes.

‘I said I was from Glasgow,’ I said to Mr Jordan.

‘And that was a bad thing?’ said Mr Jordan.

‘Yes,’ I said truthfully, ‘because when the little girl Sophie, next door to us said that I couldn’t be my little brother James’ sister because I was white as a witch and he was black as her mum and dad, I said I could, because I was from GLASGOW.’

‘Sophie, had jumped back, when I said GLASGOW as if I’d pushed her. Later when I was out playing I’d heard her telling her little sister Audrey that she was from GLASGOW so that she jumped back too. Mum Anne must have heard about this and sent me up the road for being bad’.

‘Remarkable,’ said Mr Jordan.

I smiled back happily at him.

‘You’re a very precocious child,’ said Mr Jordan.

‘Does that mean precious? I asked.

Mr Jordan seemed to consider this. ‘Yes, I think it does,’ he said, smiling back at me. He rummaged through his drawer again, and pulled out some stars, but there were only greens and blues.

‘I’m going to put a star on your story for being so good,’ said Mr Jordan.

But I shook my head.

‘No stars?’ said Mr Jordan.

‘No blue or green stars, they’re for infants,’ I said sniffily.

‘Right,’ said Mr Jordan, understanding instantly. ‘I’ll need to get some gold stars, but I’ll keep your story safe here until I get them.’

‘Thank you very much,’ he said, as if I’d done something.

Thank you, very much,’ I said in reply, in the way that I’d been taught, before skipping home to Mammie.