KANE'S LADDER
by Carlos Alba
Extract taken from Chapter One
Because it was my birthday, Mum had promised to take me into town to buy my first suit. The fact that it was my cousin’s wedding the following week, an occasion for which I would require a suit, was one of those happy coincidences in which my mother specialised.
It was a blisteringly hot day and I was sweating as we ran to catch the bus. Mum boarded first and the clippie hoisted me
onto the rear plate as the bus pulled away. I asked if we could go upstairs. I liked to sit on the top deck, at the front, imagining that I was steering the ungainly old Routemaster round the twisting avenues, but Mum wouldn’t hear of it because that’s where the common people sat.-And its up-stairs, not up-sterrs, she chided, correcting my pronunciation for the hundredth time that day.
I had to content myself with sitting downstairs, alongside the ladies from the big houses. They were perched on the rear seats, dressed in their week-end finery. Most would have already been to the hairdresser on the Paisley Road to have their finely sculpted beehives lacquered into place. They caught the fifty-nine bus into town at the same time every Saturday to spend the day shopping, before meeting up for high tea at any number of the city’s tearooms. A strategically placed bomb in the centre of Glasgow
on a Saturday afternoon could have wiped out the country’s entire stockpile of linen doilies.
Mum would pass the time of day with the ladies from the big houses but she didn’t really like them. She said they looked down on people like us from the new estate. We sat opposite Mrs Yuill, whose husband played the organ at the church.
– Not the sort of weather you want the central heating on, she said to Mum, wearing the hint of a smile.
– Indeed not Mrs Yuill, Mum replied.
– It makes you want to open the door of the deep freeze and let the cool air drift over you.
I pointed out that we didn’t have a central heating system. Mum fixed me with an icy glare. I was about to add that we didn’t have a deep freeze either when I felt Mum‘s elbow digging me in the ribs.
– Don’t interrupt, she mouthed. –It’s common.
I spent the bus trip planning my choice of suit. Tony, my older brother, had been given money for his sixteenth birthday to buy what he wanted. He came home dressed in a wide-lapelled cream suit with lime green pinstripes and flared trousers. The outfit was rounded off with a black silk shirt, cream patent platform shoes and a white floppy cap like the ones the Rubettes wore.
When he walked in the door, Dad couldn’t stop laughing. Mum was furious – she said he looked like a pimp – but that didn’t mean she was going to stop him wearing them. Tony was her golden boy. He was the cleverest member of the family – definite university material, Mum said – and because of that, he could do no wrong.
I thought his outfit was the most fabulous thing I had ever seen, and I wanted one just like it. Tony had written down the names of all the best boutiques on Argyle Street where, he said, I should get Mum to take me. They all had groovy names like Threadz, Toggs and Glam Gear, but the minute we stepped off the bus she headed straight for Paisley’s department store.
Paisley’s was a traditional, family-owned store on Jamaica Street – the sort of place where you got dressed up just to shop in it. Located on several, mahogany-panelled levels, it was like a stately home with cash registers. The male sales assistants bore all the spit and polish, wax-tipped hallmarks of ex-military types, while the women staff – the genteel daughters of bank managers and kirk elders – looked like they were just killing time until their bridge club met.
There was nothing remotely democratic about Paisley’s. It actively discouraged any upstartish notion that customers might have an opinion about what they were buying. You shopped there on the strict understanding you were going to be patronised from a very great height. For my mother, it was always the first stop on any visit to town. Though she could rarely afford to buy anything, it gave her the opportunity to drop into conversation the fact that she had been there.
We made our way to the boys’ clothing department where a fey, officer type with halitosis measured me up before pronouncing on what was ‘best for the lad’. I was dispatched to a curtained cubicle carrying a navy blue, single-breasted, lamb’s wool jacket, which bore a remarkable resemblance to my school blazer, only without the badge, and a pair of grey trousers. When I returned, the assistant fussed around me, hoisting the jacket around my shoulders and pinching the trousers in at the waist.
– They’re a touch on the generous side but the lad will grow into them, he stated in a tone which indicated he would broach no challenge.
To my dismay, Mum failed to demur and before I knew it, we were making our way towards the cash desk with the offending articles. Through gritted teeth, I tried to tell Mum that I hated them, that she was wasting her eight pound fifty and that I wouldn’t be seen dead in them. I thought I was getting through to her but then the foul-breathed assistant intervened, asking me if I liked them. I felt my face flush with embarrassment. I wanted to say that they were the most hideous things I had ever clapped eyes on but I was ten years old and he was an adult and respect for my elders was a principle too deeply ingrained to challenge.
– They’re very nice, was all I could say.
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