Cry me a river

Download Music – Listen Audio – Short Story_ Cry Me A River

She wiped the wet fringes of what was left of a perm back under her hood and shouted after her wee boy, running ahead of her up the slope of the High Street. He danced on the pavement, waiting for her.

“Stay by me, pal, okay. Mummy’s no runnin after you wi’ this bags, right?” What with one thing and another, the street being so steep, the rain and the wind, she’d had to slow down and when she slowed she stopped and, when she stopped, she set down the plastic bags on the pavement for a spell. They sagged and clinked and a bottle rolled out. Saved by the neck, it caught on the handle. She let it lie.

“Mummy’s no very well the day.”

She lifted the bags again. The two plastic carriers, handles stretched to cheese-cutters, settled their weight back into grooves in her finger-joints, fingers the colour of worms, swollen and boneless. But in the cold and the wind, and what with the rain dripping off her cuffs, her hands would soon be numb again anyway. Her toes felt moist. Ill-shod for a day like this, she wanted to turn for home, to get her feet off, front of the fire but … there wasnae coins for the ‘lectric anyway, and a hoose cold without the fire, empty without the telly would only amplify his snores and the wee yin’s noise. Then the bigger bairns would start,

“What’s for eating, Mum? Anythin’ for the tea?”

There was that bread. The bairns had come home yesterday with five loafs of bread fae the skip at the back a Iceland’s; past the sell-by date but it was okay. And a coupla cakes of lemon sponge. She never liked lemon sponge. Tasted of soap. But they were flinging it out so … Oh aye and half a cauliflower, she had half a cauliflower. And tea. No milk though. ‘If I had a bit bacon I could make you up a

bacon roll if I had any rolls.’ She laughed a laugh to herself. The child trotting along in front looked up. He laughed because she did and walked backwards up the street ahead of her.

“Watch where yer walkin! Cannae take yer eyes off it for a minute.” It jumped a puddle and fell on its face. Like a rubber clown it sprang up on its feet displaying the wet palms of its hands and the black, dripping front of its coat. It’s mouth gaped open. It thought about crying. She willed it not to. It watched her. Two tears sprouted out of its clown face. It yelled out an experimental “aaaaanghh” and looked up for comfort.

“Och what are ye like! Aye ye’re aw wet now aren’t ye? Well you shouldn’t

have fell. Look at ye! Ye’re black! Come on! Ye’re aw right. Come on!” It stood still and girned. She stood over it and waited for it to cease. “Well if you keep dancin about aw the time when I’ve told ye!! She sighed and he looked up, sniffing his tears back up his nose and wiping his face with the back of his sopping wet sleeve. She needed to smile at him and he’d be all right. She needed to take the boy home to get dry. But she couldnae smile. And she wouldnae take him there. She’d said,

“You watch them till I go out?”

“Out where?” he’d said. Then, “You aw right?” he’d said.

“What d’ye mean am I all right. Of course I’m all right!” She’d gone out and banged the door. She knew he’d ask her what was up as soon as she got in. The lot of them’d be there and he’d say,

“Come on, doll, you awright or what?” And what if she said? No! If she was in that room lookin’ at him she’d go and tell him and she couldnae do that. She’d said to herself she wouldnae tell. Anybody. And it had been two weeks now. And she’d said nothin. “It’ll come on natural. Wee bit more pain than normal. That’s all.” The woman had told her.

“When?”

“Next coupla days.” The woman had told her to rest. So she had. And he’d been that good.

“Is it a bad one, darlin? Never mind.” He’d kept the bairns rare and quiet for her. And it had passed. She’d got up and got on. Nae bother. Fine. Just that today she felt she was better oot the hoose, for a wee while.

“We could go along to the park eh, Pal? Will you and me go along to the park? Stop your cryin’ now, listen, will we go and see the ducks?” The child sensed an absurdity in its mother and looked round for an alternative.

“Grandma?”

“No. No Grandma’s today.” Somehow, not Grandma’s today either. “Another day. Tomorrow.” Not today. She looked into the wee boy’s face and he looked back into hers. She hadn’t even a bit of tissue to wipe his nose. He moved the muddy scrape marks around on his face with his filthy cuff.

“C’mon let’s get up the road and get shot of this load of stuff and then we’ll go round to the swings and get a seat in the shelter, eh?”

In the carrier bags that dragged her arms down she had ‘his’ empties. For the bottle bank. The bairn liked tae chuck them in. She had cans too. For the Save-a-Can bin at Wullie Low’s.

“So woa-ho you can cry-hi me a river … oh baby …

cry me a river …

I cried a river … over yooooo.”

“Who’s that singin?” she wondered. People in the street were shufflin’

by. She stood still in the stream and listened. The faces and pushchairs swam past. Up the street, somebody was singing their head off. Aye. The next shop up just. God! In a doorway. Somewhere round her feet there was a tinkle of a coin. The bairn had dropped a penny.

“Where’d you get that?” She put down her bags. Her hands, with as much feeling in them as a pair of boxing gloves couldn’t let go the handles.

“Pennies. On the floor, Mummy.” The boy crouched, fiddling with a twenty pence coin lying at his feet. “Bad boy man, fling it on the floor.”

What d’ye say tae a bairn? she thought. He was forever picking things up and shovin it intae his moth, she was forever saying tae him “No! Put it down. Bad boy. Dirty.” But twenty-one pence was twenty-one pence more than she had in her purse.

“Now you said you’re leavin … I cried the whole night

throoooough….”

“Lady singing, Mummy. Lady, Mummy.”

“Aye, darlin. No tae take the pennies, sweetheart. Lady’s pennies. The lady’s singing a song so the people throw pennies. That’s nice, eh? Here till I do your coat up better.” She prised her hands off the bag handles. She yanked his trousers up and tucked in his jumper. His wee feet notched up off the pavement with each tug, his arms thrust out like a traffic policeman in the stiff coat. She zipped his coat up to his chin and pulled the soaken hat down round his ears. He stuck his thumb under the hat and wrenched at it. She swatted his hand away and wiped the drips of rain off his nose.

“There. That’s you.”

“Sing, Mummy.”

“Aye. That’ll be right. Your mummy’s got a lot to sing about. C’mon. We’ll give the money back to the lady.” He gasped.

“Mines pennies!”

She got to her feet.

“Aye okay. C’mon” She grabbed both carriers in one hand and pulled the wee body off its feet. The child clattered and fell under her and she staggered. Her nose started running. The elastic waist on her tights had slipped. It was cutting her round the hips. The crotch had dropped like a web between her legs, her hood fell down and she let it stay that way. The bairn was cryin.

It was the bairn that was cryin? Wasn’t it? She stopped and looked down. The top of his hat swam up at her. He was lookin in the shops at the toys. He was fine. He had the flap of her coat in his hands and he swung on it, grabbing at her knees and looking up. The rain falling on his face made his eyes blink.

But it wasn’t the bairn that was cryin. She felt the ugly gobs of warm, salty water gathering at the corners of her mouth. Her face fell open and a scowling sob broke out of her. At once she tried to stifle the awful noise of it

“Georgiaaaaaaaaah….oh woe ……..Georgiaah!

The whole day throooooooooooooo…………”

The song came at her from the shelter of the Woolworths doorway. She caught sight of a girl, singing. Henna-ed hair, rings all over her, on her fingers and her ears, wearing a thin, burgundy-velvet jacket. On such a day, a girl was singing, with goose-pimples on a salt-white neck.

“Just that old sweet song ……..

The carrier handles slipped.

“keeps Georgia on my mind, my mind, keeps Georgia on my mind …”

She jogged the bags better to hold them and their bottoms burst open; bottles and cans smashed and stotted off the pavement.

“Georgiaaaaaaaaaaaaah …”

The awful clattering explosion of glass! A bottle crashed and spattered needles of glass up her skirt like a scatter gun. Beer cans bounced about and rolled and rolled and rolled away and the tears dribbled hot, cooling in the rain down her face, as the aaaaaagh of the song crossed over the pavement, and came out of her gaping maw.

Somewhere in front of her, she saw a woman and a wee girl come forward. She watched their blurred figures picking up the bottles and kicking at the broken bits. She saw that the wee girl was stopping her wee boy picking up a piece of glass. She should have noticed him doing that! She should have been the one to stop him doing that but … she seemed not to be able to move. Carefully, reverentially, helpfully, bottles and cans were being stacked, like a stockade, round her feet.

“There, now. Come away, Sharon. Leave the wee boy alone.” she heard. Someone, the nice woman she supposed, touched her on the elbow and indicated the tidied up cans and bottles, and the obedient Sharon was taken away, off through the crowd.

The singing had stopped, she noticed. And it was the busking girl who came out from the shelter of the door with a last can. She watched as it was added to the pile. Then the song began again.

“Just that old sweet song keeps Georgia on my …”

She stood, marooned in the street, inside a circle of empties. The wee boy, outside the circle, looked at her.

“…mind …. mi … mind … keeps Georgia on my mind …”

“Georgiaaaaaaaaah….oh woe ……..Georgia …

She stood there while folk made a detour round the empties. They crossed the street. All the time, new waves of shoppers were coming along. Some of them stared at her as they skirted around here and tripped on the bottles. A crowd of teenagers who’d seen the whole show had skulked into the shops and were watching her from behind the windows. The singing girl. And the crying woman. And the dancing bairn. Only two, maybe three year old, he was picking up pennies off the street. The steamed-up windows of the café opposite got their windows wiped. The folk, jammed in at the tables gawped, and missed their mouths with their loaded forks. What with one thing and another, a small crowd had formed, drawn by this spectacle she’d made, added to by the surge of shoppers, it made a rolling audience for the busker. The song held them until it ended and applause broke out. Coins fell into the hat and the boy was flinging himself delightedly on the ones that missed.

“Mummy?” She looked down. The game was finished. She saw that the busking girl had stopped singing and was hunting the ground, picking up coins, darting glances at her wee boy. His baby fist was full of twenty-pence pieces. A woman in a big tweed coat approached.

“You aw right, hen?”

“The bag burst.” she said.