The Tin-Kin

The Tin-Kin

Eleanor Thom

Duckworth Overlook

First paperback edition 2010
First published 2009 by
Duckworth Overlook
90-93 Cowcross Street
London, EC1M 6BF
Tel: 020 7490 7300
Fax: 020 7490 0080
[email protected]
www.ducknet.co.uk

Copyright © 2009 by Eleanor Thom

All rights reserved. No part of this publication
may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,
without the prior permission of the publisher.

The right of Eleanor Thom to be identified as the Author of
the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

‘One’: Nilson, Harry (CA) © 1968 (Renewed) Golden Syrup
Music (BMI). All rights administered by
Warner-Tamerlane Publishing Corp.
‘Sh-boom’ Words and Music by James Keyes, Carl Feaster,
Floyd Mc Rae, Claude Feaster and James Edwards –
© 1954 (Renewed) Unichappell Music Inc. - All Rights Reserved –
Lyric reproduced by kind permission of Carlin Music Corp.,
London, NW1 8BD
‘In the Hay’ lyrics reproduced by kind permission.
Words and music by Chris “Dixieland” Dooks © 2008

Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to
obtain their permission for the use of copyright material.
The publisher apologizes for any errors or omissions in the
above list and would be grateful if notified of any corrections
that should be incorporated in future reprints or editions of this book.

A catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library

Mobipocket ISBN 978-0-7156-3973-3
ePub ISBN 978-0-7156-4056-2
Adobe PDF ISBN 978-0-7156-4057-9

Mix Tape – June ’95

The Midnight Hour
– The Elgins
Walking Shoes
– Tanya Tucker
What I Am
– Edie Brickell and The New Bohemians
One
– Three Dog Night
Sh-Boom
– The Crew Cuts
I’ve Got Tears in My Ears from Lying on My Back
Crying Over You
– Homer and Jethro
Three Cigarettes in an Ashtray
– Patsy Cline
Labelled With Love
– Squeeze
The Ballad of Patch Eye & Meg
– Michelle Shocked
Road
– Nick Drake
Creeps Like Me
– Lyle Lovett

Dawn

They were somewhere between two signs, ‘Welcome’ and ‘Have a Safe Journey’, a row of two-storey houses not long enough to name. In windows the curtains were mainly drawn, the lights off. Maeve had quietened down in the back seat. She was whispering numbers to herself, as though she were trying to count stars but kept getting lost.

One. Two. One. Two. Wuntwo wuntwo. What are you counting?

Maeve ignored her.

The drive was almost over. Dawn kept going, flicked a switch to put the beams on full, wound the window down a crack and lit a cigarette. She pushed a cassette into the player and hummed along. She liked country songs. They helped her feel warm, as if the sun was sitting in her belly.

I drove me fifty states away
Now I’m the needle in the hay

Short but cold, these summer nights! A strip of sky was starry between the pine tops, the road taking them north. In open fields she slowed to take the dips in the road, in and out of lazy pools of shallow mist. She passed the distillery with its fingery chimneys, braking hard round the hairpin bend cupped in its palm. She stopped singing now, listened to the engine and the spin of wheels. She was surprised to remember the twists and turns, the road’s gentle inclines and swifter falls. She could drive as if asleep, an invisible reel pulling her in.

Midnight. Dawn parked in front of a house. It was split in
two, a flat at the top and a flat below. Until a week ago the top had been her aunt’s. It was theirs now.

The house had plain, square angles, dusty orange in the streetlight. Nothing had changed since she’d left. Time had traipsed by with its mind on something else. She checked over her shoulder. Maeve was sound asleep and the street was empty. She’d get the cases inside before carrying her daughter to the strange bed they would share.

The gate grunted like an old woman and the garden was matted with creepers. The door to the top flat was around the back and the steps were gently bowed. Everything was slow, but crunching up the gravel path Dawn heard her own breath quicken before she felt it. Stirring the keys in her pocket, she remembered a game she used to play.

Inside was a cupboard that had never been unlocked. Peering through the keyhole, nothing but the deepest black. Tomorrow the clean-up would begin. She would pull the flat inside out, disturb dust particles that had been skulking for years and send them spiralling in the sunlight.

   VISION   

Bars on the window split the moonlight intae squares. The sky’s far away. There’s cold flagstone on the floor and a dark ceiling that folds in on me. I look for the door, get just a sense ae it, a solid blackness shut tight in the pit ae my stomach. The place reeks like a dirty close.

I shiver. Cold. But my jacket smells warm. It’s smoke and spilt whisky. Pain circles the back ae my heid, pressing down, oil-like. I’m in a corner, one arm stretchin out so my fingers just stroke the light and turn silver at the tips. I try and sleep, pretendin it’s summer and that I’m in one ae the caves near the beach, warm sand for a mattress. But it’s too quiet. Nae waves crashing or gulls crying here. I’m swallied alive.

A chair scrapes the floor somewhere, metal, grindin like machines at the scrap yard. The sound rakes up my throat. I try and work out where it comes from but there’s echoes in this place. Echoes and drips. Slether trickles cool on my cheek but I cannae lift a hand tae wipe it. My arms feel deid from the elbows down. Footsteps get nearer, stop, and someone keeks through the letterbox hatch. He grunts, drops it back so the hatch swings in and out, playing with the light from the corridor like a moth, showing up the flagstones. The cell flickers like the newsreel countdown at the picture house. Three, two, one . . .

BANG!

They’re pounding on the door. I feel the solid thumping in my chest, my belly, the pain in my neck.

When I shut my eyes it’s a ride on the dodgems so I keep them open and peer at a clarty black stain. It explodes against the wall, trickles down the plaster and disappears behind the tin bucket,
same as what we use at home. The sight ae it clenches my stomach like a fist.

I think ae Rascal, pray they’ve nae hurt him. He was with me when I was lifted, I’m sure ae it. And there was a song playing. I can hear a hint. Even in this hellish place a wee snatch ae the melody’s snuck its way in like a draught. I cannae remember the whole number. It gets on my nerves, a sneeze that’s stuck.

Hello hello again,
sh-boom and hopin’ we’ll meet again

I can picture the jukebox, records lined up like liquorice wheels, waiting and hoping. Peter’s Café will have been shut for hours, but I can see the place, clear as if I was in Cooper Park right now, strolling past the lake, looking in the windows. Moonshine glows all ghostie-like on the wiped-down table-tops. I have tae remember that song!

Then the penny drops, falls heavy inside. It was me chose the song.
Sh-boom. Life could be a dream, sweetheart.
She sat opposite me, tears runnin down her cheeks, while that stupid number went on turning.

Later I hooked up wi Tommy the Barra. We made plans. We’re getting out ae here, soon as the summer comes. It’s best tae head south for work, he says. My old ma’ll be pleased, even though she’ll miss me. Wee Betsy’ll gurn that she wants tae come too, but there’ll be no wee lassies. It’ll be just the gadgies back on the road. Except now we’ll be travelling in style. Nae tents. The Barra got himself a bus!

The rest ae the evenin’s a blur.

Dat-dat-dat-dat-dat-duh.

But that’s the least ae my worries. Someone’s unbolting the door. ‘

Get to your feet,’ says a voice.

I cannae move but make out like I’m trying. He comes close, smoking a ciggie, a wee red glow crossing the cell. In the doorway the light’s blinding.

‘You deaf?’ he whispers, close tae my face now.

The dull weight ae my heid thuds suddenly against the flags. Pain floods everywhere, my eyes, gums, deep below my foreheid, and it’s a while before I realise there’s a strange noise coming from my own mouth. I suck my voice back as he leans closer again. I’m sure he’s lookin tae burn me with his fag.

‘What’
sss
that you
sss
ay?
Sss
peak up!’ he goes, his voice playful, a smirk.

My scalp tightens. I’d ken that voice anyday, that hiss like the wind whistlin down a cracked lum. Old Munro. He’s a quiet one. Buys his smokes fae the booth on platform one, every day at four on the dot, just as the Lossie train blows
its
whistle.

‘Capstan
sss
, packet ae twenty.’

Us station boys cry him ‘Snake’.

He’s diggin me square in the ribs with the toe ae his boot. I try and shuffle out ae reach, but he turns his heel and gies me a wee kick like he’s giddyin-up a pony. Another toby arrives in the cell. This one keeps in the doorway, a drawn-out shadow that leans on the frame, hands in pockets.