Authors: Jackie Kay
The older Edith Moore gets, the more she suspects that other people want to pry into the business that is her own life. The older she gets the more certain she is that all the other Larch folk want to do with their time is drink Edith’s tea, eat Edith’s light sponge and pry into Edith’s past. The old people at the Larches can take over your life. None of them invites her back to their place. All they want is to come to her place and take up afternoons and afternoons of her time. She is fighting fit compared to most of the old buggers – apart from her angina pains. A hospital doctor recently told her that her heart and her lungs are the youngest looking organs he had ever seen for someone of her years. Perfect, he said, perfect organs. Edith felt quite proud. She can still walk. A bit shaky on the old pins, but she can make it there and back to the row of shops on the main street.
This morning she is out shopping. A pint of semi-skimmed milk. Four ounces of Edam. Three slices of tongue. A small turnip. A
Daily Record
. A small granary from the bakers. Edith hates supermarkets. For a while, she consented to going on the ‘Big Shop’ where they hired a minibus once a fortnight and took the whole pack of them to Safeways. It was hell on wheels. Edith couldn’t concentrate on what she was going to buy without Jessie Innes telling her what to try and what was a good bargain,
pulling at her trolley and once even plopping items in that Edith didn’t even need. And then, the lot of them eyeing up each others’ shop at the till. Mr Harrison has a very poor diet. No fresh vegetables or fruit. No wonder Mrs Tweedy is fat. The amount of cakes and biscuits and scones and pancakes for a fortnight was beyond belief. And it wasn’t as if Mrs Tweedy had many visitors. When the funding was stopped and the minibus couldn’t go to Safeways any more, it was a relief to Edith. The rest of the old buggers were devastated.
Edith Moore enjoys buying just enough, not too much. Edith is slim and has always been slim. Fighting fit and feckle. She regards overweight people with distaste. She’ll often say to them, ‘Putting on the beef, eh?’ There’s no need for it. The first person Edith sees when she turns the corner into the Larches is the massive body of Mrs Tweedy. What on earth is everybody doing out when it is obviously going to rain any minute?
Then Edith spots him, the tall dark young man who looks oddly familiar. Mrs Mason approaches. ‘Mrs Moore, just the person we’ve been looking for. You have a visitor here.’ This is not how Colman had imagined it happening. This public meeting. He had imagined her behind the door, calling out first, then cautiously opening it, inch by suspicious inch. Colman half thinks of just running off at top speed. Let the old folks watch him run. Let them admire the sheer velocity of him, his large legs flying past their tiny houses, like somebody passing on their way to the Olympics. Let them stand and watch him go and say they’ve never seen the like Let them say he looks like
Linford Christie or Sebastian Coe or some runner from the past, some fine athlete who made history the way that Colman imagines he could make history this very minute. But he is rooted to the spot, looking for anything in the dignified, proud, but slightly wary face of Edith Moore that might remind him of his father.
The rain turns up too. The big splats of rain fall on the circle of the Larches, on the neat kerb, on the small well-kept gardens, on Miss Innes’ own bush and Mr Harrison’s own roses, big round drops of rain, like a giant’s tears. All of the Larch people are scared of catching the cold; at this age a cold can kill you. That’s all it takes, just one bad sniffle and you’re done for. They start to shuffle reluctantly inside. ‘Come this way, son,’ Edith says to Colman.
Edith Moore is well aware that the old buggers are peeking at her from their windows now. It is years since anything happened in Edith Moore’s life that made people stare. It is rather enjoyable. This is a shocking discovery to her. The burning gossipy eyes of Mrs Saviour; the high-class nosiness of Mr Harrison, pretending to water his plant; the jealous fury of the beefy warden – who is still standing out in the rain, just to be sure. None of it escapes Edith Moore. Oh, they are always watching for something, the old buggers, and now they really have something to watch. They will sit at their windows until they see him leave. At last the ones who have been showing off during the winter, who have had their good sons and daughters come to shovel the snow off their path, who have looked down snootily on Edith’s thick snowy path with disdain,
at last Edith has got a chance for revenge. The shame of it during the winter. Every other biddy’s path cleared except hers. And her next door’s cleared even though she’s not set a foot out since her man died last summer. Two daughters arriving. Always at it. Clearing something. You’d think the daughter could have taken the shovel to Edith’s path when she knew she didn’t have a single soul in the world.
‘Who are you?’ Edith Moore shouts into Colman’s face, now she is right outside her own house. ‘Who are you?’
‘I knew your daughter,’ Colman says.
‘Who?’ shouts Edith. ‘You’ll need to speak up, son.’
‘I knew Josephine Moore!’ Colman shouts, shifting on his feet uncomfortably.
‘You’re a friend of Josephine’s?’
‘You could say that,’ Colman says embarrassed.
‘What?’ says Edith. ‘Are you a friend of Josephine’s?’
‘Yes,’ says Colman. ‘Yes, I’m a friend of Josephine’s.’
‘Right then,’ says Edith, rustling in her handbag for her keys – even though she’s tied a big bit of string to them, they still manage to find places to hide in her big black handbag. ‘Right then. Any friend of Josephine’s is a friend of mine,’ shouts Edith into Colman’s ear. ‘Ah, here they are.’ She concentrates on unlocking her door. First the big Chubb, then the Yale. ‘That Yale can stick sometimes,’ she says to the lad. ‘It can be awful tricky. You’ll need to wait a moment till I concentrate.’ Edith pushes her door open. ‘There,’ she says triumphantly. ‘Come away in.’
‘Come away in! Come away in!’ Edith says everything at least three times. Colman has this strange fluttery feeling, beating away inside his heart, making his ribs rise and fall, his mouth and lips go dry, his hands shake and his eyes twitch and even his fucking eyebrow is starting to play up.
‘I haven’t seen our Josephine for years, you know, years. Is she well?’
Colman doesn’t know what to say. ‘It’s a bit of a long story.’
Edith cuts him off. She doesn’t want to hear it, not yet. Not yet. Oh, please, God, not yet. ‘You can tell me all about yourself over a nice hot cup of tea. I’m not one to let my visitors go thirsty. There’s plenty of them over there,’ and she pointed to the Larches, ‘who’ll let their visitors go thirsty, but not me.’
She is in the kitchen right now. Turning on the tap and filling the kettle. Every noise makes him jump. Christ, how he wishes he wasn’t hungover. What is going on? What’s he got himself into? Is she mad or what? He can hear lots of banging and opening and closing doors and tins going on. She is taking for ever.
It is so exciting to have an unexpected guest that Edith Moore wants to make the most of it. She glances at the kitchen clock. It is lunchtime. Why not make the young man one of her lovely ham sandwiches. Just as well she went to the shops. Why not give him a piece of her light sponge to go with it. And a grape or two. And a bit of cheese on a cracker. She must hurry though or he might just go. Young men do that these days. They can’t sit for
a minute. They just get up and go. The young plumber the other day didn’t wait for his tea. Nor the nice young man who came to do the rewiring. No patience. Edith has noticed, whenever she’s had someone round to do something for her, fix something or hang something, or read the gas meter, they are all in an awful hurry. Nobody has time for a cuppa. She hopes the young man that knew Josephine is admiring her wallie dugs, her Chinese vases, her mahogany dresser. She’s got a few nice pieces. Nothing’s happened to Josephine. No, Josephine was aye a healthy girl. Even although Josephine will have just turned seventy, she is still Edith’s wee lassie. Edith Moore has never given up on her all these years. One day, completely out of the blue, Edith will open her door and Josephine will be standing on her doorstep.
Colman looks at his watch. It is 12.00. He is not hungry. He is in no fit state to eat at a time like this. He tries to think about what he is going to say. Why didn’t he learn it off by heart? He knows whatever it is he is about to say, he is going to make a cock-up of it. It’s only natural. What is she doing? He hopes she’s not starting to bake. Christ almighty, he hopes she’s not going to bake some massive elaborate cake. She looks like the kind of old woman who would like to fatten a guy like him up. What is he going to say? ‘I’m just emptying my messages, son. I’ll be with you in a minute,’ Edith shouts from the kitchen.
Shopping is one of my favourite activities. I call it ‘Savagery’. I can be spotted in the changing rooms of classy boutiques with feathers around my mouth and blood on my face. Shopping is a blood sport. ‘Tally ho!’ I cry to myself when Sophie sets out on a spree. ‘Tally ho!’ Every woman out for herself. Tracking down the minimalist look. Hunting John Rocha, Nicole Farhi, Clements Ribeiro when I want to be bold, when I want to parade wild patterns and stripes in lime green, tangerine and turquoise. The fash pack. DKNY. Always on the look-out for what’s new, what’s really totally stunning and different. Fishnet stockings. Sophie Stones doesn’t just hunt down one look. If I fancy some glitzy glitter, I will get some glitzy glitter. If I want a Power Suit, I’ll get a Power Suit. I will stalk a sparkly sequin number, then seize it viciously off the rack. ‘Oh Gucci, Gucci!’ I say when I’ve found what I’m after.
I will eye myself critically in the malicious mirrors of communal changing rooms. Glad at least that I’m size ten – still not as slim as Sarah – but not obese like the woman next to me, squeezing herself into a size 16 when she is probably a size 22, her Marks and Sparks bloomers riding the crack of her arse. Poor fat cow.
This morning it’s Sauchiehall Street, then Buchanan Street, eyeing up the dummies in the window displays searching for something chic, glamorous, sexy. Something that would make other people say that Sophie Stones has a good sartorial sense. I like that word sartorial. Sartorial. Satirical. The need to shop cannot be suppressed or appeased. I buy up the shop. I don’t shop for pleasure – sometimes it feels like I shop to save my life. A wardrobe thick and dense, black skirts with slits, gold mesh halter-neck tops, and trousers and jackets and black lace tops, is a wardrobe of the woman I’d like to be. I know I’m not her yet; but the clothes can lie. Was that it with Joss Moody? That the clothes could lie?
A wardrobe crammed with famous names. You have to be somebody to wear somebody. I have a prized Sara Sturgeon black silk dress. An Armani waistcoat. A Calvin Klein shirt for men that looks devastatingly good. A rich boyfriend even once bought me a Versace dress. Donna Karan trousers. And shoes! Shoes. Oh God, shoes. Rows and rows of stilettos, of spike-heeled mules. I could murder for chic shoes.
Who shopped for Joss Moody? Did Millie buy all the shirts? Did Joss ever get measured? A tailor would surely know what was missing, no? What about the shoes? How big was her shoe size? She would have had to buy her own shoes.
What do I love more than shopping? My job. I love the tips-offs. The head hunts. The warnings. The sales. The competition. Competitive gossip. The goods. The inside information. I track down the lowdown, the nod,
the wink, the kick under the table. I keep my ears pressed to the grapevine. I like to be in the know. Up to the minute. The confessions of a Colman Moody are the goods, the blood, the entrails. I can’t help myself.
It fascinates me how clothes in shops look anonymous until they are owned; yet the minute it becomes part of my wardrobe, it looks so Sophie it could be tailor-made. As if whoever designed it was imagining me all the time.
It is not just ‘The Shop’ that has got me all worked up. Colman is at this very minute in the
Mother’s House
. Hopefully, he will be getting her story right now. If he doesn’t lose his fucking nerve. The Mother of Joss Moody. I have a newspaper picture of her in my head. It took me a while to find her, but I found her. It is just as exciting for Sophie as tracking down the mother of Peter Sutcliffe or Ian Brady or Fred West would be. The mother of the famous transvestite. Well, well, well. Colman has gone to the address. Number 12, The Larches. Pity the address sounds so innocent! It doesn’t quite have the ring of 10 Rillington Place or 25 Cromwell Street. It is not an address that makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. But Edith Moore would not have lived all of her life in that sheltered housing scheme! Of course! Find out all the other addresses, the childhood homes of Joss Moody, the teenage ones. One of them is bound to be gripping.
The minute I even sniff a whiff of depression coming on, or a slight wind of paranoia, I am out to the shops, sometimes before they have even opened their doors. Shopping staves depression. Definitely. If I buy the right
outfit, Colman might like the look of me. I better not ever introduce him to my sister. He would go for Sarah. Men do. Men have always gone for Sarah. She nabbed my first boyfriend, Paul Ross. I never forgave her for that. The
first
. I’ll never forget that feeling I had when I watched him holding Sarah’s hand walking down our street. He gave her a look he never gave me. It was an admiring look. The worst of it was he didn’t look like he was admiring her body, he looked like he admired her as a person. It just about knocked me out. I’ve still never seen a look like that on a man’s face for me.
Colman likes casual stuff. Perhaps I should buy myself a pair of black jeans. A pair of black jeans and a red silk shirt. What about that then? Soon he’ll be back from the Mother’s House ready to tell all.
It is raining, soft at first, then full and heavy. I shelter outside a shop and punch the number of the hotel into my mobile phone. Room 310, please. I hug the phone to my ear with my shoulder, shoving the bags of new clothes between my legs, holding them together with my knees. Glaswegians are running in and out of shops. Sitting in the café opposite me, drinking cappuccino. A few passersby scowl at my mobile phone as if it was a fucking pit bull or something. Colman is not in. His number is just ringing and ringing. I leave a message on the hotel voice-box machine. ‘Hey, Cole. How did it go? I’ll check with you in another half an hour. How about dinner? I’ve found this great Thai restaurant. Hope you like Thai. Bye for now.’ Did that sound stupid – ‘Hope you like Thai?’ I mimic the sound of my own voice. I click the little
murder weapon into its soft leather pouch and toss it into the snarled open mouth of my handbag. I snap that shut. Where the fuck is he? I hope he hasn’t mentioned our book. I told him to leave all that to Sophie. I hope he doesn’t go soft and sell out. I don’t trust him.