Marabou Stork Nightmares Read Online Free PDF Page A

hur, nixt time ah fuckin see your washin in that fuckin dryin green whin ma wife's tryin tae wash, the whole fuckin loat's gaun doon the fuckin shute intae the rubbish! Fuckin ignorant, some people, like ah sais, fuckin ignorant. Bit see in Sooth Efrikay Vet, we'd huv a big hoose like Gordon's. Dry oor clathes in the sun, in a real fuckin gairdin, no in some concrete boax wi holes in it.
    Gordon was John's brother who had left to go to South Africa years ago. Possibly John's closeness to 'Uncle'Jackie was due to him seeing Jackie as a brother substitute. Certainly at the drunken parties he frequently hosted, when squads of guys and couples would pack into our egg-box after closing time, he seemed at his happiest telling old stories of himself, Gordon and the Jubilee Gang, as he and his hippy-beating Teddy Boy mates used to call themselves.
    — It wid be nice tae huv a real back gairdin . . . I remember Ma saying that. I remember that clearly.
    It was decided. Dad's word generally went in our family. We were making plans to go off to South Africa.
    I didnae really ken whether or no I wanted to go. It was just eftir that that I lit my first really big fire. I'd always liked fires. Boney nights were the best nights of the year in the scheme, Guy Fawkes because you got fireworks, but Victoria Day n aw. We'd go doon the beach tae get wood or find other boneys in the scheme and raid them. Sometimes, though, we got raided ourselves. You would get cudgels and stanes and try to defend your bonfire against raiders. There was always fights with stanes in the scheme. The first thing I learned tae dae was tae fling a stane. That was what you did as a kid in Muirhoose, you flung stanes; flung them at radges, at windaes, at buses.
    It was something to do.
    The fire, though, that was something else. It was eftir the boney. I had a lighted torch and I put it doon the rubbish chute. It ignited the rubbish in the big bucket in the budget room at the bottom of the building. Two fire engines came. Ma mate Brian made ays shite masel.
    — Ooohhh! You'll get taken away, Roy, he telt me with wide-eyed glee at my fear.
    Ah wis shitin it, nearly fuckin greetin n aw that. Brian kept taking the pish, but I'll gie him his due, he never telt nae cunt. The polis came roond every door and asked aw these questions. My Dad said nothing. — Never tell these cunts anything, he used to drum into us. It was the one bit of sense I ever remember him talking. He was really chuffed about the fire as well, because Mrs Pearson from up the stairs had her washing ruined by the smoke. It rose from the budget room to the drying greens above it.
    — Serves the cow fuckin well right, like ah sais, the fuckin ignorant boot. Shouldnae be monopolism the fuckin drying greens whin thir's people wantin tae hing oot a washin! That's what she fuckin well gets!
    It dawned on me that the auld man was probably prime suspect in the lighting of the fire. He was chuffed to have a cast-iron alibi; he was playing in his dominoes league match up at the Doocot when it started. He was so chuffed that I wanted to tell him it was me, but I resisted the temptation. The cunt could change moods quickly.
    Sometimes me and my pals used to go out of the scheme, but it was usually just doon the beach. Me, Pete, Brian, Deek (Bri's brother) and Dennis, we would think aboot running away and going camping, like in the Enid Blyton books. We usually just got as far as the fuckin beach, before getting fed up and going hame. Occasionally we'd walk to snobby bits like Barnton, Cramond or Blackhall. The polis would always come around and make us go hame, though. People in the big hooses, hooses that were the same size as our block, which sixty families lived in; they would just go away and phone the polis. They must have thought we were gaunny chorie aypils or something. Aw I wanted tae dae was tae watch birds. I got an interest in birds, used to get loads ay books on them fae the library. I got this from my