This Is Where I Am (35 page)

Part Three

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17. September

The Barras

Consistently voted ‘top of the shops’, Glasgow’s stores are unrivalled for choice and quality. Wander through specialist enclaves, enjoy the city’s stately department stores and find your high street favourites in trendy shopping malls. As befits Scotland’s City of Style, there’s a wealth of unique boutiques and artistic outlets too, and – for lovers of a quirky bargain – head east, where the eclectic wares and colourful characters of the Barras Market await.

Situated in the Calton, Glasgow’s very own flea market was founded in the 1920s by a young woman with a smart idea. Having made a success selling fruit, Maggie McIver started hiring out barrows to other traders. Even in the Depression years, Maggie’s Barras flourished, particularly when she had her site permanently covered. The unstoppable Maggie then established the famous Barrowland Ballroom, whose glorious neon starburst still lights up the east end today. The venue is now a hugely popular concert hall, attracting rock stars as well as the dealers, pedlars and punters for which the Barras was built.

Open every Saturday from 10am to 5pm, and with a farmers’ market once a month, admission to the Barras is free. But do watch out for pickpockets – and the occasional police raid! Just do what the locals do: shrug, and keep shopping!

*

‘Kyle! no! Come here this minute!’

The lady pulls her little boy away, is glowering at me. Change my mindset, change my mindset. She is frustrated, she is tired. Her look is not directed at me, a lanky black man who has the glazed stare of an addict. What was it Mrs Coutts said?
You’re lookin right glaikit the day, son. When you stopping they daft pills?

Soon, Mrs Coutts, soon
.

There’s no rush.

I hold a copper coin. My thumb conceals the queen-face, my index rests on a feathered plume. Work or college? I can do one but not the other, my doctor tells me. Too much will ‘overload’ me, and it’s not fair on Rebecca. He’s right, of course. I pretend I have a choice. I haven’t officially lost my apprenticeship yet. In fact, Mr Maloney has telephoned me twice.

‘We’ve no filled your place, Abdi. There’s no rush, no rush.’

I can’t believe that. People are watching my interactions with my child now; they’re hardly going to let me loose with knives. Debs says she will speak with her brother-in-law, but I don’t want that. I know he must have told Mr Maloney everything already – no person is that accommodating of their own volition.

Not where there’s knives involved.

My doctor is right. Accept. Process. I forget the other one.

College will start this month. A warm, dry classroom and searching minds, a crèche for Rebecca – if I lie about her age. (Debs and I are still arguing about this, but I like the notion of Rebecca being in the same building as me.) What is this preoccupation with age? She will learn when she is ready. And Debs will mellow when I bring her my gift. I have an excellent idea, you see, to show her my appreciation. For all she does for us, I mean.

I let the coin drop. It is, as they say, a moot point. I enrolled at the college this morning. An Intermediate in Italian, Higher Mathematics and Higher English. Mrs Girdwood has presented me with the collected works of Shakespeare already. I wanted to do a science subject too, but I am not to overload. Yes, the world is oily and slow once more. Nice slow, like Deborah’s bath oils. We have a rhythm, where I am threaded to my groupwork and my therapy, to Mrs Coutts’s house and my new parade of shops and, once a week, to Deborah’s house for tea. It’s a pleasant web and its filaments give me structure. On a Saturday – which is today – Debs takes Rebecca to soft-play. They are in a club there, they meet others, have lunch. And I have a day of drifting. I have not felt strong enough for church, which is strange because I’m praying every day. It is the public nature of it, I think. The sympathetic hands I’ll have to shake. My minister understands.

‘There’s no rush,’ he tells me.

No rush at all.

I could go to the Somali Centre, I suppose, but it seems so far away. Anyway, do I want to talk about home, over and over again? What is comforting can end up suffocating. When I was very small, I remember huddling with my mother in our
aqal
. Poles stretched with skin and cloth, light to carry, but it stinks when the rains teem down. The air sags and drips until you are desperate for unlidded skies.

After the rainy season is over, the ground is malleable. I think of my days as warm soft mud. When I had signed my name at college, I walked here, to the supermarket. I’ve been here a while now, watching the shoppers come and go. Old ladies with wheeled message bags, single men who leave with cigarettes and drink. Smart people in big cars, who load up with their sunglasses tipped on to their heads. As they bend into their boots, the glasses sometimes slip, land awkwardly on nose or ground, and they will scowl to check who has seen. The joke is, it’s not even sunny.

I fill my lungs with fresh air. Pick up my coin and my bag, and go inside the supermarket. Mr Maloney is at the fish counter.

‘Can I help you – Abdi, son! How you doing?’

He grips my hand with two slimy palms, pumping and spilling fishscales. We laugh; I don’t know what we’re laughing at.

‘Good to see you, Abdi. Good to
see
you. Here, Cammie, Sam,’ he shouts. ‘Away through the front a minute.’

The plastic curtain parts and Cammie takes the stage. ‘Abdi! Nice one! Let you out, did they?’

‘
Cammie!
So, what you been up to, Abdi? Cammie, where’s Sam?’

‘Eh . . . he’s away for a slash.’

‘You mean a fag?’

Cammie assumes a look of innocence. ‘I wouldny know, Mr Maloney.’

‘Um . . . I have come to say thank you, for your nice cards. Um . . . and to say thank you for . . . for all of this. And to bring you this back.’ I take the freshly laundered white coat from my backpack. ‘I have ironed it so the little tabs on the pockets don’t stick up any more.’

‘So you’re no coming back to join us then? Sorry –’ Mr Maloney snaps his gaze to the left of me. ‘Yes, sir. What can I get you?’

I move aside to let a stout man in close to the counter.

‘I won’t be able to come back,’ I say to Cammie. ‘I can’t . . . I am going to go to college.’

‘Is that right, big man? Quality.’

Another customer arrives at the counter, a young woman with an exposed midriff. ‘Yes, hen?’ Cammie reaches for a plastic glove. ‘Sorry, pal, I better get this.’

‘No, is fine. Of course.’

‘Gies a wee bell if you’re still on for the football, mind. Sam was saying.’

‘Yes, I would like that –’

He is gone towards the whiting. I wait until he dips back near the till.

‘Will I give you my telephone number?’

‘Ho, are yous gabbin or servin?’

Another woman is standing behind me.

‘Eh . . . wee bit hectic the now, pal. Just gies a ring at the store, yeah, and we’ll sort something out.’

‘Sure . . . It is no bother.’

Cammie clicks his tongue, makes a reassuring phone-shape with his pinkie and his thumb. Mr Maloney, who is finished with his customer, comes back to lift my coat.

‘Cheers for this,
Abdi. You didny need to come all the way in, though.’

‘I wanted to say thank you. And sorry. I am very sorry for all the confusion that I caused.’

‘Ach, away. No harm done. I’m only sorry you’re no coming back. I mean, don’t get me wrong, we’ll get another apprentice in – the scheme’s still running – but they’re all daft boys, you know? You had the makings of a great wee worker –’

‘I’m off to college!’

There is too much brightness to my voice.

‘Proper college, you mean, not catering?’

I knew it; I sounded like a child. ‘For Highers. So I can be a teacher.’

‘Well, son, I wish you all the luck in the world. Now don’t you be a stranger, you hear?’

‘Yes.’

He smooths the folded coat which I have scrubbed and bleached.

‘Well. You take care then, son.’

‘Yes, Mr Maloney. I will.’

We shake hands one final time.

‘Here, wait –’ He disappears for a second, returns with a polystyrene tray. ‘Smoked salmon. Disny even need cooked. You take that for your tea, all right?’

‘Thank you. Mr Maloney – can I ask you something, please?’

‘Fire away.’

‘I want to buy my friend a present. Where is a good place to go? All she likes is old things.’

‘Oh, it’s a
she
, is it? Well, you canny go wrong with perfume – try aisle seven. See down at the bottom there?’

‘No. Her house is full of old things. What you call antiques? But I don’t have very much money.’

Mr Maloney scratches his head. ‘Eh . . . I don’t know. Huvny a clue.’

Stupid refugee
. Why would I think Mr Maloney should know? He is good enough to give me fish, and I embarrass the man.

‘It is no matter –’

‘Antiques, Cammie. Where would you get antiques roon here?’

‘Up the Gala Bingo!’ Cammie is serving the woman with no patience. She has a face on her that is narrow and foreshortened, a trace of liver-coloured veins around her nose.

‘Cheeky bastard,’ she says. ‘What kind of stuff you after, pal? Furniture and that?’

‘No. I think a vase . . . or a jug maybe. For flowers? My friend only has a bucket. I have saved up ten pounds.’

‘Och, you’ll no get much for that.’

Mr Maloney is still trying to help. ‘What about a second-hand shop –’

‘Naw, wait. What day’s the day? Saturday? Have you tried the Barras? You get all sorts there.’

‘Away. He’ll get ripped off something terrible.’

‘No he’ll no. There’s a load of right decent stuff –’

‘Aye, and dodgy DVDs and stalls wi jewellery that’ll turn your skin black. Oh. Nae offence, Abdi, son.’

I smile at Mr Maloney. ‘Where is this Barras, please?’

‘See if you get a 9 into Argyle Street. Then head along to George’s Square –’

‘Naw, naw. When you’re in the toon, get a 240. That’ll take you right out Parkheid way –’

‘Naw. See if you’re . . .’

I glean enough from their argument to know one bus will take me near to the Central Station (I am better with buses now. They do not intimidate me so much).

‘Please. From there I can walk.’

‘You sure? It’s quite a trauchle. Take you a good hour, I reckon.’

‘Och, rubbish. The boy’s got big gangly legs on him. Half an hour max.’

‘No rush,’ I say. ‘There is no rush.’

What a place is the Barras! It reminds me a little of Dadaab in its confusion, but more gaudy. It is nothing like the markets at home; there are few foodstuffs I can see, except for a wagon selling burgers and hot do-nuts – which, I admit, smell delicious. If I have enough money left from my purchase, I will buy myself a hot do-nut. People mill without urgency; I feel no threat here, despite Mr Maloney’s warnings. Yes, there are charlatans and snakes; all furtive glances and sleight-of-hand: a sensible person knows this in any language.

‘Awright, big man?’ A thin man drags on his cigarette, nods approvingly as I pass his stall. Which is selling prepacked processed cheese and pairs of shoes. I am wondering if, in certain situations, my height plus my blackness may become an asset in a city which is pinched and pale. The fact of this makes me uncomfortable. And still conspicuous.

‘Err yir sportsocks! Threefurapun, threefurapun.’

A jaunty red-metal arch declares the perimeters of the enclosure. I know there is one at either end for I have walked the length of the market twice. It is how you might read an excellent book – devouring first at a gallop, and then retracing your steps, slower, more reflectively, to appreciate the detailed colour, the precision of the piece. And I do. Pillars of sunglasses jostle by bales of towels and rolls of carpets, men at the corners sell CDs and cigarette lighters the way you would sell khat. There are stalls outside and stalls within the collection of long brick buildings and warehouses, spilling clothes and handbags and books and life. I very much like the Barras! It has a vibrancy that fills your veins. Turning left, I find another passageway. The smell here is of damp, the lane darker. Pitched on one brick wall I see a line of paintings. Old things. I hurry down. Up close, even I can tell the paintings are cheap imitations. One is of a green-faced lady, and there are several of horses: in fields, with carts, running through spumes of water. The surfaces of these paintings are flat, they are not possessed with the rough, real life of the pictures at Kelvingrove. In front of the paintings are trestles piled with artefacts: boxes, mirrors, lots of brass and glass. Some jugs are in amongst this mess, mostly small, mostly chipped. It doesn’t have to be a jug, of course. A vase would be fine, if I can find one pretty enough.