Shuggie Bain

by Douglas Stuart

Rain was the natural state of Glasgow. It kept the grass green and the people pale and bronchial.

She had loved him, and he had needed to break her completely to leave her for good. Agnes Bain was too rare a thing to let someone else love. It wouldn’t do to leave pieces of her for another man to collect and repair later.

Agnes had never been to the Grand Ole Opry before. It sat on the South Side of Glasgow, on the Govan Road, an old converted picture hall in a decaying part of town. Couples went for the country-music nights, with line dancing and gunslinging matches. It might have been the good craic of the country music or it might have been the guns, but somehow the Opry appealed deeply to Glaswegians.