Shuggie Bain

by Douglas Stuart

Him, her man, who when he shared her bed now seemed to lie on the very edge, made her feel angry with the littered promises of better things.

When other men went to the pub, he brought home his wages every week, the brown envelope still sealed, and handed it to her without argument. She had never respected that gesture. The contents of the envelope had never felt like enough.

She wanted to tell them she understood. She knew all about its thrill, because once upon a time it had been her.

The skin was wearing off around her thumbs, and worry sat around the corners of her mouth.

there had to be more to marriage than chapped hands and scullery knees.

Every year we’ve got mair men sat at home, wanking in the daylight.”

we’ve aw got men and we’ve aw got men trouble.”

The rubber tip had worn away from around the right heel, and although she had coloured the shoe in with an old black bingo marker, the sharp metal nail scraped the floor with the screech of hard times.

He was always reluctant to leave the protective cocoon of his bed; under the covers his day still had an unspoilt quality to it.

Agnes tried to tidy her life into a narrative and felt increasingly dull and flat.

Shuggie sat on his hands to keep himself from clenching his fists. He dreamt of throwing frustrated punches. Some were for the stupid roses, some for the stupid McAvennies, but most were because he had waited so long for this happiness and now he couldn’t seem to enjoy it.

It was a big, white tin trap of a box, and it looked like it had been homemade from a toddler’s drawing of what a van should look like.

He couldn’t worry about next week. He’d have to worry about the rest of this week first.

The room was messy and felt stuck in a limbo between a child’s and a man’s bedroom. There were little green soldiers glued along the windowsill next to posters of a naked Samantha Fox.

She would never be able to get sober, and he, sat in the cold with a lovely girl, knew he would never feel quite like a normal boy.