She shut the door and the house was quiet. Just the last bit of late sun falling through the window onto the carpet, same colour as her hair. The red gold girl, she stood in front of him, and he put his fingers there first, where he wanted to be, and she was wet, not just from what he'd done before, he was sure, because it was different; like she was full and swollen, just like he was. She kissed him, open-eyed, open-mouthed, and she kept her eyes open, unzipping his trousers.

        It was always Lindsey's idea to go to Eric's. Graham wasn't so sure about his uncle, and would have left it at the first visit, or maybe the second, after Stevie was born and they took him up to Possil together in a taxi.
        When he was a boy, Graham used to visit Eric with with his mum. That was not so long after Auntie Franny died, and his uncle was in and out of hospital. Graham knew he wasn't well, even before anyone told him. Eric still lived in his old flat, then, the Maryhill one he'd shared with Franny; it smelled of unwashed clothes, and it made Graham nervy. His uncle would often be teary or angry, or he'd just sit up at the bedroom window while Graham's mum wiped and tidied, and Graham hovered in the lobby. He watched Eric through the open doorway; his face was always wet, his eyes always leaking, and it was like they weren't there for him; on days like that he never even said cheerio when they went home. Graham could remember other times too, when Eric was on the mend. He still had a telly then, and he sat with Graham on Saturday morning visits watching Tiswas. Or sometimes he'd take Graham out while his mum was busy sorting the flat, washing the pans. They'd not go far, just a little way along the canal, to see Eric's brother-in-law, John Joe, who didn't work any more, just kept pigeons. Endurance birds that could fly for hours; he had a loft full of them out by Clydebank, that he kept with an old work friend, another communist, a Geordie who bred the best tipplers this side of the border. John Joe got the train out there every other day, to keep up with his share of the feeding and cleaning and what-have-you. Hard work but worth the commitment, he said, and he told Graham that most Glasgow doo-men kept pouters and croppers, fancy birds. They'd talk up their wee ash hens and pied cocks, but those breeds were just weird lookers to his mind, inferior to his athletes. The trophies they'd won overspilled the cabinet in his living room, and when Eric saw Graham looking, he said that was only a half-share of the honours, the rest were up at the English pal's place, along with the pigeons. Eric had seen them, he'd been out to draw the Clydebank birds any number of times while he was still well enough. His uncle's pictures usually gave Graham the heebies, but not the ones he did at John Joe's. John Joe kept a hen with him in the house; not in a cage, she walked from room to room, like a cat, and hopped up onto his lap. Eric drew the pair of them like that, quick lines on the backs of envelopes while he and John Joe talked, small biro likenesses that Graham would slip into his pockets when he thought Eric was busy with the next. Both men saw him but acted like they hadn't, just keeping on with their talk; John Joe saying the hen was no prize bird herself, but the mother of many; he'd stand her up on the table, putting his face down level, and then she'd peck at his nose, side to side, fast but gentle. Eskimo kisses, John Joe called them, while the beak clack-clacked against his big spectacles, and Eric laughed. Graham liked his uncle when he was like that, but you never knew how long it would last.

3

  

Copyright 2008 Disclaimer