Prologue
The panda car stopped next to me. The polis-woman asked, so I told her; ‘My name is Martin James McClure, of Wallace Road, Darthill and I’m nearly eleven years old.’ She asked me what I was doing out on my own at Buchanan Street near midnight, so I lied and said I was waiting for my Da to get in on the bus from Ayr, but she wasn’t fooled. ‘The last bus was in an hour ago.’
Why could she not just leave me alone? Instead she gets on the radio asking if there are any kids reported missing from the East End. I had no choice, so while she was talking into her CB, I just made a run for it. If she hadn’t been so lazy, and got out the car, I wouldn’t have got away, but I just ran and ran, trying to stay in the dark bits, down the hill, past the drunks in the doorway of Queen Street Station.
I ran out across George Square and hid down the side of a big stone archway. I looked out and saw there was no sign of the polis, and I could still see the column in the middle of the square. As long as I kept an eye on that, I knew I was close enough and I could get back. I needed to be at the Bus Station in time for the Six o’clock to London. I didn’t know the time, ’cos I haven’t got a watch. I did have one for my Christmas once, a wee digital one with two metal buttons on the side. If you pressed the bottom one, the time changed to the date. If you pressed the top one, the screen lit up so you could see it, even in the pitch black. I don’t know what happened to that, but I wouldn’t tell anyone it was lost. not with Da being like he is lately.
I got a skelp off him last week just for talking when ‘Minder’ was on. I could feel my nose tickling and I felt the tears sort of behind my eyes, but I managed to not cry. That’s what Dougie told me before he left; “Whatever he does to you...” He said, “don’t you let him see you greetin’, right?”
That’s where I’m going; To find my Brother Dougie. He’s not been gone a month, but I miss him like mental. I want to try and get him to come back to Glasgow. He doesn’t have to live with us or anything, Da wouldn’t have him back anyway, but if he lived nearby I’d still be able to go see him and that, and at least I’d have someone to talk to again.
I wish he’d not said anything about being gay. I mean, you don’t have to tell people something like that do you? Like the time I left my Star Wars figures out and the dog chewed the legs of my Gamareenen Guard. I could have told Da about that, but I’d have just got a hiding for leaving them lying around, so I just wrapped it in an old bread bag and chucked it in the bin. Nobody ever asked about it, and I never had to tell anyone. If Dougie had just kept quiet and tried to be gay in secret, he’d still be living with us, and Da wouldn’t be picking on me and Brenda all the time.
I need to find him. That’s why I’m going to London. I’m going to sneak on the early bus pretending to be someone’s bairn, and I’ll hide at the back ’til we get there. I don’t know where I’ll start, but I’ve got a picture of him from last summer, so and I’ll ask around the bus and train stations and see if anyone’s seen him. Maybe, I’ll stay with him, if he doesn’t want to come home. By now he’s probably got a job and a house and everything, and we can stay up late every night, eating pizza and watching football on the telly.
That would be magic.
