WAIT OUT Part 1 Cont'

JOCK STEEN

…Almost a year earlier when I was no more than a glint in my father’s eye, the people of the United Kingdom were mourning the sudden death of the King. Despite this, politicians were promising the nation that better times were on the way. It had been eight years since the end of the war, rationing was also coming to an end, employment prospects were better, and massive Council house building projects gave young families the hope of independence, or so they were told!

In a small poorly lit bedroom in the Gorbals area of Glasgow a thin, pale, malnourished, twenty three year old woman lay, shouting profanities through tight lips, as she gritted her teeth against the pain of the birth of her son. Her first child’s view of life was the unconcerned big, red, round, face, of nurse Cummings, the local, over worked, midwife. Agnes Steen and the rest of Glasgow’s Catholics could have been forgiven for not recognising how lucky they were. Down stairs, eleven members of her family sat huddled together ready to congratulate, or commiserate the father.

John Steen sat motionless, pushed back in the wooden fireside chair, his bony knuckles pushing through white skin, as he clenched his fists in recognition of his wife’s efforts. Despite the cry of the baby s it felt the first hard slap of life, the down stairs room went quiet. So many Catholic children had died in the minutes following their birth, into the deprivation of Glasgow’s back streets.

All eyes found the figure of Nurse Cummings as she entered the room wiping her hands on her apron. Without any sign of emotion she looked up.

“He’s fine,” she said.

Ten years later, young Jock Steen stood with his mother, twin brothers, and baby sister waiting in the hard rain for the town bus. At seven, the twins were already proving to be a handful. It was Jock’s job to keep them under control. As the streets darkened, an occasional car passed by throwing a spray of water onto the long line of grey figures. Despite the soaking no one stirred, a symptom of a life, which reeked defiantly of hardship and grinding poverty.

The journey home had taken forever, as usual; there were no seats on the bus.
Packed in like sardines, the damp air had been filled with cigarette smoke and the unmistakable smell of wet woollen clothing. Jock’s mother virtually collapsed as she opened the door of the tenement, desperate to put her baby down and relieve the pain in her arms, she placed the heavy bundle in the small sink. The past ten years had done her no favours and it showed. Jock had seen most of his family out of work having to rely on state handouts dished out by Protestant local officials, he’d cried as he saw his Dad leave to find work in Belfast, but shed no tears as he watched him cough himself to death from the effects of the Tuberculosis he’d found on the Irish streets. He deeply resented the authorities who had visited his pregnant mother the day after the death and questioned her about the family finances before agreeing to allow her a loan, so that she could give her husband a decent Catholic burial. All in all, Jock had learned the lessons well and was known in the area as ‘streetwise’.

The Irish trip hadn’t been all bad. Shortly after his Dad’s return two of his Irish cousins arrived with their parents and set up home in the next street.

Having settled his mother down, changed the baby, and put his younger brothers in the bath Jock joined his cousins and the rest of his mates under the dark covered alleyways joining the tenement blocks. Minutes later, a group of overall clad men, on their way home from the docks came into view, each smoking a well deserved cigarette, the noise from their heavy steel tipped boots bounced around the bare walls and drowned the boys conversation. As they passed, the boys took up position behind them and followed like a pack of jackals stalking their prey, each anticipating the pleasure to come. The men, knowing the score, threw their half-smoked tabs on the floor, accept one that is, who half turned and shouted to the boys,

“ Ye can fuck off Ye no havin’ mine”.

It didn’t matter, there was plenty to go around. Nevertheless, Jock responded, his voice hardly audible above the harsh sound of steel on granite,

“And you can fuck off you fat bastard”.

The men turned sending the boys in the opposite direction at great speed. Emerging from the tunnel they were laughing and shouting having enjoyed the short encounter. Jock Steen feared no one and it showed.

….