Short stories: Finding Blackie McGinlay; On the Edge; A Happy Anniversary; A Parting Gift

‘Malky, Malky, have ye seen Blackie, have ye seen him? Ah left him here, tied up aboot ten minutes ago and noo he’s vanished!’.

‘Whit de ye mean vanished?’, asked Malky as he scraped impatiently at the cellophane wrapper of ten Benson and Hedges cigarettes. Malky was Thomas’s younger cousin, he lived on Main Street, Bridgeton in the tenement close next to the One-O-One, Off Sales. 

‘Ah wis jist in the Oaffy fur ma da’s wee quarter boatle, he always sends me on a Monday when he gets his pension. Ah tied Blackie tae the pole right there and noo he’s no there!’.

Thomas began to beat his right hand against his chest, something he’d done since he was a boy when stressed.

‘Look, ye better calm doon, Thomas, he’ll no be far. Have ye goat yer inhaler wae ye? Yer soundin breathless, son. Ye better take a wee puff’.

Thomas was frantically marching from the corner of Main Street and Dalmarnock Road, towards the taxi rank at the other side of Bridgeton Cross. He didn’t hear Malky’s concern, his mind was buzzing and his heart full of fear of what his dad might do when he heard he had lost his beloved wee dog, Blackie McGinlay. His dad always gave the dog its full name. Thomas imagined he’d had him baptised at the chapel. He believed his dad loved that dog more than him. He crossed the road looking straight ahead, luckily there was no traffic coming. Usually, he paused cautiously at the edge of the kerb, hearing his mother’s voice in his head, ‘Mind, Thomas, you stop, look and listen before crossin that busy road,’. Right now he could only think of one thing and that was finding Blackie McGinlay.

‘Hey, you, get tae the end ae the queue, whit dae ye think yer dain, skipping in, in front o everybody?’. 

. 

‘Aw mister I need tae find my da’s wee dug, have ye seen it? A wee black pit bull terrier, aboot this height?’ Thomas bent over and put his hand just below his duffle coat and looked up, hopefully to the man at the front of the queue. ‘He’s dead friendly, he’d lick ye tae death, he’d never bite ye’. 

‘Look pal, I’m gonna fuckin bite ye if ye don’t get tae the end ae the queue!’. 

‘Thomas, Thomas, come ere’. 

Halfway down the queue, was Johnny, Thomas’s next-door neighbour. Johnny was the only son of Mr and Mrs McIver. The McIver’s lived on the first floor of a tenement flat at 30 Dalmarnock Road, above Mitchell’s the Funeral Directors. Their door faced the flat of the McGinlays where Thomas lived with his dad. Johnny McIver was twenty-two years old; half of Thomas’s age and a considerable part of those years had been spent tormenting Thomas. Thomas’s mother, Mary had died at seventy-four of a heart attack. Her pregnancy with Thomas had left her with angina. She’d often worried what would happen to her youngest son, Thomas, when she passed. 

Thomas heard his mother’s voice again in his head, ‘You jist keep away fae that Johnny McIver, he’s a bad yin, he’ll come tae a sticky end. Ye hear me Thomas, keep away fae Johnny McIver?’.

‘Have ye loast Blackie? Oh yer da’ll be furious Thomas, whit ye gonna dae? Ye cannae go hame withoot em’. 

‘I’m jist gonna get a taxi to take me tae the fitba pitches at the Green, that’s eese favourite place, ah cannae walk that far the day cos ma asthma’s playin up, and ye know I’ve only got eight toes cos ae ma accident when ah was wee. I’ve goat ma birthday money in ma pocket. It wis ma birthday, yesterday so I’ll be able to pey fur a taxi. I goat a rubik cube an aw for ma birthday, but that’s in the hoose. So, wull ye let me go in front ae ye in the queue, Johnny? 

‘Look, I’ve goat a better idea, Thomas, we could share a taxi, I need to drap somethin aff tae a pal in the Gorbals. We could keep an eye oot for Blackie on the wey?’

‘Aye, awright then, that’s a good idea’. Thomas took his place in the queue beside Johnny. ‘I hope ah find em soon, it’s pure freezin the night. Look, ah can even see ma breath it’s that cald. The cold air caught the back of his throat and he suddenly began to wheeze and gasp for breath.

‘Blackie’ll be fine, he’s goat eese ain fur coat remember. Anyway, never mind that, there’s oor taxi’.

Thomas, squeezed slowly into the back of the black cab. He was 6 feet 1 and the cold December night gnawed at the arthritis in his left hip. He reached into the inside pocket of his coat, amidst the sticky pile of Blackjack sweetie papers was the familiar shape of his wooden box that contained his glass asthma inhaler. Thomas opened it carefully, unfolded the cotton handkerchief that held it in place, put the mouthpiece to his lips and quickly took two sharp blasts of his medication.

‘Ocht, don’t look sae worried Thomas, we’ll find yer da’s wee dug. Hutchie flats in the Gorbals, driver and can you go up James Street, slowly, we’re lookin for a wee dug?’.

‘Aye, nae bother pal. Whit kinda dug is it yiv lost? 

Thomas peeried intently out of the window, his left hand grasped the handle above the door, his body tense and his breathing laboured.

‘It’s a black pit bull terrier driver, apparently it’ll lick ye tae death’, said Johnny, as he poked Thomas, playfully in the ribs.

‘Right, I’ll put a call oot on the radio and we’ll have aw the taxi drivers in Glessga oan the lookout for wee…whit’s its name?’

‘It’s Blackie, his name’s Blackie McGinlay’, replied Thomas. For the first time since he got into the taxi, Thomas took his eyes off the road. ‘Is Blackie gonnae be oan the radio? Can ye ask them tae play ma favourite tune. It’s Waterloo, by…em, whit’s their name again? Ah steyed up late, watchin them oan the telly. They won the Eurovision song contest. Did ye see it?’

Naw, ya eejit, it’s no Radio fucking Clyde, he’s talkin aboot, it’s the taxi radio! He’s gonna ask aw the ither taxi drivers tae look oot for wee Blackie’. 

Aw, right!’. 

Thomas nodded but he wasn’t sure what Johnny meant. He’d been in a taxi twice before, once to his grandpa’s funeral and the other to Buchannan Street bus station when he went on holiday to Blackpool with his mum and dad. He peered out the window, desperately hoping to see the familiar wag of Blackie’s tail.

‘Can ye slow doon a bit driver, this is Blackie’s favourite bit’, said Thomas, as he slid forward onto the edge of his seat. 

‘Aye, nae bother son’.

Thomas, Johnny, and the taxi driver scanned the pavement outside that skirted the edges of Glasgow Green on both sides of the road. The park was cloaked in darkness, they could just make out the white outline of goal posts from the football pitches and the silhouette of a woman walking her dog. As she passed under the orange glow of the streetlight, their eyes were drawn to the excitable tail of a Border Collie puppy. It was pulling hard on the end of its lead, dragging the woman with a sudden jolt over to the lamppost.

‘Aww that looks jist like Lassie, it’s goat the exact same coat as Lassie, well ah think it’s the same, white and kinda Irn Bru colour, ah cannae tell on oor black and white telly. I love watchin Lassie, ah watch it every Saturday mornin’. The frown on Thomas’s face was briefly replaced with a smile. 

‘Aye, well, looks like Lassie’s taking her owner fur a walk, a wee live wire, that yin’, the taxi driver smirked as he slowly took the bend in the road and switched on his full beams. The Glasgow Green flashed from darkness to full colour. Silver birch, rowan and oak trees with coats of emerald green moss and golden lichen appeared like the flick of a page from a book of fairy tales.

‘Nae sign ae your wee dug then, son?’. 

‘Naw, no yet, ma daddy’s gonna kill me, he pure loves that dug’.

‘Right, ah know!’, said Johnny. ‘I’ll ask ma pals in the Gorbals tae be oan the lookoot fur Blackie. Driver can ye take is noo tae the Hutchie flats?’.

Johnny took a packet of Golden Virginia tobacco from the chest pocket of his denim jacket. Sitting back in his seat, he sprinkled some of the tobacco leaf into a cigarette paper and with an expert flick, rolled himself a cigarette. He stretched over and opened the window at his side.

‘Aww that cigarette is pure stinkin’. Thomas screwed up his face, as Johnny lit the cigarette and smoke filled the back of the cab. 

It’s no the ciggy yer smellin, it’s the stink ae the malt fae the distillery’. 

Johnny pointed to Strathclyde Whisky Distillery on the other side of Ballater street. It sat on the south bank of the river Clyde, its single silver chimney reached 200 feet into the night sky. Amidst giant puffs of grey-white steam, the distillery appeared like an old paddle steamer, sailing ‘doon the waater’.

As blue smoke from Johnny’s cigarette was sucked out of the window, the bitter smell of tobacco was replaced with the thick malty stench of fermenting barley.

‘Aww don’t ye jist love it?’. Johnny put his head out of the window and took a deep breath. ‘Cannae let the angels keep it aw fur themselves’.

‘Angels?’. Thomas looked at Johnny, suspiciously. ‘You’re trying tae wind me up. There’s no any angels oot there’.

Nawww, ahm no! It’s a thing people say, the angels share, it’s the whisky that goes up intae the air’.

‘So angels drink whisky!?’. Thomas was sure Johnny was at his old tricks, trying to make a fool of him.

Naw! Well, aye…ocht never mind!

‘He’s right son’, the taxi driver pitched in, ‘It’s just a saying, the angels share, jist a wee story, folks imagine the angels drinkin the whisky that evaporates when it’s maturin.

‘Aww right! Ah never goat that story at Sunday school’. 

The taxi driver laughed, ‘Pity they don’t tell that yin at Sunday School. They might get mair punters if they told stories like that’. Thomas could see the drivers shoulders shaking as his hands held firmly to the wheel.

Every Sunday morning, Thomas attended the eleven o’clock mass at Sacred Heart chapel on Reid Street, a handsome red sandstone building that sat aside Sacred Heart primary school, a modern monstrosity of 1970’s brutalist architecture. Granny Moffat, his mother’s mother had been a protestant, a follower of Glasgow Rangers and member of the Orange Lodge. A framed print of King William of Orange on his horse, sat proudly on her bedroom wall, facing a faded sepia tinted photo of her mother. Granny Moffat had sent Thomas, from the age of six to twelve years old, to the Evangelical Presbyterian, Bethany Hall, Sunday School. Thomas often sang the hymns he’d learned there as he made his way out of his flat and down the stairs of his tenement close. He loved to hear his voice boom against the old stone walls. 

‘Kin ye stoap here please driver, where that van’s parked in front ae the flats. Jist wait here fur me Thomas, I’ll no be a minute’

Johnny got out of the taxi and approached a young man in double denim who appeared from behind a pale blue Bedford van. Thomas looked out of the taxi window and craned his neck trying to see the roof top of the Queen Elizabeth flats. The residents had named the three blocks, Barlinne, Alcatraz and Singsong. Twenty stories of grey concrete riddled with dampness and asbestos. He began to count the floors by counting the windows from the bottom to the top. He’d been to the flats with his mother when he was a teenager to visit her old work pal from Woolworths. They had sent him to the shop for milk, but Thomas got lost on the way back. He couldn’t remember which floor, or which block she lived on. The memory slowly came back to him as he counted, accompanied with a crushing feeling of dread.

‘Are ye awright there son? Yer looking awfy worried. I’ll check in wae the controller, see if any o the other drivers have seen yer wee dug’.

Thomas felt his stomach somersault as he remembered why he was in the taxi.

‘Blackie’ll be pure starvin by noo, ma da usually geez em the other half ae ees tin a dug food at this time’. 

Thomas put his hands in his pockets looking for a sweetie. ‘Aw naw and I’ve still goat ma Da’s whisky! Ah forgoat aw aboot that!’.

Thomas could feel his chest tighten.

‘Ah need some fresh air’. 

Frantically grabbing at the door of the taxi, he swung it open and walked over to the back of the van. He leaned against its back door and tried to remember the breathing exercises the school nurse had taught him. Thomas counted as he inhaled but his mind was distracted as he became aware of a strange but familiar smell wafting from his left side.

‘Aye it’s the best o gear, Wullie, rolled by the virgins o the Himalayas and geez ye a lovely wee stone. Every boadies efter a bit. An ye’ll no get it any cheaper. Hear, try it, ye’ll see whit a mean’. 

Thomas forgot about his breathing exercises as he tuned into Wullie and Jonny’s conversation. He remembered what the strange smell was and peeked his head around the end of the van, just in time to see Johnny pass Wullie a small rectangular package wrapped in newspaper. Wullie sniffed at the package then took a long hard drag on the roll-up in his other hand.

‘Ah man, that’s nice…mmm… tastes and smells fucking brilliant’.’. Wullie handed Johnny a thick wad of cash’. 

Thomas suddenly felt something touch his shoes. It was a small black pit bull terrier, sniffing intently.

‘Blackie, Blackie, where have ye been? Aw thank God I found ye!’ Thomas patted the dog on the head as it jumped excitedly and licked his hands.

‘Who the fuck are you?’. Wullie puffed out his chest and took a few steps towards Thomas. ‘And whit ye daen wae ma dug?’. 

‘Calm doon, Wullie, it’s aw right, its ma neighbour Thomas, he’s hairmless, tuppence aff the shillin, but he’s awright. He’s loast eese dug, he thinks your Kim is his wee Blackie’.

‘Aww naw|! Is that no Blackie, is that your dug? I thought it wis Blackie, he looks dead like him, bit skinnier though’. Thomas clapped the pit bull terrier that was now sniffing eagerly around the edges of his duffel coat.

‘Nae wonder he looks like Blackie, yer Da bought Blackie aff a Wullie. Kim here is Blackie’s wee brother’, said Johnny, pointing at the dog.

‘

‘No way! I think he can smell Blackie aff ma coat’. Kim was jumping onto Thomas’s shins.

The conversation was suddenly interrupted by the sound of the taxi door slamming shut. 

‘Aye, it’s a cald yin the night, boys. Here, son is that yer wee dug? Have ye found em?’. The taxi driver zipped up his black leather bomber jacket as he walked towards the three men and the dog.

‘Naw, it’s no him, it’s eese wee brother’, said Thomas shaking his head, his voice tense with anxiety and heavy with disappointment.

‘Ah right, well then, ah think I’ve goat some bad news fur ye son. Wan ae the other drivers has just seen a wee dug that fits Blackie’s description being run oe’r wae a number 46 bus on the Saltmarket. I’m afraid he’s a gonner, son’. 

‘Aw naw, naaaaaaaaaaaaw! No wee Blackie! Naw. Naaaaaw! Ah cannae go hame, ma Da’ll pure kill me’. Tears were pouring down Thomas’s cheeks. 

‘Look, it’s awright Thomas, calm doon’. As Johnny put his hand on Thomas’s back, he could feel his body shake and gasp for breath.

‘Take a few puffs ae yer inhaler Thomas, ye’ll be awright son’. Johnny put his hand into Thomas’s inside coat pocket and placed the box with his inhaler into the palm of Thomas’s hand. ‘Here take a few puffs on that, ye’ll feel better in a wee minute’.

Thomas sucked hard on the mouthpiece of his inhaler and squeezed on the rubber ball attached to the bottle. As the vapor hit the back of his throat, he coughed, his chest was tight and wheezing like the high-pitched whistle of an old steam train.

‘Right Thomas, look, I’ve goat an idea. Wullie wis jist sayin he’s sick a walkin the dug at night. Why don’t ye buy Kim aff a Wullie and yer Da’ll never know the difference? You’ve still goat yer birthday money, h’nt ye?’, said Johnny as he leaned over and whispered in Thomas’s ear. ‘And ah can keep a secret if you kin. You know whit ah mean, Thomas, ah know ye clocked whit happened there wae me and Wullie. And I know you’ve tried the auld wacky backy yersel, cos it wis me that geed ye it! Mind ye were sic as a parrot? Ah hid tae cairt ye up the stairs and yer mammy pit ye tae bed. So best we aw keep stoom aboot the night and anyways’, said Johnny, as he looked over at Wullie, ‘Yer Da’ll never notice the difference between Blackie and eese wee brother here. Right Wullie?

‘Aye, bit the thing is Johnny’, said Wullie, shaking his head,’ Blackie’s wee brother is actually Blackie’s wee sister, Kim’s a bitch, no a stud! 

Johnny winked at Wullie. ‘That disnae matter, auld McGinlay’ll no even notice. Look, Thomas don’t worry, c’mon we’ll go and get Blackie, we’ll gie em a nice wee send aff. We’ll bury em doon at eese favourite bit at the fitba pitches. Bit mind, no a word tae yer Da or tae anybody else aboot whit happened the night. So, the story is, Blackie went messing, ah helped ye find em and we aw lived happily ever efter, right Thomas!?’.

The tiniest of flickers. There. In the corner of her eye. Always the left eye. 

Alla lay under a single white sheet, corpse-like. Outside, traffic stuttered into action. The smell of diesel rose up from Aleksandra Nevsky Square. Daylight filtered through her eyelids, a salmon pink blur. The flicker became a lightning flash. Sometimes she could deflect the migraine with a strong painkiller, if she took it soon enough. She opened her eyes to harsh daylight. Squinting, she made out the bathroom door in the corner, the yellowing gloss paint flaking off at its edges. She slipped out of bed trying not to move too suddenly. On her way to the bathroom she stubbed her toe. The jolt stabbed into her head and she looked down at the carpet; threads escaped the tight brown weave and it was rumpled, easy to trip over. She hoped the tourists had better rooms; she was fed up dealing with complaints about décor and facilities.

Opening the door to the bathroom, she glimpsed her face in the mirror. She couldn’t resist looking closer. It was the same as always; bits of her face eaten up by spots of darkness. There were only two though, that was good. The painkillers should work. Her hands trembled as she turned the screwcap and shook two out of the bottle. One fell on the floor, rolling into a dusty corner. She decided not to bend down; the movement would make the pain worse. Taking another pill she went back into the room where she poured some boiled water from the kettle into a cup. Leningrad’s water was highly chlorinated and the smell reminded her of her son, a keen swimmer; At least it wasn’t like the water in Central Asia where they’d just been. You shouldn’t drink the water there though Alla knew that one or two of the other guides claimed they’d built up immunity by drinking progressively more unboiled water on each trip. Not her. For several years she’d had sickness and diarrhoea on this trip and now that she’d learned how to control it with a mixture of diet and drugs, she never took any chances. No bug could survive in this water though and she swallowed the pills with a grimace before falling back into bed. Two more hours of sleep with any luck.

Some of the group were waiting at reception when Alla finally managed downstairs; early risers who’d already had breakfast. The migraine hadn’t come to anything but she still felt queasy. Saliva rose into her mouth and she swallowed hard. She forced a smile. 

‘Good morning, everyone. You sleeped well?’

One of the men, Steve, smirked and looked down at his shoes as if to avoid catching anyone’s eye. Damn, she must have got the grammar wrong again. Oh well, never mind; her English was much better than their Russian. Only one of them, a handsome young man called Nick, had bothered to learn more than a few phrases. They’d had some interesting chats together and he kept talking to ordinary Russians. That worried her; she was supposed to report any fraternising to her bosses. She wouldn’t though. Not when he had been so nice to her. Unlike some of the others. Some of them couldn’t even say Добрй деь or спасйбо. Ignorant peasants. Her eyes felt heavy with the weight of her headache and she blinked to refresh them. The movement just moved the grittiness around. Steve came over to her, an irritating smirk on his face. His voice was nasal and loud. 

‘WHERE ARE WE GOING TODAY, Alla.’ His voice had dropped on her name. Presumably he thought that she’d manage to understand that.

‘Today we spend at the summer palace, Petrodvorets. Is some way from Leningrad, in the country.’ She thought she heard a groan from one of the party but couldn’t decide who it had come from. ‘After breakfast we meet here and the bus will take us there. Is not long to get there.’

‘Do we have to?’ asked Steve.

Alla smiled. ‘Of course not. If you want to do something else then please do so. This is a free country.’

They all laughed at that. Alla joined in. That sort of joke went down well with the tourists; could lead to a big tip. One of the other guides had put her on to it. ‘Make them think that you’re a poor oppressed peasant and they’ll tip well. Never let your politics show. If they find out you’re a party member they’ll give you nothing.’ Alla had frowned at that. She didn’t like anyone talking about party membership. Always she worried about whether someone would find out about her political apathy. She had joined both to escape the past and to get on. Party membership wasn’t quite compulsory for tour guides but if you didn’t have it, you weren’t trusted with the more lucrative western groups. You were given eastern block groups instead. Her first tour group had been East Germans. Her parents had gone on about that for months. They had bitter memories of the siege. The fact that they were all comrades now was irrelevant; Germans were not to be trusted. Then she’d had a Czech group. That had been fine until they brought up 1968. She hadn’t been able to cope with that. Her brother had been killed in the invasion; by a soviet tank, a terrible accident. No, best to join the party and stick with the westerners who had the money. It was true about many of them not liking communists though. She’d heard of one guide who’d got too friendly with a tourist and having drunk nearly a bottle of vodka, had gone into a political tirade about the decadent west. The tourist had taken offence and told the others and there had been no tip for him at the end of a difficult fortnight. Yes, it was hard to get it right. You had to hint at oppression lightly enough so that the authorities didn’t get to hear of anything that they might think stank of dissidence.

Alla looked around her group. ‘So are we all clear about what to do? You want to come to summer palace, we meet in one hour at front door.’

Alla went to the restaurant. Although she still felt sick she knew she would have to eat or the migraine would be back, worse than ever. She sat at the long table that had been reserved for them, and made herself smile at the two middle aged women who were still there. How she hated this endless socialising and in a foreign language too; it was too much. She couldn’t bring their names to mind; that would be awkward. She concentrated hard; Madge that was what the older one was called. She always had a frown on her face as if someone had put a bad smell near her. Now if only she could remember the other one’s name. As she sat down across the table from them, Madge asked the other one to pass the butter. Lily of course, that was her name. It seemed a strange name for her. Alla always thought of lilies as proud flowers and this Lily always looked rather timid, like a little girl who was about to get told off. Even now the older woman appeared to be nagging her. Alla couldn’t make out everything but caught something about being too old for that romance nonsense. Maybe Lily had clicked with one of the men on the tour. Nobody would want Madge that was for sure. She’d made herself unpopular with most of the group. Alla had been told all about it one night by Nick. He’d said they called Madge ‘soor ploom’ explaining that it was a sweet that made your mouth pucker up. She’d laughed at that; Madge always had a tight mouth on her. Now at the table, Alla must have laughed out loud for Madge frowned across at her, her small brown eyes impatient and hard, ‘Yes, what is it?’ Alla just shook her head and carried on smiling and Madge went back to haranguing Lily.

A couple of seats down, Nick was arguing with one of the older men, Bill. Alla thought she heard her name. She concentrated hard; it was difficult to make out what they were saying. No-one was taking any notice of her so she edged her chair nearer.

‘We should give her the money’, Nick was saying, ‘there isn’t much we can buy her here. She’ll have it all already.

‘Well I don’t agree. I think she’d be insulted if we gave her money.’ Bill’s face was red. ‘There are some lovely things in the shops.’

Nick shook his head, ‘it’s overpriced tourist tat. If we gave her sterling or dollars, she’d be able to buy so much more. Anyway, Intourist guides get an allowance of…’ he paused to think, ‘certificate rubles. They can use them in the Beriozka shops to buy all that stuff.’

Alla couldn’t bear to listen. Money, she thought, for pity’s sake, give me money. A little more and she’d be able to move out from her parents’ flat, set up home just for her and Yuri. There was an official she knew who could be bribed. Who was she kidding? All officials could be bribed; it was how the bureaucracy worked. But with this one, she knew exactly how much was needed. It was hell living with her parents, watching them compare her to her dead brother. Sometimes she caught them staring at her. She couldn’t help being alive, she wanted to shout at them, shake them out of their mourning. For a short time, just before Yuri was born, she had thought a baby might bring them some happiness. Now she wondered how she could have been so naïve. Worn out from years of hardship, they’d resented the child. The summer months when Alla had to travel were worst with her mother griping endlessly about the 24 hour child care. Alla tried to put him into a nursery but her mother refused, saying that the family had to look after their own. Yuri was a sunny child, good natured and resilient but Alla feared he would pick up on her mother’s bitterness. All she wanted was to leave the tiny flat and find somewhere just for her and Yuri. Maybe even save enough to leave this job and find one with better hours. She told herself to forget it and finished her breakfast. Back in her room, she stretched her face into a welcoming smile, ready for the day ahead.

The bus trip to Petrodvorets was peaceful. Alla relaxed as they travelled through woods of silver birches; her favourite trees. She stared out through the dusty glass, mesmerised by the swaying trees striving towards the blue sky, sunlight playing on the bark, making it shine. It was very soporific watching the shadows on the ground and she closed her eyes only to jerk awake a minute or two later. Too soon, they reached the summer palace, built by Peter the Great in an attempt to rival the great palaces of Europe. The group tumbled out of the bus, glad to be moving again; even short journeys were difficult on the rough roads. Alla watched their faces as they took in the grandeur of the magnificent buildings and gardens. She’d never been to France but had often heard tourists compare it favourably to some of the great chateaux, just as Peter the Great had intended. She gathered the group round her and started her talk. She told them the facts of the great build; how Peter the Great had started the project in 1714, drawing up a general plan himself. At the same time he had started on the construction of sea channels and fountain cascades. 

‘Some people at the time questioned the wisdom of so much expense just to send more water into an already full sea,’ she said, ‘and some people are still asking why but they are all in Siberia now.’ 

They loved that; Alla hoped that it wouldn’t get back to her bosses. She continued talking as they walked round the gardens, pointing out the golden statues. At one minute to eleven she stopped them by the Petrodvorets landing stage. ‘Listen and watch,’ she told them and smiled at their faces as the fountains sprang up to an accompaniment of orchestral music.

‘What is that tune?’ asked Lily.

‘Is Hymn to the Great City by Gliere. Do you like it?’

She didn’t need to ask; she saw how captivated they were as they watched the sweep of water cascading down the steps of the ‘Golden Mountain’. Even Steve looked impressed. The water glinted in the sunlight and she felt a little twinge of pain as she looked at it. She must have been squinting a little for one of the younger women offered her a pair of sunglasses. They diluted the glare and she felt better at once.

The rest of the visit was just as successful. Alla had taken a chance in not telling them they were likely to get soaked by one of Peter’s trick fountains hidden at various points in the gardens. Sit down at a table and water shot up from underneath, walk through an arbour and you could get drenched from above. This was the first time she had allowed a group to be completely surprised. They were an amiable group on the whole and she thought it would be fine. It was. It was a hot day and the unexpected soakings refreshed them. Even Madge had laughed in shocked surprise as a jet of water went straight up her skirt. On the way back, someone started a singsong ending with The Red Flag. Alla was surprised by how many seemed to know the words. She felt almost well for the first time in several days.

In the evening, back at the hotel, a special meal had been laid on for them. The group were all dressed up. Some of the younger women looked very pretty Alla thought. There was such a variety in the way they dressed and she looked at her own clothes and thought again how drab they were. Navy skirt and blue blouse; it was hardly inspiring and too heavy for today’s heat. She’d never bothered trying to bargain with tourists for the denim jeans they all seemed to wear but one of the girls was wearing a blouse that she loved. It was crisp and white and looked as if it would feel cool even on the hottest day. She put it to the back of her mind; escape from her parents was the most important issue not what a silly westerner was wearing. It was lovely though. Even the older women, Lily especially, had made an effort. Lily sparkled and twinkled at one of the single men in the party. Alla thought she’d have her work cut out with him, he was clearly a homosexual. She’d noticed him in Moscow, eyeing the men in tights at the ballet. No, Lily would do better to concentrate on Barry who wasn’t as good looking but who seemed keen on her. 

It was a good meal, not great cooking but a welcome change from the endless lamb pilaus they’d had for the past few days. There was a lot of movement from the table. Clearly some of the group were still suffering from food poisoning, judging by the speed with which they moved, buttocks clenched, in the direction of the toilets. She sympathised with them; Central Asian bugs were not easily shifted. At the end of the meal, Bill stood up and struck his glass with his fork. Alla looked down, she hated this part.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please.’ He waited until the chattering died down before continuing, ‘I think you would all agree that we have had a magnificent fortnight here in the Soviet Union and that it has all gone very smoothly thanks to our guide Alla, here. Praise be to Alla!’ Everyone laughed, Alla joined in, not understanding why they laughed. Were they mocking her? Clearly not, the smiles were kind. She didn’t listen to the rest of the speech; she’d heard it all before. Instead she thought of her son and the little flat they’d share when she saved enough money.

Alla closed her eyes when he finally stopped speaking. Please let it be a small envelope, she thought. She held her breath. There were thirty in the group; they usually put in a minimum of one English pound each, sometimes more. Please let it be money. She opened her eyes to see him lift a huge parcel on to the table. Her heart sank.

‘Thank you so much. You are very kind.’ She made herself smile at everyone, not looking at the parcel. Bill pushed it towards her, ‘Go on, open it.’

It was well wrapped up. Gilt paper sellotaped tightly round a cardboard box. She carried on smiling as she picked at the sellotape ineffectually. Her bitten down fingernails had no purchase on the tape. One of the women handed her a small pair of scissors and she managed to get the paper off. She lifted the lid off the box and looked inside. Whatever it was, it was wrapped in tissue paper. Alla lifted it out and peeled back the paper. Another punch bowl; she had three already. She raised it up high so that everyone could see it, smiling and nodding, hoping her disappointment did not show. The cut glass caught the light and reflected it all round the room. Little rainbows danced in odd corners. As she lowered it the light changed from the gentle spectrum to a harsh shaft. She blinked but it was too late. There, in the corner of her eye, a flicker started.