Free Handstands In The Dark: A True Story of Growing Up and Survival by Janey Godley Page B

never argue back; she would throw cups at him to get a reaction; he would just smile at her and amble away into his bedroom to read his books. This unnerved my Mammy, because she was used to – and liked – a man who fought back. We all lived alongside each other in a cramped, disjointed, dysfunctional kind of harmony.
    Major enjoyed snarling at all the new legs as they came and went through our home; he would sniff round the new baby when Ann visited and she would panic in case he took a bite. But poor Major was getting old – he must have been about twelve years old by now and his limbs were getting stiff. One morning, he went out as usual around 6.00 a.m. but, this time, he returned limping. As the week went on, his hindquarters seemed to be getting more painful so my brother Vid took him to the RSPCA vet. Vid loved Major as much as I did and was distraught when he was told the dog had been bitten by a rat. It seemed Major had been fighting with vermin down at the burn where the Gadgies used to shoot rats. The vet advised that ‘The dog should be put to sleep,’ but Vid was determined to keep Major alive. Two nights later, I was lying in the living-room bed when Major came in all limpy and sore. I climbed out of the covers and hugged him. He looked at me as I stroked his hot, matted hair. He put his head on my knees and died, right there on my legs.
    I screamed at the top of my voice.
    Vid came running in and held Major with me. We both kept trying to rub him and make him alive again. We could not believe he was dead. Mammy even shed a tear as we stood round his dead body. I could not be consoled. I had to help Vid lift Major and we both took him to the old burn bridge and buried him in the mud. I spent months after his death looking at the one photo I had of him, missing him so much that it was a physical ache in my chest. He had been my only true pal, my protector, and now he was gone for ever. He haunted my dreams. In sleep, we would run together over the football fields; I would laugh as he pulled his leash from the door handle and swipe it at me. But the nightmares were still there, too. I would dream I was being buried under the floor of a cellar beneath a castle. It was dark and then I would be in a prisoner-of-war tunnel as if I were trying to escape from Colditz and I would get stuck in the tunnel. Always underground. I am trapped underground. I try to escape by going through a door, but the door is too small to get through and the tiny passage is too narrow to get through and I can’t escape.
    * * *
    By now, Mij had returned to his old ways. He would hit his girlfriend Cathy; my Mammy would batter Mij for hitting Cathy; Mij would then batter my Mammy for hitting him; and Cathy would hit Mij for battering my Mammy; so Mij would hit Cathy again; and it became a circus. Mij’s wee baby Debbie would sit there looking at everyone hitting everyone else and not even scream. Just look silently. Taking it all in behind her baby eyes.
    During the week, Mij worked as a porter at Glasgow Royal Infirmary, so that gave us all some respite from his temper tantrums. He was still a fantasist. He boasted he had performed brain surgery on a patient; the man lived and was cured. And, one night, he brought home some equipment from the surgical wards. One of these items was a very sharp and scary scalpel. Mij wielded it, for fun, as if he were some homicidal heart specialist. A few nights later, in the midst of a heated argument with Mammy in our kitchen, he held the blade right up to her face, almost touching her cheek. I was so terrified he would cut her that I put up my left hand to stop him. He accidentally sliced through my wrist, just missing the artery, but blood spurted onto his face, onto the wall and down onto my Mammy’s jumper. As I turned my wrist, some blood spurted upwards and hit clothes hanging from the ceiling pulley. I had to be rushed to the Royal Infirmary with a dirty, very smelly pillowcase wrapped