Anne Donovan The Scottish Set Text

Dear Santa Ma mammy disnae love me. It’s hard no tae be seen   It’s hard no tae be seen   ah’m this big lurkin thing at the endy the back row   Ma sister is perfect. You’re a big girl. She doesnae kiss me back   That’s no Santa’s job, he’s there tae gie oot sweeties and toys tae weans wanst a year, so there’s nae point in askin him – if there is a Santa. You take efter yer daddy and Katie takes efter me. My mammy smiles and the lines roon her eyes get deeper but she looks at me mair soft like. She goes oot, nearly closing the door, but leavin a wee crack of light fallin across the bedclothes.

Away in a Manger God, she was sick of it all, specially the extra hours in the shop. Sandra always wanted Amy tae have nice things. She was a beautiful child, everbdy said so. Huddled in the straw, hidden in a corner behind the figure of a large beast, lay a man. Sandra didn’t want her tae know, she was too young. She wished she could of thought of a story Some folk don’t have anywhere tae stay. nearly every bench was occupied. Newspapers smoothed out like bedclothes. Now the people who slept in the square werenae just auld drunks and it was hard to pick them oot fae everyone else. ‘He could come and stay wi us.’ You cannae just take anybody intae your hoose. We don’t know him. ‘Is he an angel, Mammy?’

All that Glisters He smiled, a wavery wee smile.   the glitter just brought everythin tae life   the difference between a Christmas tree skinklin wi fairy lights an wan lyin deid an daurk in a corner   Ah couldnae bear the fact we’d never said goodbye and kept goin ower and ower in ma mind whit ah’d have said tae him if ah’d known he wis gonna die so soon.   as soon as ah opened the door of the hoose ah knew there wis sumpn wrang   Clare, you’re no a baby, it’s time you grew up and showed some consideration for other folk.   ah heard a voice, far away in anither room   You cannae wear red tae a funeral. You have tae show respect fur the deid. But these were ma daddy’s favourites.   when she kissed me goodnight ah felt she was haudin me away fae her.   Ah felt his going was incomplete and ah wanted tae dae sumpn fur him, but that’s daft, whit can you dae when sumbdy’s deid?   Aye, hen. Subtle.  

A Chitterin Bite Agnes and me walk, airms linked, stuffin daubs a breid intae wer mooths. We go tae the pictures every week efter the swimming… Then wan week … Agnes says: Ah said we’d meet Jimmy McKeown and his pals at the pictures. Ah look doon at ma ain chist, totally flat. Ma mammy says ah’ll be next but ah cannae imagine it. Ah pulled ma airm free of Agnes’s. Two’s company, three’s a crowd. a chitterin bite, no enough ae fill your belly, just enough tae stave aff the chitterin cauld when you come oot the baths. an anonymous place tucked away in a side street The breid was hard and doughy … so the big lumps stuck in my throat. Affairs have their own rules, unspoken, unwritten, which soon become engraved on your heart. I just broke the last rule. I can see the purply-red mark … where he won’t see it, but she will. How could I have fallen in love with someone who used expressions like that, like something out of a bad film. I don’t have time for lunch. I think I’ll just have coffee and a bit of cake. A chitterin bite.   No, it’s not enough. You’re right. We have to end it. It smelled wonderful and I was starving. I picked up my fork, twirled the pasta round and round, pressing it against the spoon, and ate.

Virtual Pals I am baffled by the word ‘favourite’   we have learned that the area of your planet known as Scot-land is devoid of intelligent life, due to adverse climatic conditions.   I’m beginning to feel that you and me are real pals and that I can trust you.   I do not have the good fortune of a brother.   the idea that one form of language is better than another is foreign to our culture   I think you’re dead lucky no having a brother, mine’s a wee pest   Are you saying that the way I talk is just as good as proper English?   I fancy him, of course I do, but it’s more than that. I want to talk to him too and find out more about him.   you seem to place excessive trust in the opinions of others (such as your teacher and, indeed, myself) and you hold a poor opinion of your own abilities   I am an intelligent, attractive and worthy individual. I am in control of my emotions. I am the author of my destiny.   I think I’m gonna be too busy for e-mails. Anyway it’s been nice knowing you.  

Zimmerobics a sheltered house meant the end of everything. This was it, this view, for the rest of my life. I just wish she’d sit down and talk to me instead of rushing round the house tidying. ‘I’ll think about it.’ That’s what I always say when I’ve no intention of doing something. I felt better, as though someone had oiled all the creaky joints. There was a feeling in them which I suppose you would call an ache, but it was a pleasant ache, an ache of life. It was brilliant. I hadn’t felt like this for years. My body was old and decrepit, but it still worked. And somehow I became drawn into the conversation...I stayed behind after every class. The memory of the exercise class lingered on for the rest of the day. I wasn’t sure what making a video would entail. We looked like jellybabies in our tracksuits but, when we started to move, our bodies stretched and kicked and flowed in unison; even our shuffling had a kind of grace. I didn’t want to go back to the class the following week And finally, right at the end, when I thought they had missed me out, there was I in my green headband, clapping my hands in the air in perfect time to the music.