Mary's the Name Read online

  Mary’s the Name

  ROSS SAYERS

  First published in 2017 by Cranachan Publishing Limited

  Copyright © Ross Sayers 2017

  www.rosssayers.co.uk

  @Sayers33

  The moral right of Ross Sayers to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the publisher.

  ISBN: 978-1-911279-12-9

  Also available in paperback

  Typeset by Cranachan

  Cover design by Cranachan

  Cover photograph © Vasily Deyneka / shutterstock.com

  www.cranachanpublishing.co.uk

  @cranachanbooks

  For Mum, who loves a book with a secret.

  ♩

  CHAPTER ONE

  When me and Granpa watched James Bond films, he told me not to be scared because people didn’t have guns like that in Scotland. That must’ve been why the robbers used hammers.

  ‘Empty the tills,’ one of them shouted. ‘Everybody stay back. Nobody needs to be a hero.’

  The robber had the hammer above his head, like he would use it on Granpa if he didn’t do what he said. It was like something off the telly, but I couldn’t change the channel. I was crouched down under a table, next to the staff room. The robbers couldn’t spot me. They were both wearing those masks you wore for the cold—balaclavas— that was the proper word.

  ‘I need a winning coupon to put through,’ Granpa said, ‘To get the till to open.’

  The robber had one. He handed it over.

  ‘Barca at home, twelve to one on!’ the robber shouted. ‘But a win’s a win, eh?’

  He was using a silly, deep voice so we wouldn’t know what his real one was like. Granpa took the betting slip and scanned it. His computer buzzed.

  ‘The safe next,’ the robber went on. ‘We’ll have the insert, as well.’

  Granpa leaned down to twirl the clicky wheel to open the safe.

  ‘The safe’s nae problem,’ Granpa said. ‘But the insert takes thirty minutes’ notice to open.’

  I could see the robber’s big teeth showing through the hole in his mask.

  ‘Don’t start,’ the robber said. ‘I know that bloke there’s been waiting on his winnings for about half an hour.’

  As the robber pointed to a man standing near the counter, the safe beeped five times.

  ‘That’ll be the insert ready for opening, aye?’ said the robber.

  ‘Aye, very good,’ Granpa said. ‘Ye’ve it aw planned oot, I suppose.’

  The other robber was going around the security cameras, spraying them with black spray paint. He had a hammer too. When he was done, he stood guard near the door. There was Desk Robber and Guard Robber. Guard Robber didn’t come near to the desk, so I didn’t get to see his eyes or mouth, but I was ninety-nine percent sure he was the ugliest person ever. Apart from maybe Desk Robber. It was okay to call bad people ugly. They didn’t have feelings the way good people did.

  It was a Saturday and the shop was busy. The robbers didn’t tell anyone to get on the ground though. The men stood with their arms crossed and made mean faces, but no one tried to stop it. One man kept writing his bet on a slip with a little pen. My heart went so fast it was sore.

  Granpa was putting the money into their big rucksack as fast as he could. Granpa’s boss, Mr Ferguson, was in the staff room. He was staring out the crack in the door, whispering into his mobile phone. I hoped he was phoning 999. If he wasn’t, it was just the worst time to fancy a chat with someone.

  I started to pee myself and couldn’t stop. All down my tights and on to the floor. It was terrible, but it still felt nice, the warm feeling down my legs. It made a puddle and creeped over the carpet towards the staff room. Maybe the robbers could smell it but they didn’t say anything. It would’ve been good if I could’ve chased them away with the smell of my pee.

  Desk Robber looked up and noticed a camera above the desk that Guard Robber hadn’t sprayed with paint. He smashed it with his hammer and the glass tinkled down to the floor. I got such a fright I banged my head on the top of the table. I bit into the slimy inside part of my lip so I wouldn’t scream. Granpa wasn’t scared, or maybe he was just pretending that he wasn’t.

  ‘Easy, fella,’ he said. ‘I’m doing it. Ye’ll no get any trouble fae me.’

  Granpa was being nice to them but they weren’t saying thank you because they were no good, rotten to the core robbers.

  ‘Hurry up, man,’ said Guard Robber.

  Desk Robber leaned over the counter and snatched the money from Granpa’s hands and shoved it in the bag. It was probably a lot of money, but the rucksack didn’t look full. They could’ve brought a carrier bag with them, but then maybe they didn’t even have five pence and that’s why they needed the bookies’ money so much.

  ‘Right, let’s move it, Johnny,’ said Guard Robber.

  ‘Fuck sake,’ Desk Robber said. ‘Dinnae say my name... Duncan.’

  ‘That’s no fair, you meant that.’

  ‘Boys,’ Granpa said. ‘On yer way, aye?’

  I wished Granpa had stayed quiet like me.

  ‘Shut it, you auld prick,’ Desk Robber said, and swung his hammer over the counter. Granpa tried to get out the way, but it smacked into his shoulder. He fell off his wheelie chair. It made a big clatter when it hit the floor, but Granpa didn’t even shout ow or oh ya beastie. The two robbers ran off out the door. No one tried to be a hero and stop them.

  I made sure I didn’t bang my head when I got out from under the table, then ran over to Granpa. My shoes were wet and squelchy. I wanted to be away from the pee smell, but it followed me.

  ‘Are you okay, Granpa?’

  ‘Never mind me, hen. Are ye awright?’

  ‘I peed myself. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Guess what? Me as well.’

  He winked at me. The robbers were gone, so Granpa thought it was okay to joke around. But I didn’t feel like joking around. It was the scariest bit of real-life I’d ever seen. Every part of me had been scared. My tummy was still doing a funny rumbling without any sounds.

  The other men in the shop came round to our side of the desk, to check that Granpa was okay and help him up. Mr Ferguson came out of the staff room and walked right through my pee puddle. He didn’t notice. I went back over and put down lots of football coupons to cover up the wet patch. They went soggy. My hands were shaking, so I put them behind my back.

  ‘The police are on their way,’ Mr Ferguson told everyone. ‘They’ve asked for anyone who witnessed the robbery to stay for questioning.’

  ‘You’re no keeping me here,’ one man said. ‘I’ve got a lucky fifteen waitin to go on. I’ll go doon the road.’

  He walked out and lots of other men went with him. The ones who stayed were busy watching Jeff and the football scores on the telly. Jeff tried Countdown for a while but he didn’t like it. It wasn’t football-y enough for him.

  Soon the ambulance men came and the policemen too. The policemen weren’t in the mood for joking but the ambulance men were really nice to me.

  ‘Is this the young lady here?’ said a tall paramedic with a red beard. ‘I heard an eight-year-old girl scared off those robbers. Was that you?’

  ‘No.’

  I don’t know why, but I started
crying then. I had held it in when the robbers left, but I couldn’t help it when the ambulance men were talking to me. They thought I had been a brave girl, but really I had been the opposite and hid under a table. The red beard paramedic made a face like oops I made her greet.

  ‘Well, I was told you were very brave and I was to make sure you rode with your grandad in the back of the ambulance. Does that sound good?’

  ‘Okay,’ I said, ‘But it’s Granpa, not grandad.’

  ‘Right you are. Look, we’ve got a special pair of trousers for you. They’re green, like ours.’

  ‘And like my eyes.’

  ‘And like your eyes.’

  I got to go with Granpa to the hospital and it made me stop feeling shaky because I knew we were safe in the ambulance. Ambulances didn’t chase robbers like police cars. Granpa said there were people called ambulance chasers but I’d never seen them. Not even Usain Bolt was fast enough to catch an ambulance.

  The trousers they gave me were all crunchy whenever I walked or sat down. Crunch crunch crunch. I kicked my legs back and forward just to hear the noise.

  The ambulance had a clean smell, like how the colour white would smell.

  ‘Mary,’ Granpa said. ‘Ye might need to say sorry to Mr Ferguson.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He’s blaming ye for the funny smell coming fae his shoes.’

  Granpa got the job in the bookies about a year before the robbery.

  ‘Things’ll be a bit different fae next week, Mary.’

  ‘Why, Granpa? What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing’s wrong. I’ve had to get a job again. I’m starting at the bookies near the Craigs. So I’ll be working while ye’re at school. Since I’m new, I have to work a Saturday as well. They’ll no let me off with it. But the manager’s telt me that as long as you keep oot the way, ye can come with me. It’s only four hours and we can get a chippy after. Is that awright?’

  Granpa had a job from then on. It was the first one I’d seen him doing. I knew he’d worked in a factory donkey’s years ago. Donkey years were even longer than dog years. I thought he didn’t have to work anymore because he’d worked so much when he was young.

  I had to go to the bookies every Saturday. That was one of my days off school, so I wasn’t happy at first. I normally would’ve gone to Braehead Park with Leona or for a ride on my bike. But when I stopped being friends with Leona, I looked forward to the bookies more.

  Plus, Granpa told me work was very strict and you had to go in or you’d get the sack which was the worst thing you could get. Really that meant you got fired, but they put your things in a sack and chucked you and your sack out on the street in front of everyone.

  Bookies was short for bookmakers, but they didn’t make books. They took people’s bets on horses and football and lots of other things. There weren’t any other people my age in the bookies. Young people weren’t allowed. Granpa’s boss, Mr Ferguson, would see me come in and say, “Hello Mary” and not tell me to get out. He had given me special permission.

  Four hours was a long time and it could get boring, but there were things you could do to make the time go faster. I used the little pens to write down bets I thought would be good. It was sort of like guessing what would happen in the future. One time I wrote down: Granpa will buy me a lolly on the way home. I was supposed to put down numbers next to the bet but I wasn’t completely sure about those. I knew 100/1 meant it had no chance of winning and so I worked out 2/1 must’ve meant it had a much better chance. Granpa will buy me a lolly on the way home 2/1. I gave it to him when there was no one in the queue.

  ‘What’s this?’ he said. ‘A lolly? Och and ye’ve even done odds as well. How much are ye putting on?’

  I didn’t understand.

  ‘Ye’ve got to stake some money yerself. If ye put a pound on at 2/1, ye’ll get back three pounds. That’s two pound winnings and yer original stake.’

  ‘I just want a lolly.’

  He scrunched up his nose and his glasses got pushed up into his eyes.

  ‘We’ll see if yer bet comes up on the way hame, will we?’

  That bet did come up. I got a strawberry milk ice lolly from the shop on the way home. Granpa said I bashed the bookies that day.

  I hadn’t always lived with Granpa, but that was before I had memories. My story was the saddest one I knew, so I didn’t tell it to anyone, even though I thought about it a lot.

  My mum had been called Alice and my dad had been called Robert. They met in a place called Stenhousemuir and that wasn’t far from Stirling where I lived with Granpa, but I had never been there. Granpa said Stenhousemuir wasn’t worth the bus fare. My mum and dad fell in love and got married like in a film. If people got married at the start of a film it meant they would break up later. But a wedding at the end of a film meant they lived happily ever after and you didn’t need to see what happened later.

  My parents had a baby and that was me. I completed the family: Mum, Dad and me. Alice, Robert and Mary. Three was our magic number.

  Granpa said I was named after my mum’s mum. There weren’t many Mary’s about so it was a good, special name and I liked it. It was from the Bible. I tried to read the Bible once, but I gave up almost right away. Even Granpa said some of it went right over his heid.

  Granpa’s name was Arthur because his mum and dad liked the man who had made up the Sherlock Holmes stories. It was an English name, but you could call your children anything you wanted. Even English names for Scottish people, or Scottish names for English people. Arthur was my dad’s dad and I called him Granpa.

  Granpa gave his second name to my dad and my dad gave it to me. Sutherland. Mum’s second name had been Fowler, but when she got married, she got the choice to swap her name for our better one. She made the right choice and was a Sutherland from then on.

  Most of the things I had, like my second name, I got from other people. Granpa said I got my green eyes from my dad. The freckles on my nose were from my mum, but they only came out when it was sunny. My long brown hair was the same as my mum’s too. Sometimes I wanted to cut my hair short, so it didn’t get in my face when I did handstands. I kept it long to be like her.

  Granpa had short hair. It was white but he swore on his life it had been blond before I was born. He wore fuzzy cardigans and liked to hang his glasses in the little pocket on his chest. My cardigans weren’t as warm. They were good for any weather though, and they went with skirts or trousers. Granpa let me wear whatever I wanted.

  A bad accident happened in my mum and dad’s car and they died. Mum died in the car and Dad died in the hospital after they took him out of the car. It wasn’t their fault. There was a big queue on the motorway for a long time after the accident. Granpa was looking after me that day because my mum and dad were going out for tea. A baby was a lot of work and they needed a break.

  ‘Yer gran on your mum’s side had just moved to Canada,’ Granpa told me. ‘I spoke to her and we agreed it was best to keep ye in Scotland. I wisnae for letting ye go to her, anyway. Old bat. I wanted ye aw for myself.’

  He told me the story when I was six. That was when I had my light-up shoes. When Granpa told me the story, I was mostly paying attention to him, but I was also bashing my shoes together to get them to light up. Then I noticed that he had started crying and I’d never seen him do that before.

  ‘I love ye, Mary. It’s you and me against the world.’

  ‘Will we win, Granpa?’

  ‘They dinnae stand a chance.’

  I didn’t know who they were, but I agreed. That was the first time he said he loved me. I knew he always felt it, but it was the first time he’d said the words. After that, I thought he’d tell me he loved me all the time. But he didn’t. It was just that one time. That was enough. I remembered it.

  I thought I might’ve liked to be like the people at my school, with a normal f
amily. But living with Granpa was great and that was normal for me. Just me and him. You could have a family with just the two of you. That was allowed. Two was a magic number as well.

  If Mum and Dad were around, I could’ve shown them how good I was on the keyboard and they’d have loved me too. And Granny as well. I never met her, but Granpa kept pictures of her in the house. We could’ve had a big picnic all together and smiled at the camera for a family portrait.

  Granpa said there were some forms to fill in because I was really young and had to move house. It wasn’t a normal thing for a baby to stay with a granpa. He must’ve filled them all out perfectly because I stayed with him from then on.

  There had been a funeral for my mum and dad. Granpa said a lot of friends came, but some couldn’t because they were in faraway places like Canada and Tillicoultry. I don’t remember the funeral. I bet loads of people came. I would’ve definitely put my money on that bet at the bookies.

  ♪

  CHAPTER TWO

  When we got back from the hospital, Granpa had his right arm in a sling. He looked like an Egyptian mummy, who was almost completely unwrapped, apart from the last bit. He kept sliding his arm out of the sling to do things.

  ‘Granpa, dinnae do that.’

  ‘Wheesht, you. How else am I meant to make yer tea?’

  When he took the sling off, he could still do all the things he did before, only he said ow and jeezo a lot more. He couldn’t lift the big pot with his left arm, so the sling had to come off when it was stovies for tea. That was allowed. But any other time I shouted at him to put it back on.

  ‘Ye’re no Florence Nightingale,’ he said.

  ‘I dinnae know who that is,’ I said. ‘But I bet people kept their sling on when she told them.’

  The doctor told Granpa that he wasn’t allowed to drive, but that didn’t bother him. Granpa didn’t have a car. We got the bus or walked everywhere. It was much better for the planet that way. If Granpa had bought a car, I would’ve been sad for the planet, but also happy that we didn’t have to walk all the way home after we went swimming at The Peak. There had been a place in town called The Rainbow Slides, but it closed down before Granpa was able to take me. The slides were on the outside of the building and I wished they hadn’t knocked it down to make a car park. It sounded a lot more fun than The Peak.