The Hope That Kills Us by Adrian Searle

Author:Adrian Searle [Searle, Adrian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780956613554
Publisher: Freight Books

The Cherrypicker

Jim Carruthers

Learn to read.

A wrong guess will

cost ye cups.

I never really worked out whether I believed him. Once he started reminiscing, I listened with wonder to his stories of another place where everybody had a bunnet, women barely existed and pies were built to last. Scotland in the twenties.

‘Did ye ken ah wuz a cherrypicker?’ he growled. I watched the sunlight steer through the wee window and catch the blue smoke idling from his fag.

He raised himself noisily out of his armchair and got the photos down from the mantelpiece. He took time to launch a clocher at the fire. It fizzled like a melting marble.

‘See, there’s Shanks, I telt ye he stopped by last week. Still in good form.’

He handled the photos with such care, more than he would ever direct at me or any of his other grandchildren.

Every time he showed me the photos, I couldn’t recognise him, never mind anyone else.

Life was fairly drab in the early sixties, but at the time of the photos it must have been awful. The team looked so hard, each player eyeing up the camera for a square go. Arms folded with a regimented and style free hairdo. The strips were hooped. Were it not for the shorts in the front row, you would have thought they were away to break rocks in a penal colony.

‘Noo away and practise in the byre. Keep daein that and ye micht be as guid as me. Failin’ that ye micht turn oot as usefae as yur Uncle Wullie. Feed the hens while yur oot there an fetch some coal back wae ye, div ye hear?’

I loved playing with that wee ball in the byre. It came off the stone walls at funny angles, always keeping you on your toes. Like he said, it was good practice. Nimble like a ballet dancer. Learn to read. A wrong guess will cost ye cups. Niver heed that Brazilian stuff.

‘Div ye hear?’ His coaching came, like most of his demands with this added. It was all like that then; my folks, my teachers, the school team manager. On your back and barking.

In the byre it never rained or felt cold. The practice always ended up at Wembley, where I scored the settling penalty, just inside the tattie-barrel post. Giving it enough height so it didn’t catch the edge of the byre drain. Keeping it down so it didn’t hit the wood that came half down the wall. It made it easy for the goalkeeper to save if it was that high.

When I went in he was asleep. I put the bucket down and added a few nuggets to the fire. I stubbed out the smoulder that came from his ashtray. For no reason I said cheerio as I left.

He died in October 67, not long after the summer of joy. The death certificate said cirrhosis and pneumonia. Being sixteen and still ignorant, I was sure it was more to do with fags and mouldy food. I was all excited at the prospect of the funeral.

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