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81 " Their donkey jackets were clean and their boots were still shiny as they jerked along the road. Shuggie stepped back as they passed, their heads lowered like those of tired black mules. Without a word, each man collected a handful of thin children, who followed obediently, like reverential shadows. "
― Douglas Stuart , Shuggie Bain
82 " From his real father he had inherited a gentle personality, quiet and pensive, lonesome and faraway. "
83 " Dance for me, Hugh,” said Agnes, out of the blue. “Eh?” answered Shuggie, rolling over on the carpet. "
84 " If I were you, I would keep dancing.” “I can’t.” The tears were coming. “You know they only win if you let them.” “I can’t.” His arms and fingers were still outstretched and frozen, like a dead tree. “Don’t give them the satisfaction.” “Mammy, help. I can’t.” “Yes. You. Can.” She was still smiling through her open teeth. “Just hold your head up high and Gie. It. Laldy. "
85 " Agnes Bain was too rare a thing to let someone else love. It wouldn’t do to leave pieces of her for another man to collect and repair later. "
86 " Don’t let it bother you. They see the one thing that’s a bit more special than them and then they just pile on. "
87 " Her brother had been gifted with legendary stubbornness; he just stared through you and floated away, leaving behind his frame to be pecked to pieces. "
88 " Wullie and Shuggie were sitting at the round dining table eating soft eggs and soldiers. Sixty years apart, they were huddled together in the far corner like old drinking pals. Leek was upended on the settee, his bare legs up and over the back, a sketchbook in hand. When he saw his mother, he got up very quietly and passed her with a polite nod, like a stranger in the street. "
89 " At half past ten her hair and her make-up were already done, and although she wasn’t leaving the house she put on her low-cut jumper and a fitted grey skirt. She sat drinking the dregs of old lager and wondering where exactly her boy was hiding from his childhood. "
90 " Separately, the two women had spent whole afternoons hiding behind settees from the Provident man. It was like an odd synchronized swimming, the way the Pithead women all sank to the carpet and crawled across the floor. The Provvie was a thin man in a big suit. "
91 " Without looking at her he simply said, “I can’t stay.” At first she barely looked up. She had thought he meant only to go out on a shift and make money. He did that often, came home from a shift only to stand up again and announce he was heading back out. He had never been a man given to sitting at home. “What time would you like your dinner?” she asked, already worrying about chip pans and bread knives. “I don’t want your dinners any more. Don’t you get it?” He was shaking his head. “This is it. I can’t stay any more. I can’t stay with you. All your wanting. All that drinking. "
92 " The blood ran backwards into his nose and bubbled into his throat; he turned his head to the side and it poured out on to the grey ground in a great crimson custard. Shuggie couldn’t move as the boy sat on his chest and Francis stood on his free arm. He lay there making some gurgling noises as the blood collected in his throat. At least the crowd was delighted. Only then did the tears come. "
93 " Red-haired, stocky, and flat-faced, his head joined directly to his body as if a neck were an unnecessary luxury. "
94 " The temptation was sweet; the possibilities hung in the air like a thousand doors. "
95 " Before you cut yourself, you must have phoned him and told him to come get Shuggie. It all happened that fast. I couldn’t help you and help Shuggie.” Leek exhaled upwards, and his fringe rippled like a curtain in an open window. “It’s too much, Mammy. I can’t be the one to save everybody all the time. "
96 " There was a time he would have taken pride in this orderliness. In reality, pushing the metal through the bumpy pink flesh was the easy part; the difficult part was resisting the urge to do the same to the customers. "
97 " The man moved with an odd jangling gait, like he was made up of a pile of plates that threatened to teeter over. "
98 " To be thirty-nine and have her husband and her three children, two of them nearly grown, all crammed together in her mammy’s flat, gave her a feeling of failure. "
99 " She thought about tilting further then, dared herself to do it. How easy it would be to kid herself that she was flying, until it became only falling and she broke herself on the concrete below. "
100 " As girls, they had clung to one another like a string of pearls and sang at the top of their voices all the way down Sauchiehall Street. "