The Great Glasgow Storm

15th January 1968
I am eight, going on nine and in my bed. I feel a sort of sickness inside. I think I’m scared.
I open my eyes and stare up into the springs and mattress of my brother’s top bunk. I am cold but my pyjamas are soaked and sticking to my body. The wind is howling and echoing down the chimney. The door opens. It is my mother. I have never seen her look so angry.
Or is she frightened?
Get up! she cries, flinging my blankets back.
She steps onto the bottom rung and starts shaking my brother awake. I hear his groans and see springs moving around above me. The pink and purple pattern of triangles shifts about as I hear her tug him from his bed. The wind yells louder.
My mother steps off the ladder and bends down, pulling me from my bunk too.
Into the room, she shouts, dragging us from the kitchen recess, where the wind and rain now batter against the panes as though a great beast is going to crash through them – or worse – the building will fall down, and we’ll all be dead.
Where is my father?
…

We sit by the living room fire, even though there is no electricity. My mother has wrapped the three of us in a rough army blanket that scratches my skin. I don’t usually snuggle into her, but fear forces us all to stay close. I smell stale hairspray.
Where’s Dad? I ask.
My brother is comforting my mother.
It’s alright Mum. The doors are all locked.
The glass is rattling, and it sounds as though the windows will shatter at any minute.
Do you want me to make tea? my brother asks, and my mother frowns at him but says nothing. I wonder how we could have tea with no hot water. I start to cry, and my mother does too.
I watch my mother’s face. Is she thinking the Devil will come? That noise whistling down the chimney could be the spirits from Hell in her mind. I think of the subway – the tar smell that gets up your nose and into your clothes as you stand on the platform. My mother still holds my hand till it’s sore when we stand there on that skinny strip, a tiny space between us and the tracks beneath, placed on top of the black coal like stones. I imagine I will fall. Lose my balance the moment the red carriage slithers out from under the earth. I will be squashed beneath its wheels and my mother will scream like the wind is screaming now.
The noise hurts my ears as the train clatters out from the tunnel, hooting, making a sound like an extra loud toy engine. My mother holds me even tighter as it approaches. Always. Every time. The noise echoes round the station bouncing off the white tiles and birling round the big wooden clock. Like the wind is doing now. I am always frightened that I slip down that small gap between the platform and the train. That I take too long to step on. There’s not much time between getting on and it moving off. I hold onto my mother’s hand very tightly waiting ... waiting ...
Where is my father?
I am squeezing my mother’s hand now like I do when I’m getting on the subway.
We shake in our seats. The carriage doors bang back and forwards, sliding open and shut so loudly that no-one can speak. We speed through the tunnel. Air rushes past. The window is inches from the thick wall, and I can see nothing but black outside. I know that we are going under the river now. The water is over us. The earth is under us. What is beside us?
I imagine the Devil leaping round his flames just behind that wall. I see them spark. Hear them spit. There is only the tunnel and the train between us and Hell. I know that because my mother always reminds us to be good and not move when we’re waiting at the station. If we’re not, Old Nick will get us, because he lives right there, behind those walls, under the Clyde, between the tunnels, hanging fire …
The doors keep flying open until the conductor comes. He leans forward, swaying stiffly, like his legs are made of wood, trying to keep his balance as he bends down and punches holes in our tickets. Then he stands guard at the doors, holding them by their brass handles, keeping them shut until the next stop. I watch him through thick mottled glass. A man in uniform. I can’t see his face.
…

My brother, who’s ten, unfolds the blanket and goes towards the door.
What are you doing? my mother shouts after him.
I need the toilet, he says.
The key hangs on a metal hook on the frame of the front door. My mother shoves me from her and heads towards him.
You’re not going anywhere, she bawls, grabbing him roughly by the shoulders.
We can barely hear each other now, the wind is so loud, and that sensation in my stomach begins to feel like real sick.
My mother goes into the boxroom by the bay window and brings out the enamel bucket and a bottle of disinfectant that she uses to clean the close.
Here, she says, and he takes it through to the kitchen.
Where is Dad? I ask again.
She looks as though she’s going to slap me in the face but turns from me when she hears the key in the lock.
Thank God, she says, bolting towards the hall.
I don’t know what they say to each other or where my father has been because they stand out there for a long, long time. They come into the living room with my brother, and I rush into Dad’s arms.
I am safe now.