DECEMBER 1998

Goodbye, Robbie Tuesday...

Write an essay (900-1200 words) in which you analyse and interpret the Scottish short story “Goodbye Robbie Tuesday” by Chris Roberts 1997.

Part of your essay must focus on the narrative technique and the importance of the setting.

After many false summits, we finally reached the top of the hill. Jamie took my hand and led me around the hillside until he found a hollow place with gorse bushes all around for a windbreak.

Jamie shoved me forward into the hollow and flopped down beside me. It was so quiet out of the wind. I felt exhausted, but kind of thrilled all the same. This seemed a safe place. I looked up at Jamie, feeling the heat in my blood from the overworked engine of my heart and lungs. We grinned at each other.

"We made it," Jamie said.

I nodded. "Can we eat now?" I asked him. "I'm starving after all that exercise."

"Robbie, we've just started. How're we gonna get away if you've got to feed your face every five minutes?"

I felt myself blushing, but I could see Jamie was tempted too. He kept shooting quick glances at his school satchel, knowing it was filled with all kinds of goodies he'd pinched from the house after we slipped away from the hotel. It was strange seeing him dressed in his school clothes, with his black armband still on and his hair all neat. We had ditched our new black ties back at the house, but hadn't risked getting caught by taking the time to change our clothes.

After a few seconds' thought he gave in and started to unbuckle the leather straps of the schoolbag. I sat up, watching him with that admiration that only little brothers feel. Jamie was ten and I was six.

He got the schoolbag open and reached inside. I was already slavering like a bulldog as he brought the contents out one by one: A tin of Heinz tomato soup. Two big KitKats. One of those huge squares of Scotblock cooking chocolate. A tin of Campbell's meat balls in onion gravy. A bar of Lifebuoy soap and the blue transistor radio he got for his birthday.

"Is that it?" I asked.

Jamie looked up at me through his dark fringe. "What's wrong wi' it?"

"Isn't there anything to drink?"

He sighed with impatience. "Robbie, for God's sake. This is the outdoors. We'll find water."

"What about now?" I demanded.

He threw up his hands in helplessness. "Look, that's all I could carry, see?" he said. "Here, have a bit of this." He tore open the cellophane around the Scotbloc and broke off four big chunks for me and the same for himself. I bit into it and immediately felt better.

Jamie fiddled with the small radio and it crackled into life. A song we both really liked was just starting. Ruby Tuesday by the Rolling Stones.

She would never say where she came from Yesterday won't matter if it's gone.

The music somehow brought us back together and we both grinned through chocolate teeth. The Stones were Mum's favourite. She had been playing the radio in the kitchen one time when Jamie had said to me, "That's what I'm gonna call you from now on. Robbie Tuesday." And that was that. Once Jamie's mind was decided you couldn't shift it. Robbie Tuesday. I thought it was about the coolest name I had ever heard.

We didn't say anything for a minute or two. I looked back down the hill to see how far we had come. You could see the whole town from up there. It was really impressive from the hill, like you could see the sense of it. Down among the streets there didn't seem to be any sense to anything. I remembered a question I wanted answered.

"Jamie, why did you say that to Mr Fisher?"

Jamie shrugged. "It's the truth," he said and then he was quiet again. He had a way about him of letting you know when you shouldn't ask any more.

I rolled onto my back and looked up into the afternoon sky, listening to the song.

When you change with every new day, Still I'm gonna miss you.

I liked it there, too much had been happening too quickly in the past few days. Now everything was happening somewhere else, to other people, and I felt safe. I closed my eyes just as the song finished. Jamie snapped the radio off and started to clear everything into the bag.

"Best be off," he said.

I kept my eyes shut and lay still. Suddenly things were happening again, but I didn't want anything to happen. I wanted things to be back the way they had been before.

"I can't," I told him.

"You've got to, Robbie. I told you we'll be fine."

But I wasn't worried about us, I was worried about Mum. "Who's gonna look after her?" I said. "What? Who?"

"Who'll look after Mum when we're gone?"

Jamie looked astonished. I could see he had never thought of that. He sat down again and told me to do the same. "Let's just wait a minute," he said. "Give us a bit of time to think."

I was ahead of him there. My mind was already replaying everything that had happened. It was still only five days since Thursday morning. There were some things that, when they changed, changed faster than you could have believed, and then they stayed changed too. That was the worst part.

I had known something was up as soon as I woke. For one thing, I woke myself. Nobody had to pull the covers off me and force me to get moving. And Jamie's bed was empty, which was strange too, because he didn't usually get up without saying anything. I could hear voices, very quiet, and I remember thinking that maybe Mum and Dad had just forgotten about me and if I didn't make any noise they wouldn't remember until it was halfway through the morning and there'd be no point in going to school until after lunch. Very quietly I got out my Popeye magazine from under the bed.

They'd had that big argument the night before. These days it seemed like they were always arguing. I remember once Dad hit Mum, blacked her eye, and she'd told us she was going to leave him. She even went to see a lawyer but in the end she stayed because of me being small. That was what Jamie said.

I didn't know what they were arguing about that night, and neither did Jamie. It was one of the big ones though. Lots of slamming and shouting and Dad swearing at the top of his voice. I pulled the covers over my head and tried to force myself to sleep but the noise was too frightening. Then things would quieten down for a while and that was worse because you wanted so much for it to be over but you could never be sure it wasn't just about to flare up again.

I heard the living-room door open and recognized Dad's footsteps stomping down the hall and past our room. The front door opened and quickly slammed shut and then I heard Mum go and click the latch, locking him out. I listened as she walked back into the living room and closed the door again. There were a couple of seconds' silence, before this really loud music started up. Mum's Verdi, the one she played to soothe herself, she said. It stopped with a sudden crackle and I knew she'd put the headphones on. I didn't say anything and neither did Jamie. In ten seconds I had fallen asleep.

Being Popeye must be brilliant, I thought. Just able to burst open a can of spinach, then wham! All your problems solved. I was imagining myself stopping Mum and Dad fighting just by knocking their heads together and telling them to behave when Jamie came in and sat down on his bed across from me. He clasped his hands and stared at his shoes for a bit, before looking up. His face was white, eyes hollow.

"Dad's dead," he told me.

I nearly laughed. Not because it was funny, it just sort of happened. But I stopped myself. I could see Jamie was serious. I asked him what had happened and he started to cry. I had never seen Jamie blub like that before and I couldn't understand it. He'd always said he hated Dad.

Things got really confused then. I remember wanting to cry, or feeling that I should, but there was nothing there. Mum came in and took me under one arm and reached for Jamie with the other. She held us really close and then the three of us stayed like that for a while. Mum wasn't crying either, which made me feel better, but her eyes were hollow, same as Jamie's. Later on, people started coming round and for the next couple of days there were lots of phone calls and visits from family and neighbours as Mum got everything organized for the funeral. It was all a bit unreal, that time. Gran came over and cooked our meals and helped Mum with things. Jamie and I kept going to school and were sent out to play after, like our lives were just supposed to continue untouched.

The story of Dad dying we pieced together from what Mum told us and from people who would talk and forget we were in the room. Mum had told us it was his heart and that was right enough. What she didn't say was that she was the one who had found his body in the morning. He must have left the house after their argument, opened up the garage, got into the car and been hit by the heart attack right away. Neighbours and people walking in the street said that they had heard a car horn going, but nobody had known where it was coming from. I must have been asleep because I couldn't remember hearing anything. And Mum told Gran how she kept seeing like in a film this picture of herself with the headphones on, sitting in the living room, trying to stop her tears, with the opera that she loved and Dad hated, smothering all the thoughts in her mind while through the wall her husband was dying, pounding the car horn for attention, for the rescuer who would never arrive because she couldn't hear him.

It was in the hotel after the funeral that the thing happened with Mr Fisher. I don't remember when we first met Mr Fisher, but he was always Mum's friend and not Dad's. Sometimes his name would fly about during their fights. I liked Mr Fisher. In the days after Dad died Mr Fisher came to the house a lot. Mum said he was a great help, but I heard Gran say that she didn't think it was right and that people would get the wrong idea if Mum wasn't careful. Mum said she had more important things to worry about than what people thought.

The hotel was really posh but freezing. Jamie went and got sandwiches and hot sausage rolls to warm us up. There were a lot of people there, but we were the only children and nobody paid us any attention until Mr Fisher came over and sat down.

"Nice grub, boys?" he said, smiling. He held out an arm and without thinking I let him pick me up and sit me on his lap. Jamie stayed where he was.

"Have you ever been to a football match, lads?" Mr Fisher asked. I shook my head. Jamie was quiet.

"How would you like to see a game with your Uncle Davie?"

Nobody had ever called Mr Fisher Uncle Davie, certainly not Jamie or me. I was trying to think who he meant when I heard Jamie say something under his breath.

"What was that, James?"

Jamie stood right in front of him, fists clenched, eyes like fire. I wriggled to get free, but Mr Fisher's arm gripped me. I saw Jamie stick his chin out like he did before a fight.

"I said I know your game. You're after our Mum, you dirty big bastard!" Jamie fairly shouted.

Suddenly Mum was there and the back of her hand walloped Jamie in the face. Mr Fisher stood up, and I was off his lap and out of the way fast. Mum balled her ring hand into a tight little fist, screamed an obscenity and let him have it square across the lips. Mr Fisher sat down for a moment and then he got up and said, very calmly, "Please accept my most sincere condolences." Then he gave Mum a bow and went out of the hotel and out of our lives for ever.

He was alright, Mr Fisher. But Mum was outstanding. Brilliant.

In our nest on the hillside I rolled over and looked up at Jamie. He seemed very far away, but he must have known that I was looking at him, because without turning round he said, "I heard it, Robbie."

"What is it?"

"I heard Dad," he said softly. "I was awake. I heard the car horn. I knew it was him. I knew there must be trouble. But I didn't do anything. I killed him, Robbie."

" No, Jamie. It was his heart. Mum said. The doctor, everybody said."

"Aye, I did. I killed him."

"Nobody killed him. He just died."

"But I wanted him to die," Jamie cried. "That's how I killed him." Then Jamie was off down the hillside, leaping, flying. I scrambled after him, determined to catch up. When I got back to the road, Jamie was waiting and he was Jamie again. Big smile. Big brother.

"I won't tell, Jamie, honest," I told him. He handed me another bit of chocolate.

We ran home side by side and as I ran I tried to remember the way the town had looked from up the hill, when everything seemed to be there for a reason, but the picture had faded from my mind.

We had just let ourselves into the house when the front door opened again and Gran came in with Mum.

Gran started telling us off but Mum pushed past her and grabbed hold of us. We hugged tight for a long time. Then Mum relaxed and sat back, still with her arms round us both.

"Three musketeers," she said, and I remember thinking that this was the end of it now, that the grieving part was over and, if it was going to be just the three of us together from now on, that was alright with me.

(Adapted from "Goodbye, Robbie Tuesday ..." by Chris Roberts. The story first appeared in New Scottish Writing 1997, published by Flamingo.)