
Mary and Thomas were each thirteen years old, born and raised in the tenements of Glasgow. Here in Glasgow the children grew up playing on the cobbles, whiling away their days drawing in chalk, running along the alleys, breaking windows with their slingshots and skipping ropes. People lived thriftily in Glasgow, earning a shilling for selling papers, carrying milk or a day down the mines, or perhaps for a small theft here and there. Their fayre was simple; Thomas liked his porridge warm and Mary liked it hot. They dreamt of going to the pictures, and Thomas promised Mary that one day he’d take her to see a Hammer Studios film. Hammer was a great British studio that made all the best horror films – Frankenstein, Dracula, the Mummy – a compendium of frightful tales and screaming damsels. Thomas dreamed of being an actor at Hammer, where he would wear terrifying costumes and talk with a sharp accent, all dark eyebrows and pasty makeup so he could play a twisted, cruel aristocrat. Forgetting the misery of the slums, he would play characters who were feared and admired throughout the cinemas of England.
“And who will I be?” Mary asked.
“A countess, with a giant wig and a frilly dress that sits on her like a giant bell. You’ll be covered in makeup, with red lips and blushed cheeks,” Thomas answered, acting out the scene.
“Will I be cruel? And powerful?”
“Terribly cruel! You’ll kill the peasants from your country so you can drink their blood for breakfast!”
“That’s awful! What about you? Will you be the count? Will you still love me?”
“Of course! I’ll protect you from uprisings, from exorcists and monsters.”
“What if I grew old and wrinkled, would you still love me then?”
“Don’t worry, drinking the peasants’ blood will keep you young and beautiful,” Thomas reassured her, putting his arm around her shoulders.
“What if...” Mary hesitated. “What if I'm never a countess, and I get old and wrinkled here in Glasgow?”
“Then I’ll get old and wrinkled with you.”
“Will you work in a factory?”
“Yes.”
“Will you be the foreman?”
“Yes.”
“What will I do?” she worried.
“You’ll raise the children, silly!”
“Our children? How many?
“Eight! Six girls and two boys,” Thomas replied with great enthusiasm.
“Eight?! That’s so many, I’ll never manage! How about five?”
“Five is good. But the eldest has to be called Thomas Junior.”
“And what if it’s a girl? Mary Junior?”
“Mary Junior...Mary Junior...” Thomas thought about this.
“Yes, I suppose it doesn’t sound quite right,” Mary admitted. “We'll call her Countess.”
“Countess makes her sound like a little lapdog! Here, Countess! Go fetch, Countess!” Thomas laughed, tossing a pebble before them.
“Countess couldn’t find your pebble...I don’t think she’s coming back,” Mary joked.
“That’s OK, we’ll have four other kids anyway.”
Sitting atop the steps that looked down into the tenements, Mary and Thomas laughed together. They could spend whole days talking here, and indeed they did; entire nights too, and they did, until the day they became old and wrinkled, here in a red-brick flat in Glasgow with four, five or eight children scampering around them. Thomas leaned over Mary’s face; she smiled at him, and he kissed her. They were thirteen years old, and they were happy.
Alan Alfredo Geday