Read Online Demo by Alison Miller - Free Book Online

onto the pavement, but it’s quite narrow and hard to get by folk at first. I hold on tight to Julian’s hand. He’s goin,
Scusi, scusi,
and squeezin past folk. Just as well everybody’s in a good mood; they’re all singin and chantin and shoutin and hardly notice us. Eventually we get goin a bit faster. Most of the time you can just see folks’ backs and the backs of their banners. I would like to look at them but I’m scared to turn too often in case I lose Julian. He’s tall but, so at least his dreads would be flyin over the heads of maist of the crowd.
    At the end of this road, we turn into another one that slopes down a wee bit. The march goes right to the bottom and away on by. I don’t see how we’re ever goin to find Danny and them. I’ve never saw so many folk – no even at Celtic Park, when my da used to take me and I had to hold on tight to his hand and all I could see was legs and the bottoms of anoraks till he picked me up. And then all his pals would speak to me and smile and sometimes kiss me with their beery mouths. I’ve still got the scarf one of them gave us. I never told my da I didny like goin.
    We pass a line of guys with red T-shirts and black berets. I look back at them. One of them was at l’Accademia this morning posin like the
David.
I smile at him but he looks right through me. When I was wee I used to think it was terrible there was so many people in the world you would never know.
    There’s a big section next that looks like trade unions. They’ve got dead professional-lookin banners and official printed placards. At first I think it’s all in Spanish, but it isny.
    Must be Portuguese. Or maybe Catalan. No the kind I’velearnt anyway. They’re about my da’s age, a lot of them, and they look a wee bit like him too. The style a them. They’re a lot quieter. One a them winks at me and I give him a smile in the passin. Julian’s no slowed down one bit. He’s on a mission. My hand’s sore where he’s grippin it tight, but I’m glad he is. If he let go and disappeared I don’t know what I would do. I would like to stop sometimes and see what it’s like at one bit of the demo, but in a way, it’s quite excitin leggin it down the side, past all the different kinds a folk and the colours and the noise and all the different songs.
    In front of the trade unionists there’s a funny wee group. I look over my shoulder at them. Julian, I says, here’s some English banners. He doesny hear me at first. Julian, wait, I shout louder. He turns and slows down a bit. Look, there’s some banners in English here. Julian looks. His face is hard and set.
    Don’t tell me you want to stay with this lot, Clare.
    Shh, I says. They must have heard him. But I think they’re a good laugh. FAIRIES AGAINST THE WAR , the banner says in spidery writin, with pictures of fairies and elves all over it. The lassie nearest me is wearin white tights and big rainbow Docs with the laces undone; and a pink and white net tutu with a big green jumper on top. She’s carryin a tray with like, fairy cakes wae pink and white icing. And she’s got on a paper tiara with letters made out of purple sequins that says, Tinkerbell. Hangin fae her tray there’s a notice: MAKE CAKES, NOT BOMBS . She smiles at me and holds out the tray.
    Would you like a cake?
    Thanks, I say, and I take a pink one. Her tray’s held on round her neck with a ribbon and she’s got fingerless red gloves on. Did you make them?
    Yeah, she says, me and Milly. She points her tray at the lassie walkin beside her. Hi, Milly says. She’s wee and fat and she’s dressed in a floaty yellow and green nylon skirt wae acombat jacket on top and a big badge that says: FLOWER FAIRIES FIGHT FASCISM .
    We made them at my mother’s in London and brought them on the bus in a fridge box. Pretty cool, hey? This is the last of them.