Shuggie Bain

Agnes has to drink three cans of lager before she can face the neighbor women waiting outside the gate. Agnes wanted to check out the Miners Club, but the women convince her not to. Birdie produces a vodka bottle and offers Agnes a drink with them; Agnes shares her cigarettes. They discuss the state of the town now that the mine has shut down.

Jinty, who seems to be related to everyone in the housing project, tells Cathleen not to worry about Colleen McAvennie, who is overprotective of her husband, Jamesy. The women let on that they know Shug is gone for good, and they offer to help Agnes apply for benefits.

Birdie tells Agnes she knew she was a drinker the moment she saw her and asks if she has a drinking problem; Agnes denies it. Birdie points out that Agnes is drinking vodka, which embarrasses Agnes. The other women admit to having had drinking problems, except Colleen, who is too religious. Birdie offers to sell Agnes Valium. 

Shuggie, who just lost a tooth, does not know where Agnes is. He waits in the yard with his doll. He dances down the road to the catholic school, ignoring the women he passes, who curtsey at him ironically. At the fence of the schoolyard, Colleen’s sons accost him about his doll. The say Shuggie is not in school is “a’cos your mammy is an auld alky” (120). They tease him some more, threatening to call Father Barry to tell on him for not being in school.

Shuggie runs to the Miners club, where he spends some time playing around with pools of oil outside. He runs into a boy hiding out in an old, overturned washing machine that the trash collectors refused to take away. The boy introduces himself as Johnny, and he offers Shuggie a ride in the machine. Johnnie makes fun of him for his doll, accusing him of being gay. He shoves Shuggie in the drum of the washing machine and spins him until he cries. Johnnie takes Shuggie into the shed nearby and rubs his scrapes and bruises with plants until he stops crying. Johnny pulls down his gym shorts and tells him, “Stop grinning […] Now you rub me” (124).

By the time Shuggie limps home (without the doll, which he left in the washing machine), Agnes is drunk, cursing out Joanie on the phone. She barely registers Shuggie and does not notice his missing tooth or blood and plant-stained legs.

Leek walks slowly home from the bus stop, tired from working at the Youth Training Scheme. He dreads going home to Agnes, and he knows that Catherine will be away with Donald Jr. He never told anyone that he found his biological father’s address in Agnes’s address book. He went there, and, from a distance, saw his father and his happy children. He threw the address away and never returned.

When Leak sees Agnes and Shuggie in the window, he knows Agnes is drunk. He turns back, deciding to go to his grandparents’ flat.

Agnes wakes up with a bad hangover. Shuggie has gone to school; Father Barry threatened to involve social services if his attendance does not improve. Agnes desperately searches for some remnant of alcohol to stave off the shakes. By Thursday, she had already spent most of the week’s dole money on alcohol. She takes a bath, then searches the house for something to pawn. She finds her good mink coat that she bought on Brendan McGowan’s dime.

Agnes walks to the pawn shop haughtily. She lingers at bus stops to make it look like she is waiting for one. It begins to rain. She takes refuge in a taxi garage. The repairman takes pity on her and lets her use the bathroom. Agnes takes a long time, looking at “the melted old hoor in the mirror” (132). She dries out her sodden coat as best as she can. The mechanic offers her tea. As they converse, he guesses she has walked all the way from Pithead to pawn her coat. Agnes is offended, but the mechanic says he merely recognized her behaviors and symptoms from his own struggle with alcoholism.

Agnes asks the mechanic if he knows Shug; he does not, but he guesses he must be the reason behind her alcoholism. He tells her the best way to get revenge on Shug is to have a great life. 

Shuggie and his family have lived in Pithead for two years. One evening, Catherine drags Shuggie to dinner at Uncle Rascal’s house. Catherine tells him to be on his best behavior and not to tell Agnes, or she will die. She tells Shuggie that Donald Jr. wants to move to South Africa for work.

Rascal’s house is warm and full of people and the smell of food. Catherine introduces Shuggie to Rascal, who looks like Shug, but with a full head of hair, Donald Jr., and Aunt Peggy. All are delighted to meet Shuggie. 

Shuggie is nervous when Shug enters the room. He barely remembers his father. Catherine introduces herself to Joanie. When Shuggie hears her name, he goes on the alert. He whispers to his sister, “Caff, that’s bad Joanie. You are not supposed to like her. That’s the hoor who stole my daddy” (143). Shug tells him to say hello to his new mother. Shuggie refuses. Joanie gives him a pair of yellow roller boots as a peace offering, and Shuggie cannot turn them down.

Shug, Donald Jr., and Catherine discuss Donald Jr.’s prospect of a job in a South African palladium mine. Catherine is not pleased; Shug is proud. Shuggie puts on the roller skates. Shug is not pleased with Shuggie. Mean spirited, Shug wants Agnes to know that they were here because it will hurt her. Shuggie spends the evening skating in the hall, trying to ruin the carpet, and wondering why his big sister is going to leave him. 

Leek climbs up one of the black slag hills left by the mine. He looks out over Pithead, with its run-down buildings and forlorn and shiftless citizens. Waking up in the mornings is getting harder for Leek, and his work suffers from it. The gaffer at his workplace is giving up on him. 

Leek pulls two letters from his sketchbook. The first is from Catherine, from Transvaal, South Africa. Reading it makes him feel sad and cast aside. The second letter is a letter of acceptance to a BA honors fine art course from two years ago. He remembers the day he received it: Shug had left, and Agnes “sat with her head in the gas oven” (149).

Shuggie struggles up the shifting slag. Leek said he could come so Shuggie wouldn’t tattle to Agnes. Agnes would not like Leek going to the abandoned mine, not because of the danger, but because he’d return covered in soot, making her look bad. Leek bounds down the slope, and Shuggie follows him.

Leek asks Shuggie about his school life. Shuggie is bullied, despite his appeals to Father Barry. Shuggie’s face darkens when he tells Leek that the other boys say that Shuggie does dirty things to Father Barry.

Leek asks how old Shuggie is, and Shuggie recites the exact date and time of Leek’s birth; he thinks they should know these things about each other. Shuggie is eight and a half years old. Leek tells him he needs to be more like the other boys to blend in more. Shuggie calls the other boys common. Leek shows Shuggie how to walk in a masculine fashion, but Shuggie can’t master it.

Leek breaks into one of the abandoned mining facilities to scavenge for things to sell, bidding Shuggie to stand guard. Shuggie practices walking for a while; however, a man arrives and chases him. Shuggie manages to hide, and the man leaves, shouting that he will find him. Shuggie gets stuck in a pool of mud. Terrified, as he starts to sink, Shuggie sings to himself. Leek arrives and saves him.

Because Shuggie was not keeping watch, the watchman attacked Leek. Leek hurt his assailant badly, but Leek’s bottom dentures are cracked and broken. Shuggie can see Leek is disappointed in him. 

Leek gave the watchman brain damage with his crowbar. The police never suspected him. Leek’s teeth hurt all through the winter, and when the National Healthcare Service finally replace his dentures, they are ill-fitting. Leek takes his frustrations out on Shuggie, and Shuggie does his best to try to make amends. Summer arrives, and Shuggie practices walking how Leek showed him. He feels like there is something wrong with him.

Agnes sits around the house listlessly. She thinks of the time she angered Colleen by taking one of her daughters in and brushing her hair properly. Sometimes, she wished that she and Colleen could get along because they have a lot of life circumstances in common—though she does not like to admit this. Agnes wonders why Colleen hates her: Colleen has everything Agnes wants—a close, intact family.

Agnes approaches Big Jamesy, Colleen’s husband, while he works on his car. She asks him to include Shuggie the next time he does something with his boys. She is worried about Shuggie’s behavior; Jamesy agrees that Shuggie is not right. Agnes offers to pay him, but Jamesy declines; he wants oral sex instead. Agnes feels debased afterward, and Jamesy seems to regret it; however, he agrees to take Shuggie fishing with him on Sunday.

On Sunday, they watch the McAvennies pile into the truck, but Jamesy drives right past Agnes and Shuggie.

Agnes is more disappointed than Shuggie is. She begins drinking, trying to time it so she is properly drunk when Jamesy returns. She watches a strange woman approach Colleen, say something, and follow her inside. When Jamesy returns, Agnes dons a fluffy sequined sweater that Colleen has an aversion to and skirt that will allow her to kick.

When Agnes reaches the McAvennies’s door, it flies open. Colleen yells at Jamesy; he had been carrying on an affair with the strange woman from earlier. Jamesy calls Agnes a whore before driving off.

Colleen collapses on the sidewalk tearing her hair. Ironically, Agnes goes to comfort her. Colleen blames herself for cheating; she has refused Jamesy sex because she doesn’t believe in contraceptives. Colleen rips her skirt open; she is not wearing underwear. To try to save Colleen’s dignity, Agnes takes her own off and puts them on her. Chaos erupts between Colleen’s and Jamesy’s families. Colleen is unresponsive. Agnes waits with her until an ambulance arrives.