Shuggie Bain

Agnes has completely relapsed into alcoholism. Leek begins to disappear again; Shuggie goes back to taking care of Agnes. On Hogmanay (New Year’s Eve), Agnes has Shuggie take can of Special Brew to Colleen. She says, “Be sure and tell your Auntie Colleen a ‘Happy New Year’ from me and Eugene” (305). Instead, outside, Shuggie drinks some of the beer, glad to have something to fill his empty stomach. Shuggie sees Agnes get in a cab, and he panics.

Eugene had been coming by, guilty for pushing Agnes back into her habit. He helps repair things around the house, and he encourages Agnes to keep sober—to no avail. Agnes begins calling the taxi depot all the time, so Shuggie skillfully changes the numbers in Agnes’s address book.

Slightly drunk, Shuggie pours out the rest of the beer and heads back home. He eats the last tin of custard to settle his stomach before taking out Agnes’s black address book. He deduces she is at a party thrown by someone named Anna O’Hanna. He calls and even manages to speak to Agnes. She is drunk and angry—she thinks Shuggie is trying to ruin her fun. Shuggie calls a cab from the phone book, then opens the television meter and steals the coins. He has enough to get to Anna O’Hanna’s house, but not enough to get home.

The cab driver takes rural roads and makes small talk, eventually asking Shuggie if he wants to sit up front and play with the CB radio. He offers Shuggie a sandwich; Shuggie, famished, accepts. The cab driver starts fondling Shuggie, shoving his hand down the back of Shuggie’s underpants. At first, Shuggie says nothing, but finally he mentions that both Shug and Eugene are cab drivers, and the man stops. The driver makes small talk until they reach their destination; either from guilt or pity, he does not charge Shuggie for the ride. Shuggie “wished he had taken the coins; he didn’t want the man to think he had liked the way his fingers hurt him” (317).

Shuggie finds the Germiston flat and searches for Agnes through the throng of the New Year’s party. He finds Agnes, half-naked, in a dark room, under a pile of coats. 

Agnes has deteriorated. Whatever happened to her on New Year’s killed her love of partying; she now drinks to forget herself and her loneliness. The petrol station fired her from for too many absences.

Shuggie wakes to find her sitting on his bed. She wants him to skip school again to pick up the Tuesday child support check. The woman at the DSS threatens to take Agnes’s benefits book if she keeps sending Shuggie; Shuggie begs her not to, partially soiling his pants in anxiety. Finally, she gives him the money, warning him to go back to school and not waste his life in welfare lines.

Agnes makes Shuggie go with her to Dolan’s general store, and they put on a show of making conversation to save face in front of the neighbors. At the store, Mr. Dolan, the one-armed proprietor, asks why Shuggie is not in school. Agnes buys groceries before asking for a dozen special brews. She is short on money and must return most of the groceries. She keeps the beer.

Shuggie goes to the place in the marsh “where he practiced being a normal boy” (330). He decorated this area with discarded furniture during a week he skipped school. Decorating this hideout helps occupy his time.

Shuggie returns home to find Leek pinning Agnes down. She slit her wrists. Agnes struggles to free herself, cursing Leek. Leek tells Shuggie to call an ambulance. Agnes screams “You don’t love me” (332).

Agnes wakes up in a psychiatric hospital with no memory of how she got there. Eugene and Leek preside over her. The gaffer at Leek’s work had received a call from Agnes; he sent Leek home with money for his fare. Agnes had not intended for Leek to make it home in time to save her. Shuggie is with Big Shug. 

Shuggie has been living at Shug’s house for a week when Agnes wakes up. Joanie and her six present children were not pleased that Shuggie was moving in. All six of them call Shug “Dad.” He takes the room of a seventh son of Joanie’s, who is away in the army. In bed, Shuggie lies away, thinking. He realizes Shug has 14 children, three of whom are named Hugh.

Joanie kicks Shuggie out of the house in the daytime so Shug can sleep. He spends his time wandering the housing project high rises, wondering if Agnes is all right.

After three weeks, Agnes shows up. She had called and gotten into an argument with Joanie. Shuggie hated hearing the family take delight in Agnes’s suffering. Tired of begging and threatening, Agnes decides to come get Shuggie herself.

Agnes hammers on the door. When there is no answer, she shouts, “SHUG BAIN! SHOW YOUR FACE, YOU WIFE-BEATING HOORMASTER’” (341). A crowd starts to gather in the street. Agnes throws a trashcan through the house’s window, breaking the glass and smashing the family’s color television. Shug restrains the Micklewhites at the front door, keeping them from attacking Agnes. Their rage intensifies when Agnes hits Joanie in the face with one of her stiletto shoes.

Shuggie jumps out the broken window, and, ignoring Shug, goes to Agnes. Agnes embraces Shuggie, telling him not cry, not to give them that satisfaction. They get into the waiting cab, and “he let her cry, he let her talk, and he didn’t contradict her when she made him fine promises he knew she would be unable to keep” (345).

Eugene comes in the mornings after Leek leaves to drop off groceries and help take care of Agnes. She is still asleep when he arrives, so he makes toast and tea for himself and Shuggie and looks at the newspaper Agnes left open on the table. She has circled ads for housing exchanges far from Pithead. She wants to move somewhere she can be anonymous again. She drafted an ad that makes Pithead seem like a wholesome destination.

Eugene and Agnes have passionless sex when she is not too hungover. Agnes asks if Eugene will move in with her if they get a new house; Eugene says he will not; he doesn’t like her when she’s drinking. Agnes thinks this sounds like he “was resigning from a job he hated’” (349). With that, their relationship ends.

For weeks, Agnes drinks herself into sadness, then into anger. One day, she demands Shuggie call her a cab to the bingo hall. Agnes impatiently asks over and over if the cab has arrived. Shuggie pours her a drink to appease her, and Agnes passes out on a chair.

Agnes wakes up when Leek comes home and immediately asks for money. This erupts into an argument. Agnes flies into a drunken fury when she sees Leek’s new jeans and guesses he is going to the pub. She uses homophobic slurs to insult Leek; Leek automatically looks at Shuggie, who hears the same words aimed at him at school every day.

Agnes kicks Leek out. She goes to the telephone. Leek begins stuffing black plastic bags with his possessions. Leek tells Shuggie that he is the man of the house now and gives him ideas of how to survive and take care of Agnes—many of which Shuggie has already been doing for years. Leek tells Shuggie to look out for himself; if he needs to leave, he wants him to hide all the pills and sharp objects in the house. Shuggie is worried that if there is no one to look after her, Agnes will not get better. Leek tells him that Agnes will never get better.

Shuggie does his best for Leek, but without him there, “The lowest of the demons came out of the off-licenses and bookies, and they filled [Agnes] with drink” (356). Shuggie wants Agnes to get better so Leek will come back. 

Agnes and Shuggie want out of Pithead. Agnes knows of the rumors that now circulate about her, but she still maintains her pride of her appearance as she walks through the town. Agnes has a confrontation with Colleen about Eugene which, culminates in Agnes telling her she slept with Jamesy.

Because of Agnes, the McAvennie children begin harassing Shuggie at home. When he does not answer the door, they spit through the letterbox. Shuggie tries to wipe it up before it gets on the carpet. Finally, Francis tries to coax him outside. He offers to let Shuggie kiss him through the mail slot. When he puts his mouth to the slot, Shuggie shoves the spit rag in his mouth. In a rage, Francis tries to stab Shuggie with Colleen’s kitchen knife.

Agnes feverishly begins pawning her possessions, gripped with the desire to leave pithead. During packing, Shuggie asks her, “Why can’t I be enough?” but she is not listening (365). Shuggie manages to save a few of Leek’s and Catherine’s possessions before Agnes pawns the rest.

The night before the move, Agnes and Shuggie eat chocolate as Agnes tries on clothes. They discuss who they want to be in their new lives. Agnes promises to stop drinking and to get a job. When Shuggie seems doubtful, Agnes dumps the remainder of her alcohol down the drain—something she has never done before.