In John Niven’s latest novel, The Fathers, first-time dad, Dan, meets Jada, father-of-six. They both represent very different sides of the city of Glasgow, and, in meeting each other, these two sides collide in a devastating way.

The Fathers
By John Niven
Published by Canongate

They were going the same way, Dan realised. It was freezing. ‘Look, uh, I’m really sorry,’ he said. ‘I’ve forgotten your name.’  

‘Jada.’ 

‘Jada, aye. Look, uh, do you want a lift? I’m going that way.’  

A moment. Jada considering. ‘Ye sure?’ 

Dark, wintry Govan slid silently by. It was trying to snow again, tiny flecks blowing through the orange balls cast by the streetlamps, the interior of the car softly lit by the computer screen set in the dash.  

Jada looked around, appraising. ‘Tesla, eh?’  

‘Yeah, I know,’ Dan said, shaking his head. He’d been touched by the way Jada had watched him start the car, fascinated by the keyless procedure, the car unlocking simply by responding to Dan’s phone as they approached it, then the tapping of the four-digit code into the touchscreen. ‘I keep thinking we should sell it. At this point it’s like driving a MAGA cap on wheels, right?’ 

Jada looked at him as if he’d said ‘Bumbellybuttonfeet’.  

‘But,’ Dan went on, ‘it just drives so well.’ 

‘Aye. They’re hard to fucking’ – Jada just stopped himself saying ‘steal’ – ‘beat. Hard to fucking beat.’  

A whumf as they entered the Clyde Tunnel, the light bright, flooding the car. Dan noticed the frayed cuffs of Jada’s grey jogging bottoms, the thin hoodie he was wearing. Had to be minus 3 out. ‘So, Jada, you got any tips for me?’  

‘Tips? The horses, like?’  

‘No, no – fatherhood. It’s not your first rodeo, you said, eh?’  

‘Right. Tips, wi’ the weans?’ Jada thought, What the fuck? ‘Er, well, Ah’m maybe no the best person to ask, like, Dan. I’m kinda old school, know what Ah mean? Like, hands-aff type?  Jist let them fucking get oan wi’ it. Wipe their ain arses as soon as they’re old enough?’ 

‘Right, right,’ Dan said. ‘Wipe their own arses.’ He repeated this as though it was a maxim handed down from Dr Benjamin Spock himself. 

Silence. After a moment Jada coughed and broke it. ‘So where do you live yourself, Dan?’ 

‘Hyndland.’  

‘Oh aye. I’ve a couple o’ mates up there. Whereabouts?’ 

‘Park Crescent?’  

‘Aye? Nice. Very nice. Obviously daeing well for yersel, living up there and driving a motor like this. Whit kinda business ye in, Dan, if ye don’t mind me asking, like?’  

Here we go, Dan thought. Very often, when this came up in casual conversation, with the cab driver, the barman, he would lie. Go generic. ‘Computers,’ he’d say. Or ‘management’. For whatever reason – tiredness, an urge to impress – he decided to be straight with Jada. ‘Well, you know McCallister? The detective show?’ 

‘Aye. Course.’  

‘I write it.’ He’d never say, ‘I created it.’ Too pompous.  

Jada’s eyes going sideways to look at him. Then, ‘Away tae fuck.’ Jada said this simply and without malice.  

‘I do. Swear to God,’ Dan laughed.  

‘Is that right?’ Jada looked at him with fresh interest. 

‘Yep. Twenty bloody years now.’  

A silence as Jada absorbed this news. ‘So dae ye write, like, the stories? Aw whit they’re gaunnae dae and that?’  

‘Yeah. And the dialogue.’ Another ‘bumbellybuttonfeet’ look from Jada. ‘You know, the words they say.’  

‘Aye?’ Jada said. ‘Somebody writes aw that?’ 

‘Yeah.’  

‘Ah always thought they actors just made it up as they went along.’  

‘Ah, no, not usually.’ Though who could forget Gregor’s passion for improvisation in the early days?  

‘And ye get good money for that, aye?’  

‘Yeah, it’s not bad.’  

‘Go oan yersel, pal.’  

A sonic pop, the ambient noise changing as they emerged from the tunnel and out into Whiteinch. They passed Victoria Park on their left, and Jada fleetingly remembered taking Big Sonia McPherson from behind in some bushes in there in his late teens. There was also the time over by the pond when him and Panda had taken on five of the Scotstoun Young Team and leathered the fucking lot of them. Jada’s personal topography of Glasgow was overlaid with a grid referencing many, many fucks and fights. ‘And what line of work are you in yourself, Jada?’ Dan was asking now, the name still feeling ludicrous in his mouth.  

‘Ach, a bit o’ this, bit o’ that,’ Jada said. ‘Here, whit’s yer man like?’  

‘Sorry?’ 

‘Yer man that’s McCallister?’ 

‘Gregor?’ Fuck. Still had to call him back. Do it after he dropped Jada. ‘Oh, nice guy.’ Dan’s standard answer. 

‘Aye? Ah heard he was a total fud, like.’  

‘Really?’ Dan’s interest perked up at this. It was always pleasing to come across stray stories of Gregor behaving badly. 

‘Aye. My pal Hughie, right, his brother’s pal’s oan the taxis and he said he hud him in his motor wan time, in fae the airport, and he said he was aw pure up himself.’ 

‘Is that right?’  

‘Aye. Fucked him oan the tip an aw.’  

‘Mmm-hmm. I’ll have to pull him up on that.’  

‘Are youse pals, like?’  

‘More colleagues.’  

‘Oh aye. So he is a total fud, then?’  

Dan laughed. They were coming along Dumbarton Road now, heading east. ‘Just up here’s fine, cheers, wee man. Appreciate it.’ Dan pulled over, up on the pavement in front of a row of shops. ‘Who ye aw meeting in Tennent’s, then?’  

‘Oh, just some pals. Boys I went to uni with.’ Dan extended his hand. ‘Well, good luck with the wee one. When are you getting him home?’  

‘Ach, doctor says it’ll be a few days yet. Nicola’s still bad wi’ the high blood pressure an aw that. Jist couldnae get aff the fags. She cut doon, so she did. But it’s hard, eh.’  

‘Uh, yeah.’ Jesus. 

‘When’s your boy getting oot?’  

Made it sound like prison. ‘Tomorrow morning.’  

‘Right, well, see ye roon then, Dan.’  

‘Yeah. Sure. Take care, Jada.’  

The heavy clunk of the door.  

Dan drove off, casting a glance in the rear-view mirror, seeing the tall, slim figure hurrying across the road, dodging cars, towards the light of some dismal pub. And Dan Chambers thought all the usual things someone of his education, income and class would think.  

Six kids from six women.  

Smoking while she’s pregnant.  

Jesus – what chance did that poor kid have in life?  

But he also thought it must be liberating to some degree. 

The pleasures of the unexamined life and all that. Dan had read somewhere that the lower classes – as a good socialist he hesitated to even think in these terms – and the upper classes had all the fun. All the fucking and fighting without a care in the world and never a worry about money because there was a surfeit of it in one case and none of it at all in the other. Father a bunch of illegitimate kids? Fuck it, someone will sort it out, either the state or the centuries-deep pockets of your family. Yes, it must be nice, freeing, to not be poleaxed by all the usual middle-class handicaps and foibles.  

Jada, in his turn, lit a Piccadilly in front of the Flaps, the tiny crystals of snow stinging as they landed on his face and forehead, and drew heavily on the rough fag as he watched Dan’s tail-lights disappear towards Byres Road and made his own judgements and calculations . . . 

Park Crescent 
LD70 KVH
3376 

He dialled Tony. ‘Tony? Wee job fur ye the night.’ Jada listened, letting Tony say his piece, his ‘fuck sake’s and his ‘it’s freezing’s and whatever. Then he retorted: ‘Listen, ya wee ginger prick. Ah don’t gie a fuck if it’s fucking snowing. Get yer arse oot o’ that bed and do as yer telt. There’s fifty bar in it fur ye. Another hunner if ye get it done . . . Aye, thought that’d get ye moving. Meet me in the Flaps. Soon as.’ 

Jada hung up and pushed through the doors into the warmth of the pub.  

The Fathers by John Niven is published by Canongate, priced £18.99.