The Crate from Penang, by Alasdair Cowie

An original short story extract set in the twentieth century.

Uncle Fergus came up the close at Hogmanay carrying a kitbag, a wooden crate and a voice that reached the top landing before he did. ‘Where’s my wee nephew? Where’s the boy that was knee high to a herring?’

He was browner than anyone I had ever seen in Govan, and thinner, with a moustache that looked borrowed. He filled our kitchen instantly. He kissed my mother on both cheeks, lifted my grandmother clean off her feet and prised open the crate with a bread knife to show us tins of pineapple, a carved elephant and a silk scarf the colour of marmalade. Everything he gave away, he gave with a flourish, like a conjuror producing doves.

‘Twenty years on the rubber estates,’ he said, ‘and this is what I’ve to show for it. Pineapple.’ He laughed, and we all laughed with him.

Later, when the others had gone to bed, I came back for a glass of water and found him still at the table. The bright voice had gone. He was turning the carved elephant round and round in his fingers, and the gaslight showed how his hand shook. He did not hear me at first. When he did, he straightened, winked and put a finger to his lips, as if we had agreed on something.

‘Bed, soldier,’ he said softly. ‘Your uncle’s just counting his elephants.’

What impressions does the writer create of Uncle Fergus?

You must refer to the language used in the text to support your answer, using relevant subject terminology where appropriate.