And then, just as he was about to tell Bobby to pull away, Abe appeared again. He stood at the tenement doorway, staring straight at the car, his mouth closed now, his nose raised to sniff the air, his eyes almost quizzical as he found Davie’s face. At first Davie thought the dog had not recognised him but then, slowly, the tail began to wag. He didn’t move forward though, and Davie didn’t want to get out. Neither man nor dog moved, they simply looked at one another, separated by the glass and ten years. Davie heard a man call Abe’s name and the dog glanced over his shoulder back into the close, then turned to the car again. Davie felt the sting behind his eyes increase and he intuitively sensed the dog was looking for permission.
Go on, son, he thought. Go home.
Abe remained still. It was as if as if he didn’t want to move, the bond he had formed with Davie back then still strong.
Please, Abe, Davie thought, just go…
The dog’s bright brown eyes didn’t move from Davie’s face, though his ears twitched when he heard his name being called again from inside the building. He took a step forward, his tail swinging, and Davie was about to tell Bobby start the motor, to get him away from here. But Abe stopped and looked over his shoulder once more. Darren appeared at the closemouth and Davie heard him say, ‘What you waiting for, pal? C’mon in the house.’
Abe turned to face Davie one last time and an understanding passed between them. He would always love Davie but he had a home now, a family, something Davie could not give him. Then the little dog turned and followed Darren into the close. Davie swallowed hard to dislodge the hard lump in his throat, part of him hoping that Abe would return. He didn’t reappear. Davie kept his face averted from Bobby. He did not want him to see the tears welling in his eyes.
Goodbye, Abe, he thought. Goodbye, pal.
13
SWORD STREET HAD not changed since he left it ten years before. Different cars were parked outside the tenements and shop fronts that lined the left hand side, but the sandstone buildings looked exactly the same. No reason for them not to, he supposed, but after seeing the renovation work being carried out in the schemes, he perhaps expected change here too. As they climbed up to the second floor flat, they met a woman in her sixties coming down. She was dressed like a typical Glasgow pensioner – shapeless thin coat, patterned scarf on her head, shoes with low heels. She stopped on the landing and studied them as they approached.
‘You have come home,’ she said to Davie, her heavily lined face showing no warmth.
‘I have, Mrs Mitchell,’ said Davie, dredging the woman’s name from the depths of his memory.
She nodded. ‘Your friends, they are waiting.’ Her voice still betrayed her Polish origins, though she had lived in Scotland since the late 1940s. She had married a Scot, had three children, yet never lost her accent. Hearing it reminded Davie of Joe. The woman lived in a flat that Joe had owned on the floor above. The old man had let her live there on a nominal rent and seeing her, hearing her accent, made Davie feel better somehow, as if Joe was still around calling the shots. The woman had looked askance at him and Rab, but always had a ready smile for Joe when he visited. She made her own kielbasa, a cheese bread for which he had a particular soft spot, and they would often sit together in her flat talking of the Mother Land.
‘We’ll keep the noise down, Mrs Mitchell,’ said Davie. She had constantly complained of the noise they made. They were young then and unaware of the disturbance they could cause.
‘No shooting, eh?’ She said, and Davie knew she was referring to the night Clem Boyle had fired shots on the ground floor. A grim smile stretched his lips at the memory. ‘No, Mrs Mitchell, no more shooting.’
She grunted, clearly not believing him, and carried on down the stone steps. Bobby grinned at Davie and said, ‘Welcome home, eh?’ Davie shrugged and took another step when he heard the woman’s voice again.
‘David,’ she said, and he looked over the banister. She had stopped midway down the next flight and was staring back at him. ‘Mister Joseph Klein, he was a good man.’
‘Yes, he was, Mrs Mitchell.’
She nodded, as if satisfied that he agreed. ‘I miss him a great deal.’
Davie sighed. ‘So do I, Mrs Mitchell. So do I.’
He had given her the right answer, for her stiff features softened. ‘There was man here, looking for you. A few weeks ago. He said he knew Mister Joseph Klein.’
Davie’s grip tightened on the thick wooden banister. ‘Did he say his name?’
She shook her head. ‘No name. He looked familiar.’
‘What did he want?’
‘He asked after you, wished to know when you would be home. I did not know and this I told him.’
Davie knew the answer to his next question before he heard it. ‘What did he look like?’
She paused, her face crumpled as she thought back. Then she looked up and said, ‘He looked like you, David, except older…’
Davie’s fingers tensed on the polished wood and he glanced at Bobby, who was listening to the exchange with interest. ‘Who is he, Davie?’
Davie licked his lips, which had suddenly turned very dry, and when he spoke his voice was dust-bound. ‘My dad.’
* * *
Rab McClymont’s eyes clouded as he thought over what Davie told him, the muted sound of Madonna singing ‘Vogue’ coming from the sitting room. They were in Davie’s old bedroom in the Sword Street flat. It had been freshly decorated and the double bed looked very inviting after ten years of stinking Barlinnie cots. All Davie wanted to do was get under the covers, curl up and sleep for a year. However, the fact that his father had been sniffing around would murder sleep.
‘You sure it’s him, Davie?’ Rab asked, his brow furrowed. When Rab’s big brow furrowed it looked like a freshly ploughed field.
‘Mrs Mitchell said he looked like me, but older. And I’m certain I saw him outside the court that day. And he sent me that photo of my mum. Who else could it have been?’
Rab could not answer that. Bobby said, ‘You think it was your dad that set Harris and the other lads on you, Davie?’
Rab frowned at that. Davie replied, ‘Could be.’
‘Well,’ said Rab, forcing a wide smile, ‘let’s no worry about Danny McCall now, eh? Come on, Davie, got some folk I want you to meet. But first, got something to show you.’
Davie sighed inwardly, but he went along with it. Rab was his mate, and he didn’t want to let him down. He knew the guests were crowding into the living room at the end of the hall, but Rab didn’t lead them there right off. He stepped across the lobby and threw open the door to what had once been his own room, back when he and Davie shared the flat. He gave Davie a wide grin as he stepped back to let him pass. Davie tightened his eyebrows quizzically and looked in. Rab’s big bed was gone of course, but it was what had replaced it that surprised him. One wall was covered in shelving which Davie recognised as having been in Joe’s old place up near Barlinnie. And those shelves were filled with the old man’s most treasured possessions – his records, line after line of carefully tended vinyl, gathered over years. There was even a substantial selection of 78s, their brittle plastic lovingly protected in padded sheathing.
‘Joe left them to us,’ said Rab. ‘All his Frank Sinatra stuff, his Dean Martin, all they guys. Stuff frae the forties and that, big bands, Glenn Miller, some blokes I’ve never even heard of.’
Davie stepped into the room reverentially. Joe had loved these recordings and many a night had been spent playing chess while Sinatra, Crosby or Dean Martin crooned in the background. Joe loved Frank Sinatra. ‘Others can sing a song,’ he used to say, ‘but Frankie delivers it’. Davie liked the sound, but his real preference was the swing music of Harry James, Tommy Dorsey and other names from that bygone era. He reached out and gently touched one row of album covers, running the edge of his finger along their spine.
‘I never much liked that stuff, you know that,’ Rab said. ‘But I know you did, so…’
Davie slid an album out and stared at the cover. A moody painting of Sinatra in a dark jacket, tie, hat on his head, a cigarette in his hand, leaning against a wall and behind him a lonely street with lamps glowing in a mist. Davie glanced over to the wall and saw that Joe’s old photographs had been hung there too. He sought out the one with the old man and Sinatra, taken years before in London. Joe was smiling at the camera, Frank’s arm over his shoulder. They both had drinks in their hand, Frank, like the album cover, with a cigarette burning between two fingers. Joe never smoked, never drank much, but he told Davie he did that night. ‘When Frankie offers you a drink, even pours it with his own hand,’ he once said, ‘you do not turn it down.’ Davie placed the album back in its place, swallowing hard to combat the growing emotion.
‘We kept his record player, too,’ said Rab from the doorway. ‘We got a bloke to come out and wire it up proper. There’s a CD player in the living room but I thought you’d want all this in here. It’s all yours, Davie. I think Joe would’ve liked that.’
Davie made a show of studying the hi-fi equipment set into an alcove of its own on the shelving, unwilling to turn around and show Rab how much the gesture had touched him. It had been top of the range in its day, and Davie knew it would still sound good. ‘Thanks, Rab,’ he said.
Rab cleared his throat and said, ‘Aye, well… I’ve got no use for it.’
Bobby raised his can of Carlsberg and said, softly, ‘To Joe, eh lads?’
Davie and Rab stared at each other for a moment, each thinking of the man who had taught them so much, then raised their own drinks – Rab’s can of lager, Davie’s can of Coke. ‘To Joe,’ they said in unison. They each took a slug and stood in silence, each wishing Joe Klein was still around.
Davie gave the albums one last look, then gave Rab a smile. ‘This was good of you, Rab. You’re a good mate.’
Rab’s brows drew together. ‘Fuck off. It’s just a bunch of noise to me. C’mon, let’s mingle...’
The living room was filled with people standing or sitting, talking and drinking, most of whom Davie did not know. One or two faces were familiar and he nodded to them as Rab led him across the room towards a tall, slim woman in her early thirties sitting in an armchair near the window, long dark hair framing a delicate face, her nose peppered with faint freckles. ‘Davie, this is Bernadette,’ said Rab, a big grin on his face. So this was Mrs McClymont, Davie thought and smiled, holding out his hand. She ignored it, rose to her feet and wrapped him in her arms for a tight hug.
‘I’m so glad to meet you, Davie,’ she said, her voice soft and warm, as was her embrace, her accent not as broad as he expected. Despite himself, Davie felt something flutter in his groin at the feel of her soft body against his. He felt guilty, this was Rab’s wife for God’s sake, but ten years without any physical contact was a long time. She stepped away from him and he hoped there was no visible sign of his arousal. ‘Rab speaks of you often,’ she said.
‘Aye,’ said Rab, ‘and some of it’s even true.’
Bernadette looked deeply into Davie’s eyes and said, ‘It’s good to have you home. Rab is so glad to have you back. Don’t listen to him, he’s missed you, I know he has.’
Rab looked shame-faced. Feelings were for songs, not something men talked about. Davie felt his own cheeks begin to burn and he wondered how a guy like Rab snared such a prize. Bernadette seemed to be a decent person, despite what Bobby had said about her family in Belfast, and in their line of business such people were rare. To cover the awkward moment, Davie turned to face a nervous little man with a shock of thick grey hair who was standing to one side. He looked crumpled, as if he needed a good iron, and was dressed in a shapeless brown suit, the shoulders of the jacket flecked with dandruff.
‘This is my solicitor, Gordon Spencer,’ Rab said, thankful to divert attention away from what his wife had just said. ‘You get in trouble again, Gordon’s your man.’
Davie shook the man’s proffered hand and looked into a set of watery brown eyes, seeing someone who looked uncomfortable in his own skin. Or maybe he was just unhappy being there. ‘Mister McCall,’ said the lawyer, nodding to him. His voice was cultured but weedy. Davie wondered how he fared arguing in a court. ‘How does it feel to be on the outside?’
Davie shrugged, not really wishing to discuss his feelings with a stranger. ‘It’ll take a bit of getting used to.’
The man’s head bobbed in agreement. ‘That it will, that it will, I’m sure. Still, you have one advantage other fellows in your position do not – you are a man of property.’
Davie looked from Spencer to Rab and saw his mate’s grin spread even wider. ‘Aye, mate,’ said Rab. ‘This flat’s all yours. Joe left it to both of us, but I’ve got my place out at Bothwell with Bernadette…’ he smiled at his wife and Davie saw then and there that Bobby had been correct, the big guy was head over heels about this soft-spoken woman. It made him even guiltier about feeling aroused when she had embraced him. ‘Anyway, I’ve signed the flat over to you. And Joe wanted the proceeds from his house to be split between you, me and Bobby, but when he died relatives came out the woodwork in Ayrshire – did you know he had folk down there?’ Davie nodded. Joe had mentioned them once. Polish miners who had been brought over to work down the pits back in the twenties or thirties and settled there. Joe didn’t see much of them. Davie knew there had been some dispute over Joe’s will, but then he’d gone away and didn’t think any more about it. Rab went on, ‘Anyway, they got a hefty wedge but there was some left over, so you’ve got a wee bit of money in the bank, too.’
Davie blinked as he took this in and said to Bobby, ‘You never told me.’
Bobby grinned. ‘Wouldn’t do you much good in the jail, mate. Thought we’d save it as a nice surprise for when you got out.’
The lawyer said, ‘It’s not a great deal, but it’s enough to tide you over until you start earning. And beyond, I’m sure, if you’re prudent.’
Rab laughed. ‘Aye, he means don’t go spending it all on burds and fast cars.’
The solicitor wasn’t finished. ‘The flat upstairs, too, should also be yours.’
‘The one that old dear lives in, the Polish woman,’ said Rab. ‘But Joe specified that she get to live there rent free till she dies.’ Rab pulled a face, showing what he thought of their old boss’s softer side. ‘Daylight fuckin robbery, so it is, but what we gonnae do? Gordon here thinks there’s a way round it, though.’
‘That’s fine,’ said Davie, quietly. ‘Mrs Mitchell stays there as long as she wants.’
Rab sighed. ‘Davie, son, it’s good to have you back, but in the name of God, you’ll need to toughen up. You’ve got a wee bit of cash, sure, but it’ll no last forever, the way prices are today. This isn’t 1980, son, you’ll no believe the cost of living.’
‘I think it’s right and proper,’ said Bernadette, smiling at Davie with her dark brown eyes. ‘Good for you, Davie.’
Davie smiled back at her but he was really uncomfortable now. Crowds were never his thing at the best of times, but he was finding it hard to cope with the tingle he still felt at his groin. Rab’s wife was attractive, and her physical proximity, the faint aroma of her perfume, her gorgeous brown eyes gazing at him, were all a growing reminder that he had not felt a woman’s touch for ten years. There were guys in the jail who could switch their sexual preferences when it suited them, but he was not one of them. He had spotted two girls when he entered the room, one blonde, one brunette, and they were watching him from the settee as they sipped something clear from long glasses. Rab must have followed his gaze, for he smiled again.
‘Davie, man, I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘should’ve taken care of business first. Sorry, folks, but there’s stuff I’ve got to discuss with my boy here.’
‘I thought you’d already discussed business, Rab,’ said Bernadette, frowning.
‘Aye, love, but there’s a few things we never took care of, eh, Bobby?’
Rab jerked his head towards the
girls and Bobby craned round to see them. He turned back, grinned, and peeled away from their little group to cross the room and lean over the duo. Whatever he said made them smile as they looked back at Davie.
‘C’mon, Davie,’ said Rab, gripping him by the arm and leading him away. Davie was grateful, for his face was beginning to flush again. He looked back at Bernadette, who looked puzzled till she saw Bobby chatting to the girls, and a small smile tickled her lips. As Rab led him past the girls, Davie saw them both appraising him, before giving each other a knowing glance. He knew they were deciding which one of them was going to welcome him back into the free world. He also knew that was why they were there, and that Bobby had probably selected them for the freedom they showed with their favours. Not normally Davie’s thing, but suddenly he wanted it very badly.
Rab left him in his room – ‘Take your time, son. And give her one for me.’ – before he closed the door with a wink. Davie sat on the bed, wondering just what the hell he was doing. He wondered which of the girls it would be. A sudden worrying thought struck him – what if, after all this time, he couldn’t stand up and be counted? What if he’d forgotten? Then another scary proposition presented itself – what if they both came in? Not being able to perform for one woman was bad enough, but two? He rubbed his face with both hands, wishing now that he had never gone along with this. Maybe he could get out, leave the flat before anything started, just slip away now, go for a walk, get away, be anywhere but here waiting for one girl or the other, or both, to walk through that door.
It was the blonde girl who came in. She stood with her back against the closed door and looked at him. She cast her eye around her.
‘Nice room,’ she said. She had a smoky voice, low and smooth. Davie wondered where Bobby had found her because she sure as hell wasn’t from around here.
‘I’m Vari,’ she said and smiled. Her teeth were slightly crooked but very white against the pale peach of her lipstick. Her hair was long and straight, her eyes, like Davie’s, a bright, piercing blue. When he saw her in the living room he had thought she was in her late teens, but now that he could see her clearly he realised with some relief that she was older, probably early to mid-twenties, which was good. He felt bad enough about the set-up without feeling like a child molester, too.
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