“So do I.”
“You just count the numbers of the war dead. And every spare minute you’re out in the streets kicking that daft ball about. Or winching that wee Fiona Cameron.”
“Who told you about Fiona Cameron?”
“The whole of the Gorbals knows. You should be ashamed.”
He swallowed hard, frightened to ask what exactly he should be ashamed of.
“Telling her you were enlisting,” Celia continued. “You know, Avram Escovitz, you may be smart, but you’re not thinking. There’s so much going on right now. Not just the war. And not just the football. And not just the winching.”
“Like what?”
“Well, these strikes for one. And a revolution happening in Russia.”
“What revolution?”
She raised her eyes in a mock gesture of despair. “You can ask Uncle Mendel when you see him. He’s a socialist.” She called to the driver. “Can you stop, please?”
“Whit faur, lass? We’re almost at the station.”
“Please stop. I want to go to the demonstration.”
The driver pulled up the horses and Celia eased herself down off the backboard. Avram quickly gathered his baggage together in a scramble, jumped off after her.
“Celia,” he shouted. “Wait!”
She stopped, spun back at him. Her bonnet had slipped back off her forehead, her whole face luminous with the excitement of what she was doing.
“I have to go,” she said.
“I’ll be back,” he said.
She looked at him quizzically. “Of course you will.”
“I’ll be back to get you.” He fumbled in his pocket, pulled out the small box he’d been saving for her. “Here. I want you to have this. Take it.” He clawed back the lid to reveal the silver thimble.
She stared at his outstretched hand. “I can’t. Your mother gave it to you.”
His mouth should have been full of all the fine phrases he had been rehearsing in his head all morning. But instead all he could manage was: “Please.”
“I just can’t.”
“Please. Please take it.”
“No, no. I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“It’s all you have left of her. It’s too precious.”
“That’s why I want you to have it.”
“Oh, Avram. You’d better go.” She leaned forward, brushed his cheek with her lips. Then all he saw was her back as she disappeared quickly and purposefully into the crowds, leaving him with the amber box clasped painfully tight in his fingers.
Twenty-five
UNLIKE UNCLE MENDEL, THE TRAIN HAD ARRIVED at Oban right on time, the driver deliberately holding back until the station clock struck the hour before allowing the engine to kiss the buffers. A hundred-mile journey churning away at a steady sixty, then these last few inches so sweet and so slow. Avram saw the stationmaster snap his pocket-watch shut, smile in satisfaction as the train hissed down in its berth. That was over two hours ago. As he waited, he could feel his anger sloshing around inside his stomach like a mug of hot tea quickly swallowed. And he was not sure how much was due to Uncle Mendel’s lateness or to his memory of Celia’s figure, retreating towards the demonstration in George Square.
From where he stood under the clock tower at least he had a fine view of the town, he had to be thankful for that: Oban was far bigger than he had ever imagined. In his mind’s eye he had conjured up a wee village with a post office, a few cottages scattered around, perhaps some sheep grazing the weeds by the railroad platform, a couple of fishing boats tied to a run-down jetty. Instead, he looked out on a sprawling harbour-town boasting a whisky distillery, a high street, two stout piers, one with a giant excursion steamer drawn up alongside. There was an esplanade bordered by a grand hotel and a string of mansions, proud in their squat of their gardens as they admired the view across the bay like retired sea captains with plundered wealth and time to ponder. And presiding over all of this from its hillside perch sat a strange, out-of-place stone structure, looking like a smaller version of Rome’s Colosseum, which he recalled from a photograph in his Latin textbook.
“And that’s the Isle o’ Mull o’er the water,” a sour-faced man selling toy windmills had told him, with Ben Mor facing back defiant at the town. But it might as well have been a heap of slag for all Avram could see of the mountain under the grey clouds. Still, the air was pure and he could taste the salt on his tongue. Better than the soot and ashes he was used to.
There was a stink of herring about the place too. The stench would waft in at him now and then from the fishing boats unloading their cargo from the dock just behind the station, the screech of the gulls alerting him to when the catch was in. The smell reminded him of the very same fish baking inside a bundle of newspapers on Uncle Mendel’s grate while he and Celia had looked on excited, curled up together in an armchair by the fire. The thought made him feel more kindly about the man he was waiting for. But not about the young woman who had rejected him.
There she was again, with her back to him as she was swallowed up by the marchers and their banners. The same way he had watched his mother disappear from him into the port-side chaos at Riga. He remembered how he had tried to cling to her as Dmitry’s naval sleeve wrapped damp around his chin to force him away. And within the tension of that struggle – her pushing, his pulling, the screaming, the sobbing, the drag of his shoes on the timbers of the pier – one moment had etched itself on to his being. A precise moment of a death and a life wrapped up into one. A moment when his young soul had closed up over the loss and his spirit had desperately adjusted to survival without her. And he knew he would have to draw on that very same moment again as he embarked on this new life without Celia. Without the support of the Kahns. And without being a Jew.
He glanced up at the clock, estimated a decent time had passed, took out Uncle Mendel’s letter, re-read the instructions. Written in that familiar English with Germanic phrasing. He could almost hear Uncle Mendel’s voice as he read: “Allow a decent time to pass, and if come I have not, then this you must do.”
He went in search of the stationmaster, spotting him at the far end of the platform in conversation with another man. The two of them seemed to be arguing about an object lying at their feet. As Avram drew near he realised the topic of discussion was the severed head of a dead stag, the lifeless eyes of the beast unswervingly observing his approach.
“Mind it don’t bite you,” the stationmaster said, guiding him with large hands around the splayed-out antlers.
“More like mind it don’t butt you,” wheezed a prosperous-looking gentleman with an impressive walrus moustache who returned to observe the kill as if it were a sack of potatoes lying on the platform.
“What will you do with it?” Avram asked. The cut across the stag’s neck was ragged, matted with patches of dried blood, the eyes glazed with a sadness.
“It’s not up to us,” the stationmaster replied. “It was the Laird’s kill. He’s having it sent down to London.”
“What for?”
“Stuffed and mounted, lad. That’s whit for. As much a waste of money as that bloody sight for sore eyes.” The stationmaster’s chin jutted a nod beyond the station’s glass canopy towards the Colosseum-like structure on the hill-top.
“Ye know what that is, lad?”
Avram shook his head.
“That’s old John McCaig’s Tower. A half-finished testament to the vanity of man. A folly is what they call it now. A cursed folly.”
“Ach, dinnae mind the stationmaster here,” the walrus-moustached man said. “He’d have the Laird’s castle and all the castles in the land struck down and raised again as cottar’s lodgings if he’d half the chance.”
“And Donald the chemist here would dae everything to stop me.”
“Ye ken my feelings on these matters.”
“Aye, Donald, I do. But God gave the land to His children. Not to the Laird or his ilk in some divine covenant.”
; Avram saw Donald’s face tighten. But then the man relaxed, chuckled at the stationmaster. “I do believe you’re turning into one of those Bolsheviks.”
The stationmaster shrugged his broad shoulders. “What is it ye want, lad?”
“I need to get to Glenkura.”
“Well, ye’ll need to get yerself to Connel first.” The stationmaster pulled out his pocket-watch, squinted at it from arm’s length. “There’s a train in one hour and fourteen minutes. Or ye can leg it in that direction. The tips of the Connel bridge will guide ye. Six and half-a-dozen depending on yer fancy. Donald here is taking the train. He’s got a mug of tea to sup with his Bolshie comrade before he’s off.”
The road north took Avram under the shadow of the stationmaster’s accursed McCaig’s folly, then wound past the distillery, through its cloying fumes. Away from the merchant buildings on the seafront, the town began to close in on itself, hemming up tight into spindly lanes and alleys where inns crouched side-by-side with shops selling goods he’d never seen before. Goods of the sea, goods of the countryside, not the stuff of the Gorbals. Ship chandlery, yachting requisites, pebble jewellery, hunting rifles, rods and reels. In their turn, these store-fronts gave way to rows of railway cottages with their clipped gardens and drenched flower-buckets until quicker than expected he spilled out of the town and into the open countryside.
No more the narrow, sun-starved vistas of tenement streets. His eyes widened to the sweep of the horizon, the rough, stubborn beauty of the landscape. Hillsides awash with the yellow of whin, the branches of the shrubs bowed like old men burdened by the shape of the prevailing wind. Clumps of heather sprouted stubborn here and there in cracks between rocks, violets clung to their petals in the stiffness of the breeze. Off in the distance, he could just make out his marker – the two triangular peaks of the cantilever bridge. By the time he reached Connel, hardly a village at all, just a huddle of houses, a woollen mill and a general store, the sun was close to dipping beyond Ben Mor and the range beyond. There was already a pinkish glow spreading across the firth, glinting off the girders of the bridge.
“If ye wannae get across, ye’ll have to go now,” the guard at Connel station warned him. “It’s the last wan o’ the day.” Like a proud showman, he presented with an outstretched arm the unusual vehicle parked on the tracks alongside the platform. It resembled some kind of charabanc, except with wheels modified to run on rails. A glossy red and green covered the side panels. Avram couldn’t resist running his hand along the gold lettering, freshly painted. The Caledonian Railway Rail-Motor Service. Donald from Oban station was already seated on board.
“Where are ye bound, laddie?” the guard asked.
“Glenkura.”
“Well, ye won’t make it before dark. This’ll only take ye as far as Benderloch … unless … Mr Munro here …” The guard called out to his only other passenger. “Are ye off hame, Donald?”
“Aye.”
“Can ye take the laddie?”
“If it’ll do him.”
“Mr Donald Munro can take ye as far as Lorn. Will that help?”
“Do you know a Mr Kennedy of Lorn, sir?”
Donald Munro pulled his pipe from his mouth. “Kenny Kennedy. Ach, of course, I do. And what business do ye have, laddie, with the gamekeeper to the Laird himself? Ye don’t look like kin.”
“He’s one of my uncle’s customers, sir. I was told I can stay with him for the night.”
“And who might yer uncle be?”
“Mendel Cohen, sir.”
“A strange name for these parts. Cannae say it rings a bell.”
“Jew Moses,” the guard chimed in. “It’ll be Jew Moses the tinker, I’ll wager.”
“Ach, the Jew,” Donald said in a long sigh. “Is that right, laddie?”
Avram looked from one man to the other. Donald Munro chewing hard on his pipe, his large moustache circling with the movement. The guard, stern-faced, glowering at him over his spectacles.
“Dinnae be feart,” Donald said. “Yer uncle may be a Jew. He may also have socialist tendencies. But he was responsible for this fine suit I’m wearing.” Donald stood up and held out his arms. “Fit for the Laird himself.” He hovered uneasily on his feet as he opened out the jacket in an exaggerated display of the tailoring. Avram recognised the Kahn & Co label on the inside flap. Then Donald grasped one of the canopy poles, dropped back down into his seat. He pulled a thin silver flask from his pocket, undid the cap, took a swig. He wiggled the flask at the guard. “A wee dram?”
“Not on duty.”
“Come on. Who d’ye think would report ye? This young laddie?” Donald tipped his flask in Avram’s direction. “Whit’s yer name?”
Avram told him.
“Ach. One of the forefathers.”
“More than my job’s worth,” the guard muttered as he shuffled Avram on board the vehicle. “Take them away, Davey,” he said to another uniformed man who had emerged onto the platform.
The sun was setting across the firth as Davey steered the passenger vehicle over the Connel cantilever bridge and the swirling waters of the falls beneath. A liquid coolness rose from the churning currents below, adding to the chill of the evening air. Across the estuary, Avram saw a lone deer on the hillside scramble along the scree in a retreat from the engine noise. Dislodged pebbles hurtled down the slope to strafe the water below. The gloaming began to creep into the sky bringing with it a calmness that stilled his thoughts as gently as it erased the day. Shades of purple deepened across the horizon. Beside him, Donald had dozed off, clutching his whisky flask to his chest with both hands. It was only when they reached the village of Benderloch, a couple of miles over on the other side, did he gently shake Donald awake in time to greet the woman waiting at the station on a horse-drawn wagon.
“This is young Avram. Jew Moses’ nephew,” Donald said, steadying himself with an arm against Avram’s shoulder. “My wife. Mrs Jean Munro.”
Avram thought she looked more like his daughter, her young face wrapped up in a coarse beige shawl against a cold wind risen quickly on this side of the water. Even in the dusk, he could see the wildness of her eyes, the reddish brown hair flowing out from the back of her shawl to whip around in the wind. She reined in her horse, shook her shoulders in a quizzical gesture at her husband.
“He’s bound for the Kennedys’,” Donald explained, then bowed his head so close to Avram he had to lean away. It wasn’t just the whisky. There was another smell, too – from his skin, not his breath. Like an ether.
“The wife. She disnae speak. Not a word. But she isnae daft either. Mind that. Just that her thoughts collect in her head rather than being wasted on the folk round here.”
Mrs Jean Munro drove her wagon hard with her husband sat up beside her. Donald Munro tried to rest his head against her shoulder, but the lurch of the ride forced him to keep upright, grab on fast to his perch. Avram sat in the back, careful to avoid the metal arms of the seed plough shifting and sliding with each bump of the road. A couple of neeps and some linseed slabs bounced around at his feet.
The gloaming had faded fast into a starless sky, night closed around them quickly. There was neither a lantern on the wagon nor the light of any houses around and he couldn’t remember ever having seen such a thick darkness. Even the moon was blotted out by the clouds scudding across the sky. Branches scored and scratched him on either side but neither the horse nor Mrs Munro flinched as they ploughed on into the night. The horse must have known the road blind just as Mrs Munro knew the world dumb.
He shivered in the blackness, sensing beasts and insects all around him. Eyes stared at him out of the depths of the forest. The swift brush of air close to his cheek could have been the swipe of a branch or the swoop of a bat-wing. Then came the hollow pleading cries of owls, the screech of some other fearful creature, the threat of ghosts and spirits, cackling as they circled the vehicle, spooking the horse on to its wild gallop. He clung on to the sides of the wagon with one foot securing
the seed plough. A turnip jumped over the back flap, was swallowed up into the darkness.
Mrs Munro finally slowed down her charge. The trees thinned out on either side of the road, a few scattered islands of lighted windows began to appear. Behind a cluster of crooked gravestones, he could make out the outline of a kirk set off the road. The horse snorted and panted.
Donald Munro twisted his head round. “Lorn,” he said, his breath showing in the night air.
The wagon clattered to a halt outside a long cottage. A dog barked from somewhere behind the building. Mrs Munro kept her gaze ahead. Donald turned round again. “We’ll wait.”
Avram gathered up his parcels and knapsack, leapt out of the wagon. There was light in one of the windows, the sound of voices inside. He tapped lightly on the cottage’s wooden door.
“Ye’ll have to dae better than that,” Donald shouted.
He struck again more firmly, skinning his knuckles in the process. The door creaked open and he had to squint against the light.
“Aye?” said the tall figure of a man stooping over him in the doorway, a paraffin lamp swinging in his large bony hand. He held out the lantern to the wagon. “Donald. Jean.”
“Are you Mr Kennedy?”
“Aye.”
“Mendel Cohen told me to come, sir. He said you would look after me.”
Kenny Kennedy bit his lower lip, sucked in some air. He looked back at the wagon.
“Jew Moses’ nephew,” Donald said.
Kennedy nodded his head in broad sweeps. “Och aye,” he said. “Och aye.”
“Are ye taking the boy or are ye not?” Donald shouted.
“Away with ye, Munro.” Kennedy flapped a hand at the wagon. “Night, Jean.”
Mrs Munro flicked her whip, drove off back into the darkness.
Twenty-six
“YE’D BETTER COME IN, THEN.”
Avram followed the long back of Kenny Kennedy into a kitchen lit by a paraffin lamp at the window, a blaze in the hearth. Socks in a line across the fireplace filled the kitchen with the oily smell of drying wool. There were two box beds, one with the curtains closed. A shotgun lay against a wall, and at the rear of the room, cured ham hung from hooks in the ceiling. Through the opened top-half of a split door Avram could see into a byre where a couple of cows shifted to the sense of an intrusion in the household. The stench of warm animal bodies, dung and straw strayed into the kitchen. For a moment, he thought he was going to be sick.
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