Avram refused to be drawn into his uncle’s arguments, re-filled his glass instead – this time with the Oban – sat down in an old armchair by the window, lit up a cigarette. Through the shop-glass across the street, he could see Jean Munro serving a group of schoolchildren, all lined up proper in a queue outside the door. No doubt glad to have Munro out from under her feet. Soon, she would lock up and head off homewards alone. He wondered if Uncle Mendel did her a service, getting her husband so drunk he had to kip down for the night in the pharmacy. He thought of the note in his pocket. He sucked in the smoke, spat out strands of tobacco. Another gulp of the Oban.
“… Haud on, Moses,” Munro said. “Ye Jews might have a taste for all these fruity liqueurs but there’s no many of yer tribe who have known the magnificent combination of Highland spring water, peat and ripe barley. Especially at the hands of Alex Duthie, the master stillman himself. It is he who kens when the whisky runs true from the still. It is he who kens how not to pollute our grand Oban product with the foreshots and feints of the low wines. To Alex.” Munro raised his glass. “But even the master stillman can’t keep the salt out of the water. It’s the brine, I tell ye. That’s the distinctive taste.”
“Now, a truth there is in what you say,” Uncle Mendel reflected. “But you can’t tell me, Herr Munro, that a barrel you can stand for three years less than a quarter of a mile from the fishyards, without a whiff of the herring creeping in.”
“Och mon, leave the Oban alone then, and taste the Islay.”
“I will not. Avram’s right. It tastes like iodine. Too much of the brine. Not enough of the herring, Herr Munro. Why not try the Glenkura? It is both salty and sweet, don’t you think?”
Avram let them continue with their baiting and their bantering. Blew out a couple of smoke rings. Almost perfect circles. Solly had taught him that.
Megan Kennedy. Just the thought of her caused his stomach to clench over the stir of emotion. He hadn’t seen her since her brother Jamie had turfed him out into the snow, must be almost four years past. He hadn’t heard of any marriage to Charles Sinclair, either. He’d looked out for that. One eye on the banns, another on the local papers. But he’d lost an ear for the gossip of the shire now he was located in the town. She, in her turn, must have known about the clothing business, the Glenkura range, the shop in the High Street. After all, the Laird himself was a customer. There had to be a time when she was in town on a day off from the castle, visiting her best friend Jean. Yet not once had she appeared at his doorway. Even now, staring out across the street at the Munro’s shop as he did on many a day, he felt he might catch sight of her hair reflecting golden in the sunlight.
It was her mother who had come. Just that one time. He had heard the tinkle of the shop-bell and gone out to serve. No-one there. He was just about to return to the workshop when he heard the bell again. Mrs Kennedy stood unsure in the front entrance in her best coat, her fingers scraping at the clasp of her black leather handbag with its brown lines of wear cracked across the surface. He was too surprised to be angry, so his first words had come out with shopkeeper politeness.
“Is there something I can do to help you?”
“He won’t come in,” she said, her mouth twisting somewhere between a grimace and a smile.
“Who?”
“That big lump.”
He had glanced out of the window. Kenny Kennedy paced the street in gamekeeper tweeds, his hands clasped behind his bent back, bony fingers locked together in a tension. Despite what had happened, he couldn’t help but feel a morsel of affection for the stooped figure.
“What are you after, Mrs Kennedy? A jerkin for your husband? Shall I call him? Try one on him?”
“Naw, naw,” she said, a sudden panic her eyes. “Dinnae do that. He won’t come.” Again the fingers working at the clasp. “He sent me instead.”
“Why would he do that?”
She ran her hand over the counter. “Ye’ve done it nice. The glass displays. All these … dummies – is that whit ye call them? – in the windae. It looks grand.”
“Why won’t he come in, Mrs Kennedy?”
“To tell the truth, we’ve been meaning to drop by for a while. Heard ye’d set up in the toon. Baird frae the Laird telt us whit happened that night.” And then her face collapsed into a sobbing. “We shouldnae have stood by, Avram. It wasnae right. Ye could have died that night. We shouldnae have stood by and let it happen.”
Another swig of the Oban to shake off the memory. Uncle Mendel was right. There was a whiff of the herring to it.
“Hey, boychik. From Glasgow you heard the good news?”
“What are you talking about? Family or politics?”
“Politics.”
“I don’t want to know then.”
“Anyway, I’ll tell you.”
“I don’t want to hear it.”
“To these matters you shouldn’t close your ears. Ten seats we won for the Labour party in the General Election. To Central Station we went with our new members of parliament. And to Westminster we sent them with the sound of The Red Flag ringing in their ears. Ringing in their ears.” Uncle Mendel hummed the first few bars, then raised his glass in a toast. “To the Glasgow Ten.”
“What do ye mean? To the Glasgow Ten,” Munro said. The colour of the Red Flag itself could not have matched the choler boiled up in his cheeks. “The Glasgow Ten. I spit on them.”
“Spit on them? Spit on them,” Uncle Mendel responded. “Bah! You prefer a government that failed on council housing and unemployment? And to Ireland sent troops? And on whisky tripled the tax?”
Munro jumped to his feet. “Rather that than a government spending taxpayers’ money on schools for the Papists.”
“Aha! Now I see. That’s what this is all about. You and your Protestant hatred.”
“Rome on the rates, is what I call it.”
“I cannot sit with a man who by religion divides people,” Uncle Mendel said, sitting down again.
“And I cannot drink whisky with a Jewish Bolshevist,” Munro said, also sitting. “And what is that infernal ringing?”
“Ah! The telephone,” Uncle Mendel said. “Go get it, boychik.”
The telephone. Avram had arranged for its installation a few weeks ago, yet he still wasn’t used to the urgent, beckoning sound of the contraption. He jumped up from the armchair and ran downstairs. With each jingling sound the shiny black device seemed to leap up and down on his desk, begging to be answered. He picked up the earpiece and mercifully the ringing stopped.
“Hello?” he shouted close into the mouthpiece. “Hello. This is Glenkura Waterproofs.”
The click of the operator’s connection, a crackle, then: “Hello? Is that Avram? Avram Escovitz? Over.”
“Yes, it is. Avram Escovitz is speaking.”
“It is me, Avram.”
“Who is me?”
“Papa Kahn is speaking here. From Glasgow. Can you hear me? Over.”
Too much interference made the voice unrecognisable. Hollow. Distant. Carved out of the past. “Oh,” was all he could manage. And then the worry of his worst fears. “Something has happened?” he shouted down the line.
“Na, na, na. Don’t worry. Nothing has happened. Nobody is ill. Nobody has died. We have just got a telephone. It’s a miracle, don’t you think? Over.”
“You don’t need to say ‘over’ every time you’re finished, Papa. And it’s not a miracle. It’s science.”
“Maybe, maybe. Can you still hear me?”
“I can still hear you.”
“Good. Avram. How are you? Uncle Mendel tells us you are a ganze macher up there in Oban.”
“I am fine, Papa. Business is good, too.”
“It has been too long. Too long away from us. We want you to come back. Come back to visit us, Avram. Come back for the High Holidays. Come back for Yom Kippur.”
“I can’t, Papa. I have a business here.”
“Mendel says the sun is shining like the Sinai de
sert up there. And the midgies are like a plague of locusts. He says you could close down the shop. Take a week off. Even if you don’t come for us, come back to be a Jew for the Holidays. Over. Sorry.”
“Tell me, how is Madame Kahn?”
“She is well.”
“And Celia? How is Celia?”
There was a long pause and he thought the line must have been disconnected.
“Celia? We hardly see her,” Papa Kahn said eventually. He gazed at the black funnel of the mouthpiece waiting for the explanation that never came.
“Avram? Are you still there?”
“Yes. I am still here. And Nathan?”
“Nathan is a fine boy. You wouldn’t recognise him. He asks for you all the time. Komm, Avram. You cannot stay away forever.”
“I will think about it.”
“Promise me you’ll come. Promise me.”
Before he had time to answer, the line went dead, leaving him listening to the lonely buzz of disconnection. He fumbled with the earpiece, finally managing to replace it on its hook. His drenched shirt clung to him in this airless room. Difficult to breathe.
A clumping on the stairway.
“I cannae stay here one minute longer with that man,” Munro shouted, rattling the front door hard. “Come on. Open up. Open up and let me out of this fucking place.”
“Calm yourself, Munro. You know what it’s like with the two of you. Like red rags to a bull.” He went over and unlocked the door. “Careful as you go. You’ve had too much to drink.”
“And yer no much fucking use either. Red flags to a bull, my arse!” The door slammed shut, leaving the pane shaking in its casing.
Forty-six
HIS BRAIN TOLD HIM THAT going to see Megan would only hurt him. His body, meanwhile, rose early and soaked in a hot bath. His brain told him not to bother with this woman who had deceived and humiliated him. His body, meanwhile, shaved, searched out fresh underwear, put on his laundered collar and cuffs. But not his best suit. He didn’t want to appear too smart, too full of himself. Still, as his hands knotted the tie Jessie and the girls had given him for Christmas, it was quite the prosperous young businessman who looked back at him from the shop mirror. But there was something unsettling about his reflection. He peered closer, relaxed his shoulders, smiled at himself, crinkled up his cheeks. It was in the eyes. Perhaps only he could recognise it. He was sure he hadn’t suffered any less in this world from his habit of sealing into little boxes those who had caused him pain. But somehow he grasped the notion that as these boxes piled up, they turned into the building bricks of the young man he had become. A man whose emotions were buried deep but flickered occasionally to the surface. As they did now.
He allowed himself plenty of time for his walk across the moors, strolling leisurely with his jacket over-arm, careful not to work up a sweat in the steamy heat. At Connel, he was the only passenger for the Caledonian Railway Rail-Motor Service with little patience for driver Davey’s teasings about where he might be going midday dressed up to the nines. Over on the other side of the Firth at Benderloch, he hired a horse and buggy for the ride out to the peninsula. It was a lonely drive without sight nor sound of a soul on the way until he reached Lorn. He lingered outside the Kennedy’s cottage, the horse steaming breathless in a jangle of its reins, as he imagined Mrs Kennedy heating up some lard on a skillet waiting for her husband to return from the shoot. For it was that time of year when Kenny Kennedy would be out on the moors as a ghillie with his beaters rousing up the grouse for the Laird and his party. As if to confirm his thoughts, somewhere off in the direction of Glen Etive a sequence of shots rifled across the sky in their search of a kill.
From Lorn, he turned west towards the sea, urging on his mare harder, keeping his thoughts for the drive rather than on any reason why Megan might want to see him after all this time. He sped through the forest close to the abandoned castle, the buggy lurching and swaying on the dried-up path until emerging from the tree-lined corridor, he could see the Munro mansion in the distance. Even in the sunlight, even with the cool blue waters stilled on the shore, the place looked gloomy and foreboding. A mounted figure swung out of the gates, galloped down the road towards him. At first, Avram thought it must be Jean Munro riding out to meet him. But as the horse approached, he realised it was a man’s frame in the saddle. He slowed up his own approach to the horseman, holding up his hand against the glare of the sun, an arm ready against the churned up dirt and flailing stones from the galloping hooves. But the rider did not veer from his path, forcing Avram to steer his own horse and wagon off to the side of the road. Yet, still he had time to recognise the man as he passed. The man he had last seen as a vision of Christ standing arms outstretched in a lighted doorway on a snow-laden Christmas day nearly four years previous. Megan’s brother. Jamie Kennedy.
Jean Munro did not return his greeting, but hastened him instead into the front room. The French windows were open and she left him to wander out on to the lawn as she went to fetch Megan. The grass had been trimmed fine and rolled where Donald Munro had cut out a few holes and pinned them with flags to make a small putting green. He located the first pin, wandered across the parched lawn following the numerical order of the flags. Flag number two. His attention focused on nothing more than the black tips of his shined-up brogues as they appeared, then disappeared from his line of vision. The afternoon hummed heavy and still. Flag number three. A few gulls cackled off the rocks. Gunshots popped in the distance.
“Avram.”
Flag number four. Grass patched yellow here and there, neatly trimmed cup, turn towards flag number five, her voice more persistent now.
“Avram.”
He hardly recognised her. Her long hair, that one memorable feature, cropped short into the kind of bob he knew was fashionable from sketches he’d seen alongside his advertisements in clothing catalogues. Her face, the full outline exposed now by the loss of its frame, was rounder, less defined. She trod barefoot to a halt beside him. Despite the heat, she had draped a tartan shawl over her shoulders. His body wanted to grab her and shake her. But he kept his distance.
“Thank ye for coming.”
“I wasn’t sure if I would.”
“I’m glad ye did. Ye look grand. A proper gentleman.”
More gunshots. He looked away in their direction, imagined the feather burst, the stone-dead fall of the grouse, the retrievers in a lather bounding through the heather.
“Ye dinnae have to say anything. I ken I look like a midden.”
“You look different, that’s all.” And then for the want of conversation: “I passed your brother on the way here. Did he bring you over?”
“No. He was here to see Jean. He comes to visit sometimes.”
“When her husband’s away in Oban?”
“Let’s not talk about Jamie and Jean.” She pulled her shawl tighter. “Come inside,” she said. “I brought us some lemonade.”
Two wicker chairs had been drawn up close to the French windows, a tray with a pitcher and two glasses set down on a small table between them. He sat down, watched her pour. She struggled with the jug, spilling lemonade over the side of his glass and on to the table, dabbing up the liquid with a corner of her shawl. He glanced at her hand, skin tanned from the last fortnight’s sun. No sign of a ring on her finger, not even the mark where one might have been. He picked up his glass. The drink washed cool and slightly bitter over his tongue. He wondered if she had made it herself or whether this was Munro’s very own whisky-laced brew. She picked up her glass in the clasp of her two hands, all the time staring at him over the rim as she drank. He let the silence linger between them.
“I want tae apologise for what happened.”
“That would be a decent start. At least your mother came by to …”
“I ken ye must’ve felt hurt …”
“Of course I felt bloody hurt. It wasn’t enough you led me on without a word about Sinclair. You let that brother of yours throw me out into the sno
w like some useless rag. I nearly died that day. If it hadn’t been for Baird …”
“Ye think I didnae care about ye? T’was Jamie stopped me from going after ye. He has such a hold. It’s true I was seeing ye and Charlie at the same time. There’s no excuse for that. But I didnae go out in search of his courting. Jamie kept pushing him at me. They’d become great pals at some ex-servicemen’s club in the toon and Jamie had this fancy vision he’d make a grand brother-in-law.”
“You should have told me what was going on. I wanted to marry you.”
“That time ye came for Christmas, I was no more promised tae him than I was tae ye, I swear it, Avram. Jamie made the decision there and then. Not me. He said Charlie had the better prospects over a Jew tinker. And he’d made faither think similar, with no mind for what was in my heart.”
He took another sip of lemonade, searching for the slightest taste of the whisky in it to sour away thoughts of Jamie and Charlie Sinclair. “So is this why you brought me out here? To apologise?”
“Partly.” She drew her bare feet up on to the chair. Plucked off some stray blades of grass sticking to her soles and toes. It was an innocent act, but somehow it stirred a passion in him. He stood up, walked over to the sideboard, poured out a whisky from Munro’s crystal decanter. A Glenkura malt. He helped himself as well to a cigarette from the man’s engraved silver cigarette case. Silver lighter to match. Inhaled deeply. A couple of smoke rings on the exhale. He felt better now. More in control.
“So what else is there?”
“I’m pregnant.”
“I see,” he said, trying to hold his voice steady. He was surprised this piece of news could still affect him. The plight of this young woman who swore she’d stay a virgin until her marriage night. Was it anger or jealousy he felt? “Sinclair’s the father?”
“Aye, Sinclair.”
“There’ll be a wedding, I assume. Unless there’s been one already.”
“A wedding?” she screamed. “Aye. That would be a fine thing.”
The Credit Draper Page 29
