A Glasgow Trilogy

by George Friel

  Percy ignored him, and the Clavigers hastily and willingly obeyed the order.

  ‘Now put the chests well back, away back at that wall where the rats are,’ Percy commanded firmly. ‘We’ll need time to think. I want to think about this.’

  ‘But the rats might eat the money,’ Skinny objected. ‘It’s only paper after all.’

  ‘Some paper!’ chuckled Savage.

  ‘They’d have to eat their way through all those dresses and things first,’ Specky commented, shrugging.

  ‘And we’ll be back before then!’ Savage cried. He showed off his good young teeth like an animal showing its fangs as he leered in triumph at Frank Garson. ‘Lovely lolly! All the lolly in the world there! And we’ll be back!’

  ‘Yes, we’ll be back,’ Percy admitted.

  He felt a vague but none the less substantial right to the money. Even though he hadn’t found it himself it had been found in his father’s territory and he was his father’s heir. Indeed, it had been his territory too. Many a Sunday he had been sent down to the cellar to look after the boilers in the days when the school was still heated by steam pipes. Many a Saturday he had spent sweeping it out and making it tidy before it became a neglected dump. It was merely accidental that someone else had found what was in those tea-chests. But the right didn’t lie solely in the finding, it lay just as much in claim to the place. This cellar was his. He wondered where the money came from, but passed on at once. He had met somewhere in his grasshopper reading the remark that science consists in asking the right questions. That meant there were questions it was stupid to ask. For example, where this money came from. There was no answer. Why ask a question that couldn’t be answered? The right question was what to do with it. But first he must frighten the Brotherhood into obedience.

  ‘Gather round!’ he yelled in his Regent’s voice, and sat again in Miss Elginbrod’s broken-backed chair.

  ‘This is a very serious matter,’ he declared. ‘There’ll have to be a solemn vow of secrecy. Yous have all got to swear not to say a word about it to anybody and take a blood oath.’

  ‘That’s the idea! Great!’ Savage cried and rubbed his hands together and gloated.

  Percy felt the glow of inspiration. It came to him sometimes when he was instructing the Brotherhood, a warm feeling round his brow and a tingling in his scalp, and he wished it would come oftener, it was so mysterious and thrilling. He took a safety-razor blade from his trouser- pocket, a blade he carried in a metal holder, and lightly and bravely he cut the ball of his thumb.

  ‘Kneel before me one by one,’ he commanded. ‘And repeat after me.’

  They came to him in single file and he bent and dabbed the blood from his thumb on their forehead.

  ‘I promise not to tell,’ he incanted.

  ‘I promise not to tell,’ they repeated after him.

  They waited in groups round the cellar after the oath had been taken, and then Percy told them they were all to come to a special meeting at eight o’clock the next evening, and they wouldn’t lose by it. They left the cellar by the chute and scattered silently from Tulip Place. Percy ushered them out one by one and locked the door when they were all gone. He stayed there for a moment before hurrying down the chute and running over to the wall where the rats were supposed to be. He had never seen a rat there in his life. He dragged out one of the chests and whipped away the rubbishy garments above the money.

  Some of the notes were dirty, and some were fairly clean; some were creased and some had never been folded. He took a long time just looking at them, flipping them over and flipping them over but keeping each bundle in its elastic band. He noticed they were all from the same bank, but the numbers were all mixed up. It would be safe to pass them. He tried to work out just how much was there. If he counted what was in one chest and multiplied by three he might get a rough idea of the total. But Frank Garson was right. He couldn’t count what was in one chest. He kept on losing the place. He would need a bit of paper to write on and keep the score. He attacked the bundle of fivers and tried to do it by short methods: twenty in each bundle was a hundred and ten bundles were a thousand. But when he came to count fifteen, sixteen and seventeen bundles he wasn’t sure if seventeen meant the bundle he had just counted or the one he was just going to count. He gave in and gave it up. He knelt over the chest, his arms thrown across it and his head on his arms, and he wept.

  He could have coped with buried Inca treasure and found delight in a sunken galleon or a pirate hoard. He could have revelled in plundering an Egyptian tomb and taken the jewels of Ophir in his stride. Gold in Arizona or diamonds from Africa would have been a thrill within his range. But so much ready wealth in the commonplace form of pound notes and five-pound notes frightened him. It was too stark, too simple, too easy. He knew it was too much as well, but it was his. Not for a moment did he think otherwise, even as tears rolled down his cheeks where a fine floss still waited its first shearing.

  ‘Oh, God help me!’ he moaned. ‘Please, God! Help me!’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The special meeting was a nervous, frightened affair. Even Savage was slightly scared. Percy spoke so long and so mournfully on the dangers and responsibilities of their position, his brooding eyes seeming to see right into their trembling souls, that he gave them all the jitters. At one point they would mostly have settled gladly for five bob if that would let them out of it, but then he spoke of the freedom before them if they were obedient and faithful, and they saw a lifetime of happiness ahead.

  ‘Now, to avoid any suspicion and to make sure yous are not found out,’ he said, ‘I’m only going to allow yous a little at a time, and yous’ll get it only for a particular purpose, something you want right away, and you’ll tell me what it is, otherwise you won’t get it, so that nobody’ll ever find you with a lot of money on you. Now, I can’t always be watching yous, and there’s three of you got a key to the side door and any of yous could slip down through the basement during school hours if you were willing to take the risk of being caught by the janitor, so we’ll make a gentlemen’s agreement to do it my way and never go behind my back to take any of it on your own.’

  He explained a gentlemen’s agreement to them, and to begin with he limited them to the silver. It kept them from buying anything big enough to arouse comment from the gossips at the close-mouth in the tenements round about, and it kept the younger members happy enough. A couple of half-crowns was wealth to them. But he knew he was only postponing the problem of what to do about the folding money. He heard a murmuring against him in the higher ranks of the Brotherhood. Skinny supported him, but Savage was niggling and Specky was slippery.

  ‘Ah, but look,’ Skinny argued when Savage wanted to remove the paper money in handfuls, ‘we made a gentlemen’s agreement. You can’t break a gentlemen’s agreement, that’s the whole point about a gentlemen’s agreement, you can’t break it, that’s why Percy made us make it. Percy’s right, you know, Percy’s shrewd.’

  ‘To hell with Percy!’ Savage spat.

  ‘You’d only spoil everything any other way,’ said Specky. ‘I hate to admit it, but you’ve got to. But what he ought to do is give us more or put one of the chests aside for us and nobody else.’

  ‘Gentlemen’s agreement!’ cried Savage. ‘Where’s the gentlemen? Him, he’s only a janny’s son. Mind you, my old man’s a gentleman all right, he hasn’t worked for fifteen year. Us three could empty those chests in a week. We could stash it somewhere else. We’re the only ones with a key, we could slip in any time at all. Nobody would know.’

  ‘Percy would know,’ Specky pointed out so quickly that Savage saw he had thought of it himself already. ‘Then the rest of them would get to know and they’d start coming in through the door in the basement.’

  ‘And if you make it a free-for-all you’ll only get us all caught,’ Skinny complained. ‘Somebody would clype. I bet you wee Garry would go to the cops. It’s only because Percy’s took charge that he’s keeping quiet. Oh, he
loves Percy! He thinks Percy’s wonderful! Take away Percy and it would be a disaster. Garry would shop us in an hour.’

  ‘I’m afraid that’s right,’ Specky conceded sadly. ‘You’ve got to keep the agreement, for a bit anyway. Percy’s right enough in a way. Ye canny give pound notes to folk like Pinkie and wee Noddy and Cuddy.’

  ‘What could they buy?’ Skinny asked earnestly. ‘If they started spending big money where could they put whatever they bought? Folk would be bound to notice. What could Noddy put in a single-end for example?’

  ‘Him?’ said Savage flippantly. ‘He’s that stupit he’d buy a grand piano and try and hide it under the kitchen sink. He’s real daft about music. Give him a tune he’s never heard before and he’ll play it for you right off on the mouth-organ.’

  ‘He’s got a super one now all right,’ Skinny remarked. ‘Made in Germany. He got one made in Germany because Percy said the Germans were the best in the world at music like the Spaniards at football.’

  ‘Percy patted him on the head when he said what he was going to buy with his ration and told him he was a very wise boy for putting it to a good use,’ Specky said, and shook his head at the memory.

  ‘Ach, the Rangers could beat them any time,’ Savage bridled.

  ‘Don’t talk wet,’ said Specky. ‘They never even qualified to meet Real Madrid, sure Eintracht slaughtered them.’

  ‘They were lucky,’ Savage said, and waved his hands in front of Specky’s face to wave the topic away. ‘A ten-bob mouth-organ’s all right for Noddy, but I want mair nor that. I want ready cash in my pocket.’

  ‘Aye, it would be rare,’ Skinny said.

  ‘Instead of this percy-monious weekly ration,’ Specky said brightly, looking round for a laugh but the word was unknown to his comrades, and he sighed at the company he had to keep.

  Percy was worried. He knew what they were thinking, he could guess what they were saying. He slept badly, wondering how to control them, and the solution came to him in disturbed dreams. But he didn’t tell them he had dreamt of the solution, he told them that what he had to do was revealed to him in a dream. Maybe it was because his mother had laughed at him for comparing himself to Moses, but he had a dream about Moses and found help in it. He dreamt he was on a mountain top and the clouds were all around him and he couldn’t see anything but a grey mist that chilled him to the bone. Then suddenly the mist was gone and there was a risen sun and everything was made clear to him though he couldn’t put it into words. He went down to the plain by a winding stony path, running sure-footed like a mountain goat, full of zest for the new way of life revealed to him. He found the Brotherhood anxiously awaiting him and he raised his hand and blessed them and they were sheep and he was their shepherd, and somehow he was holding a crook in his hand though he hadn’t been holding one before.

  A sheer coincidence gave substance to his vague dream. Turning the pages of the same dictionary where he had found that claviger meant a keyholder he saw the word ‘bethel’ and stopped at it because it was the name of the street where he lived. The dictionary said that bethel meant a Methodist church and came from the Hebrew Beth-El, the House of God. The discovery set him trembling with excitement, for he knew that as a poet he must believe in the magic of words, and it came to him in a flash of inspiration that El wasn’t only the God of the Hebrews, it was also in one of its forms the sign for the pound note. It was more than a coincidence to him. It had a meaning. It was a revelation, completing the revelation of his dream. The street called the House of God contained the cellar that contained the pound notes, and the pound notes were El and he was the prophet of El just as much as Moses was. He felt the burden of the elect upon him.

  He intimidated the Brotherhood by the force of his will for power over them, by the nagging of his cracked voice, by the solemnity of his face. He gathered them in the cellar and spoke to them like a preacher.

  ‘Yous has all been poor neglected boys all your life, without a good suit to your name or a good pair of shoes, but God has a special care for the poor and underprivileged, and sometimes He reveals Himself to them, like He done to the Jews. He chose the Jews and that’s what He’s did to you, He’s chose you to get the good of this manna from Heaven to help you in the desert,’ cause you see this life is like a desert. He chose you, He didn’t choose boys from Govan or the Gorbals or Maryhill or Partick or Whiteinch, no, He chose you. Just think about that. Just think what that means. It might have been anybody and it was yous. Now that proves you are the chosen people, only you need a lawman like the Jews had Moses. Well, I’m your lawman, and you have got to do like I say or else.’

  He believed they had been chosen because he believed he had been chosen, and they had to believe it too. There was a halo round his head, a vision in his eyes, authority in his voice. They were only children, he frightened them – especially when he threatened what would happen if they committed the sin of disobedience. The youngest weren’t sure if he meant they would go to hell for ever or go to jail for ever. He made them all take a new and more elaborate blood oath, and when they had taken it they had to make the sign of the El. He showed them how to do it. They drew the index finger of the right hand across the eyes from left to right, up over the brow in a loop, and down the line of the nose to the chin. Then they traced another loop to the left and came back along the jawbone and up to the right ear. The sign was completed by drawing two parallel lines across the tip of the nose and upper lip. It was the sign of the £ drawn on their face, the symbol of the god they were now to serve.

  He had written the oath on a little card he held in his hand, with a bar between the phrases to keep him right as he read it out.

  ‘Repeat after me,’ he said, and they repeated the phrases.

  ‘I solemnly swear – I solemnly swear – not to reveal – not to reveal – the place of the treasure – the place of the treasure – to anybody – to anybody – and I solemnly swear – and I solemnly swear – not to speak of the treasure – not to speak of the treasure – outside this cellar – outside this cellar – nor to touch the treasure – nor to touch the treasure – without permission – without permission – of the Regent Supreme – of the Regent Supreme.’

  They took the oath standing. When they knelt down he said the rest for them, making it sound more frightening than they could ever have managed in their own unguided treble.

  ‘And if I break this oath may the Brotherhood break the bones of my thighs. If I speak of the treasure outside the cellar let my tongue be burnt with a soldering iron, and if I touch the treasure without the Regent’s permission may the hand that commits the offence be eaten by the rats in the cellar and may my arms be paralysed, withered and shrivelled till they drop off like a dead leaf from the trees in autumn.’

  He made the Clavigers take the same oath, to remind them that they were his subordinates and they too could touch the money only with his permission.

  Zealous, sincere and worried, oppressed by his responsibility for them and for so much money, he never thought what he himself might do with it. He was too busy driving them far beyond a mere gentlemen’s agreement, imposing on them a religious attitude, a true piety, towards the uncounted wealth.

  He was surprised how quickly and easily he got it all going the way he wanted. He declared the word ‘money’ tabu. They were never to use it to say what was in the cellar. They were to say ‘El’. He told them it was the only safe word to use. The other word would give away their secret and bring a terrible punishment. He said they would all get scabies, chickenpox, dysentery and measles if they ever used it.

  Savage was just as frightened as the rest of them by Percy’s talk, but he couldn’t entirely conquer his natural flippancy, even for blood oaths, candlelight, hymn-singing and bell-ringing. Halfway through one of Percy’s early sermons on the almighty power of El he nudged Specky and whispered, giggling, ‘If you want anything, go to El!’ He chanted audibly a counting-out rhyme used by Glasgow children, an obscure rhyme from an unk
nown source, supposed by local antiquaries to be of Druidic origin.

  El, El, Domin – El,

  Eenty, teenty, figgerty – fel!

  Percy heard him and was shocked. He knew there was danger to them all in irreverence. Their secret would be safe only if he could make them appreciate the sacredness of what they had found. They must be made to understand that the finding of the money imposed a great piety on them. He must bind them to an unquestioning respect for himself as the person who had first led them to the land where El had appeared to them. They must have faith. They must be made to see it was a divine revelation, and they must obey him as its medium.

  He thought of expelling Savage, but he was afraid it might make him an enemy, a spiteful Ishmael who would go to the pagan world outside the cellar with a story of hidden treasure and come back with a band of freebooters to invade the sanctuary of El. The fear of it kept him awake at night, fretting. It was no joke being in charge of a crowd of children. So he spoke to Savage privately and told him it was a matter of policy to make the Brotherhood respect the holy name of El. If they didn’t, it would mean complete lawlessness and nobody would win. They would all lose everything.

  ‘Aye, I see fine what you’re after,’ Savage answered, and grinned with an at heist’s insolence at the gangling Regent. ‘You’re right enough. You’re a fly big bugger, aren’t you? It’s the only way to keep these stupid bastards in order. But you don’t expect me to believe all that tripe about El revealing himself to us because we’re a chosen people, now do you?’

  ‘Why not?’ Percy asked coldly. ‘I believe in El, why shouldn’t you? You think you’re too clever maybe? Let me tell you, there are more things in Heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy, Horace. And just let me warn you, you’d better believe in El in front of the Brotherhood or I’ll cut you off from El altogether.’