by George Friel
‘Four of you for that!’
Bobo was angry. It offended her sense of the right proportion of manpower to results.
‘There was only two of us went in but, me and Lillie. Hardnut and Chocolate was watching outside.’
Dross held up four fingers of one hand and struck them off in twos with the index finger of the other to show he could account for the exact number. But he was always afraid of her when she was angry and he wilted under her torrid stare.
‘Still four to share it,’ she argued. ‘Good Godman, I thought you’d chucked that kinnanon since before you left the school.’
‘Lillie asked me to help,’ Dross sulked with her. ‘They need me, it’s me’s got the nerve.’
‘A shop like that that’s got nothing,’ Bobo nagged. ‘Not a big place in town that’s got plenty, oh no, not for you and your friend Tiger and they other two chancers, just a wee place in a backstreet with a coupla dozen Bics and a ten Woodbine that’s been lying there since your granny took your maw to Rothesay for the Fair.’
‘The big shops is better in security,’ Dross gave her his worldly wise act. ‘Some of them’s got alarums. We was misled, that was all. It was Toby’s fault. He did the reckie. He told Tiger there was a delivery last night because his sister works in the baker’s next door. She should have knew. Tiger’s clever all right, but if you’re fed the wrong facts things go aspew. You can’t mark him down just because Chocolate doesn’t know the day of the week.’
‘Tiger?’ Bobo fired at the very name. ‘If he’s the Brain God help the rest of you merry gentlemen. And that makes you the Brawn, I suppose. They do get you for the mug, don’t they?’
‘Well it was me forced the back window,’ Dross was modest about it.
‘You’re a right nit,’ Bobo told him, and hurt him by the sincere way she said it. ‘You promised me you’d stopped that nonsense, you know it’s not right and it’s still not right even if you had got anything.’
‘I needed the money,’ Dross complained, too sulky to debate right versus wrong. ‘We can flog the pens round the doors and we won’t need to buy fags for a week or two. That’ll be a saving. And money saved is money earned. You smoke too, you know.’
‘That’s right, blame it on me.’
‘You might at least try and see my side of it. I done it for your sake. You know you like to see me with something in my pocket.’
‘Aye, I know,’ Bobo girned at him. ‘I know I like to see you with something. But you know what it says on that wee card in the Phoenix. Anything I like is either illegal or immoral. Or fattening.’
‘Hell of a funny.’
‘Funny I don’t see you laughing.’
Dross lost his temper at that. He was no longer the joyful Robin Hood who had stopped her, palm smacked on palm before he rubbed them together, sure of his maid marrying him one day, sure she would. He had wanted sympathy and understanding and got neither. It soured him. He snuffed and huffed, one of life’s failures with a grudge against an unjust world. He swore at her and walked away.
Bobo was mad when she watched him go. But she wouldn’t call him back. She thought she might as well give him up. There was no future to it.
Or was there? The moment she was sure there wasn’t she thought there might be.
Still she couldn’t just sit at home and hope. She had to get out at night. She told Main her troubles of course, waiting for him at the close when he was about due to visit his cousin or catching him on the stair on his way down. He talked to her to help her, he never minded talking to her, he was good at it. He was good at listening too, and she could get an hour’s distraction with him at the staircase window or the closemouth. But it wasn’t the same as going out with Dross. One gain she made on the side was she didn’t smoke nearly so much when she had Main to talk to. Then devilment seized her.
‘What’s Big Tonalt doing these days? I never see him now.’
‘Working away, studying hard.’
‘What a way to live! Fat lotta good studying’ll do him.’
‘Whatever he did he’d never get fat, would he? He’s the lean and hungry kind.’
Hungry reminded her.
‘I wonder what happened to his crush on me. I tried kidding him on after you spoke about it. Didn’t get me anywhere. Remember I told you? I remember it was that night in the Phoenix when we was all worked up to do something about Wee Annie was the first time you mentioned it. Nothing happened there either.’
‘I suppose his nerve failed him. He’s really awfully shy. He never came back over it with me again. I think he was sorry he had ever told me. And then when his grandmother died that might have put him off. He went home for the funeral, remember, and he’s been very subdued ever since he came back. He was greatly attached to her, you know. She was paying his way. Grandma Duthie was the one with the money.’
‘Did she leave him anything?’ Bobo asked, quick and hopeful. She wasn’t a mercenary girl but the prospect of money, however distant, always interested her. With an inheritance even Big Tonalt might become attractive.
‘That I wouldn’t know. She’s the other side of the family, she’s his granny not mine. Any money I ever get I’ll have to work for.’
‘Like me,’ Bobo sighed. ‘Dross thinks he can get it without but you can’t. Do you think he’s forgotten me?’
He knew that although Dross was never out of her mind and was the last she had named her question referred to Big Tonalt. He worked it out with the speed of light. She knew damn well Dross would never forget her any more than she could forget Dross and their quarrel, he was sure, would be mended before the moon changed. One or other would come round or one of their gang would crack the ice and push them both in. It could only be Big Tonalt she thought might have forgotten her. But that was why she liked talking to him. No matter how her mind skipped backwards or forwards he was always there at her landing place to pick her up.
‘Impossible,’ he beamed at her sideways, his back to the windowsill as Bobo mooned above the dark backcourt. A handful of schoolchildren with no homework were playing through the closes with flashlights, and from round the corner of the block, where the safe sidestreet was bright under the lamps, there came the treble of the innocents happily slaughtering a corrupt song.
Water water well flower
Growing up so high
We are all maidens
And we must all die
Except Susan Greenwood
The youngest of them all
She can dance and she can sing
And she can knock the wall down
Cry cry cry for shame.
‘You didn’t stay long with him tonight,’ Bobo remarked, carelessly giving away she had been watching and waiting.
‘No, I know. Sometimes I wonder why I bother. I was hardly right in the door before he was telling me it was time I was away. I left him in by himself. Why don’t you pop in and keep him company?’
‘Could do,’ Bobo smiled at the idea. ‘I suppose there are worse-while occupations.’
‘The Stockwells are away out to hear that American preacher at the Kelvin Hall,’ Main encouraged her. ‘He’s a right hotdog godspiller that one. They tell me he turns the lights down and the organ plays soft music till they all get the heezyjeezies and then he says come away up front brethren and testify.’
‘Steal away to Jesus,’ Bobo crooned.
She whipped round startled at the sound of a foot on the stair behind her and saw what Main from his position had already seen. Big Tonalt was there, four steps above them.
‘My God! Talk of the Devil!’ she whispered, and clutched Main’s arm.
‘I was thinking I was hearing voices,’ he explained shyly with a leer that was meant to be a smile or a smile that had aborted to a leer.
‘I’m just going,’ Main called up quickly. ‘I must get to the Mitchell tonight. I’m away behind again.’
He nodded to his cousin and waved a farewell to Bobo.
‘See you again befo
re Christmas maybe.’
Apart altogether from the fact that he had two hours hard swotting planned he didn’t want to hang around and spoil her fun. He thought she was in a mood to amuse herself with Donald and he thought it would do them both good. Left alone on the half-landing of that silent top storey they looked at each other like a beast of prey and its victim, poised for the first move, ready to pounce, alert to dodge, and each was both.
‘Would you care to come in for a cup of tea?’ Donald jumped first.
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Bobo moved aside. ‘I’ll be getting my supper soon. I’ve had nothing to eat all day. Off my food somehow. Must be in love.’
‘Just a chup and a wee cat.’
His face was scarlet and Bobo laughed. The man was harmless.
‘A cup and a wee chat,’ he glossed it, eyes down. Then the eyes wandered. Bobo felt them on her breasts, x-raying her jumper, slip and bra, felt them move wistfully down her torso and loiter at her knees. Carelessly dressed because she wasn’t going out with Dross, she had on a sweater shrunk in the wash and an old skirt that was too tight and too short.
‘Well, just for five minutes then,’ she gave in. She was always kind to the poor and needy.
When he closed the Stockwells’ door behind them she glanced slimly over her shoulder and saw the hand on the knob was all of a tremble. You’d think he had the DTs, she thought, the silly man. The state he was in made her feel awkward too. When he spoke again she heard a muted palpitation in his voice as if he was having difficulty with his breathing.
‘I’ve a kettle on the boil, it won’t take a minute, it’s nearly boiling now, it won’t be long, I’ve got the teapot ready warmed up, the kettle’s nearly boiling.’
She lolled in the front room while he brewed tea in the Stockwells’ kitchen, and she was more interested in the furniture of a room where the tenants had never invited her than in being alone with their lodger. She surveyed the room and the suite with an assessor’s cold eye, talking away to herself because she could never stop talking even when there was nobody to hear her. Maybe it was all good stuff but it wasn’t her taste at all. An enormous overmantel made her shudder. Flanking the large central mirror in it there were small mirrors behind wooden niches with postcards and snapshots stuck on the shelves.
‘What a dust trap! If that was mine I’d pawn it or sell it or give it to a jumble sale. They must have got it for Queen Anne’s coronation. Her with the legs. Look at that wallpaper. Oh God Almighty! How anybody could sleep with that in the room! Would howl at you all night. Ah, so that’s where he sleeps. They’ve took the recess bed out and put a single bed in. I see. And a wee electric heater in the fireplace under that bloodigreat overmantel. Fair ridiculous. They’ve been trying to modernise it, God help them, and everything in it is laughing at everything else. What a room! Would gar ye grue.’
Donald came through quickly enough, but he seemed to have forgotten his invitation to a wee chat. He slouched around, as often behind her as in front of her, and she fidgeted while his eyes lingered on the back of her neck. She could feel them trying to convert sight into touch, lingering like fingering over the bright wealth of her hair.
‘Aw, sit down for God’s sake,’ she said kindly. ‘It’s as cheap sitting as standing.’
He lowered his shy lankiness on to a chair at the round table, the one with the green tasselled cloth, his cup and saucer clumsily in one shaking hand. With the other he clutched a spoon and began to stir his tea daintily. He kept on stirring and stirring and stirring, his sad eyes brooding over the ripples in the cup.
‘A penny for them,’ said Bobo.
He acknowledged her offer with his smiling leer, his leering smile.
‘If I told you you might think I’m just daft.’
‘Not me. I’d never think that of somebody as clever as you. I mean a student. Anyway, what does it matter what I think? Some men are wise, some are otherwise.’
‘Is that skirt not too short for you?’ he asked abruptly, staring at her crossed legs that had hoisted it a goodly bit above her knees.
‘Think so? Oh well, it’ll just have to do. It’ll be long before I get another.’
She smiled, but he didn’t catch on so she tried again to amuse him.
‘Would you rather I wore one like the two French towns a sailor’s trousers are like, Toulon and Toulouse?’
‘Ah, you’re a funny girl, aren’t you!’
‘Haha or peculiar?’
‘A wee bit both.’
He spoke into his untasted tea.
‘I don’t think you should talk so much to my cousin. He’s a man without the torch of faith to light him through the dark ways of life.’
Bobo went over the phrase in her mind to repeat it to Main, and Donald went on speaking to his cup of tea.
‘But then if you hadn’t stood talking to him tonight I mightn’t have the pleasure of your company now.’
‘It’s an ill wind they say,’ Bobo commented.
‘Mind you though he’s a Godless man of many errors I have a special regard for him because after all he’s still my cousin. His mother and my mother were sisters.’
‘Yes, of course, you’re bound to have. Blood’s thicker than water.’
‘You sound kind of tired. Are you all right?’
‘I didn’t sleep a wink last night. As I was saying, I must be in love.’
He looked up, but said nothing to help her.
‘Well, I’ll sleep without rocking tonight,’ she laughed it off.
He let it go and returned to Main.
‘I sometimes worry what will happen to him when his time comes.’
‘Well, if he’s born to be hanged he won’t drown.’
‘Mind you, I’ve been a sinful man myself in my time. But whatever I may have done in the past doesn’t matter now.’
‘You’re right there all right. There’s no use crying over spilt milk.’
‘Of course we’re all sinners. If it comes to that, I bet you have sinned against the Lord too.’
‘Oh now,’ Bobo giggled a protest. ‘Don’t pick me up before I fall.’
‘To be quite frank with you, you know what I mean, to be honest I mean to say,’ he spoke to her knees. He couldn’t stop looking at them once he had yielded to the temptation and lifted his eyes from his teacup. ‘Do you know, I’ve never kissed a girl. Would you believe that?’
Bobo tried to tug her skirt over her knees but it wouldn’t come very far, and she opened the gates of her ivory castles to distract his attention from her legs.
‘Live old horse and you’ll get fed,’ she brightly promised. ‘The longer you live the more you’ll see.’
He didn’t take in her words, he heard only her flippant tone and he was serious, kept to his own point.
‘No, now don’t be funny, I mean it. You know why that is? Why I’ve never kissed a girl.’
‘Oh well, kissing goes by favour. Maybe you haven’t met the right girl yet.’
‘Because I’ve been too busy. I’ve put all that aside. I’ve had other things to think of. But the time’s coming—’
He stumbled, stopped, floundered, put his cup on the green cloth.
‘So’s Christmas,’ she offered, to tide him over.
I bet you’ve often been kissed.’
‘You’re a right betting man, aren’t you?’
‘Oh no, you’re wrong there. Quite wrong. As a matter of fact, betting and gambling are against my principles. Maybe you don’t believe me?’
‘Oh, I believe you all right,’ Bobo told him and her mind idled in longing to be engaged in conversation with Dross. Dross spoke her language, Dross went straight to the point, he was never switched to another line just because a wee joke started a passing train of thought, Dross looked her in the face when he was talking to her, and there was a rare light in his eyes when he was making love. She saw Donald’s dull hands splayed on his knees, and the memory of Dross’s hands, so alive and clever, sent a long ripple through h
er like the wind across neglected grass. She wanted to get out, to be alone in a corner and cry again the way she had cried off and on since Dross walked away, to enjoy being sentimental over a departed lover who had no future to offer her anyway. She knew full well she was being soft about it, but that was what helped her, helped to fill the vacuum Dross had left, helped to keep her heart warm for his return. But Donald was in spate about the evils of gambling.
‘It’s time I was going,’ she slipped a warning into his sermon. ‘My mother’ll be having my supper ready.’
‘I thought you said you were off your food?’
She was surprised he remembered she had said so. He hadn’t seemed to be listening, but now he was quite cross about it. You’d think by his tone he was going to have her up for perjury.
‘I’ll just have to get back on to it, that’s all,’ she shrugged, and felt the ensuing movement of her breasts catch his eye. ‘My belly thinks my throat’s cut.’
Swiftly she saw from his face he was shocked to hear a young girl mention her belly, but she had spoken thoughtlessly, feeling the strain of making polite conversation.
‘Ta for the tea,’ she rose to him smiling.
He had no art to detain her, though she sensed he was itching to have her stay. She didn’t loiter to be shown out. She just up and went, making him follow her to the lobby, leaving unanswered his modest proposal that she should come in again some time, and when he came alongside her and stretched a long arm to open the door his mouth lurched against the rich cluster of waves above her ear. She dropped into his beggar’s tin the last smile ever she gave him and wiggled out.
