by George Friel
—As I loved you, with no greater love than this, you love?
A sword pierced through her soul, and the thoughts of her heart were revealed to them, and she was faint at the sight of the innocent solemn sinless face of Grace in Papa’s eternal mind, in all their visiting transparent minds, a girlchild’s face floating in three mirrors with big blue eyes above soft full lips unkissed under a little nose. She felt the rich hair of the young unbowed head between her fingers, heard the sparks as she combed it. Then they were echoed and reflected in the corner near the sink where Shelley used to chatter in his swinging cage, but now it was Knowall’s crackling smile was oscillating over the draining board.
They spoke to her or to each other, she wasn’t sure and it didn’t matter. All she had to do was pay attention and keep at it. Sometimes they were all talking at once, sometimes they sang her a wee song, sometimes they preached. She couldn’t cope with it all. Sometimes they warned her separately, singing together, and then of course she lost the place completely, not knowing which of her four columns to write in. She could only wait and try to catch up next time round.
‘Yes I do,’ she said to their babble and was answered.
—Grace cometh from the Lord and to the Lord must Grace be returned as from His hands she came.
—Which being interpreted, Knowall challenged, proud in his corner at the sink Tommy had left clean and tidy, means?
—Means innocent.
She saw them all offer her again the saving face of Grace, the four reflections converging above the table in one bright countenance with a rainbow halo where the light was hanging.
‘Then I’ll have to send her back, that’s all,’ she corresponded with them.
They passed her note from hand to hand, smiled in one approving smile and let it go for the moment. They wanted to love her, to appeal to her, to caress her, as Papa did.
—Come my darling daughter
Slip off for me
Fade into the forest grim
Cuddled on my knee.
—I bless you, and press you, Knowall sang with Papa’s plea, then rambling rose and turned on the swan-neck tap beside him so that she could hear the water fall before he drank.
They argued amongst themselves before they questioned her again.
—What was that you said?
‘I simply said I must send her back that’s all.’
—Save her you mean.
They all sang to her, very softly in case the neighbours heard them.
—Save Grace from the
Devil Save Grace from the
Bomb Send her to Heaven
And buy Kingdom Come.
Papa groaned in spirit and was troubled.
—Send her to Heaven to live for ever.
—Then she must cross the Jordan river.
They lamented together, rejoicing.
—Must cross must cross the Jordan river.
—She must you know she must. It’s the only way.
Papa extinguished Grace’s bright face, wrapped a silk stocking round it, and put it in a little carton packed with cotton wool. He weighed it on a spring balance that Tommy hadn’t left behind him when he cleared the table, and was going to go out and post it when she stopped him.
‘It’s not fair. God’s got the answers at the back of the Book but all they’ve brought is the problem and you’re leaving it to me.’
—What’s your problem? Write to me
—all ye that labour.
—A child born? A child dead!
She couldn’t say it straight out. It pierced her again with a word to admit it. But she knew what people thought. She had heard it often enough for herself. Grace’s mother calling her a queer old bitch, an ugly old witch. But it wasn’t her place to say more than she had said already. It was theirs to tell her to do it and then it would be right. She could hear Papa shouting at her because she wouldn’t speak.
—Dumb, my carline daughter? Flee the foe! Fly flum!
‘Don’t shout at me, Papa! That’s the one thing I can’t stand!’
So he was patient even though she was making him cross.
—We come here to help you. I told you often and often.
—Many a time and oft on each royal toe.
—This wee Piggy went to the Market, this wee Annie stayed in a home.
—Any problem set for solution can be answered on the basis of the theorems and corollaries demonstrated in Part One
—if the pupil will diligently apply herself
—to mastering subsequent lessons before preceding to the previous ones.
—Pupil’s Book without Answers halfprice. Teacher’s Book with Answers
—ninepence extra, Knowall laughed. But we have all the answers you know, otherwise we’d have to work it out for myself and then we’d be no better off than you, would I?
—I think what we really mean is
—a marriage of two minds.
—A Maid in Heaven.
‘That’s what I said,’ she said.
Knowall turned off the tap and leaned against the sink. She didn’t like his haircut. It came too far down on his forehead with a centre parting from a point nearly between his eyes. And she didn’t like his beard and moustache. They were ridiculous. She heard the rain chatter against the pane. All that rain all day. Lord this is Glasgow Fair reedeeculous. Papa read to her from the Sunday paper Tommy had left behind him.
—I see the fares are going up again. You used to have good fun on a Sunday afternoon just going all the way for a ride on the bus.
Knowall swooshed his scarlet cloak around him and sang a folksong she loved but all she heard was
—I wooed that maid would be my bride
A lass who gave a neigh
Standing room only one inside
That’s all men spend but women pay.
‘No, women give,’ she argued frantically. ‘When you love you want to give. And look for nothing in return.’
—Blessed is he that expecteth nothing for he shall not be et cetera.
Papa paused before he led them off again in turn.
—And if you give what greater gift
—could you give Grace
—than the gift of Eternal Life?
—Grace dying now would obtain the reward that
—the eye hath not seen the ear hath not heard neither hath it entered into the heart of man
—what things God hath prepared for
—Grace kept alive
—would be Bobo all over again.
‘Or me. It could happen to Grace too. When I was only seventeen that bad man. I never told you Papa I was too ashamed. My first job Mr Badman. Sweet seventeen it’s time you were kissed, Papa, that’s what he said and tell me is it garters you young girls wear or have you got and he tried to lift my skirt to see, suspenders. With a wife and three children and one of thema girl. Oh Papa I was nearly sick I just screamed O Papa Papa! All men are even. You Papa. I used to sit on your knee in my nightie.
—Don’t forget the problem.
Mum.
Given: A girl and a river.
Required to: Get her across.
Construction: A bridge. Abridge her life.
Proof:
Mum.
Thinks: Twould take a ship to cross that river. The Ship of the Dead of a Thousand Years.
—Gas? Are there any ships go by gas?
—No. That failed once already remember.
‘I don’t remember’ she scribbled hastily. ‘I was only sending her a message.’
—Drowning? Washed ashore like poor Shelley. But in some brighter clime.
‘No,’ she wouldn’t have that either. ‘My Shelley’s death was death by drowning too. Two deaths the same way would leave the linger of suspicion on me. Show my hand. There must be some other way there must.’
—Remember man that thou art Must and unto Must thou must return.
—But must it be violence then? Axe, hammer, chopper, poker, sciss
ors, gun, knife.
—Underline the word out of place.
—Hey, Mac! There’s a queue here! Papa comforted her.
—It’s all in the mind. I queue? No, thank you. You ask me? I askew.
—Now the Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence and the wicked take it by force.
‘Where would I get a gun? I’m not in America now you know.’
—At least don’t make the mistake you made before.
—Don’t try to come over here with her.
—That’s how they managed to stop you last time.
—Send her across to me alone, I’ll receive her.
—You were too slow coming up the gangway.
—Wait on the shore though you’re bound to falter more.
—This time stay behind.
—Unselfishly linger till faith is destroyed, hope abandoned, charity a bygone word, and Grace returned to the Lord from Whom all Graces come.
—And stop keeping on putting it off you ugly old bitch. Post early for Christmas for Christ’s sake.
—You think on the brink but you sit there and wink, and you won’t do the deed, no you never would, would you? Oh no, not you! You’ve a kink there’s always tomorrow.
—My barque leaves the harbour tomorrow to cross the wide ocean today.
—But remember you must remember. Procrastination is the thief of Predestination. The must can rust.
—The time is come.
—Time to spare is time to kill.
‘And at this very moment,’ she wrote tenderly, ‘my darling child Grace is lying fast asleep in her little bed two storeys beneath me.’
Knowall wandered round the single-end on his own, reading above Papa’s head from the book of poems Papa had left her.
—And when I crumble who will remumble that Sadie of the best cuntree? Grace in her bare scuddie, eh? That would be something to refumble! Like you played on your daddy’s knee in your nightie-night-Papa. Something you’d like to retumble. And what would Mama say if she knew that Papa knew what Papa knew?
He smirked to a corner to let the rest of them get on their high horse and talk down to her.
—You can give her bread and milk
—cakes and lemonade
—but a greater gift by far would be
—the Bread of Eternal Life.
—What a sweet gift that would be!
—Sweets to the sweet. Even one little sweet.
She nodded to their nods.
‘She likes sweeties the same wee girl. There’d be no violence there. Funny I never thought of that before.’
There they were, still nodding smiling to her smiling nodding. The fire was grey, choking to death. The little room was getting chilly. She straightened from poking the fire and they were away. She let them go. She couldn’t stop them. Even the four walls couldn’t. She was too blearyeyed to write any more. She stumbled several times undressing, got into her nightgown unsteadily, and staggered into bed like a drunk woman.
CHAPTER TEN
Tiger was ready to spring that week. He couldn’t get a car but he had fixed the use of a plain van from a pal in the delivery line, an old mate who had lost the courage of his previous convictions, a slightly reformed character with bandy legs, who was willing to let him take it away from the coup where he parked it for half an hour some mornings while he popped round the corner for a cup of tea between runs.
‘He doesn’t want to know anything about it so there’s nothing he can tell,’ said Tiger. ‘If he’s ever asked. Dross takes us over the Canal bridge and we drop off before he gets to the Scheme, walk through the Park and out the far gate.’
‘And what am I supposed to do?’ Dross needled him. ‘Drive on till I see a cop and then jump out and run away? Dyou think I’m stupit? I’m no drivin it any further than I have to. Yous get out, I get out.’
‘Come on and I’ll show you,’ Tiger stroked him.
He walked him over the route that Monday afternoon, with Hardnut and Chocolate chatting behind. Beyond the Park, just where the Scheme started, a lonely tenement, the lonely survivor of a Victorian block, stood up stained and brown like a bad tooth in the mouth of a man needing dentures.
‘All this used to be good property round here,’ said Chocolate.
‘Flats,’ said Tiger. ‘Two a landing. But the rooms were far too big. No demand.’
‘The Scheme done for it,’ said Hardnut. ‘They were that wee bit out the way here and past the Park, gave them a touch of class. Clean air. They shoved up the slum clearances right on their tail. Wham! In came the scrubbers, out went the nobs.’
‘No it wasn’t,’ said Chocolate. ‘I was brought up near here remember.’
‘Dragged up,’ Tiger threw over his shoulder.
‘What it was,’ said Chocolate, ‘it was they were gonna build a factory here for tripewriters, that’s why they pulled down the whole block except they two closes because it didn’t come off and that’s when the Scheme went up.’
‘You don’t half know your history,’ Dross muttered sourly. ‘Dyou buggers know where you’re goin? Causa wishty Christ I did.’
‘Sokay,’ said Chocolate. ‘Keep the pan. It was me showed Tiger.’
They slowed at the dark tower.
‘Come on in,’ Tiger invited Dross at the second close.
‘See yous at the bus stop then,’ said Chocolate, taking Hardnut straight on.
Dross went with Tiger, and they strolled through the close into the backgreen where a broken line of palings cut it off from a winding lane. Tiger kept talking all the way.
‘Leave the van at the close, would look sif you were deliverin somethin, through here to where the palins is broke, into the lane, and here you are, on Riggins Road – and there’s the bus stop.’
‘Mirawculous!’ Dross sneered, still sour. ‘Know any mair wee tricks?’
‘Sa good service too,’ said Tiger. ‘Mind you it goes halfway round the bloody world to get into town butsa good service just the same. And you’ve a bus shelter forbye if it’s raining on Friday.’
Hardnut and Chocolate came sauntering from the corner, smart and cosy in their good winter coats.
‘High,’ said Tiger.
‘Low,’ said Hardnut.
‘Been oot for to get some fresh air?’ Chocolate asked politely.
‘Just a wee dauner,’ Tiger explained amiably. ‘I was showing my hander a bit of a shortcut.’
‘Sall very well for yous,’ Dross grumbled. ‘I get the point of course. I leave the van in fronta that close. It’s dead quiet there. Anybody that seen it would think there was a bloke away up the stair for his dinner or deliverin Mrs McWhaccle’s laundry.’
‘Wheesht,’ said Tiger. ‘Don’t mention laundry, please!
We don’t know a thing about laundries, do we, my leerie lads?’
‘Aye, all right, cut the kiddin,’ Dross wouldn’t smile. He barged on, going over his instructions with a frown. ‘Then I slip through the back, round the lane, out here and get a bus. That’s right. I’ve got that. But suppose—’
‘Suppose nothin,’ Hardnut stopped him. ‘You get your bus and we’ll see you for snooker. Same place same time as any Friday the past month.’
‘If there’s nobody on my tail,’ said Dross.
‘Who could be on your tail?’ Tiger tutted at him, hands out with the palms up.
‘Yous could all stay in the van wi me and take the same bus,’ Dross wanted to argue. ‘What have yous got to get out before then for?’
‘Cause,’ said Tiger. ‘Four of us steppin on a bus at this stop. Carryin a bag. Sasking to be remembered. Aye, and then the four of us get off at the billards room? Might as well send the jailers wur name and address. But even if you were stopped in the van, which is bloody unlikely, what’ve you got? Nothing!’
‘Cept a van that’s no mine,’ said Dross.
‘You’ll be all right, pal,’ Hardnut drawled at him. ‘Sonly commonsense us splittin up as soon as we can. Us three divide the d
oins in the gents in the Park, dump the bag behind the rodeedendrons and on wur way.’
‘Of course the job needs nerve,’ said Tiger.
‘But if you’ve got the nerve you can’t miss,’ said Chocolate.
‘I thought we’d been through all that for weeks,’ said Hardnut.
‘Nobody ever said I hadny the nerve,’ said Dross. ‘I’ve got the nerve all right. It’s have yous got the nerve? It’s yous is doing the grab.’
‘Grab?’ said Hardnut. ‘Nay grab there. Just take. She’s only skin and bones. You said it yourself. And I’ve seen her often enough now, God knows. You flattered her. She’s mair bones than skin.’
‘Tiger just needs to make a face at her and she’ll mess herself and drop the lot,’ Chocolate prophesied.
‘I’d like a wee shot at that van first,’ said Dross. ‘Before Friday. You’ve got to get the feel of the gears if you want to start off quick.’
‘You’ll get a wee shot,’ Tiger promised. ‘You’ll get as many wee shots as you like. Damn it, man, we’ve got the whole bloody week in fronta us yet.’
‘The bus!’ cried Chocolate, full of life and happiness.
‘See, I telt you it was a good service,’ said Tiger.
‘All aboard the Gypsy Queen!’ Hardnut sang out, leaping on first, lightfooted, lighthearted.
Wee Annie was at work as usual the same morning.
Sane. Normal. Yes, sir. No, sir. Good morning, Laundry speaking. Talking to Mr Alan, answering the phone, typing letters, calculating overtime, plodding away in a routine that didn’t occupy her mind, until by Thursday she was uptodate and ready once more to make out the wages envelopes. She worked hard, one person unaided doing a lot, but she was used to it. That was how the firm operated, and she preferred that to being one of many or to having a junior miss round her feet or in her hair.
From Monday till Thursday, locked in herself, she chewed over what she had to do. She had always been obedient to her father, always disciplined to respect higher authority. Sunday night’s conference remained with her not as a bad dream or a lone fantasy best forgotten, but as a formal session of her advisers summed up in an order she had to carry out. She knew her duty. It was quite clear, and it was quite simple. All she had to do was get a poke of sweets, poison one and only one, and give the whole poke to Grace. She didn’t want poisoned sweets left uneaten to point to the cause of death. She thought the cause would never be known if all the sweets left in the poke were harmless. Or even if they did find out the cause of death they would never connect it with the sweets she had given the dead child. So she would be safe, quite safe, and Grace too would be safe once she had eaten the right sweet.
