The Big Man

by William McIlvanney

  ‘Don’t worry, Frankie,’ Sam said.

  He looked at the other two. The money at the moment was a myth among them but their three pairs of eyes agreed to make it somehow a reality. They sealed the agreement with smiles.

  ‘You do that, Frankie,’ Sam said.

  ‘You sure? Ah hate to do this.’

  ‘Ye’re doin’ us a favour. Don’t you worry. We want to see the big man do his stuff. You mark us down for four.’

  ‘Okay,’ Frankie said reluctantly. ‘Ah’ll do ma best. It’s not a guarantee, now. But, listen, Ah’ll really be tryin’ for youse boys.’

  Frankie touched Sam’s shoulder and walked away. Harry Naismith winked at Sam MacKinlay.

  ‘He’s all right, him, eh?’ Alistair Corstorphine said.

  ‘Aye, but it’s really Sam we’ve got to thank,’ Harry said. ‘You put the pressure on there, Sam. So ye did. He was goin’ to bomb us out.’

  ‘Aye, so ye did,’ Alistair said admiringly.

  ‘Well, Ah would hope Ah know how to handle Frankie White by this time,’ Sam MacKinlay said.

  His two brief public performances had reinstated Frankie’s sense of himself. Matt Mason’s ominousness was receding like a threatened headache which hasn’t materialised. But as he jauntily approached Dan Scoular’s table, there was something in Dan’s face that bothered him. He might have looked to other people just like a man enjoying himself but in the week of their training together Frankie had learned to read that face more thoroughly than most. Dan was a more thoughtful man than Frankie had at first imagined. It was just that he was seldom in any hurry to voice his thoughts. If you were observant enough, you might notice that his expressions were reacting to the conversation like afterthoughts, the eyes still watching you but opaque, the smile a second too slow, and you would realise the machinery was working away on something else. What it might be making of it you could only imagine.

  Frankie just hoped it wasn’t trouble as he sat down at the table. The mood was light enough. Davie the Deaver was recounting how in his youth he had been involved in cutting down the trees of the Sahara (‘the nights were that cold there’) and had helped to make it a desert. He seemed genuinely to regret the carelessness of their actions and the devastating results. He pleaded the ignorance of the times. (‘There was never as much talk about ecology then.’) Knowing the rules. Wullie Mairshall was patiently raising rational objections to see how Davie would cope with them. It was acknowledged that there always had been a desert known as the Sahara but it had been much smaller (‘about the size of Troon beach’) until the arrival of the army and Davie Dykes.

  Like mouth music before a battle, Davie and Wullie receded and left fighter and trainer remembering the nature of what was ahead. There were fewer people in the pub. Sarah and her friends sent over a drink but Dan said his orange juice was enough.

  ‘Alan’s done all right the day,’ Frankie said. ‘We should be on commission.’

  ‘Folk keep wishin’ me well,’ Dan said. ‘Ye would think Ah was fightin’ for them.’

  ‘Well, ye’re from Thornbank.’

  ‘But they don’t know anythin’ about it.’

  ‘How d’ye mean?’

  ‘They don’t know what the fight’s about.’

  ‘They don’t have to. They’re supporting you.’

  ‘Why? They don’t know what Ah’m doin’.’

  ‘Dan, come on.’

  ‘They don’t. Ah feel as if Ah’m connin’ them. Because the truth is Ah don’t know maself.’

  Frankie White was aware of Matt Mason’s voice on the phone like an earpiece to which he was permanently plugged in, being prompted.

  ‘You’re earning money, Dan. That’s what ye’re doin’. At a time when there’s very little to earn, you’ve found a way.’

  ‘Aye, but Ah’m not sure what the way is. Ah think it’s time you told me all ye know about this, Frankie.’

  ‘What Ah know? That wouldn’t take long.’

  ‘So fair enough.’

  ‘Dan. Take ma advice. As the man says, the more you know the less the better. You’re goin’ into a bad place. Cutty Dawson? He’s been around a bit. A lotta experience. You don’t know what ye’re goin’ to find in there. Even about yerself. We all know you’re good, Dan. But this isny a scuffle outside a pub. This is a serious matter. You’re goin’ to discover what’s in you. This is new territory. You’re goin’ up the Amazon, Dan. You only take essentials to a place like that. Ye don’t clutter yerself with stuff that’s not goin’ to help you. Extra luggage’ll finish you. Ah’m tellin’ ye. Ye think Cutty Dawson’s worried about the ins and outs of it? He’s got one thought: batter Dan Scoular down. You be the same. It’s the only way.’

  ‘Cutty Dawson must’ve improved since Monday. You fancied ma chances then.’

  ‘Ah still do, Dan. But only if everything’s right. And Ah’m tellin’ ye the way to get it right. Will ye listen? Anyway, there’s another thing. It’s a bit late to worry. Ye took the man’s money. He’s fixed up the whole thing. If ye decided ye didny like the smell of it, what ye goin’ to do?’

  ‘Ah would decide.’

  ‘Dan, you’ve decided! You took that two hundred quid in here, what d’ye think that was? Time to think? That was money. That was Matt Mason’s money. It might as well’ve been his head stamped on the notes.’

  ‘Ah could have second thoughts.’

  Sarah Haggerty and her friends had risen to leave and they waved across. Frankie made a very small, brief gesture of waving back, feeling distant from them, like an unwilling passenger on a ship he felt pulling away from the cosy normalcy of their lives. He had just realised it was a mystery cruise.

  He remembered why he had never felt fully at home among these people. They were so simple. How did they think the world worked? How had they managed to live so long and learn so little? There was no hope for them. Industry had fleeced them for generations and they still wondered what it was all about. Whatever happened to them, they shrugged and thought maybe tomorrow would be a good day. When did they call ‘enough!’? His own mother. He remembered going with her one day to pay her rent. A woman who had been through more hard times than he wanted to think about, a woman who through it all had never treated another person beneath the high standards she modestly called ‘dacency’, and she got mixed up with the money and the clerk behind the counter, a weedy nyaff with pimples and an underfed moustache, was treating her with contempt. The most painful moment had been outside when his mother gently lectured Frankie for swearing. ‘He was only doin’ his job,’ she said. They never learned. Now Dan Scoular was talking about ‘second thoughts’. Frankie White’s fears for himself made him speak without any of his customary attention to the image he was projecting.

  ‘Dan,’ he said sincerely. ‘Ye don’t get second thoughts with these people. Your second thought could be your last. You offend this man, he’ll hide in yer coalhouse for a week just to get ye.’

  They stared at each other in the first moment of mutual honesty they had achieved. Dan Scoular saw very clearly the other’s fear, the self-protective need to get his message across: ‘We’re both in a place of danger, we pull together here or we both go down.’ Frankie White saw Dan Scoular’s eyes steady on him, stare into the facts, try to consider the possibilities. In the honesty of those eyes, unmuddied by any deliberate deceit, Frankie White thought he could see the thoughts surface, vivid as fish: the first was accusation but it didn’t stay long; the second looked a lot more dangerous, the refusal yet to believe that there was nothing else to do but go through with this.

  ‘Ah want tae know exactly what ye mean,’ Dan said. ‘Ye mean like killin’?’

  Impaled on those eyes, Frankie White had no option but to be honest.

  ‘Ah might mean that,’ he said. ‘Dan, Ah don’t know. Ah tell ye the truth. It’s a certainty Matt Mason has done that before. Ah mean, Ah couldn’t take ye and show ye the body. But that just makes it more worrying, doesn’t it? If Ah c
ould, he wouldn’t be here. But he is here. And that’s our problem. Ah don’t know. Maybe if you reneged, it wouldn’t be as serious as that. But, oh, it would be serious. Very, very serious. Bad injuries at the least. Like, very bad. And maybe just the chance of terminal ones. A man like him, Dan. He can’t afford anybody makin’ him look silly. That’s his version of the Wall Street crash. Suddenly, he’s got nothin’ in the bank. Suddenly, it’s goin’ to take three weeks of threats to get him a free packet of fags. Fear. That’s his currency, Dan. It’s as good a money as any. An’ he’s got plenty of his kinda currency, Ah’m tellin’ ye. Like very plenty. Ah’ve seen him go into places and buy them with a look. Ye think the delicate conscience of some big, nice man from Thornbank is something he’s goin’ to decide he can afford to subsidise? Grow up, big Dan. Ye’re playin’ in the first division here. We’re not usin’ jackets for goalposts. Dan, you made a promise with your hand. Ye took two hundred quid. It’s simple. Keep the promise or maybe die.’

  Dan Scoular stared, not without a certain amount of fear, into what he had said. When he spoke, the smallness of what he had to say was an inverse measure of his innocence. Hearing him, Frankie liked him for it and was frustrated by it at the same time.

  ‘Ye could’ve told me what ye were gettin’ me into,’ Dan Scoular said.

  ‘Dan!’ Frankie said. ‘Ah thought Ah was gettin’ ye into a fight. Just one more fight. Just what ye’re good at. That’s all Ah thought Ah was doin’. Ah should’ve known better. In this place. But Ah know Matt Mason’s lookin’ for a puncher. Ah think to maself, Ah know a real puncher. Dan, it seemed simple at the time. It was easy, Ah’m tellin’ ye. Here’s a fight. Here’s a man who can fight. Let’s put them together. And Ah’ll admit Ah saw somethin’ in it for me. But Ah saw somethin’ in it for you as well. That was the beauty of it. Everythin’ fitted. It really did. Everythin’ fitted. Everybody was making somethin’ out it. You as well. An’ there could be more in this for you if ye won. Matt Mason’s got a lot of power. Could change yer life. And all you’re bein’ asked to do is what ye’re good at.’

  ‘What are you good at, Frankie?’ Dan Scoular said.

  ‘Hey, Ah’m still lookin’.’ Frankie, for a moment, was back defensively performing. ‘That’s something Ah’m not sure Ah’ve found yet.’

  ‘When ye do find it, Frankie, don’t practise it on me. If we get out this all right.’

  They sat in their own thoughts.

  ‘Frankie. So tell me. If it’s as serious as you say, Ah better know everythin’ there is tae know. Ah want tae know where Ah am here.’

  Frankie felt again the ambivalence this place caused in him. He thought perhaps he shouldn’t come back, perhaps he should make this his last trip except for coming in to see his mother and getting out as quickly as possible. It was too complicated coming here. He remembered Matt Mason’s warning about telling Dan Scoular as little as possible. He remembered how much he liked Dan Scoular. In choosing to tell Dan as much as he knew of the truth, he honestly didn’t know whether he was obeying Matt Mason in a subtle way, making out of the truth the ultimate expediency, deploying the only method he knew to make Dan’s honesty conform, or whether he was reacting straight to Dan Scoular’s demand, obeying his growing liking and respect for an undevious man.

  ‘Okay, Dan,’ he said. ‘This is what Ah know. And it won’t take up a lot of yer time. Matt Mason is a bookie. He’s got pubs. As Ah’ve suggested to ye, he’s done a couple of other things. Don’t ask me what they were. But they were nasty. As nasty as you can imagine, Ah’ll settle for that. Now there’s another man. He’s called Cam Colvin. He’s more severe than Matt. Don’t have any doubts about that, Dan. Most of us live in a world we don’t know’s there. Ah promise you. People die and they call it natural causes. Ah wish Ah could believe in natural causes. Dan, Ah think maybe we’ve lost the natural causes. They used to be there. See when ma mother dies. They can call it what they like. But she was killed. When it happens, she was killed. So what am I goin’ to do? Ah’ll go to the funeral and be a nice son. But Ah’ll know that she went through what she didn’t have to go through. Ah know that, Dan. It’s how we live. Some of us pay for others. That’s not fair.’

  Frankie took another sip of the double whisky Sarah Haggerty had sent over. Dan Scoular didn’t want him to drink any more just at the moment, needed him clear.

  ‘Frankie,’ he said. ‘You were sayin’.’

  Frankie swallowed the indulgence of his own sadness.

  ‘Well, that’s it, Dan,’ he said. ‘Matt Mason and Cam Colvin. Something has happened there, Ah honestly don’t know what. But there’s some kind of trouble. It’s not our business. How could it be our business? We’re boys from the country. Like you said. But they need us just now. And there’s money there for the takin’. Because they need us. Let’s take it, Dan. Let’s you and me just take what we can get. While it’s goin’. The way things are, it might not be there for ever. Come on, Dan. Let’s you and me take it. And we can. We really can. You can take Cutty Dawson, Dan. Ah know you can.’

  ‘What kinda trouble is that, Frankie?’

  ‘Ah don’t know.’ Frankie was strangely drunk, more drunk than the drink should have made him. ‘Ah told ye that, Dan. Ah really don’t know. There’s something happened between them. This is the way they’re goin’ to settle it. That’s all Ah know. But we better turn up. Because. If we don’t, Matt Mason’s lost without a fight. And there has to be a fight. There has to be. If it isn’t you and Cutty, Matt’ll make it another one. Better fighting Cutty, Dan. That’s an easier proposition.’

  Dan Scoular finished his orange juice. He rose and went through to the lavatory. Frankie took his whisky and lifted the empty glasses and crossed with them to the bar. The only other person in the bar besides Alan was Wullie Mairshall, hovering without apparent purpose, and he followed Dan into the lavatory.

  While he passed the time with Alan, Frankie wondered what effect his words had had on Dan. You couldn’t be sure with that big man. In the face of what seemed the most obvious necessity, he seemed to retain a belief in choice, as if his will was something he would insist on taking with him to the edge of his own grave. Thinking such an uncomfortable and troublesome thought, Frankie began to be concerned about how long Dan was taking in the lavatory. Maybe he had climbed out of a window and was gone.

  Frankie went across to the lavatory, the door of which Alan had wedged open, presumably in preparation for cleaning it or perhaps just to give his customers the hint that he was closing. Pausing in the doorway, Frankie heard the hot-air dryer shut itself off. The silence that followed was too deep, too long to be a natural pause.

  ‘What did ye say his name was?’ Dan Scoular’s voice said.

  The voice was strained, emerged with difficulty from a man caught in a thumbscrew of private pain. It made Frankie want to hold back. Wullie Mairshall’s answer was muted, as if he too wanted to back off. Perhaps he was afraid the hurt he was causing might rebound on himself.

  ‘Struthers. Gordon Struthers.’

  ‘How d’ye know about this?’

  ‘Ah don’t absolutely know. Ah’m doin’ gardens in Blackbrae. Ah hear things. There’s a woman cleans to this fella’s wife. Ah know her man. He says they saw Betty and this man in a pub in Graithnock. That’s what he says.’

  Frankie walked back to the bar. He didn’t want to know any more. The pain in Dan’s voice was his own problem. All Frankie hoped was that whatever was going on in him didn’t interfere with his ability to fight. While he waited for Dan and Wullie to emerge, Frankie was only interested to gauge the effect their conversation had had on Dan’s commitment to the fight. But Dan’s face, as he came out, told Frankie nothing. Certainly, Alan seemed to notice no difference. He was just glad to be finished. He became polite on the strength of knowing they didn’t want anything else to drink.

  Thank you, boys,’ he said. ‘So it’s back to the grind? It’ll all payoff, big Dan. Don’t you worry. How’s Betty,
by the way?’

  Betty’s first reactions to the fact that Dan was going to take part in a bare-knuckle fight had been no more than a practising of reactions, a confused search for the response that could contain the strangeness of the event. When he told her, coming in from the pub that night with a track-suit in his hands, he had been still large-eyed with the surprise of it. ‘Ah just said “Hey!”, he said. ‘And all this happens.’

  She had first felt disbelief. He had gone out from a situation that was all too familiar, the two of them bleakly sending each other messages like dead letters, and he came back in with a strange new possibility in his hands. The maroon track-suit had lain on the settee where he had dropped it, mysterious with unforeseeable implications.

  Disbelief moved towards a kind of envy of the energy he had found. He was walking up and down the room as if trying to see beyond its walls towards the horizons he had only just realised might be there. The assumption that, wherever he was going, she would be happy to go along made her angry. The anger taught her one thing she was sure she felt – abhorrence of what he was preparing to do.

  It seemed to her primitive that two men should agree to try to beat each other senseless, and especially in the furtherance of some quarrel that belonged to neither. Her contempt tried to persuade him to give the money back. But she couldn’t refute him when he said how much they needed it and she knew from the desperation with which he wanted her to accept it that the two hundred pounds meant more than money to him. He laid most of it on the table when she refused to take it. It lay like a bet he was placing with himself, a gamble in which she wasn’t sure if he himself knew what it was he hoped to gain.

  It was then that what she thought was her true reaction crystallised. It was a cold relief, an admission of sterility where she had vainly been hoping for growth. There was no hope if he could go through with this. He was letting others buy him for their purposes even though, from the little information he could give, he had no understanding of what those purposes were. He was selling his life in a market.