Just Duffy

by Robin Jenkins

  The safest plan would be to try and act as if everything was the same as before. She was convinced he hadn’t got the job so that didn’t come into it.

  ‘You’re late, husband,’ she said, pertly. ‘What kept you? Have you been seeing another woman?’

  He didn’t even smile. ‘I promised Mrs Veitch I would tell her how I got on.’

  ‘Well, how did you get on?’

  She had to wait until he went into his room and changed his clothes. She prayed he wouldn’t notice she had been prying.

  When he came back into the living-room she was relieved. He couldn’t have noticed for he wasn’t angry. He was now wearing his jeans and pullover, his working garb evidently, for he began to tidy up the room.

  She watched as he swept up potato crisp crumbs off the carpet, took a glass she had used – whisky and lemonade – to the kitchen and washed it, and put some magazines she had been looking at back in their rack. She said nothing. This obsession with order could be his way of keeping his monsters under control. She certainly didn’t want them on the loose.

  ‘You were going to tell me how you got on,’ she said. ‘Though you don’t have to. You didn’t get it, did you?’

  ‘No, I didn’t get it.’ He smiled.

  She remembered the faces. Her blood turned cold. ‘I said you wouldn’t. Was it the manager you saw?’

  ‘I saw Mrs Porteous.’

  ‘You’re kidding. Her ladyship leaves that kind of thing to the manager. What was she wearing?’

  ‘A green costume, with a necklace of green stones. Two silver combs in her hair.’

  ‘All right, you saw her; but she could just have been passing by. What did she say?’

  ‘She said I was too stupid to work for her.’ Again he smiled.

  Cooley found that hard to believe. Stupid was the kind of word Porteous would think but never say, being too much of a lady. ‘Did she actually call you stupid?’

  ‘That’s what she meant.’

  Why did Cooley have then a vision of Porteous with her proud throat cut and the emeralds all sticky with blood? It must be because of those paintings and that tract. Christ, Duffy, she thought, you’ll have me as batty as yourself.

  ‘She’s the kind of person who makes other people pay if she’s in trouble.’

  Though startled by the remark, Cooley thought there were any number of people like that, who got their own back wherever they could. But what had happened to make Duffy think Porteous was one of them?

  ‘How do you know she’s in trouble? She didn’t tell you.’

  ‘No, but I could tell.’

  Cooley glanced up at herself in the mirror above the fireplace. She looked as comic as hell. They should both be roaring with laughter at her appearance and making jokes at Porteous’s expense. Instead here was Duffy, as likely to laugh as Dracula about to sink his teeth into a victim’s neck, and here she was herself, feeling her own neck stiffen with fear.

  ‘How could you tell?’ she asked, ‘She wouldn’t give herself away to anyone.’

  ‘She had been crying.’

  Cooley had lit a cigarette. It almost dropped from her shaking hand. ‘She hasn’t cried in a hundred years, but if she did she’d never let you or anybody see it.’

  ‘Not many people would have seen it.’

  ‘But you did?’

  ‘Yes, I did.’

  And they think you’re simple, she thought, with a shudder. What you are, Duffy, is mad and mysterious. Christ knows what you’re thinking. You’ll end up murdering somebody. I’ll have to make sure it isn’t me.

  She tried to be jocular. ‘What could make her cry? What trouble could she have? She’s got pearls as well as emeralds. She’s got two cars. Has Margaret got herself bairned? By Stephen Telfer? That’d be a laugh.’

  He wasn’t laughing, though. She was a bloody fool. She’d warned herself not to mention Margaret Porteous and yet she’d done it, in the very way to provoke him; and she went on doing it. ‘Well, what goes on after the badminton? Those wee white shorts would make it convenient. I expect though she’d get an abortion: his father being a doctor.’

  ‘Mrs Porteous’s trouble is personal.’

  ‘Personal? Do you mean she’s in love and he’s jilted her? Duffy, you’re a scream. Why do you think I call her Tight-pussy? She thinks sex is filthy. I’ve heard her saying it, well almost saying it. Maybe it’s because her man died young, or maybe it’s religion. You should have seen the look she gave me when she asked if it was true that I had “a disgusting disease”. She wanted to know who I had got it from. I told her it was none of her business. You’ve never asked who I got it from, Duffy.’

  And he still wasn’t going to ask. So she told him.

  ‘I expect like all the rest of them you think I’ve been fucked by everybody in Lightburn with a cock, except yourself of course. Well, it’s not true. I’d rather eat a Mars bar any day. Three times only, Duffy. The first time out of curiosity. I was just thirteen at the time. So was he. Jackie McBeth. You know him. Ears like handles, wee serious eyes. It was in a stairhead lavatory in Crimea Street, before the buildings there were condemned. He lived there. It was his first time too. There was so little room I had to hold on to his ears. The cistern kept running. The seat was soaked. There was a stink. Somebody kept coming and hammering on the door. The french letter he’d borrowed was like this dress, ten sizes too big: it kept falling off. It was near Christmas too and freezing. So it wasn’t what you’d call a great success. That was the first time. The second time I did it for money. This was about a year later. I’m not going to tell you who he was. He was a married man with two kids. I was hard up. He offered me three quid. It was summer so we did it in a flower-bed in the public park, about midnight. I remember hearing the town hall clocks striking twelve just when we’d finished. He wasn’t pleased. I hadn’t co-operated. He wanted his money back. So I said if he didn’t give me another three quid I’d tell the cops. I wasn’t sixteen so what he’d done or what he’d tried to do was illegal. He cursed but he paid up. That was the second time. The third time it was for love. I fancied him. I think I still fancy him, the bastard. He said he fancied me. We’d go steady and get married. So when he invited me to his house I went like a shot. We did it on his bed, with all our clothes off, in the dark. I wanted to see what was going on but he said it was more romantic in the dark. I tried to enjoy it but I kept wanting to laugh at how busy he was. It’s not just Mick Dykes thinks he’s got a champion. They all do. Well, a day or two later I found I’d got the clap. So I went to him and asked what about it. Do you know what the liar said? That he’d got it from me. You’ll not believe me when I tell you who he is. This was just two months ago, mind. David Martin. His family owns that big furniture shop in the main street. Boy Scout, Bible class, Scripture Union. I used to have to mind my language when talking to him. I heard afterwards from wee Cathie that he’d screwed half the girls in town, and I thought he loved me, and me alone. You’re not laughing, Duffy.’

  He had listened like a priest. True enough it had been a kind of confession on her part. She waited for him to rebuke her, and then, as priests did, tell her she was forgiven.

  Instead he said, ‘I’ll make the tea. Do you like scrambled eggs?’

  He really was a scream. Certainly she felt like screaming. Yet it was a sensible enough question.

  ‘I like everything except liver.’

  ‘I usually put melted cheese in it.’

  ‘That should make it a lot tastier.’

  Screaming, but in silence, she followed him into the kitchen and watched him put on his apron.

  ‘Would you like chips?’

  ‘I’d love chips.’

  She watched him washing the potatoes. ‘While you were out Munro came to the door.’

  ‘How do you know it was Mrs Munro?’

  ‘She grunted.’

  He didn’t smile. Even Mick Dykes had more humour, and he had to have jokes explained to him, especially if they were about
himself. Poor Mick. All the same, forced to choose, with a gun at her head, between Mick and Duffy as a boyfriend, she’d have to take Mick. A knee in the right place at the right time would knock most of the bounce and brag out of him. With Duffy it would have to be a stake through his heart.

  She watched him cutting the potatoes into chips with a wickedly sharp knife. She imagined it slicing open her stomach.

  ‘Do you think Mick will bring big Molly?’ Here she was at it again, poking through the bars at his monsters. If she did get her stomach sliced open it would be her own fault.

  ‘Why should he bring her?’

  ‘Because she’ll want to come. She fancies you, Duffy. She says you and she are going to get married one day. She thinks you and she could have beautiful kids: a bit soft in the head maybe but beautiful. You know, Duffy, she’s maybe what you need. All these weird ideas, all the bad dreams, they could be caused by sex gathering in your mind like a big boil. It’s got to be lanced and all the pus let out. Molly would lance it for you.’

  Should she run and get the silver crucifix out of his mother’s jewellery box, just in case? She should certainly keep her mouth shut. But no, here she was poking again. ‘She’d make you human. You’d hate it at first but you’d get used to it. She’d get rid of your monsters.’

  He was beating up eggs. Fat for the chips sizzled on the cooker. If she wasn’t careful she’d be getting it poured over her wig.

  ‘What monsters?’ he asked, quietly.

  ‘Everybody’s got monsters. You should see mine.’

  ‘Why did you go into my room?’

  Had she put the tract back in the folder upside-down? ‘Who said I went into your room?’

  ‘There was a smell of perfume.’

  No wonder. She had stank of it.

  ‘I just had a peep in. I didn’t think you’d mind. The door wasn’t locked. You’d do well in the Army, Duffy, everything exactly in the right place.’

  ‘I thought I could trust you, Cooley.’

  ‘I thought you weren’t supposed to call me Cooley any more. Call me Helen. You’ve got a lot to learn, Duffy. I’ve told you the first rule: look after yourself. The second rule is: people can be trusted only if there’s something in it for them. Will I set the table? I know, fork to the left, knife to the right.’

  ‘I think you should wash your hands first, and remove that silly wig.’

  ‘Jesus!’ She ran to the bathroom where she washed her hands and shed an angry tear or two. ‘Fuck you, Duffy,’ she said to herself in the mirror. She did not remove the wig.

  She went back to the kitchen. He had set the table himself.

  They were eating when he said: ‘We’re breaking into the library tonight.’

  ‘Who’s we?’

  ‘Mick Dykes, Johnny Crosbie, you, and me.’

  ‘Me? I don’t remember saying I would go. I thought you’d given up that crazy idea.’

  ‘Tomorrow night St Stephen’s church. I would like you to come with us, Helen.’

  She wished she hadn’t asked him not to call her Cooley. She wasn’t sure who this Helen was. ‘All right, it’s daft but I’ll go. How much do I get?’

  ‘Ten pounds.’

  ‘Couldn’t you make it twenty? All right. I’d be a lot happier if Crosbie wasn’t in on it. In the church you might have a mad idea about showing up a shower of hypocrites but he’ll just see it as a chance to do something rotten and filthy.’

  ‘He will obey orders.’

  ‘What if we’re caught? It would be the comicalest reason in the world for getting sent to the nick. You’d be all right, you’ve got no record, you could say the rest of us led you into it, and they’d believe you for you’ve got them all thinking you’re simple. They’d go on thinking it for the rest of your life, Duffy. They’d laugh at you in the streets. Wee kids would bawl ‘Loony’. It’d make some sense if there was anything worth stealing.’

  ‘I told you we would not be thieves.’

  ‘Crosbie would steal the eyes out of your head and come back for the holes.’ She grinned at her own effrontery. The remark had been applied to her, years ago, by an elderly neighbour, whose dog’s collar she had pinched.

  ‘Not while he is under my command.’

  All she could say to that, with her eyes blinking, was: ‘Yes, general,’ and salute.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  When the three conspiratorial knocks were heard Cooley hurried to open the door. She was still wearing the long dress and the wig.

  Gaping with enchantment, Mick thought he must have come to the wrong door. He gave her the shy version of his possessor-of-the-biggest-dick-in-Lightburn smile. He was dressed for visiting. He had on his usual mucky jeans and torn anorak but his white shirt with red stripes was clean though its collar was frayed. He had subdued his curls with some foul-smelling cream.

  Beside him, a midget by comparison, Crosbie had on a long black leatherette coat useful for slinking undetected in the dark but also an Australian hat conspicuous in any Lightburn street a hundred yards away. That was Crosbie, a mixture of conceit and caution, with more than a dash of viciousness. Some said he couldn’t help being vicious, it was the way he was born, with a kink in his brain, but Cooley was convinced he just liked being treacherous and cruel.

  ‘Is Duffy in?’ asked Mick, politely. His nose twitched between his pudgy cheeks, like a bull-dog’s smelling a bitch in heat.

  ‘General Duffy is studying his plans,’ she said, in a voice that was a parody of Mrs Porteous’s.

  No matter how thick Mick looked he could always look thicker. ‘Duffy said we’d to come at seven.’

  ‘It’s me, you silly bugger. Cooley. Come in.’

  ‘You smell wonderful, Cooley.’

  ‘I smell like a cheap whorehouse.’

  She was tempted to push Crosbie out and slam the door on him.

  ‘Did you speak to your uncle, Mick?’

  ‘Sure, Cooley.’

  ‘Good. Johnny, you go into the living-room. Duffy’s there. I want to ask Mick about what his uncle said.’

  She showed Crosbie where the living-room was and then took Mick into the bedroom.

  He was awed by the big bed with its red quilt. ‘Is it Mrs Duffy’s?’

  ‘It’s mine in the meantime.’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind being in it with her,’ he confessed, wistfully. ‘I bet she’d like it too. Older women are better in bed.’

  ‘Well, they’ve had more practice.’

  ‘It’s not just that. It’s because they’re more grateful.’

  ‘Grateful for what?’

  ‘For being made feel young. But it’s got to be done right.’

  ‘All the same, Mick, I don’t think you’ve got much chance with Mrs Duffy. She’d rather have a man with a big bank-book. What did your uncle Fred say?’

  He took a piece of notepaper out of his pocket. ‘He said if you’re at the depot in Glasgow on Monday morning at seven and show this to a driver called Dougie he’ll take you as far as Rugby: that’s not far from London. Uncle Fred said I’d to warn you that thousands of young people from all over the country run away to London and end up as whores and junkies. Some even get murdered.’

  ‘Right, you’ve warned me. Thank your uncle. Listen, Mick, Duffy’s going to ask you to do something for him.’

  ‘I’d do anything for Duffy.’

  ‘I want you to tell him you want to be paid for it.’

  ‘When you oblige a pal you shouldn’t want to be paid.’

  Jesus, give me patience, she thought. This was the clown who thought he owned Molly McGowan and could sell her for packets of fags; who boasted he could make middle-aged women grateful for the services of his over-sized cock; and who had excused the killing of a swan, not to mention of at least eight cats, as Crosbie’s idea of fun. Yet here he was preaching at her like somebody who’d won prizes at Sunday school. Such as David Martin.

  Crosbie came in. He had taken off his coat and hat. Cooley imagined she cou
ld see badness rising off him like red steam.

  ‘Duffy says you’ve to come,’ he said. ‘Is that Mrs Duffy’s bed, Mick?’

  Mick was lying on it, with his size-ten shoes on. Holes could be seen in his soles.

  ‘He fancies her, Cooley. He says he could make her happy.’

  The conceit of males, thought Cooley. Here was this penniless lout with the pea-sized brain thinking that a woman like Mrs Duffy would give up everything for the privilege of being fucked by him.

  ‘Do you know who he visits, Cooley?’ asked Crosbie, eager to tell tales.

  Mick grinned. If being betrayed meant also having his prowess as a lover praised he was prepared to put up with it.

  ‘Mrs Burnet that lives in Kilchattan Street.’

  ‘Her they call Fat Annie?’

  ‘That’s her. Her man’s down in England working.’

  ‘But she’s got three kids.’

  ‘Mick says its better if they’ve had kids.’

  ‘So it is,’ said Mick, earnestly.

  Cooley didn’t know whether to laugh or scream. ‘Are you big, Mick, or do you just brag?’

  He sat up. ‘Would you like me to show you?’

  She wasn’t sure that she did. ‘Seeing’s believing,’ she said, recklessly.

  He got to his feet, unbelted his jeans and pulled them down, as proud and delighted as a young mother drawing aside a shawl to reveal the face of her first-born. He gazed down at the enormous white slug with the same adoration.

  She might have snatched off one of her stiletto-heeled shoes and attacked that symbol of male arrogance if she hadn’t again been reminded of the young mother and her baby. Somehow Mick’s joy was as innocent as hers.

  He laughed. ‘Annie says it’s the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen.’

  Cooley had heard that Fat Annie, who deserved her nickname, entertained a variety of men friends. No doubt they paid her, if only in cans of beer. Mick would be a kind of pet.

  ‘If you like, Cooley,’ he said, grinning, ‘I’ll give you a demonstration.’