Just Duffy

by Robin Jenkins

  They heard noises outside on the landing, stumbling steps, mumbles, and a door slamming shut.

  ‘That’s Billy Stuart getting back,’ she said. ‘He was at Dundee watching the Rangers. I see they won. Agnes will be relieved. It was a cup-tie. Billy’s a nice young man and he’s fond of her but when Rangers get beat he drinks too much and gives her a clout if she complains. Why do men think it’s the most important thing in the world for their team to win? Jack was the same in his young days, only his team was Partick Thistle and they lost so often he got used to it. Not that he would ever have lifted his hand to me. You’re not interested in football, are you, Duffy?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You must be the only boy in Lightburn that isn’t. You’ll not have heard from your mother yet? No, it’s too soon. This man she’s gone with, he’d be a fool not to marry her. She’ll be going off to live in Bearsden among the toffs. She’ll hold her own among them too. So will you, Duffy.’

  She gazed at him over the rim of her cup. Like his own her eyes were brown, but unlike his they revealed her feelings. She was again breathing quickly.

  ‘I’m going to ask you a very cheeky question, Duffy. If you think it’s none of my business just say so. But your mother’s not here to look after you, and I’ve known you since you were a toddler of three, so maybe I have some kind of a right to ask it. Did you sleep with Helen Cooley while she was staying with you? I don’t just mean sleep.’ She smiled, finding it difficult to explain to a simpleton without having to use words too simple and therefore too crude. ‘The reason I’m asking is that she’s been attending the clinic in Lochinvar Street, where they treat VD. You know what that is?’

  ‘I think so.’

  She smiled. ‘You’re too pure-minded for this world, Duffy.’

  ‘She said she was cured.’

  ‘And you believed her?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You would. You trust everybody. Poor Duffy. Well, if you did sleep with her, and if in a day or two you notice a sore or a discharge, you must go at once to the clinic yourself.’

  ‘I didn’t sleep with her, Mrs Ralston.’

  ‘Well, that’s a relief.’

  He wondered if she was aware how loudly she was panting.

  ‘Have you ever been with a girl, Duffy? You know what I mean.’

  He hardly recognised her because of the falseness of her smile. What she was about to do, seduce him, was against her nature. He knew the stresses causing it: her husband’s dying, her daughter’s unsuccessful marriage, and her grand-daughter’s fatal deformity.

  The only way he could think of to let them both escape from this situation was by his being childishly naive.

  ‘Could I have another chocolate biscuit, please?’ he asked, in a voice that suited the request.

  She stopped breathing altogether. When she resumed, after a sad-sounding gasp, she no longer panted, and her smile was genuine.

  ‘Help yourself,’ she said, passing the plate.

  A minute later she got up, saying she would go and see if Jack was awake.

  He nibbled his biscuit, making sure no crumbs fell on the carpet.

  He had never before spoken to someone close to death. There would be no deceit on Mr Ralston’s part: there must be none on his. It might be too severe a test of his truthfulness and humility.

  Mrs Ralston came back. He noticed for the first time how much grey there was in her hair. ‘You can come now, Duffy.’

  The bedroom had been freshly sprayed with disinfectant. In the bed, in white red-striped pyjamas too big for him, Mr Ralston was shrivelled to the size of a ten-year-old child. He had always been quick in his movements, now even a wink was slow, requiring effort. His face was grey and hollow, but in his eyes were still gleams of recognition and humour.

  ‘Hello, Duffy,’ he said, in a low hoarse voice.

  Duffy had to go closer. There was a bedpan covered by a white cloth. ‘Hello, Mr Ralston.’

  ‘Got a job yet?’

  ‘No.’

  Mr Ralston winked. ‘What’s more important, got a girl?’

  Duffy wondered if, to be truthful, he should say yes, meaning Molly McGowan, considering her visit tomorrow night, but he shook his head.

  ‘Duffy’s got more sense,’ said Mrs Ralston.’ He’s waiting for the right girl.’

  ‘Take a chance, Duffy. Never be afraid to take a chance. How’s your mother? The best-looking woman in Lightburn, bar one.’

  ‘I told you she’d gone to Spain for a holiday,’ said Mrs Ralston, ‘with her gentleman friend the whisky salesman.’

  ‘What a job!’ Mr Ralston smiled. He was falling asleep.

  ‘The medicine makes him sleepy,’ said Mrs Ralston.

  Here, thought Duffy, was another war being waged, with Mr Ralston’s body the battleground. The enemy was invisible but deadly.

  Not long ago Duffy had read about a new drug which it was claimed would be able to break down the defences that many disease-causing bacteria built up against all known anti-biotics. The chemists who had produced it had admitted that in ten or twenty years these bacteria would have acquired defences against their drug too. Duffy had wondered for what purpose bacteria had been given this uncanny power to keep adapting so that they could go on killing. It had seemed to him to call in question the purpose of life itself. But surely so remorseless and universal an enemy ought to have caused human beings everywhere to unite to fight it. They would do so only if they could be made to feel in their hearts kinship with and responsibility for one another.

  That, he thought, was what I was trying to do in the church.

  Mr Ralston managed to open his eyes. ‘Will you come to my funeral, Duffy?’

  Mrs Ralston shook her head, letting Duffy know that he needn’t take this invitation on request seriously.

  ‘Yes, Mr Ralston, I’ll come.’

  ‘Your mother’s invited too.’ Then he was asleep. Indeed Duffy thought he had died.

  ‘The doctor said he’ll just pass away like that,’ said Mrs Ralston, as she made her husband comfortable. ‘I hope so.’

  They went back to the living-room.

  ‘It won’t be long now,’ she said. ‘It’s to be at the crematorium in Flemington.’ That was a town about eight miles away. ‘There’s to be no religious service. Sit down, Duffy. Keep me company for a wee while. You’ve got nobody waiting for you. Would you like another chocolate biscuit?’

  ‘No, thank you.’

  ‘I don’t think I’ll stay here, afterwards. My sister in Toronto wants me to go and live with her. I’ve been to Canada and liked it. Jack said I should go. I wasn’t to waste my chances because Cissie’s wasted hers. I’m still a young woman. He said I should get married again. What’s happened to Cissie just about broke his heart but he’s never blamed her once or even that little rotten beast she’s married to. He was such an optimist. He believed that one day poverty and war would be abolished. Even when he was stone sober he still believed that. Yet he’s been trying the football pools for twenty years and never won anything.’

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  It was cold but dry as he set off. Even if he had not been carrying a Bible anyone could have guessed that he was going to church, he was dressed so neatly, smiled so decorously, and walked so carefully. He did not want to arrive with his shoes sullied with mud or dogs’ dirt. Most people attending St Stephen’s went by car. None came from his part of the town.

  After last night’s visit to Mr Ralston he too felt optimistic. He was not going to St Stephen’s as a spy to observe the enemy’s rage and disgust but rather as a secret ally whose good services on their behalf they would probably not appreciate at the time but would do so afterwards in private, some of them at any rate, in particular Mrs Porteous. If the trouble that had caused her to weep had its origin in pride, which was very likely, then by humbling her he might well have consoled her too.

  He passed three old women dressed in black. He would have known they were Catholics even i
f they had not been clutching rosaries. He had once heard Mrs Munro say, of a Catholic neighbour, ‘she’s got the map of Ireland in her face.’ That was an exaggeration but it was true that, because of their self-imposed segregation and their belief that God belonged to them, Catholics had acquired a difference, not easily described, which even Protestants as crude-minded as Mrs Munro and Mick Dykes could recognise at a glance. Mrs Munro had vowed to disown her son if he married a Pape. Mick boasted that he would never have sex with a girl if she was a Catholic. Crosbie claimed that he only killed Catholic cats.

  He was early. There were only three cars in the car-park on the opposite side of the road to the church. They were all foreign, a Datsun, a Volvo, and a Saab. Well-off people who proclaimed themselves patriots seldom bought British cars, saying that they were not as good value for money. They said British workers were always going on strike for ridiculous reasons.

  Money and class, like religion, divided people. So many things did. So few things brought them together.

  In spite of these grim reflections he still remained hopeful. Cooley would have jeered that it was because he was going to see Margaret Porteous in a minute or two. So it was, but there were other reasons.

  A green Citroen drove into the car park. In it were Mr McLachlan who owned Lightburn Motors which specialised in Citroens, and his wife and daughter Maureen. Maureen had been a dunce at school. To save her from the shame of being put into 4Y along with girls like Cooley and Molly McGowan she had been taken from the High School and sent to a private school in Glasgow.

  The McLachlans passed Duffy. He smiled but Maureen turned her head away. She hated him because he too had not done well at school. If he had been brilliant she would have hated him for that too.

  He heard her explaining scornfully: ‘His name’s Duffy. He lives in Kenilworth Court. His mother works in the Caledonian Hotel.’

  Her mother turned to give him an indignant stare but her father laughed good-humouredly. ‘Hell, isn’t a church supposed to be open to everybody? The boy’s doing no harm. I’ve a good mind to ask him to join us.’

  ‘Don’t you dare, Daddy!’

  ‘And watch your language, John,’ snapped his wife.

  Dr Telfer’s car arrived. It was a yellow Rover. Five people came out of it, the doctor himself, Mrs Telfer, their two daughters, and Stephen who had been driving. Tall and fair-haired, he was Margaret Porteous’s friend, a prize-winner, the present school captain, the next dux, and a future doctor. He was laughing at some remark he had made which his sisters, one aged twelve and the other fourteen, had apparently not found as witty as he thought they should. Duffy wondered if it had concerned him and had been malicious, but it couldn’t have been for, catching sight of Duffy hanging about by himself, Stephen sauntered over, with a friendly grin. ‘Hello. Your name’s Duffy, isn’t it? I remember you. You used to come to school debates, didn’t you? Are you waiting for somebody? If you’re on your own why not join us?’

  ‘Thank you. I’m waiting for Mrs Porteous.’

  Telfer was surprised. ‘Good. They should be along soon. They’re often late. It’s a white Merc. Be seeing you,’

  Duffy heard the older of the girls ask eagerly about him. ‘He’s awfully good-looking,’ she said. ‘Isn’t he, Amy?’

  Amy, peeping back, giggled.

  Mrs Telfer, a big cheerful woman, gave Duffy a wave.

  The church bells had begun to ring.

  He had said that he was waiting for Mrs Porteous, and so he was; but he had omitted to say that Mrs Porteous might not be expecting him, or that, when she saw him, she might not be pleased. She had not really promised to take him into church with her.

  Cars now kept arriving all the time. Among them was Mr Flockhart’s ten-year-old Cortina. Mrs Flockhart was pregnant. As always she looked sullen and sorry for herself. It had astonished 4X that Mr Flockhart who knew by heart many lines of poetry about love and beautiful women should have married one so peevish, plain, and flat-chested. It wasn’t any wonder, Duffy’s mother had admitted, that Mr Flockhart showed interest in other women, though as a teacher he should be setting a better example. That morning Mr Flockhart was interested, though at a distance, in a young woman with auburn hair and shapely legs. She was Miss Bremner who taught French at the High School. She was chaperoned by her mother who wore a pink hat. Most of the older women, like Mrs Milne, bent double with rheumatism, wore hats.

  The sun had begun to shine. The big yew-tree at the gate glittered. People on their way into church paused to chat to friends. The elders in their morning dress were at their posts at the door.

  Duffy began to be afraid that the Porteouses were not coming that morning. Perhaps Mrs Porteous felt too unhappy.

  Then, while the bells were still ringing, the big white car appeared, travelling fast. Margaret was driving. She was bare-headed but her mother wore a green hat. She also wore a fur coat. There were many fur coats among the congregation.

  He had resolutely placed himself where they must see him as they drove into the car park. They would have half a minute to decide whether to greet or ignore him. If they ignored him his mood of elation would surely dissipate. He dreaded what might take its place.

  Mrs Porteous would have given him a cold stare and then walked past, but Margaret came straight up to him, with her hands in the pockets of her blue coat. She spoke sharply, as if giving an order on the hockey-field: ‘Is your name Duffy?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m Margaret Porteous. I believe my mother said you wanted to join us in church this morning.’

  Her mother must have told her he was simple-minded.

  ‘If you still want to come we’d better hurry.’

  It was not a gracious invitation but it was her nature to be bold and straightforward. That was how she played hockey and made speeches. She was dark-haired, unlike her mother. She must take after her dead father, the lawyer. It was said her mother had wanted to send her to a private school but she had refused. Cooley had been wrong to call her snobbish: she should have said proud.

  Mrs Porteous was still uncharacteristically unsure of herself. The crisis was not yet over. ‘Good morning,’ she said. ‘I hope you have not been waiting long.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘We nearly didn’t come,’ said Margaret.

  There must have been some disagreement.

  As he walked with them across the street and up the drive towards the church Duffy bore in mind that when it was discovered what had been done to the hymn-books and the minister’s Bible suspicion might fall on him since he was probably the only person there not a regular worshipper. He would have to be wary.

  The elder who greeted them at the door had a white flower in his button-hole, but it was from his scented hair and moustache that the fragrance came. He whispered to Mrs Porteous: ‘There’s been some trouble, Elizabeth. I’m not sure yet what it is exactly. I think we’ve been broken into.’

  ‘Good heavens!’

  Inside the church, amidst other smells, of furniture polish, of flowers, of ladies’ perfume, and gentlemen’s hair-oil, that of human excrement was easily detectable. Everywhere noses sniffed and brows crinkled in puzzlement and disgust.

  They reached their pew and sat down.

  ‘There’s a stink of shit,’ whispered Margaret.

  ‘For heaven’s sake, remember where you are,’ said her mother, who couldn’t help sniffing with distaste herself.

  ‘Whoever broke in must have used the church as a lavatory,’ said Margaret. ‘Filthy beasts.’

  Mrs Porteous beckoned to a passing elder. ‘What on earth has happened, Pater?’

  ‘It seems some person or persons broke into the church last night and – would you credit it? – placed human waste on Mr Cargill’s Bible. Also in some hymn-books, I believe. The depths to which human beings can sink is incredible.’

  ‘Your hymn-book, mother,’ exclaimed Margaret, who had opened it at the place. ‘Ugh!’ She quickly closed it again.

>   ‘Oh no,’ whimpered her mother. ‘It was a present from your father.’

  ‘Maybe then what’s been done to it is symbolical.’ That was said with great bitterness.

  Duffy wondered at her use of his word.

  Whatever she meant by it her mother was deeply hurt. ‘How dare you!’ she whispered. Tears gleamed in her eyes.

  Duffy pretended not to be listening to this very private conversation. It seemed that they were at odds over some matter that concerned Mr Porteous, though he had been dead for ten years.

  Surreptitiously he took note of how some of the other owners of affected hymn-books were reacting.

  Mr and Mrs Martin could not have looked more shocked and self-piteous when they had learned that their son and heir David had got gonorrhoea. David himself was not present.

  Miss McKenzie or Big Bella had her arms folded and was gazing sternly upwards as if demanding from God why He had allowed such a thing to happen in His church.

  Councillor Grant saw political advantage in his having been chosen as one of the victims. He could be heard saying that if he had been heeded and the birch brought back this would never have happened. If anyone wanted to know whether he was prepared to wield it himself the answer was yes, with great pleasure.

  Chief-Inspector Findlay, a tall morose man who looked more like an undertaker than a policeman, and Sergeant Milne were going about self-importantly collecting the defiled hymn-books. Only Mr Chalmers the Fiscal showed reluctance to hand his over. It wasn’t that he wanted to keep it as a souvenir, it was simply that, being the person in Lightburn who decided what was or what was not a case for prosecution, he did not like himself to be personally involved. However, commanded by his wife, he surrendered it.