Just Duffy

by Robin Jenkins

  ‘She’s got a fine figure.’

  ‘Do you think so? Are you sure she’s not wearing falsies? I wish Archie would notice and blacken his eye. What is it about a funeral makes people randy?’

  ‘I didn’t know it did.’

  ‘Where are your eyes? Look at them, all desperate to go to bed with anybody but their husband or wife. Except my Alec. He’s wondering if his team will be top of the domino league this year like they were last year. It’s funny, Phemie, he never was keen on it. It must be misplaced hormones or something like that. Even on our honeymoon. Nowadays if I drop a hint he tells me to be my age, which is forty-two, as you know, and not eighty-two, as he seems to think.’

  ‘He’s a good man in every other way.’

  ‘So I should bite my nails and think myself lucky?’

  Angela then approached with Mr and Mrs Whiteford who wished to take their leave and thank their hostess. They did it graciously and Phemie was gracious in return.

  ‘They’re the kind of people you should try to keep in with, Phemie,’ said Angela, when they were gone. ‘They admire you, did you know that?’

  ‘He admires her, anyway,’ said Mrs Munro. ‘He fancies Phemie. He’s made approaches.’

  ‘That’s enough, Maggie,’ said Phemie.

  ‘I should say it’s enough,’ said Angela, shocked. ‘It’s a very serious allegation. I’m waiting to hear you deny it, Phemie.’

  ‘Suppose I can’t?’

  ‘You’re not hinting it’s true?’

  ‘Are you surprised, Angela?’

  ‘I’m dumbfounded. He’s such a gentleman.’

  ‘Princes and beggars are all the same when they’ve got houghmagandy on their minds,’ said Mrs Munro.

  ‘What a disgusting word, Mrs Munro!’

  ‘A very expressive word, Angela. Burns was fond of it.’

  Angela then noticed Duffy within earshot. ‘What on earth is that boy doing here? He should have been sent home long ago.’

  ‘There’s nobody at home,’ said Mrs Ralston. ‘I told him if he waited he’d get a lift.’

  ‘You know, I’ve not heard him say two words. I expect he’s been warned to keep his mouth shut. That way he can pass for normal.’

  Duffy then went up to Mrs Ralston. ‘I think I’ll go now.’

  ‘We’ll all be going in another half hour. I believe it’s still raining.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. I’d like to walk. Thank you for inviting me. Good evening, ladies.’

  As he walked away he heard Angela saying: ‘He’s copied that from films.’

  In the foyer he was stopped by Mr Rowan, the proprietor of the hotel.

  ‘You’re Bell’s boy, aren’t you? Mrs Duffy’s, I mean.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Were you at the funeral?’

  ‘Yes. Mr Ralston was a neighbour.’

  ‘You won’t have had word from your mother yet?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s a bit early. How are you managing on your own?’

  ‘All right, thank you’

  ‘Well, if you need anything just come and let me know. I’d do a lot to oblige your mother. We think very highly of her here.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Rowan.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  It was not possible not to think of Crosbie, and yet thinking of him was very dangerous.

  It was as if Duffy had soaked his clothes with paraffin, like a Buddhist monk he had seen on television. Thinking of Crosbie was like striking a match.

  Suppose the body was never found. There would be no prolonged and determined search. Only Mrs Crosbie would bother the authorities. They would treat her with sympathy and, whether or not they believed it themselves, assure her that Johnny would turn up sooner or later. Hundreds of young people like him ran away from home every year.

  Trying to think of something else was becoming harder and harder.

  On his way to the church hall he wondered about Cooley, where she was and how she was getting on. He knew what she would have said to him: ‘You were going to save the world and instead you’re a murderer. Maybe you should give yourself up. They’d put you in a madhouse but at least it would keep you from murdering somebody else, yourself most likely. The more you hate yourself for what you did the more likely you are to do it again.’

  It was strange how well Cooley had known him.

  That monk in Saigon had been protesting against the Vietnam War. Millions had seen him do it. His sacrifice had been in vain. The war had gone on.

  If Duffy made the same sacrifice and burned himself to death, in front of the town hall, say, what cause could he claim to be dying for? If he was to say that it was in expiation not only for the one death in the derelict building in Crimea Street but also for the millions of deaths during the War, he would be told that between his one killing and those many killings there was a profound difference: his threatened civilisation, those had helped to save it.

  As he approached the church hall it occurred to him that Margaret Porteous might not be present that night, the trouble at home having prevented her. He stopped. Without her to introduce him the others would think he was an interloper. Stephen Telfer might greet him cheerfully but that was all: he wouldn’t want to spoil his evening looking after somebody he didn’t really know and wasn’t much interested in. No one would be rude to him, most of them would smile, but he would feel out of it. But then he was out of it, and out of everything, for the rest of his life. Not even Margaret Porteous could get him back.

  Suppose the body was discovered. The police would think that the injuries to Crosbie’s head had been caused by the mass of bricks and stones falling on him. When they learned about his tumour they would be confirmed in that opinion. During an attack he had crept into the close, not seeing where he was going, and had died there or fallen unconscious. If the hair-grip was still in his fist it would puzzle them but not enough to make them change their verdict that his death had been a gruesome accident. No one would ever suspect Duffy, except perhaps Cooley. So far as the law was concerned he would get away with it. There was though that sentence of exclusion.

  Why did he still have this absurd belief that Margaret Porteous could have saved him? She owed him no special loyalty. To her he was just a lonely misfit whom she had pitied, an opportunity for her to show her contempt for the commonplace morality of her mother and her mother’s friends. She would be as horrified as they if she knew that he had killed Crosbie. She would join them in keeping him out.

  Another car arrived at the church hall. He saw its three occupants, a boy and two girls, dressed in white, hurrying into the hall out of the cold. He heard them laughing and joking. They were friends. They trusted one another.

  Crosbie had trusted him. He had laughed, in utter astonishment, after the first blow. It had been inconceivable to him that Duffy, his friend, could have been so treacherous and cruel.

  Even people like Angela who had no generosity, or like Albert who had no compassion, were safe within the fold. They were not liked or admired or respected but they were accepted.

  He went forward to the parked cars. Neither the Porteous’ white Mercedes nor their green Escort was among them. Perhaps Margaret had come with Stephen Telfer. He opened the door and at once heard happy cries, laughter, and the thud of sandshoes on the wooden floor. He crept upstairs to the small balcony where he sat in a corner in deep shadow looking down at the badminton court. A foursome was in progress. Stephen Telfer and Margaret were playing David Martin and Ellen Findlay. The rest were seated on benches watching and chatting. They were at ease among themselves. It was a respite from studying for the Leaving Certificate Examinations which would take place soon and in which they hoped to do well. Afterwards most of them would go to University. Their futures were secured. But what struck Duffy most was something that they weren’t aware of themselves, all their lives they had taken it for granted: it was their dependence on one another, not for anything in particular but for their a
cceptance as members of society. He realised then how much people gave to one another without knowing that they were doing it. You had to be excluded to know it.

  Margaret Porteous was dressed in a short white skirt and a white sweatshirt with an inscription on it that he could not make out. Her bosom was smaller than Molly McGowan’s and her thighs more muscular. There were patches of sweat under her oxters. She played as if her life depended on it, leaping and running at speed, smashing the shuttle as hard as she could, and shouting with annoyance when she mishit. All her life she would love competition and hate losing.

  They were all an immeasurable distance from him. If he shouted they would look up, not seeing him in the blackness behind the lights; but he might as well be on another planet, he was so far out of their reach.

  After only two or three minutes he crept down the stairs again, so quietly that the two in the entrance hall, in a recess, kissing passionately, did not notice him.

  They heard him opening the door. The girl said, anxiously: ‘Who was that?’ The boy replied, ‘I didn’t see anybody. It must have been the wind.’

  At home there was a can of paraffin, used for lamps when there was a power failure.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Many of the people moving out of the old dirty dilapidated tenements with stairhead lavatories into new houses with bathrooms and in some cases gardens had left behind those of their belongings that were worn and done, such as scuffed armchairs with broken springs, chamber pots of chipped enamel, torn rugs, soiled mattresses, pots and pans with holes in them, broken electric fires, and a miscellany of other household articles, including a whole piano. All these came tumbling down with the walls and were scooped up with the rest of the debris in the huge mechanical shovel and loaded into lorries to be dumped into a quarry outside the town. The shovel-operator, Rab Kemp, and his mates soon gave up laughing at the surprise items that came up with almost every shovelful. Therefore on Thursday afternoon when he saw a cowboy boot sticking out of a mass of plaster covered with yellow wall-paper he paid it little attention until, with a swing of the shovel its contents shifted and he realised, with a shock that as he said afterwards sent a chill through his heart, that the boot was attached to a foot and the foot to a body.

  ‘Jesus fucking Christ,’ he muttered, feeling sick and by no means blasphemous. He could not believe it but there it was, a body, a human body, with the face still hidden under the yellow wallpaper.

  As gently as he could he lowered the shovel to the ground. Then, green-faced, and with all the strength gone out of his legs, he climbed down and took a closer look. It was a body all right, bent and battered. Feebly he shouted and waved.

  Mates saw and came running. Among them was the middle-aged workman who had spoken to Mick Dykes two days ago. His name was Peter McLean.

  Yesterday the body of a black cat had been unearthed and there had been jokes about bad luck, but this was different, this was one of their own species, this was a matter of supreme seriousness.

  The gaffer had gone off an hour ago. In his absence they did not know what to do. They were to be paid a big bonus if the job was completed by tomorrow afternoon. This delay might prevent that, which would be unfair for it wasn’t their fault. The police would have to be sent for and they might order work to be stopped for the rest of the day. Come to think of it though, would they want to go on working? Well yes, they would. They had worked hard for that bonus: it would be a pity to lose it. The boy – but girls too wore cowboy boots and jeans – had not been killed by Rab’s shovel or Bert’s iron ball. He must have been lying dead in the building before it was knocked down.

  Peter McLean then told about his meeting two days ago with Mick Dykes: how they had gone into not this building but the one next to it looking for Mick’s pal. It seemed that they had looked in the wrong place. Mick had said his pal wasn’t well: something wrong with his head.

  There was something a lot more wrong with it now.

  ‘Poor cunt,’ muttered one, and the rest nodded and bowed their heads. They had their caps off, though it had begun to rain.

  The police had to be sent for. They were suspicious bastards and would want to know why they hadn’t been notified immediately. Peter McLean was deputed to go. He agreed, with reluctance, but objected to having to walk: it was over half a mile. So he was driven in a ten-ton lorry half full of debris.

  His mates stood well back from the big bucket. They thought they could smell the body now, though many dubious smells were encountered in the demolition of old buildings where people had lived for over a hundred years. Their cigarettes, lit by shaky hands, tasted of stink.

  Detective-Sergeant McLeod was in his office in the station when the big lorry clattered into the courtyard. He was writing out a report on the golf-club break-in. Two culprits had been found, not owing to any skilful detection on his part but because of an anonymous telephone call. Honest people often benefited when thieves fell out.

  George Milne knocked and looked in. ‘You’d better come and listen to this, Angus. It looks as if your friend Crosbie’s been found.’

  McLeod had dared to say a word or two in Crosbie’s favour: he was young, only sixteen, and he had a tumour on his brain. This wasn’t the first time George had sneered at him for it.

  ‘Is he all right?’ he asked.

  ‘I would say he’s all right. He’s dead.’

  McLeod was to say to Flora that night that he had known George Milne for eight years but hadn’t realised until that moment the depth of George’s unhappiness and disappointment. Only a man in despair could have been so callous.

  ‘How did it happen?’ asked McLeod.

  ‘You’d better come and hear it from the fellows who found him.’

  In the room where suspects or witnesses were interrogated there were two workmen, one middle-aged in dirty dungarees and tackety boots, the other younger, smoking a cigarette.

  McLean told his story again. He did not do it well but McLeod was experienced in sorting out incoherence.

  He conferred with George.

  ‘It sounds like Crosbie all right,’ he said.

  ‘It does.’

  ‘Though lots of boys wear cowboy boots. We shouldn’t jump to conclusions. If I go on ahead, George, will you let the boss know?’

  Chief-Inspector Findlay had given instructions that he was to be consulted only on matters of consequence, by which he meant those that might bring him promotion. Less profitable and more humdrum matters he was content to leave to his underlings.

  There would be other things to see to, such as the removal of the remains to the hospital mortuary, where the autopsy would be done. There was also the breaking of the news to the parents.

  ‘That’s a job for you, Angus.’

  ‘Yes.’ Let George or anyone else be sarcastic. It was a job for a man who believed in divine mercy.

  He took Harry Black with him. The lorry came thundering behind.

  ‘If it is Crosbie,’ said Harry, grinning, ‘we’ll never find out who put the shit on the hymn-books.’

  McLeod frowned. The young lacked compassion. They prided themselves on their toughness and honesty. In the age of the nuclear bomb life was cheap, they thought: it was humbug to pretend otherwise. If you didn’t look after yourself nobody else would; on the contrary everybody that could would do you down. Their trouble was that they did not believe in God. McLeod’s own children were affected. ‘You don’t really think, Dad, that the meek will ever inherit the earth?’ He didn’t but then his God was stern Jehovah not gentle Jesus. The good would be rewarded, the wicked punished, if not on earth then certainly in heaven or hell. Even Flora did not take religion seriously enough nowadays. Teasing him, she had said that the Free Kirk God reminded her of George Milne, except that George did not have a long white beard. She should have said except that George never forgave, however penitent the sinner.

  ‘I hope this isn’t going to keep us late,’ said Harry. ‘I promised Fiona I’d take her out to
the Blue Lagoon this evening.’

  The Blue Lagoon was a disco, run by Chinese.

  It was a typical example of the selfishness of the young.

  They had to leave the car and walk almost a hundred yards over heaps of rubble. It was raining too. Harry grumbled about getting his shoes and raincoat dirty.

  McLeod noticed the derisive smirks exchanged by the workmen. He knew that his reputation in the town was that of a good-natured Highland stot. Harry’s was even less complimentary: he was thought to be a conceited upstart.

  It was unjust but inevitable. Guardians of the law by the very nature of their task were not given many opportunities to reveal their more likeable qualities.

  ‘It wasn’t my fault,’ said Kemp, the shovel-operator. ‘How was I to know a body was there?’

  ‘Were any precautions taken before the buildings were knocked down? Did anybody shout up the closes? Or blow a whistle?’

  ‘The buildings were lying empty for months.’

  ‘I was just asking.’

  ‘If he was dead he wouldn’t have heard, would he?’ asked McLean.

  McLeod approached the big rusty bucket, resolutely. He was a tall man but even so had to stand on tiptoe to look in. He recognised the boot: the cowboy swinging a lasso was stamped on it. Inside it, or the other one, would be a knife. He reached in and gingerly pulled aside a lump of plaster covered with yellow wallpaper. Red marks on it could have been parts of the original design, or blood. Revealed was what was left of one of the most insolent faces he had ever seen. It was now a bloody, squashed mess, but undoubtedly Crosbie’s. His stomach heaved. The ruddiness fled from his face.

  Careful not to let his raincoat touch the rusty iron, Harry Black took a quick look. ‘It’s Crosbie all right,’ he said. ‘I’d know that face anywhere.’ He stepped back, wiping his hands with his handkerchief.

  Just then Chief-Inspector Findlay, accompanied by Sergeant Milne, arrived. Findlay was satisfied with McLeod’s account but Milne had to see for himself.