She often came here to weep in private, to wash away her despair. She was not in a weepy mood this morning, though. She felt quite gay in fact, buoyed up less by the manager’s postcard than by the capital she had managed to make out of it. She intended to read what Tom Calder had written – clichéd greetings, no doubt – then tear up the card and sluice the pieces away so that no one would ever know who had taken the trouble to drop her a line. It would probably come out sooner or later: Mr Calder would mention it to Papa, Papa would tell Mama and Mama would chide her for being so secretive over something so simple and ordinary.
She closed the door, bolted it and slid the heavy mahogany lid across the pedestal. After making sure that all the surfaces were clean and dry, she carefully seated herself.
She was far up in the house, high above the bedrooms, the library, the music-room, the dining-room, the sundry parlours. Outside pigeons crooned and scrabbled in the roof ridge. She felt not isolated but airy. Holding the postcard between her palms she studied the depiction of Lord Nelson’s flagship from several angles. It didn’t look at all like a famous piece of history, more like something that Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner might have encountered in one of his nightmares. She turned the card over and read what Mr Calder had printed in an amazingly neat hand.
She ran into him quite frequently at choral events and concerts and, most recently, at the launch of an A-class torpedo-boat destroyer that everyone, including Lindsay, seemed very excited about. He always made a point of speaking to her but, like the other men, seemed to have far more to say to her pretty cousin Lindsay. With the edges of the postcard pressing the flesh of her thumbs, Cissie recalled that daft Sunday in the park when Mr Calder, sporting a striped blazer and straw boater, had played his part so well. It seemed like an eternity since she had been that carefree, when her life had been uncomplicated and unstained by emotions over which she had no control.
She read the postcard again.
Simple greetings, ordinary news, not in the least clichéd.
The Banshee, she gathered, was the naval craft in which Franklin’s boilers had been installed. The weather had not been kind. She wondered how Martin had coped with rough seas; Martin had a habit of turning green while crossing the Clyde on a ferry. She wished that Mr Calder had dropped a hint that he too remembered that day in the park when she had flirted with him and hung on to his arm.
On the ridge above the window pigeons crooned. She could see their plump shadows strutting behind the glass. For a moment she felt like crying – then suddenly she did not. She unbuttoned her dress, slipped the postcard inside and buttoned up again. It would be unjust to Tom Calder to tear it up. She would hide it somewhere in her bedroom, and when she was feeling blue, she would re-read it, a gloss to happier times.
Cissie, rising, unbolted the closet door.
* * *
‘Where are we going tonight, Dada?’ Sylvie asked as soon as they came out of the close mouth.
‘Where would you like to go, sweetheart?’
‘Kirby’s.’
‘Kirby’s? My goodness, you are becoming adventurous. Is it that young man you’re hoping to see? He’s not going to let you win again, you know.’
‘He didn’t let me win. I beat him fair and square.’
‘Of course you did, honey,’ Albert Hartnell said. ‘McCulloch’s a clever devil but even he can’t rig a dice cup.’
‘I asked God to let me win.’
‘Obviously He heard you,’ Albert said, without irony.
‘Take me to Kirby’s then.’
‘I can’t.’
‘You mean you won’t.’
‘No, honestly, sweetheart, it’d be more than my reputation’s worth to sneak you into Kirby’s again.’
‘Why?’
‘The boss wouldn’t stand for it.’
‘You mean Mama?’
‘No,’ Albert said. ‘I mean Mr Bolitho, the owner.’
‘Mr Bolitho? Is he the chap in the apron who came to look us over?’
‘The same,’ said Albert.
They were walking towards the thoroughfare. Although the sky was clear, the gaslamp-lighters were out and about with their long poles, and midden men were popping in and out of closes, hunched under their baskets. Children paddled in the gutters or gathered about wide-open windows where their mothers leaned and chatted and distributed bits of bread and jam and other little titbits, none fancy. From the slums south of Portland Row came violent shriekings and shoutings, almost indistinguishable from the noise of the shunters that delivered ore to Maclintock’s iron works, as if little men and little machines became one now that night had fallen on Clydeside.
To all of which, pretty, frilly Sylvie remained heedless. She clung to Albert’s hand, skipping as if she were ten again and not a month short of sixteen.
‘Now,’ she said, ‘if you were to take me to Kirby’s and I were to talk to Mr Bolitho, tell him how important the work of the Coral—’
‘No,’ Albert said patiently. ‘No, honey, no, no.’
She stopped abruptly, dragging the man to a halt.
‘I want to,’ Sylvie said.
‘Mr Bolitho isn’t interested in our Mission work.’
‘I want to.’
‘Look,’ Albert said, ‘it isn’t just Mr Bolitho. It’s the – er – the ladies. The ladies won’t like you showing up too often.’ He raised his eyebrows, spread one hand, trying to appeal to reason. ‘I mean, honey, Dada’s a member. I admit that I like the odd night out and Kirby’s – what I’m trying to say is…’
‘I want to.’
Her cheeks glowed. Her features were so knotted with temper that for an instant her grey eyes all but disappeared. Her skin was so fine that it creased as easily as silk or chiffon or, as now, drew tight across the delicate bones of her skull so that she appeared not very young but very, very old.
‘Sylvie, sweetheart, Dada can’t take—’
She stamped her foot. ‘You can. You can. You can.’
‘Ssshhh, ssshhh now, honey. Please don’t make a scene.’
‘Take me to Kirby’s.’
‘No.’
‘I’ll tell Mama.’
‘Tell Mama what?’
‘Where we go, what we do.’
‘Mama knows what we do.’
‘Not everything.’
‘No,’ Albert admitted. ‘Not everything. But I still can’t take you to—’
‘I want to see him, I want to, I want to, I want to.’
Her voice rang from the lean, neat tenements of Portland Row and echoed into the ramshackle courts behind the iron works like a pitiful cry for help. Albert crouched as low as his girth allowed. If he hadn’t been wearing his suit, he might have knelt at her feet. He let the basket fall from under his arm, reached out both hands to her hands and, when she stamped and wriggled away, caught her about the waist.
‘Sylvie, Sylvie, stop it. Stop it, please.’
As soon as he touched her she became calm, so pale and pretty and composed, so sweet and guileless that Albert felt like an ogre.
‘Listen,’ he said, ‘the Irish lad won’t be there. He only shows up on Fridays along with the other students. Take my word on it, sweetheart, he won’t be at Kirby’s tonight.’
‘Take me, Dada, please.’
She pressed against his palms, tilting her hips. Albert capitulated.
‘All right.’ He got to his feet, picked up the basket, gave her his hand. ‘But don’t blame me if you’re disappointed. He won’t be there, you know.’
‘He will,’ said Sylvie. ‘I just know he will.’
* * *
In the City Hall in Candleriggs, Dickens had once given readings from his works, Thackeray had delivered a lecture on ‘The Four Georges’ and, courtesy of a grateful public, David Livingstone had received a banker’s draft for two thousand pounds. These fragments of Glasgow’s history were embedded not only in the fabric of the building but also in Lindsay’s imagination. Seated by her father�
�s side, awaiting the appearance of the Edinburgh Choral Union’s orchestra and choir, she tried to picture what Dickens would have looked like at his reading desk, dwarfed by the organ, and wondered how Livingstone had made himself heard in a crowd of three thousand adulatory admirers; on balance she would have preferred to be attending a reading by Dickens than a performance of Elgar’s Judas Maccabeus, a work she always found depressing.
The hall was three-quarters full before ‘the gang’ from Harper’s Hill made an appearance. Aunt Lilias led them along the aisle and, with fussy little gestures, ushered her remaining sons and daughters into the row. Donald and Grandpappy brought up the rear and Lindsay, to her surprise, soon found herself seated shoulder to shoulder with Cissie.
The organist, Mr Bradley, coaxed notes from the vast golden pipes and the orchestra tuned up in the amphitheatre. From far off behind the scenes floated the sound of a contralto voice – Madame Dumas, perhaps – running through scales. Lindsay’s father, alert and excited, rubbed his hands together, leaned over and said to Cissie, ‘So you couldn’t resist turning out to hear one of Europe’s finest choirs?’
‘No, Uncle Arthur. It should be a wonderful evening.’
‘Well, I’m certainly looking forward to it,’ Arthur said, and sat back.
After a moment Lindsay whispered, ‘What are you doing here, Cissie? I thought you hated Elgar.’
‘Spare ticket,’ Cissie said. ‘Martin’s. Couldn’t let it go to waste. It’s not every week one gets the opportunity to hear the ECU in Glasgow.’
‘No, I don’t suppose it is,’ Lindsay answered.
She was relieved that Cissie wasn’t sunk in introspective gloom. That she had deigned to exchange even a polite word seemed to augur a truce in their undeclared war. Lindsay, however, remained guarded.
‘I do like your coat,’ she said.
‘Thank you. It’s new. Daly’s.’
‘Tailored?’
‘Of course.’
The organ uttered a declamatory warning, programmes throughout the hall rustled, the orchestra began to file on to the platform. Arthur rubbed his hands again and exchanged a thumbs-up signal with Donald. From the end of the row Pappy waved his programme, like a racing tout.
‘He isn’t here then?’ Cissie whispered. ‘He didn’t come?’
‘Who?’
‘Forbes.’
‘No,’ said Lindsay. ‘Didn’t he tell you he wasn’t coming?’
‘He was vague about it. You of all people know what Forbes is like. Actually, we don’t have much to say to each other these days. I mean, we don’t see that much of him at home.’ Cissie’s question had a hint of point: ‘I suppose you do know where he is this evening?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Lindsay. ‘A prior engagement.’
‘Hah!’ said Cissie.
‘One of his college friends has been signed on by Cunard and has taken his classmates out to celebrate.’
‘They’ll have gone drinking, I expect.’
‘Dinner, I believe, at Miss Cranston’s.’
‘I just hope I don’t have to put Forbes to bed afterwards.’
‘Come now,’ Lindsay said. ‘Forbes isn’t a boozer.’
‘That’s true,’ Cissie conceded, then added, ‘Well, at least you know where he is and who he’s with.’
‘I’m not Forbes’s keeper, you know,’ Lindsay said.
‘Which is probably just as well,’ said Cissie as Mr Dambmann, leader of the orchestra, appeared from the wings, and the audience broke into applause.
* * *
‘Greetings to you, Bertie,’ Forbes McCulloch said affably. ‘Sure and I didn’t expect to see you here on a Saturday night.’
‘Well, I…’
‘Riding your luck, are you?’
‘Well…’
‘Where is she?’
‘Downstairs.’
‘In the public?’
‘No, in the street.’
‘In the street! That’s takin’ a bit of a risk, old man,’ Forbes said. ‘I mean, there’s no saying what she might not get up to in the street.’
‘Please, it’s my daughter you’re talking about.’
‘All the more reason to bring her up.’
‘How can I? Bolitho will have my guts if I do.’
‘Not if she refrains from shaking her little basket, he won’t.’
‘She wants to see you,’ Albert said.
‘Thought that might be the case.’
‘She insisted on coming. I told her you wouldn’t be here, but…’
‘But I am here, aren’t I, old chap? Ready and waiting.’
‘Look, Sylvie’s my responsibility, a – an innocent child.’
‘No, Bertie, whatever else she may be,’ Forbes said, ‘she isn’t a child.’
‘I don’t want her to come to any harm.’
‘Then bring her up.’
Albert shook his head.
‘Can’t,’ he said. ‘Daren’t.’
‘Who are you really afraid of? Me, or Billy Bolitho?’
It was on the tip of Albert’s tongue to confess that he was more afraid of Sylvie than anyone else, but somehow that did not seem like the sort of thing you should be admitting to a stranger. Billy Bolitho’s ladies were strong in number, for the upper room was crowded with gentlemen intent on pleasure. Albert had never been through the curtain at the rear of the room, had never been seriously tempted by the painted whores, even though some of them were hardly much older than Sylvie. He looked across the tables to the bar where Billy Bolitho, minus apron, was bossing the barmaids about and, at the same time, joshing the customers. Even when he laughed Mr Bolitho managed to look hostile. He was manager, and co-owner along with Mr Joseph Kirby whom nobody could recall having seen about the place in many a long year.
Forbes said, ‘I’ll go down and fetch her, shall I?’
‘No,’ Albert said. ‘Please don’t.’
‘God, what a timid chap you are, old son,’ Forbes told him. ‘Aren’t you going to have a flutter since you’re here?’
‘Not with Sylvie waiting in the—’
‘She could be my guest. I’m not afraid of Billy Bolitho, even if you are.’
‘She just wants to see you.’
Forbes grinned, showing what Albert interpreted as a dimple. It didn’t do to study the Irishman too closely; with his long, dark lashes and charming smile it would be all too easy to fall under his spell, even if you were a man. He wore a fawn-coloured sporting coat and a high-necked pullover, no collar, no cravat. He had the appearance of a wealthy farmer or landowner, older, much older, than his years. Albert knew who Forbes McCulloch really was, though, and what his connections were and that there was more brass than copper behind him.
‘Well then,’ Forbes said, ‘why don’t you have a shake of the dice if that’s your fancy, and I’ll go down and keep your little pet lamb company for a quarter or half an hour?’
‘Did you come here just to see her?’
‘Don’t flatter yourself – or her, Bertie. I came here because I’m off the leash for once and fancied a bit of a drink and a bit of a spin.’
Albert glanced wistfully around the mirrored room. He loved Kirby’s, had loved it from the moment he had been in a position to fork out the stiffish annual fee and elevate himself from the public bar to the company of the gentlemen upstairs. No riffraff here: it was, in its way, more respectable than the Western Club – or so Albert liked to believe. Some came to drink, some to gamble, others to seek consolation with the ladies, so free and uninhibited in their behaviour that only a prude could object to them.
All God’s children, Albert thought, each and every one of them.
He heard the toothy rattle of the dice-cup, the snicker of billiard balls on the long green tables, breathed in the rich effluvia of perfume and cologne, cigar smoke and whisky and the blond beer that the barmaids drew so expertly into tall fluted-glass steins, frothy with head, beaded and beautifully chilled.
‘Oh, sod i
t!’ Albert said. ‘Half an hour then. No, twenty minutes. But don’t bring her up here, please. I need your word that you won’t do that?’
‘You have it, Bertie,’ Forbes said.
‘And don’t…’
‘Pardon me?’
‘Don’t, you know, do anything to scare her.’
‘Heaven,’ Forbes McCulloch said, ‘forfend!’
* * *
He came down the steep staircase towards her. Three men had gone in and up just before him and, seeing his approach, had left the door open. She watched him from her stance in the lane, from under the hissing gas lamp on the wall. Two of the men had addressed her, had made suggestions that she was too mature to find offensive and, if truth be known, had actually found rather flattering. She had told them she was waiting for her father and could not go with them because her father would be very annoyed if she did.
‘Aye, and who’s your pa then?’ they had asked her.
‘Mr Bolitho,’ she had answered.
They had gone scurrying away like frightened rabbits and had opened the door with a key and then she had seen him, Irish, coming down the stairs.
He had his hands in his pockets and he was dancing. Dancing down the steep wooden stairs with all the agility of the brown-skinned man, an acrobat, that the London branch of the Coral Strand had sent to Glasgow to put on a show last summer, to drum up contributions for the fund. He looked dark too, dark and acrobatic. He looked quick and rhythmic and poised. His hat was tipped back from his forehead. His lips were pursed as if he were whistling a tune that only he could hear, a tune to which his feet kept time.
She felt the breath go out of her at the sight of him.
God had answered her prayer. What she was doing could not be wrong if God had answered her prayer.
He was here, he was coming for her.
Her dandy, her destiny.
‘Hello, sweetheart.’ He stepped across the lane, tugging his hands from his pockets: Sylvie felt as if he were reaching for her, reaching out to claim her. ‘Dada’s got business to attend to. He sent me down to look after you.’
‘Yes.’
He offered his arm, not his hand.
The Piper's Tune Page 15
