Resolution

Chapter 34

Three men were sitting on the pavement outside and smiled up at them as they walked past. The Wayfarers' Club was a soup kitchen serving out of the cavernous Gothic arches under the Central Station bridge. The entrance was a gray metal door built at the far end of a glorious blond tricept. Uplighters filled the dome and the structure quivered and hummed as a train passed overhead.

Maureen rang the bell and stepped back. They were dressed for the Polish Club, in conservative skirts, makeup and jackets, all of which felt ludicrously inappropriate down by the river.

"God," said Kilty looking up, "it's beautiful. Why doesn't someone do something with this space?"

"Well, they are doing something with the space," said Leslie, ringing the bell again.

"But there must be more suitable spaces for a soup kitchen than a Gothic cathedral."

The giant steel door scratched open a little and a stocky wee man in glasses looked out, assessing their clothes. "Aye?" he said quickly.

"Hello," said Kilty. "I wonder if you could help us. We're looking for someone who used to work here, her name's Candy?"

He thought about it. "Nut," he said, and started to shut the door.

"That might not be her name," said Maureen, stepping forward and putting her foot in the door. "She worked here and she was very religious."

"She's not working here now." The man's voice was a nasal squeal. "We're shorthanded and I've got twenty loaves to butter."

"Why don't we give ye a hand?" said Maureen, and realized immediately that she should have kept that bargaining tool as a last resort.

The man was about to open the door but stopped. "Are you the police?"

"Naw, we're just looking for our pal."

"If she's your pal how come ye don't know her name?"

Kilty stepped forward. "She was a prostitute and she got out of it. We want her to come and talk to someone we know, see if she can help them get out of it as well."

He looked quite interested and glanced at Leslie's long, bare legs. "Are yous all prostitutes?"

"No," said Leslie.

"No," said Maureen. "We're just trying to help someone."

The man's eyes slid back to the hall behind him and all the work he had to do. He opened the door. "Come in, well."

The hall was gigantic, a vast rectangle. At the top of the room stood a small rostrum, above which hung a shakily hand-painted sign inexplicably declaring, "Wayfarer's – Are Go." Along each of the windowless walls leaned high stacks of chairs and folding tables. A blond man with his sad past written in the droop of his shoulders stopped setting up the serving table at the top of the hall and stood, staring, as if he had never seen women before.

"Hiya," said Kilty, raising her hand.

The man raised a hand, bewildered, and turned back to what he was doing, suddenly self-conscious.

"Yous can set up the chairs and the tables along the way." The nasal man gestured sideways with his hand.

"D'ye want an aisle down the middle?" asked Maureen.

"Aye. Just fill the hall halfway."

"And after this you'll talk to us?"

"Aye."

He scuttled away down the length of the room, disappearing through the door at the side of the rostrum. Kilty dropped her handbag by the wall and they set about laying out the chairs and the tables in rows. Above them a train rumbled out of the station, gathering speed, filling the hall with a hissing groan. Maureen nodded to the handwritten sign. "D'ye think that's supposed to read 'Wayfarers Are Go!'?" she asked when the train had passed.

"Or 'Wayfarers' Argot'?" muttered Kilty. She nodded at the kitchen door. "That guy's taking the piss. He doesn't know who we're talking about."

"Yeah," said Maureen, swinging two plastic chairs from the stack to the floor.

Kilty picked up some chairs and carried them over to the blond man. He was setting up the sturdy serving tables at the top of the hall, grabbing handfuls of plastic spoons out of a cardboard box and laying them on the table, spreading them wide to avoid a crush of bodies when the hungry men came to grab them. Maureen could tell from the tension in the man's neck and shoulders that he felt Kilty's approach.

"Hiya," said Kilty.

The acoustics of the hall were such that every word was audible. It must have been deafening when it was full. The man winced and looked up, grayer than before.

"I'm looking for a pal of mine that used to work here," said Kilty.

He nodded, holding his breath.

"Her name was Candy at one time but she might have changed it. She'd been a prostitute down at Anderson but she got Jesus and chucked it."

"Maddie?"

"Was that her name?"

Struck by sudden stage fright the man blushed. He attempted a casual shrug but the muscles in his shoulders clenched tight, making him look as if he were doing a tiny Michael Jackson dance move.

"Ye don't happen to know her second name, do ye?"

He trembled a head shake. "She goes to the Holy Cross now," he whispered.

"Where's that? Coatbridge?"

"Springburn."

Kilty stood a little nearer to him, spreading out the cutlery carefully, keeping outside his space. "You don't meet a lot of women, do ye?"

"Naw." He tried to laugh but it sounded like a death rattle.

"How's that? Are ye just out of pokey or something?"

He nodded and blushed some more. Maureen knew Kilty had a nice manner but she'd never seen her use it before. If she had tried to flirt with the man he would have died. It was a great skill, to make people feel comfortable without seeming vulnerable herself.

"Why are ye working here?" asked Kilty. "Is it a parole condition?"

He reached into the spoons box. "I want to do some good," he whispered.

Tm sure you will," Kilty said, and backed off before the man exploded with discomfort.

Kilty helped Maureen and Leslie finish setting up the tables. When they looked up, the blond man had disappeared into the kitchen. They approached the door by the rostrum and opened it. A smog of moist heat hit them. Four industrial cooking pots of red soup were bubbling on the stove and the stocky man and the blond guy were spreading margarine and cheap jam on rectangular slices of stodgy plain loaf, laying them out on stacked baking trays.

"We're away," called Maureen. "That's the chairs and tables laid out."

The blond man kept his head down, afraid to look up.

"Ye said ye'd help us with the bread," said the other sneakily.

"Yeah," said Maureen sarcastically. "Thank you for all you've done. Thanks."

"We're working for a good cause here, ye know," said the man.

"That's not a mandate to take the piss."

She let the door fall shut and they walked out, picking up their bags and jackets on the way. The crowd of hungry men outside had doubled. The kitchen wouldn't be open for another hour.

The Polish Club was to the Wayfarers' as brandy is to gravel. Overlooking Kelvingrove Park, the front door of the terraced house was fifteen feet high and broad enough to allow two wheelchairs to enter side by side. Kilty's dad had lent her his swipe card and she fitted it into the lock and pulled it down. The door released with a soft buzz and Kilty pushed it open. They could hear the hum of happy, drunken chatter wafting through a nearby doorway and Maureen prayed that Si McGee wasn't in.

The entrance hall was high with a dark wood staircase and rich green carpet. A white marble fireplace to the left was so clear and flawless that it looked like crystallized milk. Maureen touched it, pressing the dip of her palm into the cool curved edge. Sitting in the hearth below was a glass globe vase, full of ripe, stinking tiger lilies, their stamens brimming clear and sticky.

They suddenly felt terribly cheap. Maureen pulled her skirt down and Leslie straightened her shirt. Kilty gestured to them to follow her as she nipped through a small open doorway, into the dining room. A grand piano stood under the windows, surrounded by empty tables laid out with good green linen and silver. Along the walls hung pictures of luminaries in military uniforms, interspersed with paintings of civilians, one of which was a woman.

To their left was the bar. It was a small part of the room but the well-to-do men and women were smashed into that corner of the room as if it were a fire drill. Middle-aged and pissed, they were talking too loudly and laughing. On the edge of the crowd a happy-drunk old woman in an evening dress was reeling on her feet, holding on to a reluctant man for ballast.

"Come on," said Kilty, skirting past the throng at the bar and going through a glass-paneled door.

The smoking gallery was a huge room, with walls clad in dark wood. It had a glass ceiling framed by dark timbers, like the underside of a viewing boat. Behind the glass the evening sky was turning neon pink.

At the far end of the room, under a torn Polish flag, sat Mr. Goldfarb in a large brown leather armchair. He was alone in the room, smoking a big cigar and reading through the business section of the thick Saturday papers. Smoke from his cigar floated sideways lazily, a small blue cloud over his right shoulder. "Hi," said Kilty as she approached.

"Hi, Kay," said Mr. Goldfarb, and stood to give her a peck on the cheek. Not quite sure how to greet Maureen and Leslie, he raised his hand and waved as if they were a mile away. "Hello, girls," he said genially, and offered them seats around him. "Can I get you a drink or anything?"

"No, Dad, we're fine."

"By rights I shouldn't offer you a drink," he said to Maureen.

"Sorry about that," she said, pretending to care.

He smiled patronizingly. "Well, what's a Glasgow wedding without a fight?"

Kilty sat on a stool at her dad's feet. Maureen and Leslie pulled up small chairs and sat next to her. Their chairs were lower than Mr. Goldfarb's and they settled in front of him like children waiting to be told a story.

"Sure I can't tempt you with a coffee or something?" he said uncertainly.

"Yeah."

Without his bombastic wife Mr. Goldfarb seemed smaller, less certain of everything. Kilty was kinder to him when they were alone, touching his hand and smiling at the sight of him. "Dad," she said, rocking on her stool towards him. "Dad, can we ask you about someone?"

He took a puff on his cigar and held his breath. A ribbon of smoke wormed from the side of his mouth. He exhaled. "Simon McGee?" he said.

Kilty nodded.

"Kay, Mr. McGee was in the year below me at school. I can't imagine what you think he's been up to."

Kilty hummed. "What's his business?"

"He's an estate agent. He has a number of offices in Lanarkshire." He looked at her curiously and flattened the newspaper on his lap. "What have you heard about him?"

Kilty cleared her throat. "That he runs a brothel."

Mr. Goldfarb laughed at that, rolling the tip of his cigar in the ashtray, stray strands of smoke escaping from his nostrils as he breathed out. Now that Maureen thought about it, it did sound like a school-yard taunt. "I don't think Mr. McGee is a madam." He looked at Kilty reproachfully. "Really. Where did you hear that?"

"From his mother."

"The lady who died recently?"

"Yeah."

"Well, she was quite a character by all accounts. A real East End character."

"She wasn't from the East End," said Maureen. "She was from the Gorbals. So's McGee."

Mr. Goldfarb nodded and smiled, as if they had been in agreement all along.

"Is Si McGee's dad Polish?" asked Maureen.

Mr. Goldfarb cocked his head. "I don't know."

"Why's Si in the Polish Club, then? Ella wasn't Polish."

"I'm not sure what his connection is to Poland but there must be one. He even attends services at the Polish chapel."

Kilty shifted on her stool.

Maureen wanted to go; it was obvious that McGee and Mr. Goldfarb were close and there was no way he was going to incriminate his pal. Even if he knew something he would probably avoid saying it to them. "Well," she said, "thanks for talking to us anyway."

"Why are you trying to find out about him?"

"Maureen was friends with his mum," said Kilty, "and she helped her fill in a form for a small-claims action against McGee for unpaid wages -"

"His mother was working for him?"

Kilty looked at Maureen.

"Yeah," said Maureen. She was about to censor the story but realized that she needn't. "Ella said she worked for him, cleaning at the brothel, but he hadn't paid her because they had a falling out about a girl. She was a fit old lady, she could spin on a pin, and then suddenly, just after bringing the case against him, she fell over in her house, smashed her face up and had to go to hospital. She told me she'd fallen and he told the police she was mugged. Her bruises weren't consistent with a fall." She could see Mr. Goldfarb getting annoyed and Kilty and Leslie looking away, disowning the story, but she didn't give a shit. Mr. Goldfarb's life seemed to consist of private-club niceties and big cigars. Even though he was Kilty's dad, Maureen found herself disliking him, as if he were the one who had picked on Ella. She wasn't even keeping her voice down. "Me and Kilty," she continued, and saw him make a mental note of both the grammatical error and the immigrant name, "we went up to her house in Benny Lynch Court and the neighbors wouldn't talk about her."

"There could be a lot of reasons for that. Isn't it a bad neighborhood?"

"Anyway," Maureen said weakly, "Ella was recovering and then I miss a day's visiting and she's dead, of a heart attack, and no one can tell me why a fit old lady would pop off during visiting times in a hospital when her son's there."

Mr. Goldfarb sat back in his chair and tried to smile.

"Did you know his business is going down the tubes?"

"No, no. McGerty's retiring. That's why they're dissolving."

"Isn't it more usual for the other partner to take over when someone retires?"

"Only if they have the money to buy them out. It's not always the way." He waited for her to say something else he could disagree with. "Basically," he said, "there's no evidence of anything, then?"

Leslie and Kilty agreed with him but rather than say that they looked at their hands or at the floor. Mr. Goldfarb chose the glass ceiling, a peach color now that the sun was setting. He looked at Kilty. "Why would you bother with all of this?" It sounded like an argument they'd had a hundred times before.

"Because it's not fair," said Kilty firmly, and pressed her lips together.

Mr. Goldfarb rustled his paper, his expensive cigar dozing off in the ashtray. It was time to leave. Maureen stood up. "Well, thanks for the offer of a drink, anyway," she said.

"I'll tell you something about Si McGee," he said, patting his paper with a flat hand, crumpling the pages. "He's a good man and gives a lot of money to charities." He shook a reproachful finger at the three girls. "More money than you'll ever earn." He seemed to think that their earning a low wage was an affront. "He has pumped money into Eastern Europe, into a scheme to give students, girls like you three, the chance to study in this country. Young people with a future can come over here and extend their education to better themselves, make something of themselves. And he never talks about it, doesn't want it widely known. He gives generously and does so as a modest man should. I don't want any of you blabbing about this."

The three of them were still.

"How do you know that, Dad?"

Mr. Goldfarb was oblivious to the implications of what he had said. "Because he needed a letter of recommendation to the Polish government by a national before he could set up offices there."

Kilty's eyes bulged. "You used your dual nationality and wrote the letter?" she said quietly.

Mr. Goldfarb nodded, and Leslie and Maureen looked at each other. McGee was importing women from Poland. Mr. Goldfarb picked up his cigar and relit it with a slim gold lighter. He looked at Kilty from behind a flaming stub.

"Dad," said Kilty, standing up and handing him the rest of the paper, "you should read more than the business section."