Laidlaw

28

Who needs rockets to go to the moon?’ he thought. ‘We can get there by motor.’

The man with the scar drove past The Seven Ways and The Square Ring. They weren’t just pubs to him. They were part of his strange, personal horoscope, all those things that had helped to make him what he was. He didn’t think of them as he drove past. It was a long time since he had been in either pub but that didn’t matter. Six nights a week they went on manufacturing aggro and hangovers, churning people out into the streets just after ten, sustaining the confused climate that was his natural habitat.

He had never questioned that climate, just learned to live in it. It was who he was. His eyes registered nothing but preparedness as he swung through the streets. The dereliction around him meant not pity or anger or affection, only the way he was going. Just as his face was dominated by its wound, a scar with some features round it, so his nature was a reflex response to what it had undergone.

He didn’t park the car on the waste-lot but in the street beside it under a lamp-post. It was an action expressing habit not purpose, because it wasn’t dark. Some boys were hanging around. He flicked a ten-pence piece to the big one in the torn anorak.

‘Nae problem, mister,’ the boy said.

But there was. He was going towards it. On the outside the tenement was scabby with age. But for him the inside was a series of familiar surprises. There was the neatly painted entry and stairs, the freshly varnished, flush-panelled door. Then it was the beautifully painted hall, the thick carpet, the bright paintings — like finding Ali Baba’s cave.

‘Hullo, Uncle.’ It was Maureen, in purple flared trousers and matching woollen top. ‘We’re goin’ tae the pictures.’

‘Good for you, hen.’

She still called him uncle although she was thirteen now and knew he was only a courtesy relative. He liked that. He went on into the living-room to the final surprise the house contained — John Rhodes sitting at the fire, violence earthed in domesticity, insulated with a cardigan and slippers. John looked over his paper and winked by way of hullo.

The man with the scar sat down across from him. He knew the rules. When the family were around, it was strictly no business.

‘How did the horses go for ye the day then, John?’

‘Backwards. Bingers galore. Were ye puntin’ yerself?’

‘Nothing Ah fancied. Saw the card in Matt Mason’s place.’

John Rhodes looked up once from his paper and back down. The message was received. He didn’t want any references to what was on, even in code, while his family was still in the house.

That suited the man with the scar fine. He wouldn’t have minded never getting round to business. This wasn’t a caper he fancied. He just sat enjoying the bustle of the two girls and Annie, John’s wife, getting ready for the pictures. He watched John sit bathing in the backwash of their busyness. Homeliness was no pretence with him. His family was the most important thing in his life. Everything else was just building fences round them.

Maureen and Sandra kissed John goodbye and Annie said they wouldn’t be late and if he had to go out would he please make sure he put the guard on the fire. Maureen came across and kissed the man with the scar. She was a sweet girl who hated to see somebody left out of things.

When they were gone, John read the paper a little longer. It was as if he was passing time until the lingering sense of his family’s presence had evaporated. The man with the scar waited. There would be no drink, because John didn’t keep it in the house.

‘Well?’

‘The word is that the man who did it is a friend o’ Harry Rayburn’s. A young fella.’

‘But Harry Rayburn’s a poof.’

‘That’s the word.’

‘Ye mean a boyfriend.’

‘It looks that way.’

‘Whit’s a poof doin’ wi’ a lassie?’

‘Maybe he’s ambisextrous.’

‘Ah canny stick poofs.’

It was a chillingly simple remark. A vote had been cast. He was waiting. The man with the scar was hesitant. He knew the way he very much wanted the decision to go, but this was one election it wouldn’t be healthy to rig. He looked at John Rhodes staring at the fire, his face almost prissy with disgust. That was a savage primness. He had an anger more vicious than the man had seen in any other person. He had seen the hands that were loose on the chair beat one man blind. There had been no regrets.

‘Ah don’t know his name. But. He’s still in the city.’

‘Where wid he be?’

‘Ah don’t know.’

‘That’s no’ very clever.’

‘Christ, Ah’m no’ Old Moore’s Almanac, John.’

‘Ah know who you are. You remember who Ah am. You’re paid tae find out, no’ be a comedian. If Ah want a funny man, Ah’ll hire one. An’ don’t you apply.’

‘There’s a way tae find out, Ah think, but.’

John Rhodes looked at him and smiled.

‘So don’t be shy.’

‘It’s Lennie Wilson’

‘Who’s Lennie Wilson?’

‘He’s jist a boay. A big, sully boay.’

‘They’re the best kind.’

‘He works for Matt Mason. The funny thing is, he’s workin’ for Harry Rayburn just now as well.’

John Rhodes was nodding.

‘Uh-huh. So why should he be there? Except tae find things out for Mr Mason?’

‘That’s whit Ah’m sayin’.’

‘Aye. That looks like it. Ye think he knows?’

‘Ah think he should.’

‘Well. Whit a boy like that knows, he gives out like an information bureau. He’s our man.’

‘But.’

John Rhodes waited. There was nothing he needed to bypass because there was nothing he couldn’t deal with. The man with the scar was being careful. Trying to get round John was as easy as passing a bull in a close. The man had an infinite respect for him. In a city where you could find a fight any time you wanted, and often when you didn’t, he had never seen anybody harder, faster or less afraid. But in a sense that was its own problem. John’s violence had never found its limits. And the man dreaded that, in looking for them, John would some time destroy everything they had. This might be the time.

‘We’re cuttin’ right across Matt Mason here, John. What for?’

‘If Ah cut across somebody it means they must be in ma road. Whose fault is that? Leave this Lennie Wilson till the morra. The night, you and Tam get this Lawson man into The Gay. Then come an’ collect me here. Ah want tae see whit he’s like.’

The man with the scar still wasn’t sure what had been decided. But there was nothing to say. John Rhodes rose and gathered a pair of shoes that Maureen had discarded. He placed them neatly under a chair. The man with the scar went out.