Strange Loyalties

19

I decanted the water carefully into the whisky and watched them quarrel in the glass. Let us not rush pleasure. It was my first of the day and my last of the day, all I could allow myself when driving. I take a lot of water in my whisky. I think I’m trying to convince my liver that I don’t really drink. Down there, whatever metabolic foremen are on shift may be confused. ‘It’s all right, boys. He’s into the water again. We can relax. There’s just a tincture of something in it.’ By the time they’ve worked out what’s going on, the crisis is over. Danger multiplies in the knowledge of itself, through panic.

I sat and watched the clouds pass in the mixture. Clear weather followed. I lifted my drink. Proust had his madeleine. I had my whisky. As I sipped, I saw this pub on countless other occasions and tuned into long, rambling conversations and wandered again through labyrinthine nights. Memory was held in a glass. Why do I drink? To remember.

I suppose I had chosen the Admiral as the place to meet Brian and Bob because of the associations it had for me. I’ve known a lot of pubs in Glasgow. I could gantry-stare for Scotland. But no bar has meant more to me than the Admiral.

Since I left University at the end of my first year, suffering from irrelevance-fatigue, a group of us had been meeting here once a month or so. Those innumerable nights began with myself and Tom Docherty, whom I knew from school in Graithnock. We had been joined over the years by various others but the hard core remained as Tom and myself, Vic Vernon and Ray Harrison. For more than twenty years, give or take long furloughs when one or more of us was out of the country, we had been coming here to discuss the books we had been reading, the lives we were living, politics, ideas, relationships. Those times were important in my life.

Tonight I sat alone and felt that the company of the others would have helped, especially Tom. If Morag Harkness thought I was mad, she hadn’t met Tom Docherty. Come to think of it, I hadn’t met him lately myself. His marriage had broken up, too, and he had vanished into a bedsit somewhere in Glasgow. Vic was trying to find out where he was. He was a writer and I assumed he must be writing now, doing what he called ‘unravelling my entrails’. His grandfather, Tam Docherty, had been a legend in Graithnock before we were born, a street-fighter for justice. I sometimes thought Tom had carried the family tradition on to the verbal plane. It helped me a little just to think that he was somewhere nearby, trying to wrestle his experience into meaning. I wasn’t the only obsessive in town. I toasted Tom with the last of my whisky, missing him.

For the moment I would have to settle for the less sympathetic presences of Brian Harkness and Bob Lilley. The way they were looking at me as they came in wasn’t promising. Bob put his hand on my forehead.

‘Do you want a second opinion?’ Brian said.

When I came back with the drinks, Bob suggested to me, as he had more than once, that it was perhaps the soda and lime that was clouding my judgment.

‘It could be the sudden shock to your system. Taking in substances it’s not used to.’

‘I’ve had my quota. I’ve got to drive back to Graithnock tonight.’

‘You’re still not finished down there?’ Brian said. ‘I thought when you phoned us to meet you here, you had recovered. And you were back to stay in the real world.’

‘It feels real enough where I’ve been. Full of deceit and lies. That’s the real world, isn’t it?’

‘It’s the same place we’ve been lately, anyway,’ Bob said.

Brian was studying me with some curiosity.

‘So you drove up here from Graithnock just to talk to us? That’s quite touching, Jack.’

‘No, I came through here from Edinburgh. I thought since I was passing through, I could catch up with you.’

‘Edinburgh? What were you up to there?’

‘That’s where Anna is. I was talking to her.’

They exchanged looks that were a serious version of Bob’s hand on my forehead. I imagined they were thinking of me encroaching on the widow’s grief. They didn’t realise you’d have to find it first.

‘Anyway,’ I said. ‘What’s the story with you two? You look as if you’ve been up to something more fruitful than me.’

They had a flush of purposefulness on them, the look of people who are convinced of the importance of what they’re doing. Bob, with his healthy, open-air appearance, might have been happy with the way things were going on the farm. Brian, younger and more citified, might have had a good day at the office. I felt a moment of envy, like a failed alchemist looking on at two happy dispensing chemists.

‘Jack,’ Bob said. ‘More fruitful than you? Ploughing the Sahara would be more fruitful work than you’re up to.’

‘You don’t know that.’

‘Everybody knows that. But you.’

‘We’ll see.’

‘When? When will we see? How long before you just admit that Scott’s dead and leave it at that? Now you’re chasing up Anna, for God’s sake. Get a grip.’

‘Leave it, Bob.’

‘You take a week off work to do this? Why not just take a holiday?’

‘You could use one,’ Brian said. ‘You really could.’

I caught unmistakably the modulations of prepared speeches. They were a duet.

‘How about it, Jack?’ Bob said. ‘Give yourself a break for a few days.’

‘You’ve done what you can,’ Brian said.

I imagined them setting up their advice bureau between them before they came into the pub. I hate rehearsed scenes.

‘Look,’ I said. ‘I’ve left my tolerance for lectures in my other clothes. Just give me what you have about Fast Frankie and I’ll piss off.’

‘That’s another thing,’ Brian said. ‘What’s Frankie White got to do with anything?

‘That’s what I’m trying to find out, for Christ’s sake. To do that it would help to talk to him. And if I want to talk to him, it would be useful to meet him. And if I want to meet him — ’

‘Kentish Town,’ Brian said.

‘Kentish Town? Thanks. That really narrows it down. Brian, we both thought he was in London. Kentish Town’s in London, right enough. But is that as close as we get?’

Brian smiled and took a piece of paper out of his pocket and passed it across. Brian had written on it Frankie’s name and address and telephone number. I looked up at him. He winked. I had to admit to myself, if not to him, that it was impressive.

‘You are dealing,’ he said, ‘with a finder-out of the highest calibre.’

‘How did you do it?’

‘Those who know know me.’ He read the remark like a lesson from scripture. ‘Those who know know that I know that they know. Those who know — ’

‘Uh-huh,’ I said.

‘Anyway,’ Brian said, ‘what use is it to you? What are you going to do? Phone him? You couldn’t get Frankie White to tell you the truth if you had him in the same room with you. Along with several thumb-screws. He lies for a living. And you’re going to get something out him on the phone? Be like guddling trout in a spate. And I assume your travels aren’t going to take you as far as Kentish Town. I’m not sure my car would, anyway. Though probably your head would, the way it’s working just now. And Frankie’s very unpopular up here just now. With a fella we’re interested in at this very moment, as it happens. Matt Mason. You won’t get Frankie to come up here for anything. Take his chances with Matt Mason? Better volunteering to be a mugger in Beirut. What you’ve got in your hand is a piece of waste paper. It would take more than the SAS to get Frankie White out of London.’

One half of me could see what Brian was up to: discredit the information as he gave me it, so that I would be discouraged from pursuing it. The other half of me could see that he was probably right. I turned the paper over. The reverse side was empty.

‘You’re not that good,’ I said. ‘What about where he comes from?’

‘Who?’

‘Fast Frankie White.’

‘He lives in Kentish Town.’

‘That’s where he lives. But where does he come from?’

‘You want to know that as well? What’s that got to do with it?’

‘Brian.’ I couldn’t believe it. ‘I specifically asked you. On the phone. To find that out.’

‘Me? No, you didn’t.’

‘Jesus Christ! Ayrshire. I said it was Ayrshire. But I didn’t know where in Ayrshire. That was the main thing. Shit! Aw, naw.’

Bob put his finger to his mouth, a man advising a small boy to be silent.

‘You’d better tell him, Brian,’ he said. ‘Otherwise, the wee chap is going to take a fit.’

Brian smiled and produced another piece of paper.

‘I was just trying to save you from yourself,’ he said.

The paper contained an address in Thornbank, which is a village a few miles from Graithnock.

‘It’s his mother’s house,’ Bob said.

As soon as I knew I had the information, I relaxed. It struck me immediately that Frankie’s address in Thornbank was probably worthless, since he wouldn’t be there, and I couldn’t take the time to go to Kentish Town. Why then did it matter so much to me? I realised I was feeding a compulsion. It was the mere possibility of finding out more about what had happened to Scott that was keeping me going. I felt embarrassed about inflicting my mania so unashamedly on them.

‘Hey. Thanks, Brian,’ I said. ‘And, Bob. Thanks.’

‘Don’t go all nice and polite on us,’ Bob said. ‘That’s when I’ll really worry.’

‘I’m sorry about all that,’ I said.

‘Are you hell,’ Brian said.

We started to laugh. I felt as if I had just arrived, belatedly, in their company. Before, I hadn’t been seeing them as themselves, just as a part of my preoccupation. Bob bought a round of drinks. We talked about how Brian’s car was doing and the vagaries of Morag’s car. Bob had recently won a cup at bowling. I asked him if he had ever played in Kelso. He looked puzzled but said he hadn’t. Morag was still threatening to have me at their house for a meal. We decided Bob and Margaret should come along, too.

The room had widened for me. I was no longer seeing it through a tunnel. The bright warmth was soothing. The pub wasn’t busy but there was a group of four girls and two boys at a table across from us. Their laughter was a pleasant sound. Brian saw me looking over towards them.

‘Remember that?’ he said. ‘Real life?’

‘Aye, it’s good stuff,’ I said.

‘You should try it some time.’

‘I intend to. But not this week.’

He bought another round. I became briefly so normal that I wasn’t the first to bring the talk back to business. Bob Lilley mentioned the name of Matt Mason. He was nominally a bookie. It was an occupation he wore like a fancy coat which had a lot of secret pockets. There were some bad things in the pockets, including possibly murder. If you fell out with him, emigration wasn’t a bad idea.

‘What does he have against Frankie White?’ I asked.

‘That’s vague,’ Bob said. ‘We think Frankie let him down in some way.’

‘Frankie’s let everybody down,’ I said. ‘It’s what he does.’

‘It’s not what he does to Matt Mason,’ Brian said. It’s not what anybody does to Matt Mason. Anyway, Frankie’s not involved in this one. At least, that’s what it looks like. He’s been away too long. That thing you said. About looking high up for the source. We think it could be Mason. He’s in drugs. Meece was dealing. We think Mason was his wholesaler. He’s the kind of business man who would cut off your franchise by the neck. He stops you dealing by stopping you breathing. Frankie has never been involved in anything as heavy as that.’

‘What about the woman?’

‘We’ve got a name,’ Bob said. ‘Melanie.’

‘That’s a good Glaswegian name.’

‘But that’s it. Melanie. No second name so far. We got the name from Meece’s brother. But he doesn’t know any more. Meece’s family didn’t mix with him too much. I don’t know why. He was a fine upstanding man, Meece. We think if we find Melanie we’ve got a good chance.’

‘Sounds like one she could have picked out of a book,’ I said. ‘If she was with Meece, she was using. Somebody clean with a junkie? Mixed marriages like that don’t work. If she’s using, she can’t hole up for too long at a time.’

‘We’ve thought about that,’ Brian said. ‘But maybe she’s holed up with another junkie. Who gets her the stuff. One of the problems is Meece seems to have been the unknown citizen. He hasn’t left too many traces. I mean, what else did he do? Besides stick needles in his arm?’

‘That tends to be a full time job,’ Bob said.

‘He used to be a good driver,’ I said. ‘He used to drive for people. He was good. He could’ve U-turned a Daimler on a footpath. Put him in a car, he thought he was superman.’

‘Melanie,’ Bob said. ‘Can’t be too many of them around.’

‘I don’t know,’ Brian said. ‘Maybe in Hyndland there is.’

We talked round it some more while I finished my soda and lime and they sipped their pints. I wanted to get back to Graithnock before it was much later. It was maybe a sign of how our conversation had helped to calm my fever that pursuing leads wasn’t my only reason for being eager to check in to the Bushfield. I was also very hungry. Before I left in the morning, Katie Samson had said she would have a meal ready for me when I got back.

I offered to buy them another drink but they were moving on as well. I didn’t leave the bar with them because I wanted to use the pay-phone. Obviously, my fever wasn’t completely cured. If I’d needed any confirmation of that, Brian and Bob provided it. When I stayed behind, their tolerant head-shakings made them look like doctors who have done the best they can for a patient who just won’t take advice.

I tried phoning Frankie’s number in Kentish Town. There was nobody in. The phone at the restaurant was engaged. I tried Jan’s home number. She didn’t use an answering machine, so that I couldn’t even talk to her by proxy.

Nobody loved me. The way I was feeling about myself, I was in danger of agreeing with them.