Prized Possessions (26 page)

In some – Patsy Walsh for one – she detected an astonishing absence of meekness and a willingness to risk freedom for the
right
to be free. Some, like Patsy, would die before they would settle for servitude and that, for Polly, made them seem daring and, in a curiously disembodied way, desirable. But on that Friday evening less than a week before Christmas, less than a fortnight before the old year ticked into the new, Polly was relieved when Mr Bernard Peabody entered the kitchen and in his usual fumbling, self-conscious manner removed his hat and scarf and spread his books upon the table.

‘I'm sorry, Bernard,' Mammy apologised, ‘but we've had a wee bit of an upset an' I haven't had time to start your supper.'

‘That's quite all right, Mrs Con – Lizzie.' The agent cleared his throat and, twisting stiffly from the waist, looked round at Polly's mother with genuine concern. ‘Is there – is there anything I can do to help?'

‘No,' Lizzie said. ‘No, thank you. It's a family matter.'

‘If it's a question of not having the rent…'

‘It isn't that. Even if it was I wouldn't expect you…'

‘I know,' Bernard Peabody said. ‘I know you wouldn't but…'

The conversation was halting, not lame. Behind each inconclusive phrase Polly detected intimacy. Her mother often referred to Bernard Peabody, had even waxed humorous about him but Polly hadn't suspected that there was also a warmth in the relationship now that superseded the small favours for which her mother might have once been angling.

‘I could poach you an egg,' Lizzie suggested.

‘No, really…'

‘Babs could go out for a fish supper if you…'

‘No. Honestly!' Bernard Peabody said.

Polly noticed how her mother's eagerness embarrassed him, as if the rapport between them was a mutual secret that they did not wish to share. If he had witnessed Mammy's tantrum twenty minutes ago, Polly thought, he might not have been so enamoured. She watched him fuss with his pencil and notebook. Mammy put the coins on the table and stood close to him while he counted them into his purse. He made out a receipt and stuck a gummed label into the Conways' rent book. Given the circumstances, he didn't seem inclined to linger and Polly guessed that the ‘romance' between the factor's agent and her mother would progress no further tonight.

He rose, closed his books and put them in his case, buttoned his overcoat. ‘No collection next Friday but I'll be here the day before Hogmanay. Tuesday. You'll be due two weeks then, I'm afraid.'

He reached for his hat and scarf and, for the first time, looked directly at the girls. To Rosie, he said, ‘I'm reading that book you recommended.
Great Expectations.
It's very interesting.'

Rosie smiled, and nodded bleakly.

‘You don't look very well, lass,' Bernard said. ‘Is it the flu?'

Rosie, reading his lips, shook her head.

A knock upon the landing door caused all of them, even Bernard, to look up. It was not a heavy sound, not urgent, not threatening. Even so, Polly felt her stomach contract with apprehension.

‘Who can that be?' Lizzie said.

‘Aren't you expectin' anyone?' said Bernard.

‘No one I can think of,' said Lizzie.

‘Aren't you going to answer it?' Bernard said.

‘I suppose I'd better,' Lizzie said.

Bernard did not follow her into the hall. He put on his hat and wound his scarf loosely about his neck then waited, watching the door until Alex O'Hara eased himself into the kitchen.

‘Hello, Rosie,' O'Hara said. ‘Did you forget t' tell them I was comin' round tonight?'

‘Leave me alone.' Rosie stood up. The shawl slipped from her shoulders, revealing a school blouse, a pleated skirt, bare legs. ‘Just leave me alone.'

‘Ain't you I've come for, sweetheart,' O'Hara said. ‘It's her.'

‘Polly?' Lizzie said. ‘What do you want wi' our Polly?'

O'Hara was not a large man but his presence seemed to fill the kitchen. His movements were cat-like, not clumsy. He ignored Bernard completely.

‘You lied to me, Polly.'

‘I did not,' said Polly.

It had come in at last, come in from the streets.

Polly stared in horror at the flat sweating face, the frozen mouth and icy eyes. This was the myth, the legendary beast that they had always been taught to fear. They had known of its existence, of course. They had dwelled within its shadow, had heard it screaming in the night in the dark alleyways behind the tenements. They had read of its violent excursions in newspapers and heard the mean tales that gave Glasgow its evil reputation. But they had never been forced to look it dead in the eye before, to confront it face to face and acknowledge that they were part of it.

Polly had never seen a cut-throat razor laid open. She had seen how men used them; tiny blood-flecked tabs of paper stanching shaving cuts first thing in the morning, a steel blade whisking blithely on a strop viewed through the window of a barber's shop, the glimpse of a bone handle peeking from a waistcoat pocket – and scars, many scars, the unmistakable badges of assaults too cold-blooded to contemplate or fights so fierce, vicious and prolonged that no decent person could imagine them. It was from this that they had been taught to run and hide. Now it was here, O'Hara was here in their kitchen and they, in a sense, had invited him in.

The razor didn't look like a weapon. In spite of its ground blade and the black handle snuggled into O'Hara's palm it seemed old-fashioned, almost quaint, and too delicate to be harmful.

Polly stretched out an arm and elbowed Rosie deeper into the corner by the side of the range. She pressed her knees together, made ready to leap away. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Babs hunched against the niche bed.

‘You shouldn't have lied to me, Polly,' O'Hara said. ‘Me an' mah wee friend here have a way o' gettin' at the truth.'

‘I told you,' Polly said. ‘I told you the truth.'

He was resting now, or seemed to be. He leaned an elbow upon the table and held up his right hand, wrist laid back as if balancing a glass on his palm. She could see the razor clearly, the knuckle of steel where it joined the handle, the concave shape of the blade, even the Royal Crown and patent number engraved along its length. He allowed her to contemplate it for several seconds until she could almost feel its scald upon her cheek, its cold kiss upon her lips.

‘You weren't wi' Patsy Walsh on Wednesday, were you?'

‘Yes, I was.'

He inched forward, came within striking distance. Polly fixed her gaze upon the blade, watching it twist so that the edge was towards her. He fashioned a little strike, a slithering dart like a snake's tongue. Polly flinched but made no attempt to defend herself.

‘Walsh done the warehouse, didn't he?' Alex O'Hara said. ‘Him, Jackie Hallop – an' who else? Bonnar, Tommy Bonnar?'

‘Why don't you ask them that question?' said Bernard Peabody.

‘Who the hell're you?' O'Hara, distracted, enquired.

‘A friend of the family,' Bernard said. Lizzie touched his arm, plump fingers spread. Neither he nor she knew what the signal meant. He took a wild guess. ‘Why are you botherin' these young ladies? Shouldn't you be out askin' Walsh and the Hallops? Or are they a bit too much for you. Are you the sort that prefers bullying girls to squaring up to men?'

O'Hara was still bewildered. Polly could see the grinding of his sluggish intellect.

‘Who sent you here?' Bernard said. ‘Not Mr Manone, surely?'

‘Aye, Mr Manone.'

‘What – to carve up Mrs Conway's girls?'

O'Hara swore. He had been rendered indecisive, his threat made impotent. Polly noticed that her mother continued to rest her hand on Mr Peabody's arm as if it were he not Alex O'Hara who needed to be restrained.

‘What the bloody hell d'you know about it?' O'Hara demanded.

‘More than you might think,' Bernard said. ‘Maybe I did the warehouse job and these ladies know nothin' about it. Pause an' think about that.'

Polly watched the flat face writhe with concentration, twist into folds like the skin of some rare breed of dog. She felt a little gulp of premature relief but when O'Hara lunged at her, arm raised, she flung herself backwards, taking Rosie and the armchair with her out of range of the razor's arc. He swiped again, grunting in frustration. She heard Babs scream, Mammy shout. Crouched behind the armchair Rosie uttered little squeaks and chitterings, more like laughter than fear. The next thing Polly knew O'Hara's left arm was bent up behind his back, his cheek was squashed flat upon the table and the hand that held the razor was ensnared in Bernard Peabody's fist.

Bernard had gone for the wrist but had found the hand instead. He had closed his fist over the razor, gripping the blade instead of flesh. She watched O'Hara's smothered, ineffectual struggle as Bernard leaned over him, levering his arm up until it seemed that it would snap. Saw too how Bernard clung to the razor, encompassing it as firmly as if it were made of rubber, not steel. Saw blood well up like jam between his fingers.

‘I think,' Bernard said, ‘that's enough of that, Mr O'Hara, unless you fancy havin' your arm broken.'

It came away not abruptly but stickily, both fists so weltered with blood that Polly could not tell who had released it. Then she saw that Bernard had gained full possession of the razor. He held the razor high, the black handle waxy with blood, then he tossed the weapon at the window. It struck the glass and fell, tinkling, into the sink.

Bernard stepped back from the table and allowed O'Hara to crank himself to his feet. The bent arm remained bent, slung across his belly. He hugged it, nursing it, his face not just bloodless but spongy with pain.

‘I want mah razor back,' he said.

‘You're not gettin' your razor back,' Bernard told him. ‘If you're thinkin' about trying to fish it out of there, I'd advise you to think again.'

‘Who the hell are you?'

Bernard lifted his damaged hand to his mouth, put the wound between his teeth and bit down on it. Nothing showed in his face, nothing except a trace of arrogance, not even arrogance, Polly thought, but an odd sort of satisfaction as if dealing with Alex O'Hara had taken him back to another time when he had also been obliged to deal with the realities of life. When he took his hand away from his mouth his chin was streaked with blood. ‘I told you,' he said, ‘I'm a friend of the family.'

‘Mr Manone' – O'Hara crabbed towards the door – ‘Mr Manone's gonna hear about this.'

‘Too damned right he is,' Lizzie declared. ‘I'm goin' to tell him. I'm goin' to tell him what you did,' and then, because she had every excuse for forgetting herself, aimed a kick at Alex O'Hara's rump to speed him on his way downstairs.

*   *   *

Under the flow of tap water the wound became visible. It was clean-lipped but deep, so deep that Polly thought she could see bone at the bottom of it. She stood by him and did exactly what he told her to do while her mother poured him a glass of whisky from the bottle she kept for emergencies.

Bernard drank it in a single swallow.

‘Another?'

‘No thanks, Lizzie. I still have my rounds to do.'

‘Your rounds?' Lizzie said. ‘With that hand you should be going to the hospital not out on the streets.'

He extended his hand into the running water again and examined it with astonishing objectivity. He flexed his fingers, making blood well from the wound.

‘I don't think any tendons are severed. Lucky really.'

‘You call that lucky?' said Babs.

Polly said, ‘It looks to me like it needs stitches, Mr Peabody.'

‘If I go for stitches then I'll have to report it.'

‘Tell them you were attacked on the stairs,' said Babs.

‘I think,' Bernard said, ‘that a lint pad an' a tight bandage will do the trick until I get home.'

‘What's your mother gonna say?'

‘I won't tell her,' Bernard said. ‘Well, not until tomorrow.'

Polly said, ‘How many more calls do you have to make?'

‘Five.'

‘How long will that take?'

‘Couple of hours.'

‘If I might ask' – Lizzie unearthed the biscuit tin that served as a medicine chest – ‘what do you do with the money, the money you collect?'

‘Put it in a night safe in the bank next door to our office. I make out a deposit slip, put it in a bag with the money and slide the lot into the chute.'

‘Can you write with your left hand?' Polly asked.

‘I can manage a legible signature,' Bernard answered.

He had taken off his overcoat and bloodstained jacket and instructed Polly to cut away the sleeve of his shirt at a point above the elbow. It was an old shirt anyway, so he said. He told Polly to take off his tie and showed her how to fashion a temporary tourniquet. She noticed that when she touched him Mr Peabody did not display any of the shyness that had been, until then, his hallmark. He didn't preen either, though, didn't seem particularly proud of what he'd done or aware of how brave he'd been. He was quietly matter-of-fact about the whole thing, Polly thought, and gave no hint of the pain he must be suffering.

At length the flow of bright red blood eased and began to coagulate. With a towel under his forearm Bernard transferred himself from the sink to the table where Lizzie had laid out lint, bandages and an iodine bottle and where she dressed the gaping wound exactly as Bernard told her to do.

Babs lit a cigarette and gave it to him.

He took it, smiled his thanks, and drew in smoke.

‘Is that chap liable to come back?' he said. ‘If you'd like me to stay…'

‘Oh, Bernard, Bernard.' Lizzie laid down her sewing scissors, wrapped an arm about his neck and kissed him on the ear, on the cheek, on the side of the mouth. ‘I don't know what we'd have done if you hadn't been here.'