Prized Possessions (38 page)

Dominic had other things to think about, not least when he might see Polly Conway again and how he might set their relationship on a less edgy footing. He was shy about Polly, tentative, a mood that affected his judgement in another pressing matter. He took big stick from Guido, little stick from Tony for his indecisiveness. He was even tempted to cable his father in Philadelphia to request advice. But he knew only too well what his father would tell him to do and that his father would then write to Guido and ask what sort of man he had raised when he, Dominic, would not undertake to protect the family name and family honour without all this stupid flimflam and soul-searching.

If she had not been so entranced by Bernard Peabody – so entranced that she sang to herself while she worked the rakes through the troughs on her Saturday shift – then Lizzie might have realised what was going on behind the scenes and have tried to prevent it. She, however, had lost her heart completely and with it her reason, not her mental faculties so much as her
raison d'être,
that restless need to interfere in the lives of her daughters and other poor folk who might need a shoulder to cry on or the aid of a strong right arm.

Lizzie was a goner, radiant as a sunbeam, pinked out of existence for love of an estate agent's clerk. Her chum McIntosh spotted the change at once and, being a man of kind heart and romantic disposition, guessed the reason for it. He even teased her about it lightly until Lizzie blushed like a tea-rose and admitted in a hoarse but not coarse whisper that matrimony was quite definitely in her plans, if not this year, then next year, just as soon as she could get her daughters settled and pay off a few outstanding debts.

Meanwhile Scotland trudged back to work, back to the dole queue, back to the long drag of the winter's second half. The joy of New Year celebrations and all the false optimism that they had engendered vanished swiftly.

Within a year Labour would be routed at the polls and a National Government would take over. Within a couple of months King Alfonso would abdicate and Spain would declare itself a Republic. Within a week Pope Pius would announce the Church's opposition to communism, capitalism and all forms of sexual liberation. Within three days, late on Saturday night to be exact, Babs Conway would sacrifice her virginity to Jackie Hallop while standing upright in the back close of No. 10 Lavender Court, an experience that left her sore, unsatisfied and slightly bewildered.

Within fifty-six hours of calling upon Dominic Manone at Manor Park Avenue Polly would decide that she wouldn't really feel secure until Patsy Walsh left Glasgow and that the only way she could bring that about would be to reclaim her daddy's stash from under the floorboards in Gran McKerlie's cupboard and that the sooner she did it the better it would be for all concerned, especially – so she convinced herself – for Patsy.

Larceny came easy to Polly; Daddy's genes were working well. She performed her first act of pillage with all the aplomb of a seasoned professional and, to her surprise, with hardly so much as an increase in pulse rate. She climbed the backland stairs in Ballingall Street, Laurieston, at twenty minutes to eleven o'clock with pockets empty and skipped down again at five minutes to one with pockets full; with Daddy's assorted banknotes tucked about her person and the cocoa tin – empty save for coppers – left where it was, the boards, brooms, brushes and pails all neatly back in place.

‘What have you been up to?' Aunt Janet enquired as she took off her Sunday-best hat and unwound her scarf.

Sweet-faced and blameless: ‘Absolutely not a thing.'

‘Did she go?'

‘Yes,' said Polly.

‘Number one or number two?'

‘Both, I think,' said Polly.

‘Don't you know?'

‘No, I don't know,' Polly said and, feeling strangely justified, took her leave soon after.

*   *   *

‘I thought you were kiddin',' Patsy said. ‘I really thought you were kiddin'. A hundred an' fifty smackers. Where did you get them?'

‘Not from Dominic Manone,' said Polly. ‘That's all you need to know.'

‘Come off it, Polly. I can't take your money.'

‘Isn't it enough?'

‘Oh, aye, it's more than enough.'

‘Then accept it graciously and get out while you can,' Polly said.

‘Easier said than done.'

‘What? You promised you'd…'

‘I saw Jackie this afternoon,' Patsy said. ‘He tells me we don't have anythin' to worry about, the pressure's off. Is that true, Polly?'

‘Perhaps it is for him, but not for you.'

The banknotes were arranged in neat bundles on the Walshes' kitchen table. Patsy had seen more cash than this plenty of times. Five years ago he had robbed a carpet manufacturer's house out in Lenzie and had come out with five hundred pounds in loose notes. The haul had taken him to Spain, Switzerland, eventually to Germany, yet he'd been back knocking on his father's door almost before the old man realised he'd gone.

‘What did you have to do to get it?' he said.

‘I didn't have to do anything to get it,' Polly said.

‘Did you steal it?'

‘What do you take me for, Patsy? Of course I didn't steal it.' She had the lie ready. She hoped it might impress him. ‘It's savings. My personal savings. Money my daddy put into an account when I was born. Been earning interest ever since. I decided the time had come to make use of it.'

‘Mighty generous of you, Polly,' Patsy said. ‘Why are you so damned anxious to get rid of me?'

‘We've been through all this before,' Polly said. ‘I just don't want you to wind up dead, like Tommy Bonnar.'

‘Jackie tells me it's all been settled, that Manone's satisfied.'

‘Manone will never be satisfied.'

Polly was conscious of just how overblown the statement sounded, how theatrical, an utterance more suited to Dominic's long, gloomy dining-room than to an ordinary working-class kitchen. Sighing, she reached for the little bundles of cash. ‘If you don't want it, I'll find another use for it.'

‘No,' he said, quickly. ‘I didn't say I didn't want it.'

‘It's not as if you're tied to the Gorbals, like the Hallops. You've been to Europe before. You keep telling me how wonderful it is.'

‘It would be even more wonderful if you were with me.'

‘I'll be here when you get back.'

‘If I come back, you mean.'

‘Nothing's for ever, Patrick.'

‘Patrick? Oh, very formal all of a sudden.'

‘Stop it,' Polly said. ‘Take it or don't take it.'

‘I'll take it.'

‘And go?'

‘Aye, an' go.'

‘When?'

‘This week some time.'

Polly said, ‘Where's your father?'

‘At chapel.'

‘I didn't know you were Catholic.'

‘Methodist chapel,' Patsy said. ‘Why are you askin'? Do you want to kiss an cuddle for a while? On the bed?'

‘No,' Polly said. ‘I don't think that would be a good idea under the circumstances.'

‘What happened, Polly? It looked so promisin' for us,' Patsy said, ‘then it just went to hell. Was it because of what I tried to do that night?'

‘That isn't it.'

‘Well, you're no fool.' Patsy began to sort out banknotes, not counting so much as arranging them. He was quick-fingered and dextrous but also casual, unexcited by handling so much cash. ‘It doesn't take a genius to figure out that you don't want to get mixed up with a guy like me in case I run into trouble an' wind up in jail.'

Polly said, ‘Yes, I suppose that's it.'

‘Middle-class loyalty.' He shook his head. ‘I don't blame you. It's not your fault. At least give me one kiss before I hit the trail.'

He opened his arms in an extravagant gesture and Polly walked around the table and into them. He pulled her close, tilted his hips, rocked against her. But he was not aroused and there was a mocking quality to the embrace. Polly put her hands behind his neck and kissed him lingeringly, without desire. She had exorcised him, got rid of him, saved herself for someone else, someone better. She couldn't have spent her father's legacy on anything more worth while.

‘See you, Poll,' he said.

‘Yes,' Polly said. ‘See you, Patsy,' and went out and downstairs into Brock Street before he noticed the tears in her eyes.

*   *   *

Tony had accompanied his mother and father to evening mass. To please his mother he had even taken confession and eked out a few acceptable sins to keep the father happy. He wondered what the good father would have said if he'd known what mortal sins Tony had really committed since his last confession, or if the old holy man could possibly have guessed what a nice clean-cut Italian gentleman would be getting up to in the course of the next few days.

Tony hadn't quite reached the age when cynicism gives way to doubt or doubt bleeds into fear. He did his bit, he did his best. He kept his parents in style and visited them regularly. He did not worship false gods. He worshipped only one god and required no priestly rigmarole to communicate with that god.

‘All right,' Tony said. ‘We know who did for Tommy; what do you want me to do about it?'

‘I'm not sure yet,' Dominic said.

‘You have to be sure. You have to act. That Irish-born bastard will be sitting in his mouldy office laughing up his sleeve at us.'

‘How much did Tommy owe him?' Dominic asked.

‘Nobody knows for sure. Two, three hundred, maybe,' Tony said.

‘In that case,' Dominic said, ‘I think I should pay him off.'

‘Jesus and Joseph!' Uncle Guido exclaimed.

‘I think I should go call on him tomorrow,' Dominic said.

‘Go call on him?' said Tony. ‘You can't set up a meeting with a man who has just had one of our boys done in. McGuire doesn't give a toss about the money Tommy owed him. He did it to insult you. To test you. Next thing he'll be picking off our runners, then it will be our collectors.'

‘I do not think so,' Dominic said.

‘Paying him off will not keep the peace,' Uncle Guido said. ‘Paying him off will be interpreted as a sign of weakness.'

Dominic said, ‘You do not have to set up a meeting, Tony. I will go by myself, all by myself.'

‘To pay him off?' said Guido.

‘Yes, to pay whatever Tommy owed him,' Dominic said, ‘then to kill him.'

‘You?' Tony said. ‘You will kill him?'

The parlour was so quiet that you could hear the wind ruffling the shrubs in the garden outside.

‘No,' Dominic said. ‘We will let O'Hara do it. Very quietly. With a knife.'

‘Oh, yeah,' said Tony, grinning. ‘Alex will just love that.'

*   *   *

It was always a puzzle to Patsy how his father managed to remain a member in good standing of the Methodist fellowship. He, Patsy, assumed that the old man must have some kind of split personality; either that or a guardian angel who sat upon the tip of his foul tongue to check the flow of casual obscenities that made up a good sixty per cent of his father's customary conversation.

What was undeniable was that twice-weekly attendance at Methodist meetings did the old buzzard a power of good and that he returned from the Elliston Street chapel minus much of his sustaining bitterness. It would be back next morning, of course, or might even return in the course of the evening, seeping into the operating eye then down into his mouth so that by bedtime, even without a drop of drink in him, Paw Walsh would be braying curses with all the conviction of an apocalyptic prophet.

Patsy got to him early, while he was sober and comparatively sane. He did not need his father's approval for what he was about to do, merely his attention for a few brief minutes.

‘I'm goin' off again for a while,' Patsy said, while his father was busy at the stove in the cupboard making himself a pot of tea. ‘I don't know how long I'll be away.' The hunched, heavily muscled shoulders did not so much as stiffen. Patsy heard the click of the spoon on the caddy, the clack of the kettle going back on the gas ring. ‘Are you okay for cash?'

‘Aye,' his father said. ‘I'm fine.'

‘You want me to leave you somethin' to be goin' on with?'

‘Naw.'

His father emerged from the cupboard with a china mug cupped in both hands. He dipped his mouth to the scalding liquid and supped noisily.

Patsy said, ‘It'll probably be Tuesday, Wednesday at the latest.'

‘Right.'

‘If anybody comes lookin' for me you don't know where I am.'

‘Right.'

Patsy watched his father sup again from the mug. The glitter was coming back, that ferocious little flicker in the pupil of the eye and, bizarrely, a matching glint in the glass. In a moment the glass eye would begin to water.

Patsy said, ‘I don't know where I'm goin' exactly. Maybe Paris.'

‘Yon so-and-so goin' wi' you?'

‘Polly? Nah.'

‘She know you're leavin'?'

‘Yeah.'

‘She knocked up?'

‘Don't be daft,' said Patsy.

The old man sat down in a chair by the fire. He still wore boots, his Sabbath boots, polished to a high gloss. He looked down at them, the mug in both hands, scowled at his feet as if at an enemy. Patsy knew better than to offer to unlace them for him. Besides, the glass eye had begun to water.

The old man said, ‘You pull a job?'

Keeping it simple, Patsy answered, ‘Yeah.'

‘Get much?'

‘Enough,' Patsy said.

‘You sure yon so-and-so's no' preg-enant?'

‘Not by me she's not,' said Patsy.

‘Right,' the old man said and, putting the tea mug to one side, bent to tackle his laces.

*   *   *