Prized Possessions (44 page)

She studied the handwritten menu, selected broth, a beef pudding to follow, and only when the waitress had gone, glanced around the room.

‘No signs of a trade slump here, I see,' she said.

‘Is that a Communist sentiment?' Dominic asked.

‘Just a passing remark,' Polly said.

‘Our friend Walsh would not care for this place.'

‘Patsy? I doubt it.' Polly brought her attention back to Dominic, something not difficult to do. He was seated back in his chair, forearm resting on the table, right arm folded across his chest in a manner that Polly thought just a wee bit Napoleonic. ‘If you're fishing for information about Patsy Walsh,' she said, ‘don't bother. I'll tell you what you need to know.'

‘Has he left Glasgow?'

‘Yes. Last week.'

‘On what day?'

‘Friday, I think.'

‘Night train to London?'

‘Probably,' Polly said. ‘I don't know where he is now, however. Somewhere on the Continent.'

‘I have no intention of searching for Patsy,' Dominic said. ‘I've nothing against him, you know. I am glad he's gone, to tell the truth.'

‘Really?' Polly said. ‘Why would that be?'

‘Because I would not be here with you otherwise.'

She was startled by his directness – or what seemed like directness. She thought about it for a moment, long enough to read ambiguity into the compliment, then said, ‘I don't belong to Patsy Walsh. I'm not especially attached to him. In fact, I'm relieved to see the back of him too.'

‘He is not for you?' Dominic asked.

‘No, he isn't for me.'

‘Did you give him money?'

‘How did you … Yes, I gave him some money.'

‘How much?'

‘I don't think that's any of your business.'

‘Perhaps not,' Dominic said, ‘except that I'd like to make it up to you.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘Pay you back.'

‘At everlasting interest?' Polly said.

Dominic shook his head. ‘Not a loan.' He sat forward, coming closer. He didn't look round, didn't seem furtive, or embarrassed to be discussing money with a woman. ‘I will give you back what you gave to Walsh. In full. No hidden charges, Polly, no interest due.'

‘Why would you want to do that?'

‘Because I can afford it and you can't.'

‘I didn't persuade Patsy to leave because you asked me to,' Polly said.

‘I know.'

‘Are you paying me to keep my mouth shut?' Polly said.

That surprised him. He drew back, frowning. He might have allowed some of the persuasive softness to go from his voice if, at that moment, the waitress hadn't returned with the broth. She placed the bowls before them and offered a pepper-pot. Dominic waved her away with a polite motion of the hand.

He lifted his spoon, weighed it in his fingers for a moment, deliberately not looking at Polly. Still not looking at Polly, he said, ‘About what?'

‘The reason I wrote to you, asked you to meet me today.'

‘So it was not a letter of romance after all?'

‘Anything but,' Polly said.

‘How disappointing,' Dominic said.

‘I'd never have found the nerve, never have had the cheek to do that,' Polly said. ‘It's business, just business.'

‘Concerning Patsy Walsh?'

‘No,' Polly said, steeling herself, ‘concerning us.'

‘Us?'

‘Your family and my family,' she said. ‘Your father and my father.'

His surprise was palpable, a kind of alarm.

He said, ‘My father lives in America. What does he have to do with us?'

‘My father didn't steal from your father,' Polly said. ‘My daddy had nothin' to do with the money that went missing. You know it. You've known it all along. I know it too now.'

‘If he – why did he run then? Why did he enlist?'

‘Because somebody accused him and he was afraid.'

‘Afraid?'

‘Afraid that your father would do to him what somebody did to Tommy Bonnar. Afraid for his life, and my mother's life too, probably. He took the blame and ran away, just like Patsy, only with more justification.'

‘This is all – all news to me.'

‘Oh, don't pretend,' Polly said. ‘You've taken money from my mammy for years for no reason. There was nothin' to pay back, no debt, honourable or otherwise. I think you knew it. I'm
sure
you knew it.'

‘I was only a boy when…'

‘I thought you'd say that,' Polly told him. ‘You weren't a boy at all, Dominic. You were a young man. Old enough to understand what was going on. I've heard you talk, I've heard talk about you. Precious little goes on that you don't know about. You make it your business to know things. You knew that my daddy was innocent. I think that's why you looked out for us. Took our money with one hand and looked out for us with the other.'

‘Where did you pick up this story?'

‘It isn't a story,' Polly said. ‘It's the truth. I can prove it, if necessary.'

‘Prove it? How?'

She did not answer that question. ‘What's more,' she continued, ‘I think you've had a bit of a conscience about it, which suggests to me that you know who stole the money in the first place.'

‘How could I possibly…'

‘Who pointed the finger at my dad.'

She had kept her temper admirably – so far. Beneath the table, she pressed her knees together and squeezed her fingers tightly into fists.

She was still in command of the situation. At any moment, though, she expected Dominic to say something that would raise her hackles and sweep away her self-control. She would have preferred to talk of things other than the past, matters other than betrayal and deception and extortion. But this was the substance of his life and she could not blink the fact that it was also the bond that had brought them together, that link and nothing much else.

‘I do not know who pointed the finger at your father,' he said. ‘My father may know that but I have no intention of asking him.'

‘What about your uncle?'

‘Guido? What about Guido?'

‘He would know. He's bound to know.'

‘Polly,' Dominic said, ‘that part of it, you have to let it go.'

‘Why should I?'

‘It's too long ago.'

‘God!' Polly said, scathingly. ‘Too long ago! We're still paying for it.'

‘All right,' Dominic said. ‘Eat your soup.'

‘Eat my…'

‘Eat your soup and we will talk about it rationally.'

‘I'm not upset.'

‘You have every right to be upset,' Dominic said. ‘Please. Eat.'

‘Talk about what rationally?' Polly said.

‘How I can best make amends.'

‘I see,' said Polly.

She lifted her spoon and began to eat.

Dominic smiled and began to eat too. They ate in silence for a moment or two then he looked up at her and said, ‘Good?'

‘Yes,' Polly agreed. ‘Very good.'

*   *   *

On her way from the tram Babs encountered Dennis. She had in fact come up behind him as he'd been staggering back from Brady's where he'd been drinking the last of the profits on the sale of the two motorcycles. He had turned the short journey into an epic – at least the alcohol had – and had covered God knows how much territory, reeling from one side of the Calcutta Road to the other in great ragged loops and half-circles so that it seemed like a miracle that he had wound up in Lavender Court at all.

Here whatever was left of his senses – mere homing instinct, perhaps – had kicked in and he had put himself into intermittent communication with the tenement wall, rolling and rubbing along it, guided by the iron works' eternal flame. Babs came clicking round the corner at her customary fast lick and spotted her lover's brother at precisely the same moment as he came into opposition with empty space – a close-mouth – and, deceived by darkness, leaned heavily upon it, leaned and leaned, listing and reeling into the close so that by the time Babs reached him he was lying in an astonished heap on the horizontal stone amid cat pee, crumpled newspapers and crushed cigarette butts.

‘Dennis, for God's sake!' Babs said. ‘Get up.'

‘Canny.'

‘Get' – a toe to the tail-bone – ‘up.'

The mumbled mouthful was not flattering to womankind; Babs didn't take it personally. She leaned over, grabbed Dennis by the lapels and hoisted him to his feet. He lolled against her, burping, his gaze fixed on some translucent will-o'-the-wisp that danced across the backs, that skipped and shimmied over the black pools like sunshine on fresh asphalt. He watched the sonsy fairy dance and felt the lassie's breasts against his back and, though Barbara knew it not, had one of those odd laxative visions that come upon drunks and poets from time to time, a moment of love for all mankind, a woolly, welcoming epiphany that told him what it meant to be a man.

Babs too knew what it meant to be a man.

She side-stepped neatly as Dennis, with surprising ease, chucked up his breakfast and an ocean of brown beer.

‘You are,' she said, ‘disgustin',' and stomped off out of the close, leaving Dennis swaying like a mountain ash and wondering if he should topple forward or backward or if he might somehow make it home to bed.

Babs exited from one close, walked thirty paces, entered the close at No. 10 and, without sympathy for anyone who might be sleeping within, battered on the door of the Hallops' flat until Billy opened it.

Babs was in no mood for sauce. ‘Your brother's lyin' blind drunk in the close next door,' she snapped. ‘Tell Jackie t' go an' fetch him.'

‘Jackie's in bed, but.'

‘Then get him up, sonny, get the bugger up.'

She stomped upstairs to the top-floor landing and rapped on the glossy brown door. No answer; no one, apart from Rosie, was at home. Mammy was at work, of course, and – now she remembered – Polly had told her that she intended going into Glasgow straight from the office and wouldn't be back until late afternoon. Babs toyed with the notion that Polly might be out there with a chunk of
her
money – Auntie Janet's money, technically – stuffed into her handbag, shopping like a mad woman. But that wasn't Polly's style; whatever had taken Polly up town it wouldn't be that, wouldn't be larceny.

Babs let herself in with her latch-key.

She lobbed her hat on to the lady-lamp and went into the bedroom. No Rosie. She took off her coat, tossed it on to the bed and went through the hall to the kitchen. Still no Rosie, no sign of Rosie.

Babs experienced a slight spooky shiver; the deserted kitchen, all clean and tidy, reminded her a little of Lon Chaney's basement in
Street of the Damned.
Anger melding into apprehension, she pulled back the curtain on the niche bed. Rosie's body was not sprawled upon the quilt, however, and Babs, with a little snort at her own stupidity, soon found her sister's neatly printed note upon the table, propped against the bowl that covered the plate that supported the cold pork pie that was supposed to be her, Babs's, lunch.

Gone to the library. Back at four. Love Rosie.

Babs sighed, put on the kettle and, unbuttoning her jumper and blouse as she went, returned to the front bedroom to change.

She felt isolated in the empty apartment, not lonely, certainly not threatened, just – cut off. She'd been feeling that way for several days. She suspected it might have something to do with what had happened with Aunt Janet or maybe with the fact that Rosie was about to land a job in the city, for a job in Glasgow was considered better than a job in grimy old Govan. She was a wee bit envious of Rosie, envious of Polly too. She didn't have her sisters' natural good looks or refinement, the collection of articulate little habits that lifted them, albeit only an inch or two, out of the pack and made them different. She wasn't different. She was much the same as other girls in other closes; not starving, not sick, not ambitious. She didn't want a big house, fancy furniture, fur coats – well, maybe one fur coat: all she wanted was to have an easy time and, now and then, some fun, lots and lots of fun.

Knock-knock.

‘Who's there?'

‘Jackie.'

‘Jackie who?'

‘Don't be a clown, Babs. It's Jackie, from downstairs.'

She had peeled down to her Twix wool-silk vest and drawers, had loosened but not removed her stockings and her elastic pull-on brassiere.

She didn't know why she'd changed or what she was going to change into, what she was going to do for the rest of the afternoon let alone the evening. She had taken her clothes off just to be comfortable and would have munched her pork pie with the plate on her lap and her feet propped on the side of the range, toasting her bum like a bread roll.

She padded into the hall, not dishevelled but – what was the word Polly used, that naughty French word? –
déshabillé.
Yep, she knew what the word meant now, standing there, not even shivering, with Jackie just outside the door. Her niggling sense of isolation departed, erased by Jackie's Hallop's presence.

Suddenly she was herself again, her own sweet, adorable self.

‘Bab-sey, open the bloody door, eh?'

She opened the door.

She struck a pose, one arm raised, hair fluffed out.

‘Hello there, big boy,' she drawled. ‘Whut cain I do faw you?'

‘Jez-zus!' Jackie said. ‘What's this?'

‘What does it look like?'

‘Jez-zus!'

‘Are you just gonna stand there like a dooley?'

‘What? Nah, I'm … I found Dennis.'

‘Good,' Babs said. ‘Now, come
in.
'

‘But you're not decent.'

‘That's because nobody's home.'