The Piper's Tune (28 page)

‘What do you mean by that?' Lindsay demanded.

‘He doesn't mean anything by it,' Miss Runciman said.

‘Keep out of it, Eleanor, please,' Arthur Franklin said. ‘This is a family affair now and doesn't concern you.'

‘Pardon me, sir, but I think it does,' Miss Runciman said. ‘I think you're going to need a cool head and an objective opinion in the very near future.'

‘Do you?' said Arthur, suddenly more puzzled than annoyed. ‘And what might that “objective opinion” be?'

‘That you consider Lindsay's suggestion very, very carefully.'

‘And then what do I do?'

‘Accept it graciously,' Eleanor Runciman said.

*   *   *

Monday was incredibly hot. The torpedo-boat destroyer, the first of six ordered by Baron Yamamoto, Japan's Minister of Marine, was taking shape in the stocks. She was partly plated and her lines well defined but blistering temperatures inside the hull meant that work upon her had slowed to an unacceptable degree.

Mr Arthur had ordered butts brought down to the slip and had appointed several lads to relay canisters of fresh water up the ladders to help the platers and riveters survive, for the Clydesiders – hard men, as tough as they come – were more used to coping with drenching rain and biting cold than a Mediterranean-style heat-wave. By midday several apprentices and one elderly ganger had collapsed with heat-prostration and the moulding loft had been transformed into a hospital where Hector Garrard, an ex-ship's doctor, applied cold packs, hot tea and Belladonna powders before deciding if the patient was fit to return to work or had better be sent home.

George Crush disapproved of Mr Arthur's mollycoddling approach. He regarded the heat-stroke victims as mere malingerers and had spent the morning tramping up and down the planks, berating the foremen for condoning laziness. He would have invaded the loft too, to prod and poke at the prostrate forms on the stretchers there but he was afraid of Hector Garrard who had told him more than once that he would be fortunate to see fifty if he continued to let his temper play havoc with his blood pressure.

The drawing office wasn't much cooler than the yard in spite of wide-open windows and a couple of motor-driven fans that seemed to do nothing but stir the heat like broth in a pot. Pencils became slippery, pens recalcitrant. T-squares, compasses and scales accumulated sweat no matter how often they were wiped and two complex drawings of emergency steering equipment were so badly stained that they had to be scrapped. Nobody was comfortable, nobody happy; nobody, that is, except Tom Calder who seemed to thrive on shimmer and glare and who, on that particular Monday morning, would have crawled inside a Scotch boiler with a smile on his face.

Tom would have preferred to be sipping iced tea under a striped awning on the veranda of the Mackintosh Tea House, of course, or sampling a dish of lemon sorbet under the trees, or if push came to shove strolling the shady side of the piazza with his arm about Cissie Franklin's waist. Life was never quite perfect, however, and mere contemplation of such pleasures kept Tom from boiling up and boiling over like several of his managerial colleagues.

It was early afternoon before he abandoned his board and left the drawing office for a breath of air. He went downstairs into the lane that split the yard, turned right and headed for the snout of land at the corner of the slip around which, in nine weeks' time, the first of the Jap destroyers would slide smoothly into the river. He had rolled down his sleeves, put the stud back into his collar and tightened his tie. He did not, however, deem it necessary to wear his jacket, for, manager or not, he had no intention of melting just for the sake of dignity. He lit a cigarette and, between inhalations, hummed the opening bars of ‘Under the Double Eagle' which, though not the most romantic of tunes, had connotations that Tom could not ignore.

He glanced up at the half-built torpedo-boat destroyer and waved cheerily to two half-naked platers who were hanging, gasping, over the stern.

They, rather startled, waved back.

Still singing to himself, still puffing on his cigarette, Tom moved towards the water's edge to catch a faint whiff of breeze and enjoy the luxury of a few minutes of privacy while he tried to fathom why he had been invited to spend a week of the July holiday at Mr Owen Franklin's country house in Perthshire. He had nothing to keep him in Glasgow but he knew that if he did accept and if Cissie were there too – which undoubtedly she would be – then he would be committing himself irrevocably, and that among the ranks of middle-class traditionalists she would become ‘his Cissie' and he would be stamped as ‘her man'. He was not dismayed at the prospect.

The river smelled of tidal mud and sewage, tarry, metallic and strong. He tossed away the cigarette, stretched his arms like a man holding up a barbell, and took in a contented breath. He had already decided that he would go to Strathmore and risk committing himself to Cissie. If Lindsay or Forbes McCulloch didn't like it – too damned bad.

‘Calder. I say, Calder. Stop there, will you?'

George Crush came hopping down the ladder-way. He sported full managerial fig, brown wool three-piece suit, hard collar, even the tight brown bowler that left an angry red mark on his forehead on the rare occasions when he removed it. His moustache was glossy with perspiration, his complexion slightly more mottled than that of a cooked crab.

‘What do you think you're doing, man?' George shouted.

In the clotted air of the afternoon his voice was as penetrating as a needle or a knife. Tom stopped, turned: ‘Pardon?'

‘Where do you think you're going – like that?'

‘I'm out for a breather, George, that's all.'

‘In that state?'

‘What state?'

‘Half naked.'

‘Half what?'

‘Where's your jacket? Where's your hat?'

‘George, for heaven's sake, it's touching ninety degrees in the drawing office. God knows what it's like—'

‘No excuses, no excuses.'

‘Are you feeling all right, George?'

‘This is how it starts,' the manager shouted. ‘This is how it begins. First it's water for the men, then it's managers throwing off their clothes. Next thing you know we'll have 'Tallies selling ice-cream and bare-naked women waving palm fronds. I'm surprised at you, though, Tom. Fact, I'm disgusted.'

‘George, are you sure you're all right?'

‘I've seen it,' the manager went on. ‘Oooow, I've seen it. I've seen governments overturned and blood flow in the streets for less.'

‘What the devil are you going on about?' Tom asked.

The manic flicker of the eyes steadied. He stepped closer. Tom could feel heat radiating from him, smell the pungent odour of unhealthy sweat. He had often heard the little tyrant raving on before but never like this, never without a rationale. George snorted and poked a forefinger into Tom's breastbone.

‘Hoy!' Tom stepped back.

George Crush followed him, pace for pace.

‘Got your leg over, haven't you, Tom Calder? I've heard. I've been told. Aye, got your leg over, you cunning bastard. Butter won't melt in your mouth, aw naw, but it'll melt on her fanny, won't it? That's your plan, that's your strata— strata – stratagem. Get her on the bed and yourself on the board.'

‘I don't know what you're talking about,' Tom said, though he had an inkling that it had something to do with Cissie and his equanimity had already been shaken by the manager's vehemence. ‘Look, George, I think you should get out of the sun for a while. Come on, I'll take you up to the office and we'll ask Hector to take a look at you.'

‘I'm not sick. You're the one who's sick, Calder.' For a split second his accusations seemed almost justified. ‘Swanning about the 'Groveries arm-in-arm. Holding – Christ! – holding hands.'

‘If you mean…'

‘Could you not have taken her some place private?'

‘George, whatever you may have heard, Miss Franklin and I are not—'

‘Fat cow. Fat—'

‘That's enough!'

‘Forbes, my pal Forbes, keeps me a – abreast of the situation.'

‘What situation?'

‘It's the same old story, old as the hills. You'll step into the partnership and I never will.'

‘I thought you said you wouldn't take a partnership in a gift. You told me it would be against your principles to desert the workers.'

‘Just because I'm not in a position to stick her.'

‘What did you say?'

‘Because I can't stick it in her.' Crush manufactured a raspberry, a sound whose crassness shattered Tom's control completely. ‘Because I can't give her the old pole. That's all they ever want from us, all they think we're good for, these people – the old pole, the old pig-sticker. Well, I wouldn't waste mine on that fat wee Franklin cow, not if you—'

It was hardly a fight, not even a scrap. The gallery that had gathered on the upper level of the hull were none the less impressed that a dour, long leek of a man like Mr Calder had enough savvy to throw a feint before bringing in the right hand; a neat clip, a short jab and finally an uppercut so perfectly timed that it caught Mr Crush right on the button and by God, wouldn't you know it, he went down like a half ton of bricks.

Surprised, impressed and delighted, the gallery cheered.

Tom was less surprised, less impressed and by no means delighted.

He caught George by the lapels as the manager swayed and, dipping his knees, dragged him forward and draped him over his shoulder.

George was no light weight and it took Tom a moment to settle the body with boots foremost and bowler to the rear and set off towards the moulding loft where that old sawbones, Hector Garrard, had set up shop. He felt nothing at first then, dimly, he heard cheering. They were cheering him from the rail. An odd little glow stole over him, a unfamiliar sensation that caused him to straighten his spine and, almost jauntily, step out in time to the Sousa march tune that still pumped away in his head. He hoisted George higher, grasped the broad buttocks with one arm, and raised the other hand not in triumph but in acknowledgement of a satisfaction shared.

Five minutes later he unloaded Crush on to a stretcher in the moulding loft and stood back to let Hector Garrard do his work.

The doctor knelt. ‘What happened? Did he fall? Did he strike his head?'

‘No,' Tom answered. ‘We were just chatting when he suddenly became agitated and began shouting, then – then he fainted. I managed to catch him before he struck the ground.'

‘That's all?'

‘That's it,' Tom said. ‘Is he dead?'

The doctor lifted a lifeless eyelid, felt for the carotid artery, examined poor George's tongue then, raising a bushy eyebrow, glanced up at Tom.

‘Unfortunately,' he said, ‘not.'

It was seven weeks before Manager Crush was considered fit to return to work. By that time summer had begun to fade, Baron Yamamoto's torpedo-boat destroyer was almost ready to be launched, the Great Exhibition had been declared a rousing success.

And Tom Calder and Cissie Franklin, after a brief courtship at Strathmore, had officially announced their engagement.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The Launching Party

‘Look,' Albert Hartnell said, ‘you might say it's none of my business but it is, you know. I'm mean I'm her father, more or less, and if
I'm
not going to look out for her then who is?'

‘Heck of a way you've looked out for her so far,' Forbes said.

‘What's that supposed to mean?'

‘Parading her in pubs and bars all over town.'

‘She never minded it. She liked it.'

‘Showing off her petticoats.'

‘Oh, now! Come now!'

‘Dancing on tables like a music-hall queen.'

‘Did she tell you that?' Albert said.

‘I know what you did to her, Bertie,' Forbes said. ‘The only thing that surprises me is that she doesn't seem to hate you for it.'

‘What I – what I did? And what's that, may I ask?'

‘Corrupted her.'

Albert dipped his mouth to the beer tankard, drank, wiped his moustaches with his knuckle, then said, ‘She didn't need much corrupting, boy, I can tell you. Took to showing off like a duck to water. Took to wrapping men around her finger too. Got that off her mother, I reckon.'

‘Her mother?'

‘Florence's sister.'

‘I was under the impression that Florence's sister was a paragon of virtue.'

‘Some paragon!' said Albert.

‘Devout churchgoer, staunch Christian, that sort of thing?'

‘All front, all face,' Albert said.

‘You don't mean to say…'

‘I do mean to say.'

‘Good God!' Forbes said ruefully. ‘Like mother, like daughter?'

‘In a nutshell, my friend. In a nutshell.'

Albert finished the beer and glanced in the direction of the bar. The new football season had just kicked off and that, together with the attractions of the exhibition, had drained the club of customers. Dice and card tables were deserted and, apart from one listless young country girl, the sofas by the curtain too. Kirby's was peaceful, quiet and cool. Forbes could think of worse places to spend a Saturday afternoon but he wasn't yet prepared to forgive Albert for having telephoned him at Harper's Hill.

‘Is that what you dragged me here to tell me?' Forbes said.

‘I thought it was time we had a bit of a chat.'

‘How did you get my telephone number?'

‘Asked the exchange. Owen Franklin's house. Right?'

‘How long have you known where I live?'

Albert tutted and shook his head. He was less cowed than Forbes would have liked him to be. He had something up his sleeve. Forbes had a notion what it might be and was not entirely unprepared to deal with it. He still smarted, though, at the recollection of Albert's voice coming at him through the earpiece of the instrument in the hallway of Pappy's house and the realisation that he could not keep the various pieces of his life separate much longer.