“We still are. We’re in the Cup this year.”
“With a bit of luck, ye might bring wan o’ the big teams to the town. That would be grand.” Jamie gathered the two young women into the wings of his greatcoat. “Well, we’re off to celebrate.”
“Avram’s with us,” Megan said.
Jamie’s look made Avram feel something he hadn’t felt for a long time. He felt Jewish.
* * *
The celebrations strayed long into the clear night. A night lit by the HMS Cumberland in the bay, its hull, deck and masts festooned with fairy lights so that its outline shone against the hills of Mull like some wonderful fairground attraction. Suspended from wires slung between the ship’s two masts hung a giant illuminated crown – His Majesty’s crown shining over His Majesty’s ship. The crown of victory for King and country.
“It looks like the moon,” Megan said from her perch on the esplanade railings.
Avram could see the real moon beyond. A full moon it was too, but shaded by thin clouds it shone in pale comparison to its bright sovereign counterpart. He greedily sucked in the clear air, glad to be out of the smoky swelter of the Oban Arms. The place was packed, all the pubs in the town were packed, their trade swelled by military pay packets and coins scavenged out of jam jars, biscuit tins and old teapots just for the occasion. Jamie was still inside, shouting himself hoarse over the froth of beer and the piano music at old friends. Kenny Kennedy was there too, his lanky face lit up from the whisky and the proud pleasure of having his son back unscathed. The war was over and the gentry would be flocking back to the Western Highlands, where a gamekeeper’s life would be a busy one.
Despite the hour, the esplanade was busy with couples taking in the night air, the occasional groups of soldiers and sailors strolling and staggering, clinging desperately to their male camaraderie, taunting each other with their rivalry. But the main party was in the centre of the town. That was where the ceilidhs were. And the cluster of pubs belching out frenzied reels, jangling tunes and drunken clientele. That was where the fights broke out between the different regiments as they turned their aggression on each other, now that the enemy was defeated. That was where the young women let themselves be pulled into dark alleys for anxious, penetrating gropes by long-missed male hands. Here on the esplanade, the pedestrians had come for a respite from it all. They had come to reflect on what had been and to consider how things would be in the morning once the streets had been cleared from the drunks and the debris with life in peace-time grinding on anew.
Avram was ready to move on with his life too. His head had been full to bursting with plans ever since the parade. But there had been Jamie and the celebrations and no time to tell Megan. Until now. Now it was quiet, and Megan was rocking back and forward gently on the railings, humming lightly, her face as pale and beautiful as any full moon or illuminated coronet.
“Remember the day we saw the aeroplane?” he said.
“Aye. It was like a dream that day. Seems a lifetime away.”
“I saw the pilot in the parade this morning.”
“Aye, I remember him. What was he called again? Charlie? Charlie Simpson.”
“Sinclair.”
Avram had noticed Sinclair in the town, preparing to fall into the parade. Charles Sinclair of the Royal Flying Corps. He hadn’t recognised the pilot at first. Even when Sinclair had waved at him, he thought the gesture was nothing more than a distracted acknowledgement of the crowd. But then Charles Sinclair had shouted something at Avram and started to mime the action of a crank-handled two-reeled camera. “Just like bookends,” is what Charles Sinclair had said on that spring day, and close to what he shouted again from the parade. “Where is the other bookend?” And the other bookend was sitting beside him now, swinging her legs from the railings just as she had done from her seat on the wing.
“What did he say?” she asked.
“I didn’t really speak to him. But he reminded me of something. I knew at the time that day was important. I remember trying to commit every single detail of it to memory. And now I know why.”
“Because I was part of it.”
Avram smiled. “Of course you were. But there was also the matter of the aeroplane wings.”
“The aeroplane wings?”
“Yes. They were made out of a waterproof canvas. That’s what I need. Waterproof canvas. There must be rolls of the fabric somewhere. And with the war over, the aircraft manufacturers can’t be needing them any more. Where did Sinclair say he’d flown out of? Carmunnock, I think it was. I just need to contact the factory there. Buy the fabric from them or their suppliers. Yards of it. Miles of it.”
“And what would ye dae with fields of waterproof fabric?”
“Remember I told you about that idea of Tam Maclsaac? Waterproof clothing. That’s what he said he needed. I can have Papa Kahn’s shop make up the garments from the material. Claes ’gin the rain for Tam and all the hill-farmers and shepherds in the west of Scotland.”
“All because the pilot ran out of petrol,” Megan said dreamily, her lack of enthusiasm disappointing him. She had turned her attention to the ship in the bay. He looked too. The HMS Cumberland was an impressive sight. With its garland of lights glinting on the still water, it seemed to reflect all his hopes for the future. Mrs Carnovsky had read the tea-leaves right after all. A strange bird would bring him good fortune. And his young soul hummed vibrant from the excitement of it all.
Thirty-six
“SIX TANKS, BOYCHIK,” Uncle Mendel exclaimed from his sprawling stance at the bar of the Oban Arms. “Six tanks.”
Avram sipped at his beer, his attention absorbed by the purple-red bruise that now marked one side of his uncle’s face, running past one eye and upper cheek before seeping underneath the man’s beard. The injury reminded him of the liver-like swelling Roy Begg had once administered to Ginger Dodds. Uncle Mendel had received his bruising when a policeman’s truncheon had thwacked him to the ground in George Square.
“Go on,” Avram urged, enjoying the bitter-sweetness of the dark ale. A stout taste to match this first-hand account of Uncle Mendel’s attendance at the now infamous ‘forty-hour strike’ demonstration. An event he had read about in the Oban Gazette. This was men’s talk. Socialists’ talk.
Fuelled by the malt, Uncle Mendel continued more loudly than before, gathering in attention from the normally taciturn clientele. “Six tanks in the Saltmarket. At the citizens of Glasgow they point their guns. A machine-gun on top of the post office.” Avram followed the direction of a hand, shot out to where the gun-nest might have been. Uncle Mendel swivelled, pointed with his other hand to a spot above the inn door. “See, Avram. A howitzer on top of City Chambers. Why? Only because a job and a roof over their heads the workers want. To Donald Munro tell that, the next time you see him. Tell him soon is the revolution. With my own eyes I saw it.” Uncle Mendel raised the front of his hat, wiped a handkerchief across the sweat of his excitement. “Six tanks. Glaubst du das?”
Avram tried to believe it. Tried to believe that these metal monsters he had seen in newspaper sketches driving the Germans from their trenches were now being turned against their own citizens for fear of their protest.
Uncle Mendel drew up closer and whispered. “Worried is what we have them. Two months ago, about Marxist John MacLean’s release from prison they worried. Three days ago, about the Bloody Friday demonstration at the Square they worried.”
“Who is worried?” Avram whispered back.
“Lloyd-George. And his Government. Wait until the next General Election. The leftists will run Glasgow. The Red Flag we will sing all the way to Westminster.” Uncle Mendel started to hum the first few bars.
The barman sauntered over. “There’ll be no hymns of revolution sung here. I’m surprised, a religious man like yerself behaving in such a manner.”
Uncle Mendel turned to face the publican. “Justice,” he said as if that explained everything. “Justice.”
The barman moved off to serve s
ome customers in the snug. “Aye, Moses, if ye say so. Justice.”
Uncle Mendel called after him. “A people of the law we Jews are. A people of justice. Look at Manny Shinwell.” He turned to face the bar-room again. He was in full swing now, chest pushed out with his moral sense of it all. “Manny Shinwell. Leader of the seamen. He’s a Jew. A month in jail he got for standing up for men of the sea like you.”
“Sounds like a bloody German,” shouted one of the drinkers. “Just like you.”
“I’m not a German,” Uncle Mendel shouted back. “I’m a Jew.”
“Whit’s the difference?”
Uncle Mendel ignored the comment but the heckler slammed his empty shot-glass hard on to the table-top and stood up. The man’s cloth cap was pulled down low over his forehead, his dark beard covered his face high on his cheeks so only his fierce eyes showed. He wore a rough tweed coat belted in a twist dragging almost to the floor. Through black mitts, naked fingers clenched in tight fists. The man’s drinking companion pawed at his sleeve.
“Leave the Jew alane,” he pleaded but the heckler shook him off.
“Whit’s all this shite ye’re talkin’ about revolution? Where were ye, Hun, when the war was on? Makin’ profit off of our poor folk that’s what. Ma sister’s in hock to ye up to her eyeballs. For fancy pinnies and Paisley patterns ye push in front of her greedy eyes.” A finger pointed sharp at Avram. “And the young’un’s at it too.”
Avram recognised the antagonist. The guard at the quarry with the chained dog. “I don’t like this,” he whispered, but Uncle Mendel had already raised himself from his slouch at the bar.
“Who is this sister you talk about?”
“Flora. Flora MacPhee.”
“Madame Flora MacPhee I know. A good customer she is. Never a problem.”
“Aye. That’s because I’m aye stumping up for her debts, ye German traitor.”
“I’m British.” Uncle Mendel fumbled in his inside jacket pocket. “There are papers I have to show it.”
“Fuck yer papers,” the man snarled as he pushed aside a chair, moving in closer, close enough for Avram to see the white quarry dust clogging the man’s nails, the dog hairs lying thick on his coat. “Yer papers don’t count for shite.” The guard sniffed in a swagger around Uncle Mendel, flicking with disdain one of the tassles hanging out of his shirt.
“Yer blood’s German. And yer nose is the big nose of a Jew.” He laughed hard at his comment, looking round the bar for support.
“Come on, Uncle. Let’s go.”
But Uncle Mendel was not to be insulted so easily. “My nose is big,” he said, “so pigs like you I can smell.”
“Fuck ye.” The guard snatched an empty ale bottle off a table, lunged forward. Uncle Mendel was ready but not ready enough. He twisted his head away from the blow but the bottle cracked down, smashed off his shoulder. The guard stumbled forward with the momentum of his own strike. Uncle Mendel turned, grasped the back of his attacker’s neck, slammed his head down onto the splintered glass covering the wooden bar top. The man’s head bounced off the surface and Uncle Mendel plunged it back down again into the remnants of the bottle. The guard screamed as a shard of glass sliced open the side of his cheek.
“Leave him, Moses,” the barman shouted, as he wielded a macelike club in one hand. “Or ye’ll be having this.” With the other, he threw a bar-cloth at the guard’s drinking companion. “Here, Rob. Stop yer man’s bleeding.”
Uncle Mendel’s face had drained of his usual flush and he stared at his offending hand. “Please. Please forgive me,” he said, as he tried to approach his victim. “Forgive me.”
Rob pushed him away. “Ye’ve done enough damage.”
The guard moaned as he held the blood-stained bar-rag to his slashed cheek. Pieces of glass were stuck to his forehead in surface cuts.
“Ye’ll need to get yer pal stitched,” the barman said to Rob. “Aye, ye’ll need to get him stitched.”
Rob began to shepherd his friend out of the pub, but not before the bloodied guard could turn.
“This is no the end, Jew. It’s no the end.”
The bar door swung shut to a few whistles and cheers from the rest of the drinkers.
“Ye’ll no be putting yon Wallie MacPhee on yer Christmas list then,” the barman said to Avram.
“Is that what he’s called?” He repeated the name as if he was remembering a curse word. “Wallie MacPhee.”
“Ye ken him then?”
“Bumped into him once on my rounds.”
“Once is enough if ye ask me. There’s a violence in him even without the drink.”
“Give me a dram,” Uncle Mendel said hoarsely.
The barman poured out a whisky. “Is that what ye call justice then?”
Uncle Mendel brushed the beer and glass from his jacket. The barman nodded to Avram. “Ye’d better get yer man Marxist Moses MacLean to sit down. Before he gets intae any more bother.”
Avram led Uncle Mendel to a far corner. No-one paid them any notice. The behaviour of the guard Wallie MacPhee didn’t speak for these no-nonsense people. If the mood had been against them here, it would have been Uncle Mendel who would have had to leave. He and his uncle, for all his strange garb and customs, were welcome here. Or if not welcome, at least tolerated.
“I’m ashamed,” Uncle Mendel muttered. “Ashamed, ashamed, ashamed.”
“Well, I’m proud of you.”
The speed of Uncle Mendel’s movement took Avram by surprise. At first, he thought it was going to be a slap. Then a hand to his chin, fingers grabbing him around the jaw, bunching his cheeks, forcing his gaze straight ahead. “Look at me, Avram. Look, look, look at me. What do you see?”
Sad eyes. Nathan’s eyes. It was difficult to talk. The grip was loosened. “I don’t know.”
“A religious man do you see? A socialist? A man full of compassion for other human beings?” Uncle Mendel let go his grasp, picked up his whisky glass, poured the contents on to the sawdust floor. The yellowish puddle soaked up fast. Like urine. “No, a man full of vices is what you see. Only anger I showed. For that God will punish me.”
“But the other man started it.”
“Once to hit him perhaps is justice. An eye for an eye. But to continue to rub his face in the glass.”
A drift back into a silence. Avram watched the light outside begin to fade, the imprint of Uncle Mendel’s grip still lingering on his skin. The pub took on a mantle of cosiness as the lamps came on and the fire was stoked up in a welcome of the evening. A violinist picked up the mood with a jaunty melody. Someone with a mouthie joined in. A couple of men tapped their dominoes to the beat.
“Come, boychik,” Uncle Mendel said wearily. “A walk before I return to Glasgow.”
Avram shivered to the feeling of snow in the air. Like a thick cotton blanket, high above him, ready to fall out of a trap-door. Fairy lights were strung along the esplanade in celebration of the Christmas festivities to come, scattering diamonds in a sparkle across the dark water. Cold crept in to the tips of his new boots. He thrust his hands deep into his coat, searching for any warmth there. Christmas. Hanukkah. Festivals of light for the winter darkness. Uncle Mendel beside him, saying nothing.
They ambled along the seafront, stopping only to marvel at the decorated fir tree dominating the square outside the station, the carol singers gathered around its base. A few of their customers, in town for the shopping, paused to wish them season’s greetings. Uncle Mendel raised his hat to them, cheering to the mood and to the attention. They reached a bench on the station platform, sat down. Uncle Mendel leaned forward, head in hands, staring down the track. Avram let him settle.
“I have an idea for the business, Uncle.”
“Nu? Tell me.”
“Waterproof clothing,” Avram said and began to eagerly outline his plan. “Jerkins and leggings. Maybe hats too. All made from waterproof fabric. The material they used for aeroplane skins during the war.”
“And thi
s fabric will come from where?”
“I think the planes were made in Carmunnock. We should be able to get the fabric cheaply now the war’s over. We can start a new business.”
Uncle Mendel sat up, shook his head. “I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Jacob Stein wouldn’t like it.”
“What has Jacob Stein got to do with this?”
“Do you think to Jacob Stein’s customers you can sell your own goods?”
“It’s none of his business.”
“Everything is Jacob Stein’s business.”
“Why?”
“Because he owns the customers. And he owns me.”
“How does he own you?”
“He just does. That’s all.”
“Then I’ll do it myself.”
“No-one can stop you. But your own customers you must find. And capital too.”
“What kind of capital?”
“For the fabric. And the making up of the clothing. Samples for the customers. It all takes gelt.” Uncle Mendel rubbed his thumb and forefinger together to indicate the invisible banknotes. “Where will you get it?”
“You could lend me money.”
“I don’t have any.”
“What about our profits?”
“There is nothing.”
“What? There must be something. After all these months of traipsing round the countryside. The money can’t all have gone in stock.”
“I said there is nothing. If capital you need, you must save for it yourself.”
“Why are you making this so difficult for me? This is a good idea. The farmers and shepherds around here are desperate for this kind of product.”
“Perhaps.”
Uncle Mendel looked away to watch the Glasgow train hiss and steam into the station like some fiery dragon. Passenger doors opened spilling out the country-folk, full of excitement and chat, arms filled with wrapped-up Christmas presents from their big trip to the big city. Avram kept his eye on the prosperous-looking gents with their fine tailored tweeds and shiny shoes, their deeds of profit sitting snug in their leather brief-cases, and knew he wanted to be like them.
The Credit Draper Page 24