“Just a wee dram,” Kenny Kennedy insisted.
“Come on,” Jamie said. “It’s awfy cold out there.”
“Aye then,” Baird said, placing the whisky bottle on the table.
By the time Baird left, Avram was drunk. The whisky and beer had taken hold so that the room and all those in it glowed pleasantly in a light sway in front of him. Even the throbbing from his infected finger had ceased. Megan’s hair shone back at him in a golden shimmer from across the table. He tried to focus on her features but her face just remained as a beautiful blur. With a fascination, he observed the movement of her wrist as she cut up slices of chicken for her father, then the profile of her head as she turned to laugh at something her mother had said. He struggled to his feet, bending his knees slightly so he could grip the arms of his chair. From his position, he managed to turn his head slowly towards the head of the table. All activity in the room appeared to cease. There was a silence except for the beat of the wall-clock. The sound held his attention for a few seconds until he realised he had to speak.
“Something I want to say.” Avram wasn’t sure if the words had actually come out or had remained trapped inside his fuzziness. “Something to say,” he repeated just to make sure. “Something to say.”
Kenny Kennedy looked up from his slump. One eye open. The other squeezed tight over the ache in his gum. “Go on, lad. Get on with it. Speak yer piece.”
“Thank you. Thank you all for this Christmas dinner. It was delicious.”
“Well said,” the gamekeeper shouted, thumping the table with his fist. “Short and sweet. Now sit down and haud yer whisht.”
Avram felt the sweat form on his forehead. Then the thought to take a hand off the chair arm to wipe his brow, followed by the fear he might fall over if he did. “No, no. There’s more.” He moved his head back to look at Megan, struggling with the formation of what he hoped was a smile on his lips. “I’d like to ask permission to marry your daughter. Yes. That’s it. Permission to marry your daughter, sir.” His head flopped towards his shoulder as he tried to look at Megan. From this sideways angle, he thought he saw her hands flash to cover her mouth. These same hands moved away to reveal her lips – an oval shape whichever way he looked at her. “No,” he heard her utter, a pleading edge to her voice he cared not to register. “Oh no,” she said.
“He’s fou.” A voice behind him now. Jamie. “And he’s talkin’ shite. Megan’s no going to marry him. Not over my dead body.”
Avram stretched out his arms towards Megan. “What is it? What’s happening here? What is happening …?”
“It’s Jamie,” she said. “It’s all because of Jamie.”
And it was Jamie who wrapped his arms round him from behind, pulled him backwards over his chair which fell away to the side. He tried to claw out of the grip but the hold was too strong. As he was dragged out of the room, he heard Megan scream. Kenny Kennedy was shouting too, echoing Avram’s own questioning thoughts: “Whit’s going on with ye women? Whit’s going on? Will someone tell me whit’s goin on?”
Everything seemed to move slowly for Avram as he was bounced along the hallway. He noticed the empty milk buckets in the dairy. A bunch of dried flowers hanging from a beam in the roof. A sampler of Lloyd-George lying half-finished on a shelf by the doorway. Then there was a sudden rush of cold as the front door was opened and he was pushed outside into the snow. He stumbled a few feet, turned, fell flat on his back. Looking up, he saw Jamie standing full in the doorway, his arms stretched from doorpost to doorpost. Like a vision of Christ, Avram thought.
“Don’t ye ever come here again,” Jamie screamed, his voice echoing across the yard. Avram heard the dog bark in response. “Megan’s no going to marry ye. She’s getting engaged to Charlie Sinclair, ye wee Jew tinker. Charlie Sinclair it will be.”
Avram heard the swish of his scarf and jacket landing beside him, the door slamming shut, loosening some snow from the roof in a rush to the ground. Shouts from inside the cottage, Jamie’s voice dominating the rest. Then everything quietened to a murmur. Charles Sinclair. Charlie fucking Sinclair. He should have known. Or maybe he had known all along. Seen it in the sly way she had taken the pilot’s arm on the stile at their first meeting. Sensed it from her constant refusal to never let him inside her. Saving herself. For Charlie Sinclair. Of the Royal fucking Flying Corps. Two massive spasms in his stomach. He couldn’t hold back and twisted to retch on the ground. His eyes teared, he threw up his food until the painful coughing ceased and he was left to observe the colourful, steaming mass splattered across the snow. The muscles in his abdomen ached from the effort. Slowly, he turned away from his vomit, laid his head back in the snow. He lay still for several minutes, the pain behind his eyes forming a skin over his deeper pain. Such a clear night. So many stars. Such a vast universe. He waited until the moon reappeared from behind some scudding clouds. Waited until the chill began to pierce him. Waited for Megan’s call to return to the cottage. But none came.
With difficulty, he raised himself to his feet, fumbled to put on his jacket and gloves. He thought about raising a fist to the cottage door but instead brushed the snow off his bicycle, dragged it out on to the roadway. Several times he tried to mount and ride but his drunken state and the thickness of the snow prevented any success. He pushed it through the village but about a mile further up the road he decided to leave it hidden behind a tree. For a good while, he stood in front of the hiding place trying to make sure he would remember the spot when he returned.
The snow had stopped falling and the whole countryside was shrouded by an eerie light. It was as if all the cracks in the earth, all the divisions in humanity, all his feelings of loss, rejection and humiliation, were healed over by this unblemished sheet of whiteness. And then there was the deafening silence. He stopped and listened. Not an echo. Just pure, deadened, muffled landscape. Until a slurry of snow fell to the ground with a swoosh from an overladen branch. And then silence again. Despite all that had happened back at the cottage, he felt his soul light.
The cloudiness lifted from his brain and there was clarity of thought as he concentrated on surviving his situation. The alcohol in his bloodstream might have sustained him the first two miles, but now he felt the cold begin to claw its way into his bones, to chill the marrow, to clog the flow of blood. He had another six miles or so to trudge in the freezing cold, and he was not sure if he had the energy or will to sustain himself. He half-hoped, half-imagined he heard the whinnying of a horse behind him, and Megan would be there to rescue him. For she could not possibly leave him to walk home like this. Or maybe it was Jamie he heard, coming to beat him senseless. Or perhaps it was the chariot of the Lord, waiting like a divine vulture for his demise.
The snow came again, thicker this time, in a blinding swirl all around him. He found it difficult to keep to the road, wandering off from time to time on to the grass verges, once lurching into a ditch and through a coating of ice. His boots were soaked through, his feet and hands were numb, his finger ached, his cheeks and lips were chafed to a prickling iciness, the taste of stale sick coated his mouth. But he had no choice except to plough on. For there was not a household or a barn for shelter between where he stood and his uncle’s cottage.
He plodded onwards, each step heavier than the next, his breath rasping cold in his chest. The snow came faster, heavier, blinding his eyes, tiring his feet. He tucked his hands into his jacket but there was no warmth to be found there. A total lack of heat anywhere. A cold world steeped in blue moonlight. He tried to keep standing but it was no use. There was no more strength in his limbs, no more desire to continue. Just an awful heaviness. He stopped trying any more. He let himself fall on to his knees, then tipped over on to the ground by the side of the road.
Again, silence. A thick muffled quiet. And such a pleasant stillness. There was no chill now. Just a sensation around his body that could be hot or cold. He touched his face with his frozen gloves. Nothing. No sensation. He laid his head back d
own, turned one cheek to his pillow of snow. This was where he would die. On the road between Lorn and Glenkura, in the shire of Argyll. Avram Escovitz, son of Rachel. Father unknown. Who fled Russia for Scotland and the Gorbals. Son in all but legal name to Herschel and Martha Kahn. Avram Escovitz. Who could have been as great a footballer as Patsy Gallacher. Who could have made his fortune from the manufacture and sale of waterproof clothing. Let down financially by Mendel Cohen. Forbidden to play the game he loved by Papa Kahn. Rejected as worthless by Celia Kahn. Deceived and humiliated by Megan Kennedy. Frozen to death as a credit draper in the Western Highlands. Avram Escovitz. This was he. Avram Escovitz. Who died a nothing.
Forty
AVRAM OPENED HIS EYES. Heavy lids. Closed and opened again. Such an effort. Shadows danced across the hewn beams and thatch. He tried to move his arms but they were pinned to his side by the tight wind of the blankets. He remembered there had been a cold so terrible the blood had frozen in his veins, the air had iced up his lungs, the skin had rubbed raw on his cheeks and lips. But now he was warm again. Blood-warm. Bed-warm under these unfamiliar blankets. Bottle-warm from the earthenware container nestling cozy by his feet. But at his core there was still a slab of coldness. And in his head throbbed a dreadful ache.
He heard a breathing and a stirring beside him. With difficulty he turned his head. His cheek grazed sore against the pillow. No candles. No cruisie. Just the light of the fire. The deep earthy smell of the peat. The frost etched in a sworled glow on the window pane. Frost. Jack Frost. And a figure huddled on a stool by the hearth.
He tried to mouth the words of recognition. But his throat scratched dry. He tried again.
“Baird,” he managed in a rasp.
“Aye.” Baird moved in close, bringing with him the dry musty odour of horse hair.
“Here. Drink. It’ll warm you.”
He smelt the whisky, shook his head. “Water.”
Baird scratched his bald mound and disappeared from view.
Avram heard the sound of the pitcher pouring and soon there was a tin cup before his lips. Baird’s rough hand was at the back of his neck as his head was lifted to the rim. The rawness of the metal edge grazed his cracked lips and the liquid washed against his tongue. The water was freezing cold. He tried not to swallow. Tried not to extinguish this savoured warmth in his belly. But Baird tipped the cup further, forcing more water into his mouth while drops dribbled down his chin and on to the coverlet. His parched throat ached to be soothed. He swallowed. Shivered and swallowed again. The cold pierced his stomach for an instant then there was warmth again. A small victory for the heat of his body. He relaxed, drank some more until his head was laid back on the pillow.
“Where am I?”
“My place. I’ll make you some tea.”
He watched as Baird fixed up a brew from a kettle already boiling in the hearth. The man hummed as he worked.
“I thought ye were dead,” Baird said, looking up from his task. “No, that’s no true. First, I thought ye was just a sack of something. Then when I saw it was a body, I was sure it was a corpse. The corpse of a deer or some other stricken beast. Another while and I wouldnae have seen ye at all. Covered up with snow ye would have been. Just like a wee cairn. But I saw ye.” Baird raised a finger to his eyes. “Nothing much gets passed these. I can spot a fox tail at twa hundred paces. Just ask the gamie.”
“When?”
“A good four or five hours ago. I managed to get a wee dram between yer lips. And lucky there were covers on the cart. Drove like the devil to get ye here. The road was almost snowed over. But Bessie’s got me through worse.”
Baird approached the cot and loosened the blankets. Avram raised himself up, took the offered mug of tea. He was glad to hold the heat in his hands, press it against his chest. He closed his eyes. Such a weight of tiredness. He tried to think back those four or five hours. Baird was right. Another few minutes and he would have just been a snowy mound invisible to rescue. Baird from the Laird had saved his life.
“Warming up?”
Avram nodded.
“So what was ye doing out there in weather fit for no man or beast? My good self and Bessie excluded, who are used to such extreme conditions. Which is just as well, given yer predicament.”
“I was thrown out by the Kennedys.”
Baird stared at the glass in his hands, gently rolling it between his fingers.
“Can’t imagine that. Good people, so they are. Hard to see them throw a soul to the mercy of weather such as this.”
“There was … a misunderstanding.”
“I see. A misunderstanding, is it? No more than that?”
“No more.”
Baird picked up the poker, fiddled with the peat on the fire. A burst of smoke billowed out into the room.
“Damp,” Baird observed, but continued poking.
Avram drank his tea. A strong brew. He felt his strength returning. And a hunger too.
“Must have been some misunderstanding,” Baird said.
“It was.”
“It’s no like Kenny Kennedy to shove a man out into such a cold.”
“It was Jamie that did it.”
“Aye, Jamie. Well, that’s different then.”
“Why is that different?”
“Jamie Kennedy has a hardness in him.” Baird vigorously scratched the stubble on his cheek. “If ye don’t mind, I’ll see to Bessie. Get some more peat.”
While Baird went out into the cold, Avram found the strength to get out of bed, sit by the fire. Baird came back with some apples that had run loose in the cart.
“It’s beautiful out there,” Baird said. “All of a whiteness. You wouldn’t know where land ends and loch begins.”
Avram knew the beauty of that whiteness. He had been prepared to let it swallow him up in its silence.
“There’s some bannocks there for toasting,” Baird said.
Avram was glad to oblige, prodding a fork into one of them, holding it to the flame.
“So what happened to Jamie Kennedy?” he asked Baird. “You said there was a hardness.”
“That’s a story for a long night.”
“A long night is what we have, Mr Baird.”
“Ye could say that.”
“I do say that.”
“Ye’ve never heard it before? Jamie Kennedy and Jean McKenzie. Jean now married to Donald Munro. Jamie and Jean Munro?”
“No. I never knew there was a connection.” Although he did remember the laughter on Jean’s face that day of the procession in Oban when Jamie lifted her up on his return from the war.
Baird poured a good few fingers of whisky into his mug, poked the fire, settled on his stool. “It’s a sad tale to tell,” he sighed. “They were the best of friends. Jamie and Jean. Since they were bairns. Always together. As if they were joined together. Like these twins I read about in the papers. The ones that came from America to see the King. Did ye read about them? Siamese. Like the cats. Can ye imagine that? One of them even got married.” Baird slapped his thigh. “Now that sets the mind thinking.”
“What were you saying about Jamie and Jean?”
“Like I says, Jamie and Jean were like brother and sister, never saw one without the other, that’s the honest truth. Twa peas in a pod. Everyone says they’d get married. Even when they were little ’uns. Just as easy as putting one foot in front of the other.” Baird sipped at his whisky. Slowly. Savouring each mouthful. And then peering over the rim of his glass, he said: “Until the fire, that is.”
Avram pulled the toasted bannock away from the flame, took a bite out of the warm oatcake. Baird watched him eat, anxious to continue the telling.
“And what fire was that?” Avram asked, after a couple of mouthfuls.
“The fire at McKenzie’s farm. Must be over ten years ago now. No-one ever knew what really happened that night. Both Jean’s parents burned to death in their croft. Jamie was there, too. He got out straight away. But Jean was trapped. They say beams
fell all around her. Her screams could be heard for miles. Even Mad Aggie said she heard the shrieks. But there might be a doubt to that claim, given the distance. More like she heard the screaming in her own head. Anyway, that was the last time anyone heard any sound from Jean. Jamie went back in to get her. A brave wee lad so he was. There was not a scratch on her. But she never spoke again.”
“What happened after that?”
“The whole community was in shock, as you would expect from such an awful event. And what with Jean having no kin, being left an orphan like. Everyone thought the Kennedys would take her in. But they didn’t. And no-one knows why. It’s no as though they were unkind folk, being good people, like I said previous. But they kept the twa youngsters apart. It could be they just didnae have the resources to bring up another child. There were rumours, of course. Some say it was Jamie who started the fire, accidental like, that killed her parents. And that’s what made her dumb, so she wouldna have to speak the unspeakable. Others say it was Jean herself that did it, and Jamie witnessed it. A turned-over cruisie perhaps. People here just wanted the story buried, anyway. I don’t even think the constable was called from the town. Accidental death. A big shock to us all.”
“So who brought up Jean?”
“It was Helen Munro who fetched her. Donald’s mother. She had just lost her husband, and what with Donald staying away at the pharmacy in Oban most of the time, the old woman was lonely out there on the point. Jean got a home and Helen Munro got company until she died. And then Donald got a young wife.”
“Not a very happy one, from the looks of it.”
“Aye,” Baird yawned. “She’s had a bit of a tragic life, that young Jean. Anyway, I’m going to turn in.”
Baird reclaimed his cot and soon the man was rattling away in a snore. Avram stayed up the night, wrapped up warm in the rocker, staring at the dancing, dying flames, imagining the tiny figure of Jean Munro trapped within. Screaming. Jean Munro. Who had locked away her voice the way he would try to lock away his pain.
The Credit Draper Page 26