The car behind sounded its horn and I looked ahead to see the toothless mouth of the carter shape something obscene as he furiously waved his arm about to indicate I could pass his cart. I drove on, but something sat heavy in my chest whenever I thought about that small boy and his lack of future.
It was then that I made a decision about my own future. A long overdue one.
CHAPTER TWENTY
As if to reinforce my decision, I drove past my digs and, sure enough, the Jowett Javelin was parked outside. White’s visits were obviously becoming more frequent and less discreet. I drove on. Decision made and confirmed.
Back in the office I sat at my desk and did a few calculations. Or re-calculations. The classified ad I had circled in the evening paper had been for a largish top floor apartment in Kelvin Court, a six-storey complex on Great Western Road. The apartment was considerably more up-scale than the places I’d looked at so far; Kelvin Court was an elegant Art Deco building that had been put up in the late Thirties. But it wasn’t the style or the size of the flat that set it apart: what had made it an unusual choice for me was that it wasn’t for rent, it was for sale. And that would mean, for the first time in ten years, putting real roots down in Glasgow.
When I had considered buying the flat, I had sat at my desk and totalled up all of the accounts and stashes I had put together since Germany, including my Nibelungengold — the little superannuation plan I’d arranged for myself in Hamburg and to which Hopkins had alluded. All together it was a tidy sum: enough to place me in the property-owning classes.
But that had been before my epiphany.
As I had sat watching that small boy play in the waste ground’s oily muck, a revelation had come to me. A revelation so clear and bright and shining, it made any received by Abraham, Moses or Mohammed look equivocal and woolly. And what had been burned into my particular stone tablet had been simple: Lennox, what the FUCK are you doing here?
Naturally, it wasn’t just the little roadside tableau that had convinced me, there was the nagging sting every time I thought about how Fiona White had rejected me for some insignificant little pen-pusher. And, of course, Canada was a long way for Hopkins to reach, although I guessed he could, if he put his mind to it.
So now, instead of calculating down-payments and mortgages for a property that would anchor me in Glasgow, or how much I could afford on a new car to drive at walking pace through the smog, I was working out how much I could mail and wire to an account in Canada, and how much it would be safe to carry on me.
I made several ’phone calls that afternoon. By the time I was finished I had the dates and prices of passage to Halifax, Nova Scotia and quotes per crate for shipping my stuff back. After the last call, I swung my captain’s chair around so I could look out of my office window at the dark graphite sky above the darker hulk of Central Station. Lighting a cigarette, despite the gloom I felt bathed in a warm light and resisted the urge to yell ‘So long, suckers!’ at the commuters bustling in and out under the ornate wrought iron of the station’s entrance canopy.
Glasgow was bad for me. And I was none too good for it. There had been a time, right after the war, when we had suited each other, but the way things had been going, and despite all of my efforts to clean up my act, the truth was I knew too many of the wrong people here and had gotten involved in too many of the wrong kind of goings-on. I had pinned too much on Fiona White without knowing what it was I was pinning on her. The truth was, just like me and Glasgow, Fiona and I would probably be better off without each other.
Somewhere along the line, I had gotten it into my head that I wasn’t ready, wasn’t clean enough to go home to Canada, as if I had been loitering in Glasgow in some kind of quarantine, afraid of taking my contamination back home with me. Everything Hopkins had said to me about my past, about the dead men and broken hearts in my wake, had been true, and I guessed I’d always been afraid to drag the ghost of my recent past, like Jacob Marley’s chains, back to Canada.
Growing up in Saint John had been a different time, a different place — and I had been a different person. The Kennebecasis Kid, all big ideals and big ambitions. Or maybe I hadn’t, and it just took the war to unlock whatever it was that lay waiting to turn me into a wartime killer and a post-war asshole.
Maybe it was possible to become the Kennebecasis Kid again. Or something like him. My folks were still back there and, even though he had officially retired, my father was a big enough figure in the community to pull a few strings for his prodigal. Maybe I couldn’t put it all behind me, but I could have a damn good try. At the very least, it would save me the depressing prospect of looking for new digs in Glasgow.
I took a few runs at the wording of a cable to my folks, but decided it would be best to wait till I had everything sorted. There was always the chance that I might wake up the following morning full of forgiveness for Fiona’s rejection and a new-found love of squashed-flat square sausage, Scotch and smog.
But I wasn’t counting on it.
I left the office before five.
It was late night closing and I headed to R.W. Forsyth’s, on the corner of Renfield Street and Jamaica Street — a stone’s throw from my office. It was a convenience that had cost me dear over the years: Forsyth’s was a six-floor, top-end tailor and gentleman’s outfitter and I had had a habit there of spending out of proportion to my income. The salesmen in Forsyth’s styled themselves as ‘gentlemen’s gentlemen’ and it always disconcerted me how pleased they were to see me. There was such a thing as being too good a customer.
I was welcomed by ‘Robert’ who had served me before. The Ronald Coleman-type moustache on his upper lip looked like the product of pencil and ruler, and he was immaculately turned out and barbered in a way that was more prissy than well-groomed. I had guessed long ago that Robert was a gentleman’s gentleman in more ways than one. He had an effeminate way of speaking, which was emphasized by his attempts to sound cultured and approximate what he thought a gentleman should sound like, despite his grammar having shadows of Govan in it.
I explained to Robert that all I needed was four shirts, four pairs of socks and some underwear: I had decided not to go back to my digs that night and needed the change of clothes. Robert looked disappointed, but I wasn’t sure if it was because I had bought too little or that what I had bought didn’t call for him measuring my inside leg. If he was disappointed with that, he was devastated when I answered his question about if I wanted everything I had bought put on my account.
‘No thanks, I’ll pay cash. In fact, while I’m at the cash desk I’ll settle my outstanding balance. I’m closing my account.’
Robert looked shocked; crestfallen in the unique manner of the salesman on commission.
‘Oh jings no, Mr Lennox. I am very sorry to hear that. After all of these years? I do so hope you’re no’ dissatisfied with the service with what we’ve endeavoured to provide you with.’
‘No, no… it’s not that at all, Robert. It’s just that I’m probably going to be… out of town… for a while.’
‘Well, Mr Lennox, we are always here at your disposal, so we are.’
I told him I appreciated it and left with my packages tucked under my arm. I dumped them in the boot of the Atlantic before heading up to Sauchiehall Street. I went into Copland and Lye and, after picking up a new shaving kit and some toiletries, bought two suitcases and a trunk and arranged for them to be delivered to my office the next morning.
Finding a hotel room in Glasgow in November was never going to be difficult.
The Paragon Hotel was in the West End and across the narrow street it faced the Glasgow School of Art, an ornate Art Deco Mackintosh-designed building of which Glaswegians were almost religiously proud. Maybe it was just my contrary and cussed turn of mind, but the Art School building always struck me as out of proportion with the street it was on and reminded me of some overly ornate Viennese bus station.
What the Paragon Hotel was a paragon of remained a mystery to me
, unless it was mediocrity. It was neither good nor bad, and its blandness somehow fitted with my need for the nondescript and anonymous. The cute copper-redhead behind the reception desk certainly wasn’t mediocre. She was about twenty-two or — three with pale green eyes and an exemplary set of curves and looked very pleased to see me. I didn’t know if it was my boyish charm that won her over or if she was just relieved to get a booking at that time of year. She asked how long I would be staying in the hotel and I paid for three nights in advance, telling her that it could be longer, but I would let them know over the next couple of days.
For some reason I did not fully understand, I checked in under a phoney name, telling the redhead I was a Mr Kelvin. This small act of deception surprised even me, and I told myself that I had done it as a precaution, given the interest that Hopkins had taken in me of late and his fondness for attaching invisible tails to anyone he thought might be worth the scrutiny. The truth was probably more that I needed a rest from being me; or maybe it was part of my transition back to an earlier definition of me. Whatever the reason, my pseudonym gave me a strange comfort.
The redhead gave me the key to number twelve and I told her I could find my own way up, despite my instinct to follow her up a staircase. She informed me that there was a shared bathroom at the end of the hall and announced, with great pride, that the hotel now boasted, on the second floor, that most up-to-date of conveniences: a Television Lounge. I thanked her and went up to my room, a square functional box with no view to speak of. The bathroom, common to all rooms on the floor, was reasonably clean and I washed, shaved and patted my jaw fresh with cologne before changing into one of my new shirts. The dining room was on the ground floor and my table was set into the bay window, looking out across the street. Only two other tables were occupied, one by an older couple with a gangly, bookish-looking daughter. Cherishing my quiet anonymity, I took no interest in the other diners, who returned my indifference. The meal was perfect: bland and forgettable.
Then I went up to my room and turned in early.
I slept like a baby.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The cute redhead was on duty the next morning at breakfast and I spun her a few lines and she smiled while she served me bacon, eggs, fried oatcake, black pudding and square sausage on what I first thought was a wet plate, but then realized was glossed with the fat that had leeched out onto it from the food. I tried not to think about how much more fat would be leeching out into my arteries and consumed my ‘Full Scottish Breakfast Medley’ with as much gusto as I could manage. The truth was it was less of a medley and more of a cardiac funeral march, but I tucked in anyway.
I had half expected that I would wake up in my hotel bedroom with that disconcerting feeling of not knowing where I was for a moment, but I hadn’t. The instant I had woken, I had known where I was and what I was going to do that day. It was going to be a big day and I determined to meet it with enthusiasm, an emotion I had become especially unaccustomed to over the last few years. And if I was going to embrace the day with gusto and resilience, then my digestive system was just going to have to do the same.
A month, I thought to myself. Or maybe six weeks. It would take me that long to arrange everything about the business and, in any case, I still had the Frank Lang case to finish for Connelly’s Union — if there was any end to the case. In the meantime, I decided it would be best to keep my decision from everyone, including Archie. Just until I got it all sorted out. I’d see Archie all right before I went. I might even hand the business over to him; but maybe that would just be handing him a poisoned chalice.
Getting to the office early, I was at my desk when Archie arrived. Before he headed off for a morning’s spying on Sauchiehall Street store assistants, I asked him if he could round up Twinkletoes for that afternoon; I had a job for him.
I joined the small queue waiting for the bank doors to open at nine-thirty. When I eventually got to the desk, I struggled to get the teller to understand that I wanted to withdraw everything from my cash account and wire the balance from my savings account to a bank in New Brunswick. It took ten minutes of explaining and the intervention of an under-manager before the penny eventually dropped, as if the removal of funds from their bank was an act of incomprehensible folly, and all the time I was given the impression that I was taking away their money, not mine. It made me more appreciative of Jonny Cohen’s instant withdrawal methods, but I lacked his stocking mask and sawed-off.
‘I’m afraid that will take some time to arrange,’ said the under-manager with a shake of his head, referring to the wire transfer. ‘Quite some time. But we should have it transferred by the beginning of next week. Are you sure you want to close your accounts, Mr Lennox?’
‘I’m moving back to Canada,’ I explained. ‘I would have thought that a transfer like that could be done much quicker.’ I felt like asking if they’d considered a faster method, like passenger pigeon or pony express, but I didn’t. The cash would see me through all I had to do and there was still a lot to be organized.
When I got back to the office, I used the ’phone number from the newspaper advertisement and left a message for the old bargee. I guessed it was his son who was ‘on the telephone’ and I explained that I wasn’t in the market for a long-term let any more but, if the bargee was interested, I’d like to rent the barge for a month on a static basis. The son agreed to pass on the message and we arranged that I would ’phone back early that evening.
Again I tried to contain my shock as I stepped out from my office building onto Gordon Street to feel the prickle of an all-pervading chill drizzle whisked into my face by a swirling wind. Glaswegians perpetually maintained that this type of rain — smirr, as they called it — always got you more wet, soaked you more thoroughly, than normal rain. The logic behind this remarkable piece of Glaswegian physics was beyond me. Having an office directly opposite Central Station had its advantages and, instead of walking around the corner to where I’d parked the car, I took a cab from the station rank and told the cabbie to drop me off at the Charing Cross garage where I hired the bank run van each Friday. I had telephoned ahead and the van was ready for me, despite it not being the usual day or time, and I drove it back and parked it close to the office.
I’d locked up the office when I’d left to pick up the van and I was aware of the stairwell being darker than usual as I made my way back up it on my return. The human eclipse blocking out what light came in through the landing window was waiting patiently for me outside my office.
‘You got a job for me, Mr Lennox?’ Twinkletoes McBride asked amiably, but resonated menacingly in the echo chamber of the stairwell. ‘Archie said you was wanting me this afternoon.’ He pronounced Archie ‘Erchie’ and afternoon, ‘effternoon’. I knew that when I left the city, I would miss the majesty of the Glaswegian vowel, flatter and broader than the Saskatchewan prairie.
‘Nothing grand, Twinkle,’ I said. ‘I just need to borrow your muscles.’
‘Oh aye? Nae problem, Mr L. Do I need to get any tools?’
‘No, no, nothing like that…’ I said emphatically, seeing he’d gotten the wrong idea. ‘I just need you to help me load and unload some stuff onto a van. But give me a minute… I have a quick ’phone call to make.’
He waited in the hallway while I ’phoned the bargee’s number again. This time I got to speak to him directly and he agreed to the short-term let.
‘Okay, Twinkle, we’re on,’ I said, as I came back out onto the landing, locking the office door behind me.
‘Where’s we goin’, Mr L?’ he asked.
‘I’m moving address…’
I parked the van where I’d positioned Archie’s car to watch the house before. We arrived at one-thirty and I decided to give it until two or quarter after. If I could avoid Fiona, I would; if I couldn’t, I wouldn’t.
I cursed the predictability of it all: the Jowett Javelin pulled up outside at two and James White trotted up to the house. After five minutes he re-emerge
d with Fiona in tow and they drove off.
‘Okay, Twinkle,’ I said, ‘let’s go.’
I drove up to the space vacated by the Javelin and parked, leaving enough tailgate space for us to load the van.
‘We’re just going to get my stuff. There’s not much but I’ve got a couple of heavy crates with books in them.’
‘Sure thing. You doing a midnight flit? You know, with us waiting for the place to be empty?’
‘No. I’m paying up for the month,’ I said. A ‘midnight flit’ was what the Scots called a sneaking your stuff out of property to avoid paying overdue rent.
It took less than twenty minutes for us to clear out my rooms. Most of the time was spent carefully packing my suits and other personal stuff into the trunk and two suitcases I’d bought from Copland and Lye, while Twinkle lugged my crated library down and into the van with disturbing ease and speed.
I felt strangely numb leaving the rooms I had occupied for more than three years. Everything going through my head came together from opposite directions, continually clashing. Standing there, I knew I had had real feelings for Fiona White. Strong feelings that I’d felt only once before. Yet I had this overpowering urge to get as far away from her, from Glasgow, from everything I’d known there.
‘You all right, Mr Lennox?’
I turned to see McBride standing there, his demi-brow furrowed with concern.
‘I’m fine. That us?’
He nodded.
‘Then let’s go.’
On the way out, I pushed an envelope under Fiona’s door. More than two months’ rent in cash. I hoped that would cover things until she found a new lodger. Nothing else: no note, no explanation, no forwarding address.
I pushed my key through the letterbox as I stepped out onto the street, pulling the main door closed behind me.
‘I want you to understand something,’ I said to Twinkle as we drove out of town along Great Western Road. ‘Where we’re going… no one knows about this place. No one. We’ll dump most of my stuff there but only you and I are to know about it. Got that?’
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