The Papers of Tony Veitch

by William McIlvanney

  He liked books but they were to him a kind of psychic food that should convert to energy for living. With academics the nature of their discipline seemed to preclude that. To take it that seriously would have annihilated the limits of aesthetics.

  Listening to their exchange of attitudes in what amounted to a private code, he didn’t regret the youthful impulse which had pushed him out into the streets and now brought him back here, by a circuitous and painful route, as an alien visitor. He didn’t want to be included in that clique of mutually supportive opinions that so often passes for culture.

  He remembered what had finally crystallised his rejection of university. It had been having to read and listen to the vague nonsense of academics commenting on the vague nonsense of much of what D. H. Lawrence wrote. Coming himself from a background not dissimilar to Lawrence’s, he thought he saw fairly clearly how Lawrence had put out his eyes with visions rather than grapple with reality that was staring him in the face. You needn’t blame him for hiding but you needn’t spend volumes trying to justify it either; unless, of course, it helped to make your own hiding easier to take.

  ‘A lot of what passes for intellectuality’s just polysyllabic prejudice,’ Laidlaw thought aloud.

  Harkness remembered Laidlaw telling him that he’d left university at the end of his first year.

  ‘Were you glad to get out of here?’

  Before Laidlaw had answered, they saw Mr Jamieson come back in alone. Laidlaw rose to get him a drink. Mr Jamieson took a whisky and joined them.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Tony’s tutor isn’t in today. It’s a pity. He knows Tony well. But the academic year is really over, of course.’

  He was a frail man with thinning grey hair and pale eyes. His voice was gentle.

  ‘But you know Tony Veitch quite well,’ Laidlaw said.

  ‘As a student, yes. He had what I would call a serious intelligence. By that I mean he thought ideas were for living, not just thinking. Hm?’

  He nodded infinitesimally towards the other two, who were still talking. He bit his lip briefly as if dismayed at the garishness of his own indiscretion.

  ‘Academicism, of course, can be mental formaldehyde. A way for people to put their brains on display without actually doing anything with them. Tony wanted more. For him any idea he accepted carried a responsibility to living along with it. He was an interesting thinker. Is, no doubt. It’s some time since I’ve seen him.’

  Laidlaw was set to ask something, Harkness could see, but Mr Jamieson was preoccupied in following his own thought, like someone out to net a butterfly.

  ‘That’s rare, of course. Though less rare here than in some other places. I was glad to come back to Glasgow for that reason. The borders are crossed more easily here, of course.’

  Laidlaw noted the intellectual trick of that ‘of course’, a way of stating something you might only just have realised as if only fools could be unaware of it. It disarmed close examination.

  ‘How do you mean?’ he asked.

  ‘You get a lot of first-generation academics here. And some of them are not inclined to endorse the rules of academe too quickly. There’s a strong autodidact tradition in Scotland, you see. I happen to believe it’s especially strong in the West. Such people don’t submit too happily to academic categories. They can have a refreshing swingeing freedom of mind. Mind you, too often career seduces them and they conform to get success. Every year some Visigoths arrive. And every year I feel renewed hope. Perhaps among them there’s an Attila of the mind – if you’ll excuse a racially mixed metaphor. Someone who will reanimate our rituals by attacking them. Tony had possibilities in that direction.’

  Laidlaw was beginning to be more and more interested in Tony Veitch.

  ‘As far as his crossing of borders went? I mean, did he associate with people who didn’t seem to fit with university life?’

  ‘Hm? Well, I was his tutor, not a social worker.’

  When he stopped talking, the voices of the other two men seemed never to have let up. They weren’t reading or drinking or even looking at each other. They just sat casually communing with their own profundity.

  ‘A despair as actual as leprosy.’

  ‘Imagine a Somme,’ Mr Jamieson said, ‘where everyone is immortal. Nothing can happen, of course. But, oh my God, the noise!’

  ‘Mr Jamieson,’ Laidlaw said. ‘About Tony Veitch.’

  ‘Yes. Tony hated that.’

  ‘Is that why he ducked out of his finals?’

  ‘I should imagine so. He seems to have been doing well in the papers he sat. He was rejecting us, I suppose. Perhaps not without reason.’ For the first time his eyes achieved a clearly specific focus, emerged from the abstract. ‘Do you think you’ll find him?’

  ‘We were hoping you might help,’ Laidlaw said, not without some recrimination in his voice.

  ‘Yes. I’m getting an address for you. We tried ourselves, you see. At first. We hoped it might be possible to make some arrangement for him to take the other papers. But he obviously didn’t intend that anyone should find him.’

  ‘Did he seem to you a violent person at any time?’

  The pale eyes smiled.

  ‘Isn’t everyone?’ The remark was unexpected in his mild mouth. ‘He was certainly intellectually violent. Iconoclastic. But then many young people are.’

  A woman with glasses came in, wearing a smile that was like opening a window in a stuffy room. She gave Mr Jamieson a piece of paper and went out.

  ‘Thank you, Sybil,’ he said and passed the paper to Laidlaw.

  ‘Who’s Guthrie Hawkins?’ Laidlaw asked.

  ‘He shared a flat with Tony Veitch. The other addresses are Tony and Guthrie’s home addresses. The flat may be vacated by now, of course.’

  Laidlaw drained his lime-juice and soda. A bit of ice, eroded to a lozenge, slid down the glass as he replaced it.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Jamieson,’ he said. ‘I appreciate the time and all the help you’ve given us.’

  ‘I hope that he’s all right. I think I understand him a little. I think I understand his decision. One of the terrors of academicism is that our criticism becomes absorbed as merely one of its own techniques. Hm? It’s an endless maze. Every exit from one dilemma is merely an entrance to another. Hm?’

  It should have been eerie as a man carving his own epitaph. He sat looking old, gentle, charming and hopeless. He gave off a sense of defeat. Yet he spoke without feeling, seemed merely to be commenting. It was as if he had reduced himself to the status of a gloss on his own life.

  ‘There is something. Guthrie Hawkins is perhaps an example of the crossing of borders I was talking about. Tony Veitch once mentioned in tutorial that Guthrie had a brother in the criminal world.’

  ‘Do you know his first name?’

  ‘I’m afraid not.’

  ‘Observatory Road,’ Laidlaw said as they came out into University Avenue. ‘That’s just round the corner. Off Byres Road. We may as well try it. The other address is in Hutchesontown.’

  They got into the car. Laidlaw lit a cigarette. As usual, Harkness was driving.

  ‘You think Eck knew about Paddy’s death and had to be shut up?’ Harkness asked.

  ‘Could be, I suppose.’

  ‘Nice old man.’

  ‘Brave enough, too. When you think how near his heart the hemlock is.’

  15

  The peg-board in the window showed a couple of bright blouses and a sweatshirt with a lurex butterfly. The name painted across the glass in cursive red letters was ‘Overdrive’. Beneath it the black printing said: ‘If you like top gear, why not come into Overdrive?’ He went in.

  He felt like a visitor from a spaceship, but an interested one. The piped music made him feel alien, as rock always did. His musical taste had stopped at Country & Western. The smell of what could have been incense annoyed him into wondering again what the hell teenagers were up to. The clothes didn’t help, racks of the kind of colours that sugges
ted a dressing-room at a circus.

  Besides the long racks and circular racks he noticed bright Indian-looking scarves tied from a beam. There was a display of thonged sandals, a section for beads he would have refused as a prize at a fairground. He heard a voice.

  ‘Try it on. I think you’ll see what I mean.’

  He walked along a rack of dresses and a girl emerged at the other end. She was wearing a shocking-pink blouse with one shoulder and sleeve missing and leopard-skin trousers that would have fitted a gnat. She was doing everything but carry a megaphone. She smiled a smile that was twenty years ahead of its time and condescendingly acknowledged the awkwardness of his hulking invasion of her trendy world.

  ‘Yes, sir. Can I get you something?’

  ‘No thanks,’ he said. ‘Ah’m no’ holdin’ Hallowe’en this year.’

  He looked casually past her at the slatted saloon doors that were the entrance to the two small fitting-rooms. Beneath one set of doors he could see a good pair of legs that were trying on a denim skirt.

  ‘But don’t mind me. Ah can wait.’

  He looked back at her and enjoyed the way her face had lost its composure and was fumbling for the right reaction. She looked properly young again and her accent had got lost in the post.

  ‘Lusten, mister. Whit is it ye want?’

  ‘Well. Nane o’ these is quite ma colour. Could Ah see the manageress? Is Lynsey Farren in?’

  ‘Whit for?’

  ‘Hen, suddenly Ah’m in a hurry. Tell ’er.’

  ‘Whit for?’

  He looked round and located a beaded curtain blocking a doorway. He walked towards it. Coming behind him, the girl called, ‘Miss Farren!’ The curtain was pulled aside and the face that looked past it renewed his interest of last night. It looked as if it had ordered the future, which would be coming along on a silver tray. The face took him in like passing traffic and referred itself to the girl.

  ‘Janice?’

  Janice absorbed the accent like a refresher-course.

  ‘It’s this gentleman, Miss Farren. He says he wants to see you.’

  ‘Very good, Janice.’

  Janice went back to her customer. Miss Farren came through the curtain. He appreciated the revelation.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You wanted to see me.’

  ‘Yes. Ah enjoyed that. But Ah’d like to talk as well.’

  ‘What is this?’

  And then she recognised him.

  ‘This is Mickey Ballater. A friend of Paddy Collins. Ah’d like a word with ye. In private.’

  She handled it well, converting a flicker of panic in the eyes to instant boredom. She studied the wall beside him as if there were printed instructions there.

  ‘You’ve come at an awkward time. I’m afraid I’m rather busy.’

  ‘Times’ll likely get a helluva sight more awkward if you don’t speak to me right now.’

  ‘I can’t imagine what it could be about.’

  ‘Don’t waste yer time. Ah’ll tell ye. Paddy Collins. Tony Veitch. Dave McMaster. Cam Colvin.’

  ‘Are all of these names supposed to mean something to me?’

  ‘Naw. Ah got them out the telephone directory. Let’s go inside.’

  A woman had come out of the fitting-room and was talking to Janice. Lynsey Farren hesitated, perhaps gauging how much more complicated it was going to be playing to two audiences. She turned and went through the curtain.

  He followed her.

  It wasn’t an exceptional back-shop, a table with an electric kettle on it, a couple of chairs, a small calor-gas heater, two cartons stacked one on the other, the top one spilling an opened cellophane pack of multi-coloured blouses – but she contrived to inhabit it as if it were fully furnished with antiques. She was quizzically amused, demonstrating what a clash of styles they were.

  As she took a menthol cigarette from a packet, he lifted the slim metallic grey lighter from the table and lit her cigarette. He kept the lighter in his hand as he sat down, flicking it into flame two or three times. She sat easily against the table, crossing her legs. He fidgeted a moment with the big, empty metal waste-bin on the floor and looked up. She was still wondering what it was all about.

  ‘Paddy Collins is dead. You knew that?’

  ‘Is this a joke?’

  ‘Fourteen stab wounds? If it is, Paddy didny see it.’

  She said nothing.

  ‘Where’s Tony Veitch?’

  ‘Who’s Tony Veitch?’

  ‘Money for me.’

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t help.’

  ‘Oh well. Ah doubt Ah’m wastin’ ma time.’

  ‘It looks that way.’

  ‘Aye.’

  He stood up, seemed nonplussed. He picked up one of the blouses from the cellophane and studied it. The label inside the neck said ‘Baumwolle Cotton’.

  ‘Nice that,’ he said.

  ‘It wouldn’t suit you.’

  In one action he flicked the lighter, lit the blouse and dropped it into the waste-bin. In the tightness of the room it flared like an explosion, a quick geyser of flame the heat of which she felt. It brought her off her table, mouthing outrage that died as quickly as the fire.

  ‘What the hell? Do you . . . I’ll get the police.’

  Both understood what the quickness of her silence meant. He was looking at the lighter in his hand. He shook his head.

  ‘You don’t want the police,’ he said. ‘But this place could burn down very easy. Not the day. Maybe later.’ He looked at her. ‘Ye want to tell the wee lassie to go out? Ye could talk freer.’

  She paused only briefly, putting down her cigarette. She lifted a blouse from the pile and went out into the shop. When she came back in, he was sitting down again. Sitting against the table, she took up the cigarette but it was no longer a prop. She dragged on it anxiously.

  ‘Janice is still in the shop,’ she said pointedly. ‘She’s changing the window.’

  He nodded.

  ‘Lady Lynsey Farren. Don’t think Ah’ve spoken to an actual lady before. We weren’t trippin’ over them in Crown Street. It’s nice. But then ye’re not really any different, are ye, love? Paddy told me about you, ye see. The pair o’ ye seem tae have got up tae some very unladylike capers. That was before Dave McMaster came on the scene, wasn’t it? Ye know Cam Colvin apart from last night?’

  She shook her head. He decided there was no way to know if she was telling the truth. She probably smiled by committee decision.

  ‘Fair enough,’ he said. ‘We’ll do it that way. You in your small corner and me in mine. All ye have to do is listen. Tony Veitch is due me money. Paddy Collins was going to help to collect. Tony Veitch has disappeared. Paddy Collins is extra dead. That’s where we are. Ah’ll tell ye where we’re goin’. Cam Colvin is Paddy’s brother-in-law. If ye don’t know him, Ah’ll tell ye who he is. The Black Death in a pinstripe suit. Ah take money, he takes lives. He’s angry about Paddy and lookin’ for anybody connected with him recently. Ah know a lot of things Cam doesny know. You were there when Paddy met Tony Veitch. You had a wee thing with Paddy. Then you moved on to Dave McMaster.’

  ‘What’s Tony supposed to have done?’

  ‘Ye miss the point. Ah mean, we both know what he’s done. But ye miss the point. Ah’m not here to answer questions. Ah’m here to ask one. Just one. Where’s Tony Veitch?’

  ‘I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. How am I supposed to know?’

  ‘Ye’re either lyin’ or ye’re not. Ah haveny the time to worry about it. But Ah know one thing. Ye can find out. You an’ him was close. An’ that’s what ye’re goin’ to do. Ye got a pen?’

  He tore a strip of paper off the bottom of the calendar behind him. Automatically, she picked up a pen from the table and handed it to him. He wrote something down, handed pen and paper back to her. He had written a telephone number, the pen-point having gone through the paper a couple of times.

  ‘What am I supposed to d
o with this?’

  ‘You’ve got the rest of the day. You phone me there. And tell me where Tony Veitch is. If Ah’m not in, you keep phoning till Ah am in.’

  ‘You can’t be serious.’

  ‘Ah thought Ah was.’

  ‘There’s no way I can find out. He’s disappeared.’

  ‘Ye’ve got two choices. Ye find him or Ah pass on what Ah know to Cam Colvin. You tell Dave McMaster that. Ah don’t think Dave wid like that to happen. The bother could be very bad. You’re a tourist here, hen. Ye don’t know what it’s really like. Ah can arrange tae show ye. Ye like mixin’ wi’ tearaways, do ye? Ah can mix ye in that much, ye’ll never get loose again.’ He pointed at her. ‘You’re in serious trouble, milady. Ah’m offerin’ you an easy road out. Take it. Tell me what Ah don’t know, an’ Ah tell nobody what Ah do know.’

  He stood up.

  ‘Ah’m goin’ now. Phone Dave.’

  He went out. As she looked at the number he had given her, she heard Janice speaking to a customer about jeans. She wished that was all she had to worry about. She lifted the phone.

  16

  Yesterday all my mogres seemed so far away.

  Now Ah’m paintin’ every bloody day.

  Ah’ve chinged ma mind. Gi’es yesterday.’

  The singing led them to the house. It was near the top of the road, past Hillhead Parish Church. The big double doors were lying open with a piece of cardboard against the jamb with ‘Wet Paint’ painted on it. Two men in stained white boilersuits were painting the groundfloor windows on either side of the door. The one on the left, a florid man in his fifties, was working at ground level. The other, about thirty and in need of a shave, was up a ladder because his window was above the basement flat. He was the singer. His improvised lyric had tailed off into Glaswegian mouth-music: ‘Ta-ta-reetin-deetin-beetin-bu-ta-reeting-du-da-reeting-du.’

  It was a big, handsome house, three-storeyed with a long, low modern dormer window. Its Victorian portentousness, basking in the sunshine, was undermined somewhat by the nine push-buttons inset in its front. The names listed beside the buttons testified to the contemporary identity crisis being undergone by a building constructed out of a formidable self-assurance. No doubt it felt a certain affinity with James R. P. S. MacKenzie and Miss L. S. Booth-Williams. But the basement claimed to be occupied by ‘Maggie, Jeanne, Sarah and Mad Liz.’ Flat 9 said ‘The Friends of Che.’