Laidlaw

by William McIlvanney

  The group of policemen were laughing.

  ‘Policemen,’ Laidlaw said, looking into the last of his beer, ‘have proprietary laughter.’

  40

  Wee Mickey’s was new to Harkness but obviously not to itself. It had that atmosphere of helpless entrenchment in its own nature which people often call ‘character’. It was neither West End nor City Centre, a small bridge of sighs between two firm convictions. He saw an old place, not so much a pub as a transit-camp to dereliction. The bar was small but there was a large, badly lit room beyond it, partitioned down both sides into narrow wooden booths, each with a wooden table. Laidlaw chose a free one, giving himself a clear view of the door.

  After they’d waited a couple of minutes, a small man in an apron brought in a tray with a bottle of wine and a couple of glasses.

  ‘Here we are then,’ he said. ‘The pick o’ yer Vatican cellars.’

  Laidlaw turned the bottle round.

  ‘Aye, you’re buying in some good labels these days, Mickey,’ he said.

  ‘Nice tae know it’s appreciated.’

  ‘But you’re supposed to buy the labels attached to the bottles. Would you bring another glass, please?’

  When the glass was brought, Laidlaw turned it down on the table and poured out two drinks.

  ‘Try to drink it without tasting it,’ he said.

  Harkness sipped and put down the glass.

  ‘I’ll just keep it as a prop,’ he said.

  He looked round. The predominant impression the room gave was of stains and scrapes and scuffs, a haunting history of past moments, not deliberate memorials, just the accidental graffiti of a lot of passing lives. He felt like a tourist in the sense that Laidlaw used the word. The quiet preoccupation of these people somehow excluded him, made him feel his life was still on holiday. Looking from booth to booth, he saw this room like a street of artisans in some Eastern market. Here each had come to practise his own obsessive craft, beating a life into a bizarre shape, fashioning a slow, deliberate death.

  ‘How about this?’ Harkness said. ‘Breughel meets Hieronymus Bosch.’

  Laidlaw knew what he meant. Across from them were four round a bottle, three women and a man, as if it was the tit of the universe. Each face was a ruin. Further along an old man and woman performed a parody of courting. In one booth a young man sat alone.

  ‘I once saw a painting in the Prado called Un Alma En Pena,’ Harkness said. ‘It was a holiday picture compared with that fella.’

  ‘What was that painting called?’

  ‘Un Alma En Pena.’

  Harkness waited, knowing the question would have to come. He wondered if there was a Latin quotation for ‘revenge is sweet’.

  ‘All right, college boy,’ Laidlaw said. ‘Interpreter, please.’

  ‘A soul in pain.’

  ‘I could’ve got it if I’d seen it written down,’ Laidlaw said.

  Harkness smiled. Their vision was blocked by a bulky man who stood in front of their table. He must have been about sixty but the relaxed physicality of his presence reminded you that he hadn’t always been. He wore a black suit. Out of the open neck of his grubby white shirt, black hair sprouted. He had a face like a war museum.

  ‘They telt me ye were in,’ he said.

  ‘Hullo, Sam.’

  ‘Ye need any favours? Ah still owe ye some. Anybody ye want seeing to?’

  ‘No. Thanks, Sam. Things are quiet.’

  ‘Well, we could always have a go oorselves. Just tae pass the time.’

  ‘I’m too young to die.’

  The man winked, which – given the slowness of his reflexes – was as casual as lowering and raising a flag. His speech had come out like ink in the rain. You had to strain to make out the shape of the words in the blur. He went away.

  ‘I thought you were a hard man,’ Harkness said.

  ‘So does Sam. He’s as simple as you.’

  ‘You always talk as if you were very handy.’

  ‘I’ve been known to lose on points shadow-boxing.’

  ‘So who’s the man?’

  ‘Sam Bell. He was a good middleweight before he became two middleweights. But he was never as good as they told him he was. That’s why his brains are omelette. But he’s a good man. A sight better than the bastards that managed him.’

  They waited. Harkness looked at the downturned glass.

  ‘Who is Eck?’

  ‘Eck Adamson? A wee man with a gullet down to his ankles.’

  ‘What’s his business?’

  ‘Same as any tout’s. Other people’s.’

  ‘So why are we meeting him here? That must be a bit chancy for him.’

  ‘Not really. The first thing is. If you took Eck into a reasonable place, he’d stick out like a nudist at a winter sports resort. I mean, they’d think it was Hallowe’en. Then again. Where he’s known, he’s known to be scrubber, even as a tout. Who’s going to claim Eck? He’ll only die when he graduates to turpentine. He knows the value of nothing. He’s like a corporation coup of information. He’s as likely to tell you who won the Cup Final in 1923 as anything. That’s how you’ll know him when you see him. He even dresses like a coup.’

  ‘I don’t see why we’re waiting for him then.’

  ‘Because of my hangups, I suppose. I can’t stop believing that there are always connections. The idea that the bad things can happen somehow of their own accord, in isolation. Without having roots in the rest of us. I think that’s just hypocrisy. I think we’re all accessories. It’s just that in specific cases some are more directly involved than others. Now, given that. There are people in the city who know about it, even if they don’t know they know. So take Eck. He’s my personal walking refuse-dump. Now that I’ve got a half idea of what I’m looking for, maybe it’s time to wade through the baldy tyres and the empty aerosols.’

  Harkness knew him when he saw him. He wore an overcoat baggy enough to take in lodgers. His head seemed to move on ball-bearings. He passed their table, having noticed them. Laidlaw didn’t look up. Eck drifted back, pretended to notice them for the first time.

  ‘Hullo therr, friend.’

  ‘Good afternoon, Eck,’ Laidlaw said.

  ‘Uh-huh. A stranger in the comp’ny.’

  Eck was still glancing around.

  ‘Siddown, Eck,’ Laidlaw said. ‘You’re so discreet, people are getting suspicious. You look as if you’re trying to tail yourself.’

  ‘Ye never know the day or the minute, eh?’ Eck sat down. ‘Night has a thousand eyes, eh?’

  ‘It’s broad daylight,’ Harkness said.

  ‘Anyway,’ Laidlaw said. ‘It could find something better to look at.’

  He did the introductions.

  ‘He’s sharp, ye know,’ Eck said to Harkness. His own eyes were sharp and astonishingly mobile, reminiscent less of a hawk than a flock of starlings. ‘He’s sharp, eh? They don’t call ’im Gillette for nothin’. In fac’, they don’t call ’im Gillette. Still. Ye never know. Night and the city, eh? It’s a rough town we live in, boays. Ye’ve got to look out for yourself. Ah’m no’ as big as youse boays. So Ah’ve got tae keep on ma toes. Ah’m a bobber an’ a weaver. Ah bob an’ Ah weave, eh? Ah can look after maself. Ah know the big city.’

  Eck was a romantic.

  Laidlaw talked to him for a time, patiently mentioning names like a teacher who wants the student to do well in his oral and is concerned to find anything he knows about – Bud Lawson, Jennifer Lawson, Airchie Stanley, a Catholic called Tommy. Eck showed no signs of passing the test. All that happened was that his lips parched and his eyes returned again and again to the wine. Harkness was smiling.

  ‘Eck,’ Laidlaw said. He lifted the empty glass and started to pour. Eck’s eyes lost some of their defensiveness. ‘Harry Rayburn. Think about it.’

  ‘Who is he for a Rayburn?’

  ‘Poppies Disco.’

  ‘Aw. Down near the pedesterian bit an’ that. Big Harry! The second name threw me therr
. Ah just know ’im as Big Harry, eh? Oh yes. Big Harry. Definately. Ah know the same Big Harry.’

  Laidlaw slid the glass towards him gently. Eck held it in both hands.

  ‘Yes. He’s a hard item, Big Harry. “Poppies” is his place. No messin’ about in therr. “Poppies Disco”, eh? Uh-huh. Okay?’

  Eck raised his glass to his mouth. Before he could drink, Laidlaw put his hand over the glass, took it from him, poured the wine very carefully back into the bottle, waved the glass up and down to shake out any dregs, put the glass upside down on the table again, wiped his palm – where some of the wine had spilled – thoroughly on Eck’s sleeve, and said, ‘Fuck off.’

  ‘Whit’s this about? Ye give a civil answer to a question an’ that’s the thanks ye get? Come on. Whit’s it about then?’

  ‘Fuck off,’ Laidlaw said. ‘Do your comic turn somewhere else. You’re not appreciated. If I want an echo, I know where I can get one that doesn’t drink. You’ve told me nothing I didn’t tell you. What do you think we are? Banana-skin trippers? You’ll be selling me a drink out my own bottle next.’

  Laidlaw sipped his wine, letting Eck watch.

  ‘All right. Keys, eh? Ah just thought maybe there’d be more tae get that way. But Ah do know ’im. Ah know somethin’ about that big man some people don’t. But give us a drink first, eh?’

  Laidlaw turned the glass up, poured out the drink again and placed it in front of him. As he took it, Laidlaw kept his hand on it for a moment.

  ‘You tell any wee fibs. And I’ll put my fingers down your throat and take it back.’

  Eck drank so eagerly his teeth hit the glass. Laidlaw gave him a refill.

  ‘Well. First thing ye might not know. He’s as queer as a three-pound note.’

  ‘He’s a poof? That big man?’ Harkness sat back dismissing him. ‘Come on. It’s great what some folk’ll say for drink.’

  ‘So you might know better nor me.’

  ‘That’s straight, Eck?’ Laidlaw asked.

  ‘He’s been screwed that often his bum’s got a thread on it.’

  ‘On you go,’ Laidlaw said.

  ‘Well. Ah don’t live in his inside pocket, do Ah? But if ye’re like that, ye meet a lower classa people, don’t ye. Eh? He’s got connections. Bound tae have, eh? He’s got connections.’

  ‘What exactly?’ Laidlaw asked.

  ‘How would Ah know?’

  Laidlaw shoved the bottle across to Eck.

  ‘Have a good lunch.’

  Harkness was disappointed. Once he had got over the initial surprise of hearing about Harry Rayburn, he remembered Laidlaw saying, ‘Mary Poppins with hair on her chest.’ He had begun to believe in the inter-relationships Laidlaw preached. Several things began to seem like echoes of each other – the recurrence of Poppies, the homosexuality of Harry Rayburn, the fact that the main assault on Jennifer was anal. He had felt that out of Laidlaw’s ‘refuse-dump’ they were about to pick the very thing they needed. Now when one sign was all it would have taken to complete his conversion nothing was forthcoming. Laidlaw was making to stand up.

  ‘That’ll no’ go far,’ Eck said to the bottle.

  ‘Your information won’t go far either. Eh?’

  ‘Listen. Ah can do ye a wee turn here.’ He had Laidlaw waiting. ‘Ah could give ye a name.’

  ‘Eck,’ Laidlaw said. ‘With you I’m probably buying air. And I can get it fresh for free.’

  ‘Ah can give ye two names. Wan big. Wan no’ sa big.’

  ‘A quid a time.’

  ‘Gi’es a brek.’

  ‘So sell them somewhere else.’

  ‘Matt Mason. He’s—’

  ‘I know who he is. What’s his connection with Rayburn?’

  ‘They’ve worked thegither.’

  Laidlaw gave him a pound under the table. Eck’s hand crumpled it to a ball.

  ‘Harry Rayburn. There wis talk about a boy an’ him. Some boay Bryson. Ah think it was. Aye, it was.’

  ‘What was his first name?’

  ‘Ah don’t know.’

  ‘Does “Tommy” mean anything to you?’

  ‘There wis a pictur called that. Wis there no’?’

  ‘Thank you, Eck.’ He gave Eck the other pound. ‘But it’s something.’

  Eck secreted his money. Laidlaw was nodding Harkness out when Eck said something else.

  ‘He’s a braw boay, it seems. Works at Poppies.’

  There was a pause while the moment waited for them all to catch up with it. Laidlaw and Harkness had frozen before they knew why they were doing it. Something seemingly ordinary had glinted in among the rubbish and they sat staring at it, wondering why it was so valuable. Watching Laidlaw’s eyes, Harkness saw him get there first. Laidlaw smiled at him.

  ‘You know what it is?’ Laidlaw said.

  Harkness couldn’t track it down. He shook his head.

  ‘Beginning with D and ending with T,’ Laidlaw said.

  Harkness remembered and understood.

  ‘No Bryson on Milligan’s list,’ he said.

  ‘Ser-en-dip-it-ee.’ Laidlaw said it like a cheer-leader.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Serendipity. The art of making lucky finds. The art is in knowing they’re finds. I think we’ve got him. Eck. Where does this boy live?’

  ‘Ah’ve nae idea.’

  Laidlaw slipped him another pound.

  ‘That’s all right. I know somebody who has. Buy yourself a barrel, Eck. And I’m sorry about the sleeve. That was meant for somebody else.’

  Laidlaw winked at Harkness and lifted his glass. Harkness did the same.

  ‘To Sherlock Adamson, public benefactor,’ Laidlaw said.

  They drank sincerely but not deep. On the way out, Laidlaw said, ‘We’re almost there.’

  They left Eck mesmerised by the third pound note. Like most success, his was modified by the fact that he had no idea how to repeat it. But his bewilderment didn’t last for long. He put the money away and gathered their two glasses to him. It was Christmas already. To a romantic, the incomprehensible is natural.

  41

  Run run as fast as you can

  you cant run away from the cancer man

  It might have been Michelangelo at the Sistine Chapel. Working, Lennie was total concentration. The wall of the lavatory was rough white plaster and it was hard getting it to take the biro. If you leaned too heavily, the point of the pen went and the flow of the ink was stopped. You had to use a lot of light strokes, one on top of the other, to lay the ink on the surface of the plaster. He would have to get a felt pen.

  While he was working, he was contrasting what he was doing contemptuously with his well-stocked memory of other things he’d seen, the shaky drawings, the invitations, the same old jokes (‘It’s no use standing on the seat, the crabs in here can jump 10 ft.’). They were all daft, the sort of thing he used to write himself, but not now.

  He remembered the feeling of walking in the street with Minty McGregor. The coldness of the thought was exciting – the idea of a man who could kill for no more reason than wages, who walked about the streets like a disease that would settle where it chose, who had nothing to lose and therefore wasn’t afraid. It was a dream of himself so overpowering that he would have to be careful. He had gone too far already.

  Last night in the pub it had been. He had been drinking with a couple of the boys he used to knock about with and he couldn’t resist making unexplained references to ‘the cancer man’. The three of them had finished up saying in chorus, ‘Oh, the cancer man’ll get you if you don’t watch out.’ Lennie remembered a man with a scar looking bitterly along the bar at them. He hoped Matt Mason didn’t get to hear about it.

  But at the moment nothing could interfere with his pleasure. It was a feeling of two things simultaneously, wildness and safety. His imagination ran amok and yet faced him with nothing more difficult to deal with than some words on a wall.

  Morgan the Mighty and Desperate Dan

  take off
their hats to the cancer man

  He was satisfied. He flushed the lavatory and opened the door. He didn’t know for a second whether he was seeing or still imagining. Looking at him was the man with the scar. While Lennie’s stomach came up and went back down, he could hear the noise of music in the bar. It sounded very far away. The man nodded as if confirming Lennie’s fear.

  Lennie’s first instinct was to shut the door again. He was starting to do that when the man’s foot hit the door, slamming it against the wall with Lennie’s arm between them. Lennie screamed.

  ‘Whit hiv you been doin’ in here?’ the man asked.

  He was leaning with his back against the door-jamb so that he could exert the maximum amount of pressure with his foot. What was he, a lavatory inspector?

  ‘Whit’s the gemme?’ Lennie managed.

  ‘Ah think you’ve been wankin’,’ the man said. ‘That’s no’ nice in public places.’

  ‘Who are you?’ Lennie asked.

  ‘Ah’m the man that’s got your arm jammed in the door. There’s a fella wants tae see you. When Ah take ma foot aff this door, you’re gonny come wi’ me. If ye cause the least wee bit bother, it’s your heid Ah’ll use as a door stopper. Fair enough?’

  Lennie’s head nodded for him. As they came out into the small area where the washhand-basin was, another man was waiting.

  ‘Take it easy!’ he said to the man with the scar. ‘Ye’d think the boy had done somethin’ wrang. Ye’re all right, son. It’s just that a friend of ours wants a word wi’ ye. An’ that’s all. It’s as simple as that. But he’s got to have that word. That’s the kinna fella he is. Now if ye’ll just come to the car quietly with us, we’ll take ye there. If ye cause us any bother. Like goin’ through the pub here. We’ll leave ye for dead. No question. It’s your choice son. D’ye understand? Okay?’

  From his tone, he might have been explaining to a child why he had to wash behind his ears. He had a nice suit on and careful, wavy hair. Both approaches, the instant, vicious malice and the fatherly promise of massacre, were for Lennie just different notches on the same thumbscrew. He was stiff with fear of the next turning, a dread so acute that they got him through the Howff and into the car without a murmur.