The Hanging Shed

by Gordon, Ferris,

  ‘You can put pressure on them. Force them to make a mistake. Drive them out of cover. Hell, I don’t have to tell you how to lean on gangsters, do I, Chief Inspector? You worked for Sillitoe before the war.’

  I couldn’t help the mocking tone in my mouth, or my bitterness and frustration with their slow-wittedness. By their looks and flushed faces I was making my sarcasm felt.

  I eventually left them to it, still squabbling over what to do next, but slowly edging towards a courtesy call on the brothers Slattery. I had nothing else to do except head back to Sam’s and wait for her return. It was her second day for making her case to the Appeals Panel judges. Then it would the Procurator Fiscal’s turn to demolish her arguments. The judges would then retire to consider their verdict. I didn’t think it would take them long.

  THIRTY-ONE

  For me, the rest of that week and the next drifted by in a limbo of reading and walking through Kelvingrove Park and round to the Botanical Gardens. I would sit for an hour in the hothouse in silent communion with the greenery around me, drinking in the scents, letting the humidity soak into my pores. Everywhere I went I kept a lookout for men with razors. Slattery had made it plain he wasn’t going to take his humiliation lightly and was unlikely to stop at one killing. But having silenced my only witness, maybe he could afford to bide his time. I felt his hard mocking eyes on me wherever I went. I even wondered about heading back to Arran to see what I could see, talk to the priest again. But the island was probably hoaching with armed policemen. I didn’t want to get in their way. Unless their marksmanship had been honed during the war, it was best to keep clear.

  Instead I took the train down to Kilmarnock and visited my mother. I walked my boyhood routes round the parks and through the rough of the municipal golf courses. And all the time I racked my brains to see if there was something I’d missed, something I hadn’t done. I felt useless and ineffectual. Apart from listening to Sam’s courtroom battles each night and keeping her fortified with fags and fish suppers, I couldn’t help. She was still off the Scotch to make sure she applied every particle of her being to the appeal. And I went on the wagon to support her.

  Even in the second week when the judges were considering the appeal and we were left in limbo, we forsook the booze. Perhaps it was in respect for a man’s life being at stake. We visited Hugh a couple of times but we had nothing much to say to each other. Hugh seemed in better heart than we were. Maybe his doctor could prescribe us some of his drugs. Sam took to coming with me on my walks. She sat with me watching the vines grow in the Botanic Gardens. We took the train down to the seaside and walked the deserted sand dunes of Barassie Beach between Troon and Irvine. I put my mac down on a damp sand dune and we sat gazing out at the hulk of Arran.

  ‘My dad and I used to come down here and walk for miles. A lot of the miners did. For the contrast.’ I pointed up at the huge herringbone sky marching over us. ‘We always talked about having a dog.’

  ‘When did he die?’

  ‘Back in ’30. My first year at Glasgow.’

  ‘An accident? I mean he wasn’t very old, was he?’

  ‘Just turned fifty. No accident. Unless you count getting accidentally gassed during the war. Then accidentally going down with Black lung when he went back down the pit.’

  ‘I’m sorry. How did you manage? I mean university and all?’

  ‘On a coal miner’s wages? Bursaries. I would have left in my first year if he hadn’t made me promise to see it through.’

  We were quiet for a while listening to peewits calling and watching the gulls sore and pitch out at sea.

  ‘You didn’t have much choice either, I suppose?’

  ‘You mean the law?’ she laughed. ‘My father didn’t badger me. In fact he tried to talk me out of it. Said they weren’t ready for women yet. He was right.’

  ‘Regrets?’

  She gazed away from me. ‘You mean, husband, kids all that domestic bliss kind of regret?’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘No, it’s all right. Sometimes. Yes. There was a man. A lawyer too, but also a sailor. His first commission was convoy protection on the Murmansk run. No one was protecting him though. Torpedoed. I waited a long time. They still don’t know for sure. I have a secret hope that he was picked up by some fat Russian lady who won’t let him go until he’s sired a new Red Army.’

  I came close to taking her to see my mother, but both of them would have read too much into it. And maybe I was ashamed of the room and kitchen by comparison to her palace. I hoped not. I was long over that.

  Come the Friday we dreaded, the day of Hugh’s judgement, I joined her in court, or at least I took a seat in the crowded public gallery. Hugh had been brought down from Barlinnie to hear his fate. There was an indrawing of breath when he was brought into the court. He was wearing a shapeless suit and a shirt without a tie. They did nothing to make him look normal. Someone called out, ‘There’s the beast! Hang him!’ The usher called for silence and a large policeman made his presence felt by walking down the gallery steps and standing smacking his truncheon in his hand.

  It didn’t take long. Some fatuous praise for the defence lawyer’s arguments, but it was a veneer. These three wigs were direct descendants of Judge Jeffreys. They would have needed sworn testimony and photographic proof from Jesus Christ himself before they would even think of overturning the original sentence. It was in their eyes, their well-fed cheeks, their couth tongues. Before them was a pitiful creature who’d done vile things to wee boys. He even looked like a creature from hell. How could he not be guilty – of something? The fact that he’d acquired his melted face in heroic endeavours on their behalf gave rise to some token words of sympathy. But in the same breath they speculated that his harrowing burns had not only given him monstrous features but monstrous propensities. A sad business but society needed protection.

  It was no surprise then to hear the lead judge – Lord Justice James Edgar Stewart – pronounce that the appeal had not been upheld and that the original sentence would be carried out forthwith. Forthwith meant in four days’ time. Next Tuesday.

  This time neither the usher nor the judge himself could quieten the crowd; the smell of sulphur was in their nostrils. Hugh was led out, head bowed, leaving Samantha Campbell staring after him. The Procurator Fiscal’s man came up to her and muttered something platitudinous. She smiled grimly at him and took off her glasses and her wig. Her blond hair was kirby-gripped to her scalp and damp with perspiration. She pulled out a few pins and ruffled her hair to release the pressure. She put her papers together and waited till the court was emptied before leaving the now echoing room. I waved down at her and she caught the movement and looked up at me with eyes so despairing I nearly jumped over the rail to join her and hold her. We met outside. Her eyes were red from rubbing.

  ‘Justice was done, wouldn’t you say? Take me home, Brodie.’

  We went to see Hugh on Monday, the day before the deadline – was there ever a more apt word? He was calm; too calm. It was clear the prison authorities were topping him up with morphine to make the whole thing easier – for them, I suspected.

  It wasn’t much of a conversation. He was back in his prison drabs and shackled at wrist and ankle. Just in case he made a run for it. Sam and I muttered some apologies for our failure to get him off. Hugh was magnanimous in his exoneration.

  ‘You did your best. Both of you. More than onybody could. Forbae, it disnae matter, Dougie pal. I’m past it. I should have died in that bomber. This is all borrowed time.’

  The phrase shook me. It’s how I’d initially felt lolling in the waves off Arran. All the bullets and bombs that had missed me during my campaigns across Africa and Europe were surely storing up the certainty of a violent death. But the survival instinct runs deep. I didn’t care about such fatalistic claptrap. I wanted to live. I couldn’t accept Hugh’s stoicism.

  ‘Bollocks, Shug! You might as well say you shouldn’t have been born.’

  ‘Even bette
r, old pal.’

  Suddenly a guard came over and whispered to Sam. She turned to me and Hugh. ‘Hugh’s got another visitor. We need to go.’

  For a moment I wondered, then I knew who this was. I got up and regardless of the guard’s admonishment, reached out for Hugh’s hands. I gripped his claws. He tried a smile.

  ‘Well, we’ll soon ken who was right, ya Proddie sod.’ He raised his eyes to the ceiling.

  ‘I hope it’s you, Shug.’

  ‘Naw you don’t. Where would that leave a’ you unshriven Orangemen, come the day?’

  It was a brave face. We both knew he’d be buried by the wall outside D Hall in unconsecrated ground. The thought of not getting a proper Catholic burial and what that might mean in the afterlife must have been unbearable to him. That and knowing that his own priest wouldn’t be around to guide him over. And probably wouldn’t be there to welcome him on the other side; if there was any justice in heaven. I hoped they would double his morphine tonight.

  Sam and I left him sitting there. He waved as we got to the door. I gave him a thumbs-up. In the waiting room outside, stood Fiona. She’d made an effort. Her hair was better cut and shining, held back by an Alice band. She’d put on makeup and good red lipstick. The coat looked new but too big. Borrowed? She clutched a black purse. Her eyes were bright with fought-back tears. She raised her head, ready for another challenge. She looked smashing.

  ‘Hello, Fiona.’

  ‘Hello, Douglas. How is he?’

  ‘Better than us. And he’ll be better for seeing you, Fiona.’

  She nodded. ‘I had to come.’

  Sam said, ‘Mrs Hutchinson? We’re here in a car. We can wait. Give you a lift.’

  Fiona shook her head. ‘No. I’m fine. Thanks. Just go.’

  She squared her shoulders and fixed a smile on her lips. The guard opened the door for her. As she stepped through Hugh spotted her. He began to struggle to his feet. The door closed.

  Sam asked me to drive us back to her home.

  ‘Will you stay till tomorrow, Douglas?’

  Douglas? I hadn’t thought about it. Hadn’t wanted to. To do so was to accept we’d lost and Hugh would hang. I hadn’t drawn that line yet.

  ‘Of course. But then I suppose I need to get back. See if I have still have a job.’ I joked, but in truth it was no joke. I’d been away a month and it would be a struggle to pick up the pieces. My long-suffering editor had stopped taking my calls. There was no chance of a full-time position now. I’d lost all momentum.

  *

  That evening became a bit last-supperish. In this case, Sam had had enough of my steaming newspapers filled with salt and vinegar and fat and cooked some stringy chicken and vegetables. We tried to eat it but it was more about pushing the food around the plate than getting it into our mouths. After her days of abstinence, Sam joined me in a glass or three of single malt. Glenlivet, smooth and soft on the tongue like molten heather. It was a taste I couldn’t afford to acquire, and it would be back to Red Label in London. Back to my old habits. My mouth went dry. Would the dark days and long nights start again? Would I fall back into the pit? Though it had ended badly this quest had forced me to think outside myself. I couldn’t see what would replace it, where I would find a purpose compelling enough to keep the black dog at bay.

  By unspoken agreement we talked about anything and everything except the trial and the impending hanging. At least we tried; it always crept back in.

  ‘Would you ever come back here and live?’

  ‘Some day, maybe. It depends on my mother. How she is. But I have to say it’s warmer down south.’

  ‘Getting soft.’

  ‘I had a taste of the real south. I’d like to see what Sicily’s like without someone shooting at me.’

  ‘You haven’t mentioned it before. Is that what gives you the nightmares?’

  ‘Christ! You heard me? I thought I’d been better.’

  ‘It was just the first week or two. I didn’t want to say anything. Do you want to talk about it?’

  ‘What is there to say. It’s not unusual. I was a soldier. You see a lot of things. Best forgotten.’

  ‘My dad was the same. Never a word. But sometimes you have the same look.’

  I poured another glass. ‘What about you, Sam? What’s next? You’ll have made a name for yourself. The judges were impressed, even I could tell.’

  ‘I might take a wee holiday. Go up north, spend time in the Highlands. My folks loved Skye. I might rent a cottage in Portree for a few weeks. Blow the cobwebs away.’

  Suddenly that seemed a highly attractive thing to do. I almost said so. We drifted though dinner, on into desultory conversation in the library and called it a night as the clock struck eleven.

  I had been lying in the dark, tossing and turning for an hour or more, smoking, wondering if Hugh was getting any sleep in the condemned cell in D Hall. Did he know that the scaffold was just a short walk across the landing? I heard a faint knock on the door.

  ‘Come in.’

  The door opened and Sam stood in her dressing gown, uncertain and silhouetted against the moonlight streaming on to the landing.

  ‘I couldn’t sleep,’ she said.

  ‘Me neither.’

  ‘Douglas, this doesn’t mean anything…’

  ‘Come here.’

  She shuffled over and sat on the edge of the bed. She sat staring out of the window, her hands clasped in her lap, her bare legs showing beneath the dressing gown. She was shaking.

  ‘Are you cold?’

  She nodded. I pulled the covers back and edged over. She took her dressing gown off to reveal a nightdress. She slipped into bed, with her back to me. Her thin shoulders trembled. I pulled the covers over her. She pushed back towards me and I lifted my arm and put it round her. We pulled closer till she was spooned and shivering against me.

  ‘It doesn’t mean anything…’

  ‘Shush. It’s OK.’

  Later, when the shaking stopped, she turned towards me. Our faces were inches apart. There was enough light to see each other’s expressions. She looked grave and thoughtful. We didn’t recognise each other. But her kiss wasn’t a stranger’s. Her body wasn’t unfamiliar.

  She didn’t make love like a lawyer. There was no cool calculation, no steady build-up and smooth exposition of her case. This was criminal stuff, pent-up and violent, wondrous bodily harm. We committed crimes on each other’s bodies, pummelling, biting, pounding in sweet assault and battery.

  We slept and woke together in the dark middle of the night. This time we were gentle, easy with each other. Sliding and sensual, careful of each other’s needs, pretending to be lovers.

  THIRTY-TWO

  We woke with a start at nine o’clock, guilty as sin. Not for our deeds, but for sleeping past eight o’clock. Dozing in sensual comfort while a man’s life was snuffed out. Sam slipped on her nightdress and dressing gown and went downstairs. I heard her on the phone. She came back up to the bedroom and stood in the door. I was sitting on the edge of the bed smoking and looking out the window.

  ‘It’s done,’ she said.

  I nodded.

  ‘I’m getting dressed,’ she said and went off to her room. I heard the bath run. The trees outside were lush from the frequent drenchings of Scottish rain. Look thy last on all things lovely every hour. Wordsworth, I think. Or was it de la Mare? An hour ago while we slept Hugh would have seen only blank prison walls and prison bars. Then they would have come to him with the black bag and the leather strap to bind his arms before his last short walk. Who’d heard his last confession now Cassidy had gone on ahead, as Hugh would put it? Did he have any doubts at the end? I hope what was left of his faith carried him through and that there was a big guy in blinding white waiting on the other side saying; everything’s all right now. Don’t worry. Here, see. Your son’s waiting for you. But I didn’t think it worked like that. But however you looked at it, with faith or without, it was a bitter final chapter to a wretched adult
life…

  I thought back to our boyhood and the mad days running wild across the back greens. It was as well we had no idea of our future. I think Hugh would have thrown himself under a train if he could have seen this end. I might have joined him. I reran the past month in my mind and harangued myself for not doing enough, not being smart enough. I castigated myself for wallowing in self pity in London since last November. I should have come back to Kilmarnock right away and not dallied down south with a bottle stuck to my mouth. Maybe then I’d have heard about Hugh. Maybe done more. But would I? Wouldn’t I have gone on nursing my anger against him for stealing Fiona from me? As though my boyhood love was more precious or significant than any other teenage passion? I had let it define too much of my life. Their betrayal – how melodramatic that sounds now – had probably been the clincher in making me knuckle down to my exams and drive me on to Glasgow university. Just to put distance between us. I thought of her going to him yesterday. I hoped they were kind to each other. I hoped they spoke without regret of their son and their brief days together. I hoped they found some of their old love.

  I veered between anger and emptiness. It was over. I could get out of here and back to London. I would put aside last night’s maudlin thoughts and get on with my life. I had a good degree. I had risen to major by being tested on the battlefield and not found wanting. I could now hold my head up alongside any of my old pals who’d followed their fathers down the mines. I had no right to squander these achievements. I thought of my old CO, General Tom Rennie, who led the 51st across the Rhine. We were within days of the German surrender when Tom was killed by a shell. Like me he’d been at St Valery with the BEF. He was captured but escaped to lead us through north Africa, Italy, Normandy and finally into Germany itself. It was Tom who gave me field promotion to major when Davy Sinclair took a bullet. I remember his words: this company’s now yours, Major Brodie. Their very lives are in your hands. And for God’s sake, Brodie, smile! The men hate a gloomy bugger!