Just Duffy

by Robin Jenkins

  ‘Have you come to see through the factory?’ she asked.

  He had, in a way. So he nodded. He wondered if Mrs Porteous herself would conduct him.

  The telephone on the desk rang. She picked it up. ‘Yes, Mrs Porteous, he’s arrived. Very good.’ She put it down. ‘She’ll see you now. It’s the first on the left. Her name’s on the door.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’ She was charmed by his good manners.

  He knocked, a woman’s deep voice called: ‘Come in.’ He opened the door and went in, very respectfully.

  At the large desk, behind a vaseful of flowers, sat the worst abuser of authority in Lightburn. She had used her influence to have Cooley sent to a reform school, she did not allow her employees to belong to a union, and she had taken the lead in having tinkers removed from Crochan Wood, though they had encamped there for years.

  Because it suited him he saw her as the woman who was going to give him an opportunity to make his fortune. She could not help looking high-and-mighty, being so tall and handsome with her fair hair massed in coils, held in place by two silver combs. She wore a green tweed costume and a necklace of green stones, emeralds perhaps.

  What struck him most about her face, however, wasn’t its arrogance and handsomeness but the traces of weeping on it. He had seen these on his mother’s face too often to be mistaken. Recently, perhaps that very day, she had wept. Powder, eye-shadow, lipstick, and even rouge had been used to cover up the physical effects, and haughtiness, more suited to her face than the humility of tears, had been restored to it by an effort of will. Most people would have thought her as sure of herself as a successful business woman should be, but Duffy saw more deeply. He had seen before those winces of the lips and that hurt in the eyes. He had known what had caused them in his mother’s case, but what disappointment in love could so proud and self-satisfied a woman have suffered? Had someone close to her died or become seriously ill? Had she quarrelled with her daughter Margaret, known to be stubborn and headstrong? Was she worried about the state of her business? Duffy did not think any of those was the reason.

  She stared impatiently at him, as if he was to blame for her trouble, whatever this was. ‘Thomas Duffy?’ Her voice was cold and a little hoarse.

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  She did not return his smile. ‘Sit down.’

  However she tried, and she did not seem to be trying all that hard, she could not stop looking haughty. To think highly of herself was a lifelong habit.

  He sat down, looking modest and alert, but showing no sign that he was aware of her stress.

  ‘I’m afraid Mrs Veitch must have misunderstood me.’ She paused. ‘I thought I had made it clear that the young person I had in mind was one who had done very well at school but was unable to continue with his or her studies owing to parental circumstances. I’m afraid you do not come into that category. Far from it.’

  He had let himself be caught off guard. He had given someone an opportunity to humiliate him. He smiled, meekly.

  ‘Naturally I made enquiries as to your scholastic record. I was informed you had left school without a single O-level certificate. Is that the case?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Really. I am surprised at Mrs Veitch. How on earth did you do so badly?’

  Because, he could have said, I never wanted to compete: the questions asked did not interest me. She would not have understood any more than his mother had.

  In primary school his teachers had been sorry for him, he looked so thoughtful and yet was evidently not all there. An attempt had been made to have him transferred to a school for the mentally retarded. His mother had resisted it. The psychologist sent to examine him had declared, to the astonishment of the teachers, that he was as smart as any other seven-year-old and knew a great deal more than most. One or two more percipient teachers, like Mr Flockhart, had wondered if he might not be playing some impudent game, but they had not been able to believe that a child of seven, say, or a boy of fifteen could be so deep and deceitful, nor could they see what, if it was deliberate, his purpose could possibly be.

  To Mrs Porteous now he was simply one of the numerous poor on whom years of expensive education had been wasted.

  ‘I am very sorry, Thomas, but really you are not suitable for the position I have in mind.’

  Showing neither hurt nor anger he played the simpleton. ‘Mrs Veitch said I was to get a chance to learn all about pottery.’

  There were moments when she seemed to have forgotten him altogether.

  ‘Mrs Veitch should have made it clear that you were coming for an interview only.’

  ‘She said I had artistic hands.’ He held them up. ‘I used to make things out of plasticine. I like drawing and painting.’

  She glanced at her gold wrist-watch. ‘I’m sure you will find some more suitable employment. Perhaps I might be able to help. Please give your address to the girl when you go out.’

  ‘Am I not to get the job?’ he asked, his mouth wide open, as if in incredulity.

  ‘I’m afraid not.’

  ‘But Mrs Veitch said –’

  ‘I’m sure Mrs Veitch did not intend to misinform you, but it would appear that she must have done.’

  He saw that there were moments when her mind wasn’t on him at all but on the trouble that had caused her to weep.

  ‘She said you wanted to know if I went to church.’

  She was disconcerted by that irrelevancy.

  ‘I sometimes go but I don’t like going by myself.’

  She felt obliged to show interest. ‘Doesn’t your mother take you?’

  He shook his head solemnly. ‘She used to be a Catholic, you see.’

  She saw all right. Her attitude to Catholics, though more discreetly expressed, was the same as Mick Dykes’. Her father, from whom she had inherited the factory, had been a high official in the Masonic Lodge.

  ‘I like St Stephen’s church best,’ said Duffy. ‘It’s got the highest spire in Lightburn. The higher the spire the nearer to God. Someone said that.’

  As a Christian she had to show compassion. As a business woman whose time was being wasted by a fool, however innocent, she felt embarrassed and annoyed.

  ‘There must be other churches nearer your home. St Cuthbert’s, for instance.’

  ‘I went to St Stephen’s one Sunday and there were men at the door asking people their names. I didn’t like to go in.’

  ‘They were elders. They weren’t asking people their names. They were welcoming them.’

  ‘I was told the seats in Stephen’s belong to people. Not everybody can sit in them.’

  ‘Some pews are named but that’s because some families have been members since the church was built over a hundred years ago. There are other pews where anyone can sit.’

  ‘If I went on Sunday would I get in?’

  ‘Of course, but I really think you should try some church nearer your home.’

  ‘Mr Cargill’s the minister, isn’t he? He’s the High School chaplain. I’ve heard him preach. He’s got white hair.’

  Duffy had overheard Mr Flockhart saying to another teacher that old Cargill made no attempt to reach the minds of the children. He used words few of them understood. It was as if he wanted to anaesthetise them with boredom.

  ‘If I went on Sunday would you ask them to let me in?’

  ‘I don’t think there would be any need for that.’

  He saw that she would have liked to point out how impertinent his request was, but he was obviously very childish for his age and in the Bible Christ had said that little children should be allowed to come to Him. So she nodded, with a frown. ‘Very well. If I can be of assistance I shall be glad to.’

  She pushed a button at the side of her desk. In a few moments the girl came.

  ‘Mary, Thomas is leaving now. Would you please take a note of his address? And perhaps you could find one of our pens for him.’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Porteous.’
r />   Duffy did not move. He smiled trustingly, as if he had no idea he was being dismissed.

  ‘Go with Mary, Thomas.’

  He rose, looking bewildered. ‘Have I to leave now?’

  Mary took him by the sleeve and led him out.

  She was puzzled. Mrs Porteous could be severe and had had more than one female employee in tears, but she had never had an effect quite like this.

  In the reception office she said, suspiciously: ‘What was that all about? Why were you acting daft?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Don’t try it on with me. What’s your address?’ She sneered as she wrote down Kenilworth Court. ‘That’s a council housing scheme, isn’t it?’

  ‘My mother’s going to buy one of the new bungalows near the public park.’

  ‘Is she indeed? Are you sure she can afford it? They cost over fifty thousand pounds.’

  She took a ballpoint pen from a drawer. It was white with lightburn ceramic on it in red. ‘Here’s your pen.’

  He was as pleased as a child of five. ‘Can I try it, please?’

  Still suspicious, but contemptuous too, she put a sheet of paper in front of him.

  In childish block letters he wrote her name Mary.

  She couldn’t help laughing. ‘Either you’re very crafty or you’re daft.’

  He laughed too as he carefully put the pen in his breast pocket.

  Now that he was at war, against forces so much stronger than his own, deceit was necessary and permissible.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Cooley had not given a promise to stay out of his room, but if she had she would not have kept it. In an important matter, like not betraying him to the police, she would take trust seriously but not in a small matter like having a scout round his room while he wasn’t there. For all his peculiar ways he wasn’t likely to have any terrible secrets. If you were sixteen and lived in Kenilworth Court and had a barmaid for your mother and were, to be truthful, half-cracked, what secrets could you have? Suppose she found a bundle of magazines with pictures of scuddy women with huge boobs fingering their twats it wouldn’t really be a secret for most boys had at least one or two. Everybody was dirty-minded, but in Duffy’s case it would be a surprise. Besides if there was anything he did not want her to see he should have locked the door: he knew how nosy she was. She could honestly say too that it was anxiety about him that made her curious.

  In her favour she could say she put it off as long as she could. She listened to records. She watched television. She tried on Mrs Duffy’s clothes. She even read a page or two of one of Mrs Duffy’s paperback romances, about a girl who worked in a milliner’s but was really a lord’s daughter and heiress to a large estate. It was interesting but a load of crap. In any case Cooley had never been able to read more than five minutes at a time.

  She was in the living-room trying to write a letter to her married sister in Glenrothes, explaining why she had decided to escape to London, when there was a loud knock on the outside door. She thought it might be Mick Dykes come early, but just in case waited behind the door, saying nothing. Duffy had said Mick would be bringing Crosbie with him. There was only one person out there, and she soon jaloused who it was, for she heard grunts and the shuffle of sore feet. It was Munro, Duffy’s neighbour across the landing. She must suspect that Duffy had someone living with him.

  Cooley put her fingers to her nose.

  She did not return to her letter-writing but went straight into Duffy’s room.

  At a first glance there was nothing extraordinary about it, except its tidiness. There were no muddy football boots, no pieces of model tanks or aeroplanes, no comics. A hospital nurse could not have made the bed more neatly. In a small bookcase were his encyclopaedias, arranged in alphabetical order. She had not expected to see posters of famous footballers or naked women, as she would have in any ordinary boy’s room, and there was none. The pictures that were there, two of them, about the size of posters, were startling, especially when looked at closely. They were paintings by Duffy himself. These were the first specimens of his work that she had seen, and they were weird. They were very alike, so that she wondered if they were meant to be a puzzle, the kind where you had to pick out the eight or so differences, everything else being identical. They consisted of swirls of red, black, and yellow, with, at the centre, what she decided was a face, white as death. Yes, that was the mouth, open, as if to scream: there were the eyes, with blobs of red under them like tears of blood. They were not only weird, they were scary. Though it was still daylight, and she was wearing an ankle-length dress of silver and crimson, and she could hear women laughing down in the street, she felt more scared looking at that face than she had done among the rats at the coup. She was sure it was meant to be Duffy’s own. She had been joking last night when she had imagined him murdering her and chopping her body into pieces, but she hadn’t seen those faces then. She knew that creatures of violence and menace did not come from outer space but from the darkness of the human mind. Duffy must find it harder to contain his than other people did because his were more horrible.

  Christ, Duffy, she thought, pitying him.

  On a shelf were the twenty-four issues of his illustrated History of War. The first one told about ancient wars and the last about wars of today.

  Could it be possible that Duffy wasn’t really human? She had seen a film once in which a woman mysteriously became pregnant. One night while she was asleep the devil came and fucked her. The child conceived was Satan’s son. Knowing that she was being daft, Cooley let herself wonder if something like that hadn’t happened to Duffy’s mother sixteen years ago. After all, she had never told him who his father was. Perhaps, like the woman in the film, she didn’t know.

  There was a drawer in the small table he used as a desk. It was unlocked. Inside she found his jotter with its tales of atrocities and also some blue folders marked Private and Confidential. With only a momentary hesitation and with her heart beating faster she took one out and opened it. To her astonishment it contained pictures cut out of the local newspaper and the High School magazine: they were of Margaret Porteous. Here she was receiving a cup for winning a tennis tournament, here making a speech during the school debate, here with an armful of book prizes, and here in a bikini sunbathing in a garden. God knew how he had got hold of that one. Cooley did not know whether to be amused or indignant or alarmed. When she had accused him of fancying Margaret Porteous she had been teasing. Now she saw that either he did fancy the black-haired snobbish bitch or had picked her out to be done in. Jesus, I don’t really believe that, do I? thought Cooley, and had to admit that though she didn’t quite believe it she didn’t altogether disbelieve it either. Cooley herself had nothing against Margaret Porteous except that she was a snobbish bitch, but if she was in any danger of being done in by crazy Duffy then she ought to be warned, though Cooley herself wouldn’t be able to do it, being far away in London, thank Christ.

  In another folder was a jotter in which was written what appeared to be an account of Duffy’s nightmares.

  Christ, Duffy, she thought, you really ought to be locked up.

  On the cover of one folder were drawn, very neatly, the signs of the Zodiac. There was her own: Cancer the Crab. The last time she had read her horoscope in the newspaper about a week ago it had said: Your friends have not been appreciating you as they should. This will soon change.

  Inside this folder was the yellow tract, Duffy’s message from God.

  It was full of quotations from the Bible. In brackets were the names Ezra, Jeremiah, and Isaiah. As far as she could make out it announced that the world was full of sinners who if they didn’t repent soon would be destroyed, not by a flood this time but by the fires of a nuclear holocaust. Apparently God was going to borrow bombs from the Americans or Russians, or maybe from them both. In blacker letters than the rest she saw the bit about defilers of truth and abusers of authority.

  She was amazed that Duffy had let him
self be taken in by such guff. She didn’t know much but she could have told him that tracts like these were produced in millions by religious loonies all over the world. Another thing she knew was that sex or rather the desire for it, if not appeased, could cause wild dreams. Perhaps she hadn’t been far wrong when she had said that what he needed was ten minutes in bed with big Molly McGowan.

  There was also a picture of a man with a shaven head burning like a torch.

  She put everything back where she had found it.

  She wished she hadn’t looked into those folders. She felt now that she ought to do something about Duffy but had no idea what. Molly was a cure that would have to be carefully administered if it wasn’t to make the patient worse instead of better.

  There was herself, quite cured the clinic said; but she would as soon make love with a baboon. Unlike Molly she had a mind and an imagination; also she had seen those faces in the paintings. You could, if you shut your eyes and clenched your teeth, cuddle a baboon, for you’d know what the poor bugger was looking for. Not with Duffy, though.

  She thought of going upstairs and consulting the wee darkie, who liked Duffy. If she had been still at school she might have asked Flockhart’s advice.

  No one could help. One thing she could do was stop asking him to steal his mother’s money. Some cure that for bad dreams.

  She had herself to look after. If Duffy was doomed and was going to end up in a loony-bin it wouldn’t matter very much then that he had stolen fifty pounds or so from his mother.

  I’m a selfish bastard, she thought. But then who isn’t? Isn’t that Duffy’s trouble? We all accept it. He can’t.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  When he returned she was still wearing the crimson and silver dress and had put on a blonde wig of his mother’s. It made her look more ridiculous than alluring but it would be useful as a disguise. She was going to find it hard to look him straight in the face, not just because she’d sneaked into his room without permission, but also because she’d be reminded of the two ghastly faces in the paintings. Sure as God, she might burst out laughing, hysterically.