Just Duffy

by Robin Jenkins

  He was dressed as he had been when he had stolen out to paint the declaration of war on the town hall: black jeans and jerkin, black balaclava, black gloves, and black sandshoes.

  Outwardly very calm he was inwardly nervous. Many things could go wrong. He could be seen leaving the house by Mrs Munro, or walking along the streets by acquaintances. Molly McGowan could come early and find him not at home. Crosbie might not be in his hide-out or Mick Dykes might be in it with him.

  Luckily, just as he was about to leave, he heard some people who had been up to condole with Mrs Ralston being waylaid by Mrs Munro and invited in ‘for a dram and a blether.’ They were Mr Logan the house-painter and his wife. Mrs Munro would be too busy entertaining them to spy on him.

  From the window he made sure there was no one about in the street. Quickly he opened and closed the door and ran downstairs. The street lamp at the foot of the stairs had not yet been fixed. It would not be the only lamp out of order. Thanks to vandals half the town’s streets would be in darkness. In any case on a Sunday night with all the shops shut they were always deserted.

  It was just after six. He had to get to Crimea Street, settle with Crosbie, and return home before seven when Molly was expected. Eagerness would make her early. What was to be done about her would depend on how he had got on with Crosbie.

  In the old part of the town where Crimea Street was situated some tenements had already been razed to the ground, others were partly demolished, and others again, like Crosbie’s, were waiting for their turn. Complaints were frequently made that the demolition and restoration were taking too long: the excuse was that the council’s money kept running out. The area was an eyesore, though in the summer masses of a wild flower called willowherb had flourished all over it. It was dangerous, especially to children, because of falling masonry, tetanus, and hungry rats. The hope was that one day it would be turned into a public park with grass and trees and playing fields.

  Stepping carefully and now and then having to shine his torch Duffy approached Crosbie’s close. A cat miaowed and came towards him. It was limping. It was so desperate for company that it forgot its fear of boys who threw stones or aimed kicks at it, and rubbed itself against Duffy’s legs. It was black and had a white ribbon round its neck. Probably it was some old woman’s pet and companion. It looked old itself. Duffy patted it and spoke reassuringly. Life was strong within it, old and hungry and lost though it was. He wished he had some food to give it.

  It came after him, right up to the close and inside. He remembered Crosbie’s hatred of cats. It would be better to keep it away from him.

  In the close was a smell of cats’ piss, but the strongest smell was that of washing-soda, tons of which must have been used by generations of women to scour the stone floor. The walls were not tiled as in tenements where better-off people lived, but were painted dark-brown. Scribbled in white was the slogan fuck the pope. Efforts had been made to erase it, either by shocked Catholics or, less likely, ashamed Protestants.

  The cat, pressing itself against his legs, made him stumble. As gently as he could he pushed it out of his way. It darted up the stairs in front of him.

  The stairs seemed to shake. It was really his legs that were shaking. So were his hands. So, it seemed, was his brain. Yet never had it been more important for him to think clearly.

  He passed a communal lavatory on the half-landing. The chain had been plundered, probably to be used as a weapon. The space was so narrow that someone with big feet like Mick Dykes would have found it hard to close the door.

  One-up, middle door, Mick had said. The name-plate had been removed. Duffy knocked. Suddenly the cat was hampering his feet again. He must not let Crosbie harm it.

  He knocked again more loudly and called through the slot where the letter-box had been: ‘Johnny, it’s me, Duffy.’

  He heard the clump of Crosbie’s high-heeled boots. The door slowly opened. The cat ran in. Crosbie tried to kick it but missed. ‘Fucking cat!’ he cried, in what sounded like terror. He rushed in pursuit of it, heedless of Duffy.

  The living-room, which had also been the kitchen, was lit by two candles. There was no furniture, except for a wooden box on which Crosbie had been playing ludo. The paraffin heater that Mick had mentioned wasn’t lit. The room was cold.

  Australian hat on head and knife in hand, Crosbie was searching for the cat, in this room and the other one. ‘I’ll kill it,’ he kept panting.

  ‘Leave it alone, Johnny,’ said Duffy. ‘It’s doing no harm.’

  ‘That’s what you think, Duffy. Cats give me headaches.’

  Aware of its danger the cat kept quiet.

  ‘It’s lost,’ said Duffy. ‘It wants company.’

  ‘Every time I have one of my headaches there’s a cat about. Somebody sends them.’

  Duffy was astonished. ‘Cats don’t obey orders, like dogs. Nobody could send a cat anywhere.’

  ‘I know what I’m talking about, Duffy, I can feel it coming on.’ He let out a scream. It could have been the cat itself, with his knife in it.

  ‘I’ll open the outside door,’ said Duffy. ‘If we keep still it’ll run out.’

  He went and opened the door. Almost at once the cat shot past him.

  ‘It’s gone, Johnny,’ he said.

  Crosbie was crushing both hands, one still clutching the knife, against his brow. He was whimpering.

  ‘Hasn’t the doctor given you something to lessen the pain?’ asked Duffy.

  ‘Nothing’s any good.’

  ‘How long does it last?’

  ‘Sometimes minutes, sometimes all day.’

  Duffy himself was still trembling. His pain, intense too, was not physical. He felt his soul being torn apart. He had meant to talk reasonably with Crosbie but that did not seem possible now. He himself could not think clearly and Crosbie had this paralysing headache. He could not wait for another opportunity. It had to be completed in the next ten minutes or never at all. It was now half past six. Molly McGowan could be knocking at his door.

  ‘It’s cold in here,’ he said. ‘Let’s go to my house. We can talk there.’

  ‘Wait, Duffy. Wait. I can hardly see, you know. I go blind.’

  ‘I’ll help you.’

  ‘Wait. I think it’s getting less.’

  ‘Did the doctor say what causes it?’

  ‘I heard him telling my mother it was a tumour in the brain. He said an operation would do no good. It could kill me all the quicker. If I don’t talk sense, Duffy, don’t worry. Sometimes I go mad. Mick gets scared. Sometimes I don’t know what I’m saying or what I’m doing.’ He took his hands away from his face. He was trying to smile. ‘I can’t see yet. Wait a wee bit longer, Duffy. We’ve got plenty of time.’

  ‘Have you seen Mick today?’

  ‘No. I’ve been expecting him. Maybe we should wait for him.’

  ‘He’ll not come. His mother’s found out about him and Mrs Burnet. He’s not allowed out of the house.’

  ‘He’s frightened of his mother. She leathers him and he’ll not hit her back because she’s his mother. He’s got no brains. He said he had a dream once, his mother cut off his dick with a hatchet. I’m beginning to see now, Duffy, but you’ll have to help me.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘Are the candles still lit?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Blow them out, will you? I see all kinds of lights.’

  Duffy blew out the candles and then taking Crosbie by the arm led him out of the house and down the stairs.

  They moved slowly. Crosbie kept his eyes shut. It made the pain less, he said. It also meant that his faith in Duffy as a friend who would do him no harm was absolute.

  They went out into the street.

  ‘Is this Sunday?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I get mixed up. Is Cooley staying with you?’

  ‘She’s gone to London.’

  ‘That’s right. She said she was. Is this the night big Molly’s coming to
your house?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Mick’ll not be there?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Just you and me, Duffy. We’ll have great fun with the stupid bitch. We’ll fuck her in turns all night.’

  It was then that Duffy struck the first blow. The weapon was a half-brick he had picked up. He thought, as he heard bone cracking, that Crosbie deserved it because of his cruelty to the cat and to Molly. He also thought that he was doing Crosbie a good turn in making sure that this headache would be his last. He was not an assassin or executioner but a deliverer.

  ‘For fuck’s sake, Duffy,’ mumbled Crosbie,’ what did you do that for?’ He sank to his knees. His hat fell off.

  If no other blow was struck and he was left here he would probably die before anyone found him. It would be thought that the tumour had killed him. The bruise on his scalp would be attributed to his hitting his head in a fall (Mick or his mother would testify that he went blind) or to a stone dropping on him.

  He might not die, though. Bending down, Duffy heard him moaning.

  So Duffy had to strike again, several times, until his glove was sodden with blood. He felt the pain himself, in his imagination, more perhaps than Crosbie did.

  Suddenly his arm felt so tired and weak that he could not have struck again if he had wanted to. All of him was utterly exhausted. He wanted just to kneel beside Crosbie and wait there, for the rest of his life, longer than that, for the rest of time. He felt, dimly as yet, that he had done something so infinitely wrong that everybody in the world was diminished by it.

  It did not seem to be himself, but someone else, who a few minutes later resolutely dragged Crosbie’s body into a nearby close in a partly demolished building and there covered it with rubble, handfuls of dust, and pieces of rotten wood. But before he did that he placed in Crosbie’s fist a metal hair-grip, one of the half dozen that Cooley had left scattered on the carpet in his mother’s room. No girl in particular would be suspected. Such hair-grips were used by millions.

  Then that someone else took off the dusty and bloody gloves and pushed them well down through a hole in the floorboards of one of the houses in the close, where they would never be found. If the demolition was resumed tomorrow morning the body itself would be hidden under tons of debris.

  Duffy watched with horror all this being done. He knew intimately this cool, active, thorough, and resolute person in the black jerkin spotted with blood, but seemed to have no influence over him.

  Together they ran home, Duffy panting and fearful, the other alert and silent.

  It was ten past seven when they were back inside the house. Shrieks of laughter could be heard coming from Mrs Munro’s: her own little private wake for Mr Ralston was still going on. Molly hadn’t yet arrived. Perhaps Cathie Barr had instructed her that it wasn’t mannerly to be too prompt.

  There was time for hands to be washed and clothes changed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  She was carrying a small bag and chewing gum. Her smile of lewd fondness turned anxious and uncertain as she stared at him. ‘Jesus, Duffy,’ she said, as she came in, ‘you look funny. I hardly recognised you. I thought it was somebody else.’

  It was that someone else who had the presence of mind to say, sadly: ‘Mr Ralston who lives upstairs died last night.’

  ‘I hate to hear about people being dead. If it was left to me everybody would live forever.’

  She took off her duffel coat with its many badges and hung it on the hall-stand. All she had on under it were dirty jeans and a thin black acrylic jumper through which her big white breasts showed. Wasting no time she grabbed him in her strong arms and slobbered him with kisses. She stank of sweat and cheap perfume. ‘It’s as well I’m here,’ she whispered, ‘to cheer you up.’

  Eagerly she went off to explore the house, with cries of wonder. In the bathroom she said that if he didn’t mind she’d like to take a shower, she seldom got one in her own house, her mother said electricity was too dear, and anyway with ten in the family there was always someone needing the bathroom. ‘To tell you the truth, Duffy, I’d like to use the toilet now. I’m always needing. My mum says I should see a doctor, it could be my kidneys, but it’s because I drink too much cold coke. If you want to stay you’re welcome.’

  He did not stay. When she came out she asked to see his mother’s bedroom. Mick had raved about it. She had an infantile hee-hee of a laugh. She kept using it all the time, with variations.

  In the bedroom it expressed her delight at the pink carpet and the big bed. She took off her shoes and socks, bashfully apologising for her dirty feet, and lay down on top of the red quilt.

  ‘I feel like a bride,’ she said.

  Jumping up, she rushed over to the wardrobe. ‘Mick said your mother’s got lots of dresses and nighties.’ She hee-hee’d in ecstasy as she fingered the bright assortment, and then put her face among them, sniffing their scent. ‘Could I try a nightie on?’ she asked. ‘I’ll be careful.’ She picked out one that was dark-red, silky, ankle-length, and low at the front. ‘This should fit me, across the chest. I’ve got big boobs, as maybe you’ve noticed.’ She hee-hee’d modestly. ‘So has your mother. Have you seen Cooley’s? No, you haven’t, because she hasn’t got any to speak of. Neither has wee Cathie. Me, I’ve got better ones, Mick says, than lots of film stars.’ She realised that to mention her past lover to her present one might be displeasing to the latter. ‘You don’t have to be jealous of Mick. You don’t have to be jealous of anybody. Mick’s always bragging about his big dick but he’s got no style. You’ve got style, Duffy. All the girls say so, even Sally, and she’s a sour-faced cunt that praises nobody. Sorry, Duffy. I know you don’t approve of swearing. I don’t approve of it either. You should hear me telling off my wee sisters. I don’t think I should try this on till I’ve had my shower. Will you come and show me how it works? I always get it freezing cold or scalding hot.’

  In the bathroom she whispered: ‘We could have a shower together. Like Adam and Eve under a waterfall. I saw that in a film once.’

  It took her seconds to remove jeans and jumper. Her breasts were white and luscious; so too was her bottom which she proudly flaunted. On her belly was tattoo’d, in blue, the word love: her umbilicus was the O. But what struck him was the contrast between her body, which had an innocence like an animal’s, and her face which, for all its immaturity, was very human, in its coarseness, greed, and lust.

  Rather impatiently she helped him to strip. ‘Don’t be shy with your Molly. She’s all yours and you’re all hers.’ She hee-hee’d with relief when she found what she was anxiously looking for. ‘Wee Cathie thinks she knows everything. She told me you wouldn’t be able to manage it. She said you weren’t interested in girls. Well, maybe you’re not interested in other girls but this shows you’re interested in me.’ She stooped and kissed it, but not voraciously. She was too experienced to excite him too much too soon.

  She was pleased that the soap was scented.

  They stepped into the bath, under the warm water. She soaped herself all over and then him.

  She explained about the tattoo. It had been done in Glasgow, months ago. She wouldn’t say who had paid for it: she was finished with him. She was finished with them all, including Mick. She was Duffy’s now, until death. ‘Do you know what I wish, Duffy? I wish we were married and this was our house. We would have a wee girl with brown hair and brown eyes like you and a wee boy with red hair and blue eyes like me. They wouldn’t have to be backward either, for our Morag’s very bright: all her teachers have said so. What do you wish, Duffy?’

  To save himself from having to consider, far less answer, that question, he pressed his face against her soapy breasts, with shudders and moans, seeking oblivion.

  She thought desire was overwhelming him. ‘So you can’t wait, honey? All right, you don’t have to wait. Molly’s wide open, waiting for you. Come home, lover boy, come home.’ Taking hold of him she let him slide into her. ‘You’re saf
e in there, honey. Take it easy, though. We’ve got all night. Molly’s all yours. Nobody else is waiting for a turn. Nobody else is going to get a share. That’s it. Nice and slow and easy. All the way home. You’ve got it now. Just keep that up. Jesus, I’m in heaven, do you know that, in heaven. I’ve been dreaming of this for years. Talk about Adam and Eve. You and me were made for each other. I’ve come twice already. Five’s my record. I’m going to beat it easy with you. You’re better than Mick, a lot better. Take a rest now. Look, you’re still shivering. What are you thinking about, Duffy, I’ll tell you what I’m thinking. This is our honeymoon. We were married today, in St Stephen’s. I was wearing a gorgeous white dress and had an armful of lilies. The reception was in the Caledonian Hotel. Over fifty guests. Champagne for everybody to toast the bride and groom. Now this is us in the bridal suite. Let me do the work this time, honey. Put your hands here.’ She placed his hands on her buttocks. ‘Relax. That’s it. Leave it all to your Molly. She knows what you want. She knows how to put you in heaven. You know, Duffy, I think you’ve been saving it all up for me. Isn’t this marvellous? Just give my arse a squeeze if you want to take over. I know men like to finish it. I’m wishing I wasn’t on the pill. I want your baby, Duffy, the wee boy with the red hair or the wee girl with the brown eyes.’

  The door-bell rang, stridently.

  ‘Never mind it,’ she said. ‘Keep going, honey, keep going. We’ll finish together.’

  The water began to turn cold.

  ‘Jesus!’ she reached past him to turn it off but turned it the wrong way. Icy water poured down on them.

  ‘For Christ’s sake!’ she yelled, and this time turned it the right way.

  The door-bell was still ringing.

  ‘It’s getting on my nerves,’ she said. Not so wholeheartedly now, she returned to the love-making. ‘I’d think it was Mick if his mother hadn’t ordered him to stay in the house. That creep Johnny Crosbie wouldn’t come without Mick. It can’t be Cooley. You said she’d gone to London, though Sally doesn’t believe it. You’d think it was cops, the way they keep on ringing. Anyway, this isn’t against the law. I’m over sixteen and boys can do it at any age if they’re able. I know two who can do it better than a lot of men and they’re just twelve. Maybe it’s kids playing at ringing door-bells. I used to play at it when I was a kid. Look, honey, maybe we should finish this in bed, where it’ll be more comfortable anyway.’