Just Duffy

by Robin Jenkins

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  The crematorium used by the people of Lightburn was in a neighbouring town eight miles away. A bus passed the gates and Duffy had intended to take it but Mrs Ralston insisted that he accompany her and her family in the black limousine hired from Paton the undertaker. She was concerned about him, he didn’t look well. She thought he was upset by Jack’s death and also was missing her mother.

  In the big opulent car Mrs Ralston, Cissie, and Duffy sat on one side, while opposite them sat Cissie’s husband Albert, Sid, Jack’s brother from Motherwell, and Angela, Sid’s wife.

  Cissie wept all the way, not only because her father was dead and her baby in hospital was dying, but also for remoter reasons not clearly known to herself. Albert, like an American marine with his crew-cut hair and pale skinny face, chewed gum, picked his nose, and scowled out at the rain. Mrs Ralston, in black, puffed sadly at her veil. Sid kept whispering, out of the corner of his mouth, to his wife to keep quiet. She was scandalised that there was to be no religious service. She had a pudgy face, huffy mouth, crafty eyes, and girning voice. Albert’s dress also displeased her. She did not think a mauve suit with wide lapels, a floral shirt, a black tie like a shoelace, and high-heeled boots, appropriate for a funeral. She herself wore a black hat, black gloves, and black shoes, but her fur coat was brown. Fur, she had said, of any colour was suitable for any occasion.

  ‘People will think the Ralstons are heathens,’ she said.

  ‘Jack didn’t want a minister to be present,’ replied Mrs Ralston.

  ‘When he was too ill to realise what he was saying.’

  ‘His mind was clear enough.’

  ‘It’s all right for him, Phemie. He’s not here to bear the affront. Heathen scruff, that’s what they’ll think we are, with good reason too.’ She glared at Albert.

  ‘At least they’ll not think we’re hypocrites.’

  ‘Well said, Phemie,’ said Sid.

  ‘She’s not,’ said Sid. ‘far from it.’

  ‘I’ll answer for myself, Sid Ralston, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘You never go. You’re always saying that those who do go are a lot of hypocrites.’

  ‘So they are, most of them. A person can be a good Christian without ever stepping inside a church.’

  ‘I doubt if the Pope would agree with you, Angela,’ said her husband, with a wink at Duffy.

  Albert showed interest. A supporter of Glasgow Rangers, he was a fanatical anti-Papist.

  ‘Is there to be no service at all?’ asked Angela. ‘Are we just to sit and look at one another?’

  ‘What’s wrong with that, if we’re remembering Jack?’ said Sid.

  ‘Is he just to be burnt like a sackful of rubbish?’

  ‘He’d have been the first to admit that’s all he is now.’

  ‘Show respect for your brother, Sid Ralston. Maybe he didn’t deserve it when he was alive – he was a bit of a reckless scamp, wasn’t he? – but he’s entitled to it now that he’s gone. I hope there’s going to be sacred music at least.’

  ‘Pipe tunes,’ said Mrs Ralston. ‘Slow airs. That’s what the reckless scamp wanted.’

  ‘They’ll never allow that. It would lower the dignity of the place.’

  ‘If you wanted jazz they’d give you jazz,’ said Sid. ‘It’s a business like any other. The customer gets what he pays for. See this car? The more luxurious it is the more the undertaker can charge.’

  ‘At your funeral, Sid Ralston, we’ll all go in a lorry.’

  He chuckled. ‘It wouldn’t bother me, Angela.’ He gave Duffy another wink.

  ‘You mentioned the Pope, Sid. Well, as good Protestants we know we don’t need his approval to get into heaven or keep out of hell, but we do have to have some Christian words spoken at the funeral.’

  Her husband winked at Duffy again. This time he meant that he and Duffy were too wise to worry about heaven or hell. Being alive here on earth was all that mattered.

  ‘Councillor Adam McPherson’s going to say a few words,’ said Mrs Ralston.

  ‘I suppose it would be too much to hope that he’s a Conservative?’

  ‘Jack would spin in his coffin if a Tory was to speak at his funeral.’

  ‘See how bitter these socialists are. They carry their spite with them into the grave.’

  ‘You know Jack was never bitter or spiteful. He was never envious either. He didn’t mind other people having more than he had. What made him angry was when some Tory with a landed estate and millions in the bank accused men without tuppence of ruining the country with their greed.’

  ‘This is supposed to be a funeral, Phemie, not a political meeting. I just hope this Councillor McPherson’s not one of those that want a revolution.’

  ‘He’s dying himself, of lung cancer.’

  ‘I expect he’s a heavy smoker. I thought so. Well, he’s brought it on himself. You’d wonder at somebody that can’t manage his own life sensibly would have the impertinence to tell us how the country should be run.’

  ‘If you were to delve into any politician’s life, Angela,’ said her husband, ‘you’d say the same thing. Look at Lloyd George. He couldn’t see an attractive woman without wanting to go to bed with her and yet he was said to be the wisest statesman of his time.’

  ‘Sid, remember there’s a juvenile present.’

  ‘President Kennedy too. Didn’t he say he had to have a woman a day to keep himself in vigorous health?’

  ‘That’s crap,’ said Albert. ‘It makes fuck-all difference to your health. They used to tell boxers in training to keep away from their wives because fucking would weaken them. Doctors say it makes no difference.’

  ‘Don’t use such disgusting words in the presence of ladies,’ cried Angela.

  ‘What ladies?’

  ‘One of them happens to be your wife.’

  ‘Leave him alone,’ said Cissie. ‘You’re always getting at him, Aunt Angela.’

  Angela was choked with indignation.

  ‘Let’s all think our private thoughts,’ said Sid, with another wink at Duffy.

  Think of anything, except Crosbie. Think of the badminton tonight. Think of what to wear: would clean jeans do? Think of a racket: the one Mrs Munro had given him had strings missing, but Stephen Telfer had said he could borrow one. Think of who else might be present.

  Someone was speaking to him. ‘You!’ It was Angela. She did not approve of him, not a member of the family, travelling with them. ‘Where was it you said your mother was?’

  ‘Spain.’

  ‘Spain’s a big place. Whereabouts in Spain?’

  ‘Torremolinos.’

  ‘March is a funny time to go for a holiday.’

  ‘Duffy’s mother’s very busy during the summer,’ said Mrs Ralston.

  ‘Why didn’t she take you with her? You don’t look as if you could be trusted to be left on your own.’

  ‘Duffy’s managing very well.’

  ‘Just the same it’s very selfish of her to go off by herself.’

  ‘Who said she’s by herself?’ Albert grinned and winked at Duffy.

  ‘So she’s got a friend with her.’

  ‘You could call him that.’

  ‘So that’s the way of it! I might have guessed. Wherever you turn nowadays there’s immorality.’

  ‘Leave the boy alone,’ said Sid, with a note in his voice that Angela, though she bridled and tightened her lips, nonetheless heeded.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  The notice in the Glasgow Herald had said: No flowers. Friends welcome.’ On the coffin therefore was only one flower, a dark-red rose, the dead man’s tribute to his wife, and the small reception hall was crowded. During Jack’s last days not many had come to see him because they had not wanted to watch him suffer and in any case they had their own lives to live, but they were all here now to do him honour. Duffy knew most of them. He was given his share of neighbourly nods and smiles.

  Present from Kenilworth Court w
ere Mrs Munro, red-eyed and with her shoes slipped off; Alec her husband, peeping at his hands now and then as if weighing up his chances; young Billy Stuart, wearing his Rangers scarf under his raincoat; Mrs Stuart, pale-faced and tearful; Mr Duncanson, a dustman, who lived up the adjacent close; Mrs Duncanson, who sucked peppermints as if she was in church; and several others.

  Among those from other parts of the town was Mr Logan, with a black bow-tie and his hair, dyed black, gleaming with scented oil. His fat wife was not with him. She had known that one of his lady-loves came from Kenilworth Court and had always suspected Phemie Ralston. It would have been hard to convince her it had been Maggie Munro who, with her ruined figure and misshapen feet, was no more bedworthy than herself.

  Some of the women enquired after Duffy’s mother. He heard one whisper to another: ‘Poor lad, he always tries to look as if he knew what was going on.’

  He paid them all as close attention as he could, lest he should slip again into that state of paralysed terror which had so frightened Molly.

  An opinion shared by many was that Jack had deserved the best but all the same the money spent on that swanky coffin with the brass fittings and silk tassels would have been more sensibly used to provide for the widow. It was however generally believed that she would not remain a widow for long, being still a young woman and bonny with it.

  Another general belief was that that wasn’t the box that would go into the furnace. Out of sight a cheap one of pinewood would be substituted.

  All the time in the background there was music: a pipe band played slow airs, commemorating sad events such as enforced departures from ancestral islands. There were tears on tough Celtic faces.

  At last Councillor McPherson arrived, apologising for being late. His dress at least must have pleased Angela, for he wore a dark suit and black tie. So too would his appearance, for he was grey-haired and ill-looking, with clapped-in cheeks and hardly enough energy to stand up straight far less overturn society. He certainly did not look like the firebrand who in his younger days had advocated the abolition of Royalty, the House of Lords, the Judges, and the Established Churches, as well as the Stock Exchange. Nor did he sound like it either, for he spoke in a weary voice often interrupted by coughing.

  That afternoon it was Death he was for abolishing. ‘I could give you a hundred memories of my friend and comrade Jack Ralston. So could every one of you here. Put together, surely they would represent him at his best. We give one another immortality. Only a person loved and remembered by no one ever dies. There is no such person …’

  Realists all, they weren’t sure that they agreed with Adam, as their frowns and grunts indicated. In a few minutes all that would be left of Jack was a shovelful of ashes. He would never again trundle a bowl towards the jack or drink a pint of heavy in The Auld Hoose or carry a hodful of bricks or cheer a goal scored. They would remember him doing all those things but it wouldn’t be the same as seeing him do them. As a politician Adam had to talk like that. They knew better. In the end memories faded, everybody was forgotten. Death always had the last laugh.

  When the councillor finished, his voice hoarse, and dying for a smoke, he called upon other friends of Jack to stand up and say a few words. They sat still. They were not used to speaking in public, especially when stone-sober. They did not want to make fools of themselves. Later, in The Auld Hoose or The Covenanter or The Curly Lamb or another of Lightburn’s fifteen pubs, when they had had two or three halfs and half-pints they would tell the whole world what they thought of their mate Jack Ralston. Here in this bleak crematorium, with the polished coffin and the red rose and the homesick music and their critical wives and, to be frank, some people present they didn’t care much for, it would be a tongue-tied ordeal.

  Archie Duncanson was first to get to his feet. A small burly man with a big purple nose, he told of how he and Jack had tried football pools together for over eight years and hadn’t won so much as a tosser. They’d wondered if it was a record. If you wanted to know what a man was worth you couldn’t do better than check a coupon with him and find that instead of the magic twenty-four points you had only eight, the miserable minimum, and therefore instead of half a million quid not a sausage, well if he could see the joke of it and laugh, as Jack had, then he was indeed a friend worth cherishing.

  Others decided they could do as well as a beery-nosed dustman. They got up in their turn and praised their dead friend.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  The same car took the same passengers to the Caledonian Hotel where refreshments were to be served in a private room to a specially invited few.

  Angela had a new grumble: the drinks were to be alcoholic, and free.

  ‘Tea would have done, Phemie, with some scones. Alcoholic drink at funerals is out of fashion nowadays, among the better class of people anyway. If they want whisky let them pay for it.’

  ‘Do the better class of people ask their guests to pay?’

  ‘This is a funeral, Phemie, not a party.’

  ‘It’s a good old Scotch custom,’ said Sid.

  ‘Well, it’s one you’re not going to observe, Sid Ralston, for you’re driving me home tonight, remember.’

  Cissie spoke. ‘Dad always wanted people to enjoy themselves.’

  ‘It’s not as if he left you well provided for, Phemie,’ said Angela.

  ‘How could he?’ said Sid grimly. ‘He was ill and out of work.’

  ‘I’m just stating a fact. All his life Jack was never a saver. He was a heavy smoker: look what it did to him. He was too fond of a drink: look at the price of whisky. He must have squandered hundreds of pounds on those football pools. I thought it was disgraceful that coarse-looking man mentioning them. But what can you expect from a dustman?’

  Mrs Ralston gave her an answer. ‘From Archie Duncanson you can expect civility, sensible advice, and help when you need it.’

  ‘I can see, Phemie, living in that run-down place has caused you to lower your standards.’

  ‘You know, wife,’ said Albert, in a friendly enough voice, ‘you do fuck-all but grumble.’

  If she hadn’t had her own standards raised by living in a bought bungalow among other bought bungalows she would have clouted him with her handbag. ‘Are you going to let that rubbish insult your wife?’ she cried to Sid.

  ‘Who are you calling rubbish?’ said Albert, aggrieved that his friendliness had been repaid with abuse.

  ‘If he’s rubbish then I’m rubbish too,’ said Cissie.

  ‘All of you,’ said Mrs Ralston, almost in tears, ‘please remember we’ve just come from cremating my husband.’

  They were all sorry.

  Cissie though looked as if she would never forgive her aunt Angela.

  Later in the hotel Mrs Ralston and Mrs Munro were seated in a corner of the private room drinking whisky-and-water and discussing in confidential whispers the former’s future. Duffy sat near them sipping coca-cola. He was so quiet they and everybody else forgot he was there.

  At the other side of the room Angela was chatting to Jack’s last employer, Mr Whiteford and his wife. She had been amazed that so well-to-do a couple had accepted the invitation.

  ‘So you’ve still got it in mind to go to Toronto?’ said Mrs Munro.

  ‘In Kate’s cable she and her man Bobby said I’d be very welcome. As you know, Maggie, I liked Toronto.’

  ‘You saw it in summer, Phemie. At this time of year it’ll be knee-deep in snow.’

  ‘The houses are all centrally heated. The shops are lovely. You should see Eaton’s Centre.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s the shops that would take you there.’

  ‘Maybe not. It’s got other attractions.’

  ‘You met a man there, didn’t you? I’ve always had that impression.’

  ‘Yes, I did. Now that Jack’s gone and can’t be hurt I can talk about it. This man fancied me.’

  ‘Lots of men fancy you, Phemie. There’s Whiteford. He can hardly keep his eyes off you.�
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  ‘He had a good job, chief security officer at a big college.’

  ‘He’d be a big fellow then, not like Jack.’

  ‘Yes, he’s big, but he’s cheery, like Jack. He has a fine house on the college campus, a lovely place with grass and trees and lots of black squirrels.’

  ‘I never knew squirrels could be black. It’s a different world over there.’

  ‘I’d miss my friends,’

  ‘They’d miss you, Phemie. Is he a bachelor? I hope not, for they get set in their ways.’

  ‘He’s a widower.’

  ‘Any family?’

  ‘Two. Both married and off his hands.’

  ‘Not too old, I hope?’

  ‘He’s just fifty.’

  ‘You say he fancied you. Did you fancy him?’

  ‘Yes, I did, very much.’

  ‘That was two years ago. He could have found somebody else since.’

  ‘Kate says he’s still single. Every time he meets her he asks after me; so she says.’

  ‘I expect he earns more than Jack ever did.’

  ‘I never compared them.’

  ‘Speaking in confidence, Phemie, did you ever visit him on your owny-oh?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Enough said then.’

  ‘Enough said.’

  ‘What about Cissie? And wee Mary?’

  ‘Wee Mary’s not got much longer to live and Cissie’s got her man.’

  ‘He’s a disaster.’

  ‘We think so, she doesn’t.’

  ‘He’s young of course. He could improve.’

  ‘I hope so.’

  ‘Have you considered asking her to go with you?’

  ‘I’ve suggested it. She told me her place was with her man.’

  ‘God help her. Look at that, Phemie. Andy Logan’s got his hand on Jessie Duncanson’s behoochy again. She’s not objecting either. What can he see in her, for God’s sake? She’s no chicken and she’s no oil painting.’