by Tony Roper
His words flung randomly into the night reached the ears of Theresa's search party. Well, the ears of Peter and Magrit's squad anyway. They headed for the sound and, in a very few moments, came upon Wee Niggles still shouting and cursing humanity and its gods for the state he was in.
Peter shouted out to him as they approached, ‘Hey!’
Wee Niggles swirled round to face them and, seeing a crowd running at him, immediately and instinctively went into the southpaw crouch that had been his trademark. Leading with his right fist, he stabbed at the mob in front of him. His voice crackled and gurgled and sometimes faded altogether as he threw down the gauntlet to them. ‘If you want a fight, I'm your man. C'mon a' the gither or one at a time – makes nae odds to me – c'mon, who feels lucky? Who's first for a doin'?’
Despite his dreadful preparations for the contest, there was not a lot wrong with his stance and there was still a natural balance left over from his halcyon days. It was only when he attempted some flash footwork that he let himself down – literally.
Peter bent to pick him up and, as he did so, the smell of Niggles almost put him on his back. ‘I'm no' wantin' to fight – listen – have you seen a young lassie, aboot thirteen years old, roon' aboot here?’
‘Aye, I did. Who wants tae know?’ Niggles bellowed as he strove to regain his equilibrium.
Magrit interrupted Peter before he could answer, ‘I do, ya drunken auld bastard – I'm her mother. Where did you see her?’ Magrit's tone, as always, was not one of diplomacy and the harshness in her manner served to bring Niggles out of his alcoholic fog.
‘She was standin' in that shop front and then she left there …’
By the way Magrit spoke to him Niggles was not sure if he was going to be blamed for something in a minute so he tried to guard against this possibility. ‘I never touched her by the way,’ he avowed. ‘She left o' her own accordion – nothin' to dae wi' me. OK? Right?’ He stared at them defiantly, then softened his response, ‘Youse havnae got a shillin' to provide an ex-welterweight champion that fought for his country wi' a bed for the night, have you?’ He was lying on all three claims but he was not aware of that – except maybe the shilling for a bed bit. He had not slept in a bed for many a year and any shilling that came his way would be turned into wine quicker than Jesus had managed it at Cana.
‘Did you see where she went?’ John asked, handing him a shilling.
Niggles bit into the shilling before answering. ‘Aye, she went on board a ship. You havnae got another shillin' for a bite to eat?’ he ventured, sensing he might have stumbled on to a small vein of possible benefactors.
This possibility was sadly snatched from his hopes when Magrit grabbed him by the lapels and hissed, ‘If you don't tell me where that lassie went, I'll hit you that hard you'll land up in bed, in a hospital and you might never get oot o' it again. D'you understand me?’
Niggles understood perfectly. ‘I said she went on a ship,’ he reiterated.
‘What ship are you on aboot?’ Magrit was approaching hysteria with the dreadful anxiety that was welling up inside her.
‘That yin.’ Niggles pointed down towards where the Clan Macintosh was berthed. ‘I saw her go up the gangplank.’
Turning to where Niggles had pointed, their hearts froze inside them. The reason for this was that they could all see the lights of a ship in the distance that had obviously sailed from where Niggles had indicated.
Magrit began running towards the fast disappearing ship and shouting, ‘Come back – for God's sake – my lassie's on board your ship.’
The others joined her in a forlorn attempt at attracting the attention of someone on board the ship but it was quite useless. The lights on board were already starting to fade into the inky gloom of the night sea fog.
‘Oh, God, no … please no …’ Magrit started to sob and sank to her knees.
As Peter realised the awful implication of his wee lassie's action, he screamed after the ship, ‘Come back, ya bastards – that's my wee lassie you've got – come back.’
Of course, no one could hear him and his voice echoed back from the far bank, in a cruel mockery of his distress.
Doreen looked at John for some kind of a lead that might alleviate the unbelievable grief that was coming from Magrit and Peter.
John shrugged as if to say, ‘What can I do?’ before he realised that anything would be better than just standing there. ‘Peter,’ he said softly, moving to his pal's side, hoping he could calm him down a bit. ‘C'mon, we'll get back and tell the polis. They'll be able to do somethin'.’
There were tears in Peter's eyes as he faced John. ‘She's only thirteen, John.’ His fists bunched up and his jaw clenched shut, forcing the words to battle to escape from the terrible thoughts that were going on inside his head. ‘See if anything happens to her … I'll …’ he could not finish as emotions he wasn't even aware he had flooded out of him.
‘Naw!’ John tried his best to sound encouraging. ‘She'll be fine. I'm sure o' it. She's a clever lassie, Theresa. The quicker we get the polis on the job the better though, eh?’
A voice permeated their conversation – a voice that did not sound like one of their immediate company. It too had panic ringing in its cadences as it shouted to them, ‘Mrs Culfeathers … Mrs Culfeathers!’
A red-faced young woman, in her middle thirties, ran towards them. As she spotted Mary Culfeathers, she redoubled her pace and shouted again, ‘Mrs Culfeathers!’
Mary looked at Doreen and asked, ‘Is it me she wants, Doreen?’
Doreen was puzzled as well and she nodded, ‘I think so, Mrs Culfeathers.’
‘What is it, hen?’ Mary asked the young woman as she drew level.
‘It's your husband, Mrs Culfeathers – he's been dragged oot o' the river.’
Mary eyed the flush-faced young woman with a look that suggested insanity might have run in the family. ‘My husband? It cannae be my husband – he's in the hoose, hen.’
‘I'm sorry but … everybody says it's him. Dolly Johnson said to come and get you – they're along there,’ she said, pointing to a throng of women a couple of hundred yards away in the opposite direction from the one the ship had gone.
Mary turned to Doreen. ‘What's happenin', Doreen? It cannae be Harry.’
Dolly cradled Harry's head in her arms. Beside it lay the gas mask she had removed. Harry was alive but breathing very heavily. He was also shivering so Dolly had taken her coat off and wrapped it round him. ‘You're a' right, Mr Culfeathers,’ she assured him as she rubbed his hands with hers in an attempt to put some heat into him. ‘We've sent for your wife. She'll be here in a minute.’
Harry looked at her through half-closed eyes. His lips moved but nothing came out of them. His eyes widened and she fancied he seemed to want her to come closer so he could tell her something. Dolly leaned her ear closer to his mouth. ‘What is it? What are you trying to say, Mr Culfeathers?’
Harry gripped Dolly's arm and, with a huge effort, strained to make sure that Dolly would hear him. Raising himself up as far as he could, he gasped into her ear. ‘Have you got a match – mine'll be a' damp,’ he croaked, before collapsing back down as his strength gave way to weakness.
Before Dolly could explain that she had neither fags nor matches, John ushered Mary Culfeathers through the crowd that had gathered around her husband. She could not believe what her eyes were witnessing as she saw him lying in his soaking wet uniform, his head being held off the ground by Dolly Johnson. ‘Harry?’ she said incredulously.
Harry responded feebly, ‘Mary? What are you doin' here?’
‘How did you fall into the river?’ Mary said, ignoring Harry's question in favour of her own.
Harry was starting to recover enough to say, proudly but still feebly, ‘I didnae fall in – I dived in.’
Mary shook her head in disapproval. ‘Look at the state your in – you're a' wet.’
‘It's the water that does that,’ Harry informed her, shivering inside Do
lly's coat.
‘Whose coat is that? It's no' one o' mine, is it?’ There was a definite tone of reprimand starting to creep over Mary's initial one of concern.
‘It's mine, Mrs Culfeathers.’ Dolly, volunteered.
Mary's face showed visible relief. ‘Thanks, Dolly. I'll get it dry-cleaned for you.’ With an effort that made her groan slightly, Mary bent down and said, in a confidential voice, ‘Dolly, gonnae thank whoever pulled him oot the water? I don't know who it was but they must be soakin' too. Tell them I'll get their stuff dry-cleaned as well.’
John decided to take charge before Harry Culfeathers froze to death instead of drowned. ‘We'll get him up the road and dried oot, eh, Mrs Culfeathers?’
Mary decided to enlist John's help as maybe Dolly had enough on her plate trying to keep Harry from freezing to death. ‘John, will you thank whoever pulled Harry oot the river for me before we go. I don't want to appear ungrateful, son. I'd like to show my appreciation for their kind gesture.’ She reached into the pocket of her coat and drew out her purse. Then, after some rummling about, brought out a half crown.
John could see that Magrit and Peter were impatient to move off and he wanted to be with them so he shouted out, ‘Whoever pulled the old man oot the water, his wife wants you to make yourself known so she can thank you personally.’
‘It wasnae me,’ a tall thin woman volunteered as she looked round her.
‘Me neither,’ said a florid-faced wifie who stood behind her.
‘He was lyin' there when we got here – sure he was, Rosina,’ said Rosa Mucci to her Italian cousin Rosina Nanette.
Rosina confirmed the accuracy of her cousin's statement three times, ‘So he was – right enough – that's true.’
‘I cannae swim so it definitely wasnae me,’ volunteered another from the throng.
‘It was me.’ A small voice came from the back of the gathering.
John heard Magrit gasp as Theresa made her way through the small crowd to where her mother and father gaped in amazement before rushing to her.
‘Oh, God – oh, God.’ As she rushed to enfold Theresa in her arms, Magrit couldn't think of anything else to say that expressed the feelings of relief, happiness and euphoria that meant she had her daughter back.
Peter just stood weeping as he surveyed his lassie. Familiarity had conditioned him to really only think of her when he wanted a cup of tea made or a shirt ironed. He would never make that mistake again – though he would continue to expect her to make him a cup of tea and iron a shirt now and then.
‘We were worried sick aboot you,’ Magrit howled, still clutching Theresa close to her as if she might be snatched away again at any moment.
‘I'm sorry.’ Theresa was bubbling into her mother's shoulder.
‘It's a' right … it's a' right,’ Magrit consoled. She felt Peter's arms surround both Theresa and her and then was aware that she could hear him crying. She had never known that he was capable of that.
‘It's OK, darlin'. Put this jacket round you – it'll help heat you up.’ He kissed his daughter on the forehead as he placed his jacket over her shoulders. ‘We thought you were on that ship – the one that sailed away ten minutes ago,’ he said, the relief that she wasn't evident in his voice.
‘I was gonnae go on it,’ Theresa gulped through her tears. ‘I was halfway up the gangway when I heard a splash that came from doon here. So I ran back doon to see what it was and it was that old man. So I went in and pulled him oot. But I didnae know what to do after that so I just left him lying. I was feart, Mammy.’
‘You could have drowned,’ Magrit scolded.
‘Naw, I'm a good swimmer,’ Theresa protested before bursting out laughing. ‘See when I was pullin' him oot the water, he kept sayin', “It's a shitey beach.”’
John again suggested that Harry and Theresa needed to be dried off and go somewhere they could get some warmth into them. At his prompting, everyone agreed that they had better get back to the steamie and finish off their washing. There was, of course, only going to be one topic of conversation once the women went back inside. This evening would provide endless hours of communal dialogue and discourse or, to give it its real name, gossip for many a day and probably many a year. The tale would, no doubt, grow legs and gather more colour in the retelling – but it's hard to see how. It was, however, definitely going to be the best Hogmanay for many a year.
FORTY-SIX
Andy had made a fresh brew of tea and poured himself a wee sensation in the form of a glass of the amber nectar that is whisky. He was finishing the last of the whisky and putting his third spoonful of sugar into his tea while he waited for someone at the head office emergency section of Glasgow Corporation Baths and Washhouses to pick up the phone.
Angus McPhail eventually answered it. Forty years old and a church elder in his spare time, he was not all that keen on the drunkenness of a traditional Scots Hogmanay. He was a confirmed bachelor whose hobbies were going to work, going to church and going to sleep – in that strict order. With no wife and no children and no friends who were not hell-bent on getting falling-down drunk that evening, he reckoned he would be as well earning a bit of overtime and had volunteered for the shift he was now filling.
He surveyed his office with a sense of achievement. He had worked his way up in the corporation from a young lad to the lofty position he now found himself in as associate assistant to the deputy subordinate head of public health's manager's secretary. It wasn't strictly true to say that it was his office. But it was true that he had been given it for the night.
It was an easy shift he reckoned. Man the phones until the steamies were all locked up and then the rest of the night was his own. He had laid by some ginger wine which he would toast the new year in with and then settle back with a tin of shortbread and a bit of black bun his mother had wrapped up in a Bilsland's bread wrapper. All this, while being paid till midnight, seemed to Angus a great way to spend Hogmanay.
He was in the middle of preparing a draft on how to propel the Church of Scotland into the forefront of Scottish youth culture by involving them in mass accordion lessons when the phone rang. This was something Angus had not bargained for and he was in two minds whether to pick it up or not – after all, if he was being phoned at this time of the night, it almost certainly meant that there was a problem of some kind on the other end of the line and, really, he was not up for getting embroiled in someone else's mishaps at this late hour. The telephone rang again. Its harsh trill seemed to Angus to be admonishing him for failing in his duties. He stared uncertainly as it sounded again, piercing not only his ears but also his conscience. Angus's Protestant work ethic won through and, like the responsible corporation employee that he was, he gritted his teeth, sucked a bit of shortbread that had got trapped in the middle of a top incisor and picked up the telephone. ‘Hello,’ he answered, not giving too much information away in his greeting.
‘Is that the Corporation Emergency Help Section?’
Angus heard a voice that sounded to him as if it had a slight slur perhaps caused by alcohol. ‘Aye,’ he replied, still keeping the emergency help side of his job on the back boiler.
Andy decided to tell it like it was as he could not think of any other way. ‘This is Andy McDowell at Cranston Washhouse, sir. I would like to report that the entire steamie has vanished. Well, wait a minute … no' the actual building – just the people inside of the building, you understand … No, I have not been drinking to excess … Yes, I realise it is Hogmanay and you are snowed in with requests for help but I really think that this is that wee bit out of the ordinary, sir … No! I have already said I am not inebriated … So your advice is to pray to God for forgiveness and then take a deep breath and go back and check if everyone has still vanished? I'll do that and get back to you. Thanks for your help, sir.’
Angus put down the phone gingerly. He wondered if he was being tested in some way by his superiors – to see if he could handle stress – and decided that, if he was, he
had passed with flying colours. Now, about these accordion lessons – should they be compulsory?
Andy let out a puzzled sigh as he turned over in his mind the advice he had been given by the emergency help operator. Pray to God for forgiveness? He couldn't think what he had to be forgiven for – as a washhouse handyman? In other ways, he was no saint – he would be the first to admit it – but what had that got to do with the emergency help section of the corporation? Nevertheless, they were there because they knew what they were doing, he supposed. So, getting down on his knees, Andy prayed for forgiveness for whatever he had done wrong in his capacity as a washhouse mechanic. Then he got up off his knees and went to check on the disappeared damsels.
The scene that greeted him as he left his office and entered the washhouse floor almost took his breath away. There, in front of his very own eyes, were rows upon rows of washer-women chattering away to each other. He wandered in and out of the various stalls but there was no sign from any of the women that they had mysteriously all vanished.
He was about to go down to the front desk when he heard a peal of laughter coming from the stalls that Magrit McGuire and Dolly Johnson were washing in. He turned the corner that led him past Mrs Culfeathers' stall and his mouth fell open in utter astonishment. There, in Mary Culfeathers' steeping sink, was a naked old man – naked apart from a pair of ex-army underpants, that is. He was being attended to by Doreen Hood and Dolly Johnson, who were pouring buckets of hot water over him. Steam rose from all round him as he sat smiling at Andy.