There had been quite a rumpus with Winn before they had left. Lindsay had almost lost her temper with the nursemaid who had protested that it was far too cold for a small boy to be taken out of doors, no matter how well wrapped up he was.
‘He will not be out of doors for long,’ Lindsay had said.
‘Where are you going, then?’ Winn had asked.
‘I don’t think that is any of your business.’
‘What if Forbes telephones and wants to know where you are?’
‘Tell him we have gone shopping.’
‘You will be tiring Harry out, you know.’
‘I don’t think so, Winn.’
‘What about the poor baby?’
‘Poor baby?’
‘He will be hungry.’
‘I will be back long before Philip needs fed again,’ Lindsay said. ‘But if I am much after twelve o’clock you may give him a bottle.’
Still protesting, Winn had trailed her down to the hallway and had demanded, ‘Where are you going? Where are you taking him?’ as if she, Lindsay, were planning an abduction.
Stubbornly, Lindsay had refused to answer.
It was not until the hansom trundled into Aydon Road that Harry turned to her and said, ‘Are we going to see Papa?’
‘Yes, Harry, we are going to visit our shipyard.’
‘To see Papa?’
‘Perhaps.’
‘And Grandee’s boats?’
‘Oh, yes, and Grandee’s boats.’
‘Hurrah!’ the little boy yelled, throwing out his arms. ‘Hurrah!’ as if he had been awaiting this moment from the day of his birth.
* * *
‘Why, if it isn’t Miss Frank— I mean, Mrs McCulloch,’ Sergeant Corbett said. ‘It’s a pleasure to see you again. And who might this be, ma’am?’ He stooped, hands on knees, and inspected Harry critically. ‘Is this the first-born?’
‘It is, Sergeant. His name is Harry.’
‘Welcome to Franklin’s, young man,’ Sergeant Corbett said. ‘I hope we’ll be seeing a lot of you in future.’
Harry stared up at the broad leather belt and mutton-chop whiskers and enquired, ‘Are you a soldier?’
‘I used to be a soldier, aye.’
‘When I’m big I’m going to be a soldier,’ Harry said.
‘A fine soldier you’ll make, I’m sure,’ said Sergeant Corbett, then to Lindsay, ‘There’s no management meeting today, ma’am.’
‘I know, Sergeant.’
‘I think Mr McCulloch is out this mornin’.’
‘And my father?’
‘He’s upstairs. Will I ring for him to come down?’
‘I’ll go up. We’ll both go up, if we may.’
‘Is this the laddie’s first visit?’
‘It is.’
‘Then he’ll be wanting to see the boats.’
‘Boats,’ Harry said. ‘I want to see the boats.’
‘First,’ Lindsay said, ‘we’ll go and find Grandee.’
‘Is Grandee on a boat?’
‘I don’t think so.’ Lindsay took her son by the hand and directed him towards the main staircase. ‘Perhaps, if he has time, Uncle Thomas might take you down to see the boats.’
‘Is Uncle Thomas on a boat then?’
‘Mr Calder,’ the sergeant said, ‘is in the mould loft with a party.’
‘What sort of party?’ Lindsay asked.
‘A party from the Admiralty,’ Sergeant Corbett said.
* * *
The long wooden-walled corridor on the second floor of the block was situated directly above the boardroom and the offices that opened from it were occupied entirely by Franklins and their kin. At one time there had been space for all departments on the upper floors but over the years Owen’s sons and grandsons had claimed priority, all except Tom Calder who was quite content with his cubicle at the end of the drawing-office. Forbes, however, had complained bitterly about having to share space with Johnny and Ross and had insisted on being given an office of his own next door to Martin’s.
The clack of typewriting machines flooded up from the clerks’ room, the brutal thud of a power punch, the shriek of a saw and the clang of riveters belting on hammers sifted in even through windows sealed against the frost that held Clydeside in its grip. Lindsay heard men whistling and, like mammoths trumpeting, the hoots of bum-boats and tugs and the ineffable churning of propellers from the miasmic waters that stretched into the frozen haze.
Harry too heard these sounds, his first experience of the rhythms of a song that would sit close to his heart: no Kerry Dance, no piper’s tune, no sentimental ditty recalling days that were dead and gone or that had never been, but an overture to the future. Eyes wide and ears pricked, Harry accompanied it, making up his own little song as he went along.
Arthur was delighted to see them. Surprised too. Somehow it had not occurred to him that his grandson was of an age to be brought to the yard. He swept the boy into his arms, carried him to the window and stood him on the narrow ledge over the steam pipes.
‘Boats!’ Harry said. ‘Boats, Grandee! I see the boats.’
Her father’s room was cluttered. He shared the old Founder’s Office with Donald now. Racks of plans in brown-cloth folders and tall teak filing cabinets backed the desk. Donald was out on the road with Martin. Ross and Johnny too were out of the office, and of Forbes there was no sign behind the pebble-glass door that bore his name.
Lindsay watched her son and father fondly. Her father’s hands were on Harry’s waist, Harry’s palms pressed against the window, his cap askew. As they surveyed the slips and rails and jibs that lay before them in the dead, dunning January cold, the bond between the generations had never seemed stronger.
‘Wha’s ’at, Grandee?’
‘That’s a destroyer, son, for chasing torpedo-boats.’
‘Big-gun boats?’
‘Yes, guns, but we haven’t put the guns on yet. Do you see the men on their knees? They are fitting the deck, the place where the sailors will stand.’
‘Wha’s ’at?’
‘Oh, that,’ Arthur Franklin said. ‘That’s a boiler, for boiling the water to make the steam.’
‘For the tea?’
‘No, it’s too big for tea. Steam, to drive the engines.’
‘Wha’s ’at?’
‘A crane. If we wait a wee bit we’ll see it turning.’
‘Wha’s it doing?’
‘Lifting steel plates up to the second deck.’
‘Where the sailors stand.’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Wha’s that noise, Grandee?’
‘The saw in the wood-frame shop. A circular saw, for cutting wood.’
‘For the fire?’
‘Not quite, son,’ said Arthur. ‘Would you like to go down and watch the saw cutting timber?’
‘Yes.’
‘Would you like to see the boats?’
‘YES.’
Lindsay said, ‘If you’re too busy, Papa, perhaps Tom could spare a few minutes.’
‘To give my grandson his first tour of Franklin’s? No, no,’ Arthur said. ‘I’m not handing that privilege over to Tom Calder, no matter how busy I am.’
‘Where is Forbes, by the way?’
‘Gone off to Beardmore’s, I believe, to discuss special castings.’
‘In the motor-car, with Gowry?’
‘Naturally,’ said Arthur.
* * *
Mr Albert Hartnell and his daughter had been resident in St Mungo’s Mansions for so long that the motor-car and the gentleman caller who got out of it had become an accepted part of the scene. It would have been naïve of Albert to pretend that his neighbours did not know what racket he was in or what the young man was up to when he vanished into the close at the rear of the building. Besides, Mr Hartnell was by no means the only person in the Mansions who had secrets worth keeping. Albert knew more about other folks’ business than they did about his which was, he reckoned, as good a safeguard as
any against inquisitiveness and disapproval.
Even Mrs O’Connor who lived across the landing with her cat Snowball and her crotchety maid Evelyn had a secret not so far removed from the secret that Sylvie lived with. Mrs O’Connor’s revenue, Albert had discovered, came from interest in shares left her by three grateful gentlemen who had wives and children and posthumous reputations to protect even although they were personally long past caring. In fact, if the self-appointed widow had been ten or a dozen years younger, on the sunny side of sixty, say, Albert would not have been averse to marrying her to secure himself a comfortable old age.
He was such a worrier, was Albert. He worried when things were going badly and he worried when, as now, things were going well. He worried about the past and he worried about the future. He worried most of all that Sylvie would do something to offend Forbes McCulloch and bring the entire rocky edifice tumbling down about his ears. He was always very careful to bow to Forbes’s wishes and exit the apartment speedily whenever the young Lothario put in an appearance.
As for Sylvie, he was never less than sugar-sweet to Sylvie who, as she’d grown older, had become sharper in some respects, more fey in others. What really stirred Albert’s anxiety was her belief that it was only a matter of time before Forbes McCulloch would desert his wife and children and come to live with her on a permanent basis. Gently, tenderly, he had tried to explain ‘reality’ to Sylvie, to make her appreciate that what she had was all she was ever going to get and that she was fortunate that Forbes chose to share even a small a part of his life with her. Sylvie would have none of it, simply closed her ears to anything that ran counter to the fantasy that she was more than just a mistress who might at any time become a liability.
At least Albert had Gowry for company; honest, amiable, garrulous, down-to-earth Gowry, who was all that Irishmen were reputed to be and who, in the dreary hours of late evening or in the morning, stood him a pint or two while Forbes was upstairs with Sylvie taking, or delivering, lessons in love. Many a peaceful hour Albert spent with the chauffeur in the Old Barge Inn before Gowry hooked out his pocket watch and murmured, ‘Time, Albert, time to be rousting out his majesty and be on our way,’ for Gowry, it seemed, was not so much his brother’s conscience as his clock.
It was from Gowry that Albert learned what may or may not have been the truth about the McCulloch family; not a family united or, as he’d been led to believe, a family swimming in beer money like the Guinnesses or the Goodisons. They did not even live in Dublin but in a sprawling cottage attached to a tiny brewery in the sea-coast village of Malahide, about nine miles north of the famous city. Here McCulloch’s Black Irish Stout was produced in limited quantities and the annual turnover was just enough to keep things ticking over. Apparently Donald Franklin had been the only one from this side of the water ever to visit the place, and Donald had somehow been persuaded to accept the lie that old Daniel McCulloch was a magnate in the industry and not an indolent old reprobate whose only interest in life was buying, breaking and backing horses and dabbling in Home Rule politics.
Such half-truths and exaggerations Albert swallowed whole. Gowry was so full of brogue and blarney, so utterly un-insistent about anything that everything he said seemed plausible. If he had informed you that the moon was blue or the Pope an Orangeman then you would have been more than inclined to believe him and would certainly not have been boorish enough to question the source of his information.
‘But, Forbes’ – Albert sought reassurance – ‘I mean, your brother has done well for himself. He’s financially secure, is he not?’
‘Done well and will be doing better,’ Gowry had answered. ‘Wait until he has the lot of us over here, then you’ll be seeing the sparks fly.’
‘All of you?’ said Albert.
‘He’ll be leaving him with nothing before he’s done.’
‘Leaving who with nothing?’
‘Him. Dada. The Owd Devil himself.’
‘Is that Forbes’s intention, to ruin your father?’
‘Nah, nah,’ Gowry said. ‘More it is to give the rest of us a leg up by fetching us all to Scotland, by giving us the opportunity to clear out of Malahide, to better ourselves. I tell you fair and square, Albert, there will not be enough in the brewing of stout to support even one of us before long.’
‘And will’ – Albert cleared his throat – ‘I mean, will Forbes be able to support you all over here?’
‘He will be supporting us and we will be supporting him.’
‘Was this always his plan?’
‘Always,’ Gowry lied. ‘Since we were kiddies shivering under corn sacks by the light o’ the peat fire.’
‘Corn sacks?’
‘For blankets.’
‘Oh!’
‘The nuns would come and throw scraps over the wall for us,’ Gowry went on, plying his vocation as a tall tale-teller. ‘Think of that, Bertie, having to be fed by nuns, though we were Protestants and there were thousands of starving Papes queuing up for the Church’s charity.’
‘I hadn’t realised,’ Albert said, ‘that things were so bad.’
‘Bad!’ Gowry exclaimed, not raising his voice. ‘They were worse.’
‘So being a – what is it?’
‘Chauffeur.’ Gowry completed the question with its answer, ‘Sure and being a chauffeur ain’t so bad after all, not when you never saw a motoring vehicle until you were twelve years old.’
It didn’t dawn on Albert until later that he hadn’t seen a petrol-driven motor vehicle until he was almost thirty, mainly because Daimler – or was it Benz? – hadn’t invented one prior to that time. He did not disagree with Gowry McCulloch, though, for the talk flowed on like the very stuff of history and one small inaccuracy made no difference and since what he was being told was only what he wanted to hear and to believe.
‘And your sisters?’ Albert said.
‘Will do anything Forbes tells them to.’
‘Loyalty, yes,’ said Albert. ‘I must say I do admire loyalty.’
‘She’s loyal to him, ain’t she?’ Gowry asked. ‘Your daughter?’
‘Sylvie?’ Albert did not offer a correction. ‘Yes, she loves him.’
‘Aye, don’t we all love a chap who succeeds against the odds?’
Deceived by the platitude, Bertie nodded agreement and asked, very humbly, if he might order another beer.
* * *
Forbes was more vigorous in the morning than in the evening when the rigours of employment had taken their toll and a slackening of mental agility rendered him less able to cope with Sylvie’s little tricks and tirades. There was another reason too: he called before noon whenever his schedule allowed because he had begun to wonder if her sexual inventiveness indicated that she was entertaining other men besides himself.
Suspicion kept him from becoming bored with the same old fare, however. Jealousy over imagined infidelities fuelled both his love and his lust and he would question her closely about the handsome minister at St Columba’s or the preacher at the Maryhill Home Mission for, at his insistence, Sylvie had relinquished all connection with the Coral Strand in favour of the Church and the clique of holy-rollers who met in the tin hall in Stevenson Street.
Brilliant though he was at mathematical calculations, Forbes knew nothing about psychology and even less about the theological hair-splitting that pitted free will against determinism. Comparisons between his lover and his wife seldom fell in the latter’s favour. He regarded Sylvie as far more interesting than Lindsay not in spite but because of her craziness. He even encouraged her to preach bizarre little sermons about God’s guiding hand while he lay damp and sated against her, to repeat sentimental poems in his ear while he dressed; to twist and pervert his judgement to the point where he thought her unique and curiously impenetrable in way that his pretty, plain-spoken little wife could never be now that he had succeeded in domesticating her.
He did not understand Sylvie and therefore could not control her. He provided her wi
th every material thing, even loved her after his fashion; yet he remained blind to the fact that she was not like other women and marched to a different drummer.
‘What are you doing, sweetheart?’
‘Did Dada let you in?’
‘I have my own key, remember.’
‘Has Dada gone?’
‘Yes, he’s popped out for a little while.’
‘Is Gowry not with you?’
‘Gowry has gone with your dada for a glass of refreshment.’
She nodded. ‘Is it cold this morning?’
‘Very cold.’
‘I wish it were summer. Do you remember summer, Forbes?’
‘Of course I remember summer.’
He crossed the parlour and, slipping round the back of her chair, kissed the top of her head. Morag, the day-maid, had lighted the fire and dusted the room and everything looked perfectly ship-shape. Morag would be in the kitchen now along with Mrs Maddigan, the non-resident cook cum housekeeper, who was the very soul of discretion and wouldn’t show her face when he, Forbes, was visiting. Sylvie was clad in a close-fitting camisole under a silk dressing-gown that he had bought her last New Year. In spite of the bitter weather, her little feet were bare. Her hair had been brushed and ribboned, though, and there was nothing slatternly about her appearance.
She said, ‘Do you remember what you said last summer?’
June past; a glorious summer afternoon. He had dismissed Gowry and had taken the wheel of the motor and with Sylvie at his side had driven out into the countryside west of the city. She had been in chiffon, he recalled, pale lemon chiffon, cool and fragrant as a marsh flower in the baking heat of the afternoon. They had eaten lunch in the garden of a loch-side hotel, then had puttered along a rutted back road between somnolent trees and fields heavy with ripening barley. In one of those fields he had made love to her. He had wooed her first, murmuring, touching, sleek with perspiration, lying on a plaid rug in the motionless barley field a million miles from anywhere.
The Piper's Tune Page 29