Stuart looked at his son, and then out of the window. They were now leaving the outer suburbs of Edinburgh and the fields and hills were all about them. An expanse of earth, ploughed in readiness for the winter crop, rich earth, shot past on one side of the track. A crow flew up from a tree, and was left behind. Stuart looked back at Bertie.
“It was fun,” he said quietly. “Yes. I had a lot of fun.” He paused. “And you’ll have fun too, Bertie. I’m sure you will.”
Bertie said nothing for a few moments. He was pulling at a loose thread on the seam of his dungarees. “You need to have friends to have fun,” he said at last. “I have no friends.”
Stuart frowned. “You must have some friends, Bertie. What about this boy you mentioned to me. Paddy? What about him?”
“I don’t really know him very well,” said Bertie. “I hardly ever see him. I have to go to psychotherapy and yoga all the time.”
Stuart reached out and took his son’s hand. It felt so small; dry and small. “Friends are very important, aren’t they?”
Bertie nodded. Stuart continued: “I had a best friend, you know. That’s very important, too. To have a best friend.”
“What was he called?” asked Bertie.
“He was called Mike,” said Stuart. “He was very kind to me.”
“That’s nice,” said Bertie. “Kind friends are the best sort, aren’t they?”
Stuart nodded his assent to this and they both looked out of the window, Bertie’s hand still resting in his. I shall not fail this little boy, he thought. My God, how close I’ve come to doing that. What is that corny line from that musical? I let my golden chances pass me by. Yes, that was it; sentimental, but absolutely true. We all let our golden chances pass us by–all the time.
The woman who had overheard this conversation had been staring at the page of her book–staring but not reading. She had heard every word and now she looked very discreetly in their direction and saw the two of them quite still, quite silent, sunk in their thoughts. She transferred her gaze back to the words on the page before her, but she could no longer concentrate. It had nothing to do with her, of course–the business of others. But now she willed with all her heart that this stranger into whose life she had unwittingly strayed should listen to every word that the little boy had said. And when she glanced again, and saw the expression on the man’s face, she knew that he would.
52. Arriving in Glasgow
As the Edinburgh train neared Glasgow, the light with which the passing countryside had been suffused became subtly attenuated. The clear skies of the east of Scotland yielded place to a lowered ceiling of grey and purple rain clouds. And above the train, rising on each side of the railway line, reared up the shapes of high flats, great dispiriting slabs of grey. Bertie watched the changing landscape, his mouth open in awe; so this was Glasgow, this was the place of which his mother had spoken so ominously. Perhaps she was right. Perhaps it was a dark and dangerous place after all. And to think that such a place existed less than an hour away from Edinburgh! That was the extraordinary thing. One could be in Edinburgh, with its floataria and coffeehouses, and then, in the space of a short train journey, one could be in this place, under these purple clouds, facing heaven knows what perils.
They left their railway carriage and stepped out onto the platform. Bertie looked down at his feet and thought: “I’m standing on Glasgow!” The stone of the platform, a special, highly-polished stone, chosen by the railway authorities as the surface most likely to become dangerously slippery if wet, was very similar to the slippery stone floors he had seen at Waverley Station. And the people waiting at the barrier were not all that different from the people he had seen at Waverley Station, he thought.
“This way, Bertie,” said Stuart, pointing in the direction of a large glass door. “We’ll get a taxi out there.”
Bertie hurried along behind his father, his duffel coat buttoned up to the top to disguise the fact that he was wearing crushed-strawberry dungarees. He had not noticed any crushed-strawberry trousers in Glasgow yet, and he was sure that they did not wear them here.
“Where are we going?” he asked his father, as they took their place in the short queue for taxis. “Do you remember where you left the car?”
“More or less,” said Stuart, waving a hand in the general direction of the Dumbarton Road. “I’ll recognise the place…I think.”
Their turn came to get into a taxi. Stuart opened the door and Bertie climbed in. This was far better than the No 23 bus, he thought: comfortable seats, small glowing red lights, and a taxi driver who looked at them in his rear-view mirror and smiled cheerily.
“Whauryousesgaahn?” the driver asked.
“Dumbarton Road, please,” said Stuart.
The driver looked back up at the mirror. “Radumbartonroad? Butwhitpartoradumbartonroadyouseswantinanthat? Radumbartonroadizzaroadanahafwhaurabit?”
Stuart explained that he was not sure exactly which part of the Dumbarton Road they wanted, but that he would let the driver know when they neared it. The driver nodded; people who got off the Edinburgh train were often a bit vague, he had found, but they very rarely tried to jump out of the taxi without paying. Nor did they try to walk half the way in order to save money. You had to watch the Aberdeen train for that.
“Now, Bertie,” said Stuart. “Look over there. That’s…well, I’m not sure what that is, but look over there anyway.”
Bertie looked out at Glasgow. It seemed busier than Edinburgh, he thought, and the buses were a different colour. But everybody seemed to know where they were going, and seemed happy enough to be going there. He was going to like Glasgow, he thought, and perhaps he would even come to live here when he was eighteen. If he did that, then he would even start to learn the language. It sounded quite like Italian in some respects, and was possibly even easier to learn.
They made their way to St George’s Cross and then down below Glasgow University. Stuart pointed in the direction of the university and drew Bertie’s attention to the fact that his own father, Bertie’s grandfather, had studied medicine there.
“It’s a very great medical school,” said Stuart. “Many famous doctors have trained there, Bertie. You could even go there yourself.”
“That would be nice,” said Bertie. The thought had occurred to him that perhaps Dr Fairbairn had trained there, but then that would have been a long time ago. Glasgow did not seem like a good place for psychotherapists, Bertie thought. It was difficult to say exactly why this should be so, but Bertie certainly felt it. Edinburgh was better territory for that sort of thing. And he had not seen a single floatarium during the taxi drive, not one; a large number of Indian restaurants, of course, but no floataria.
Once they reached the Dumbarton Road, Stuart began to sit forward in his seat and peer out at the roads going off to either side.
“It’s pretty near here,” he said to the driver.
“Ayeitspruttybutwhauryuzwantintogetaff?” the driver replied genially.
Stuart stared at a road-end which was approaching them on their right. Yes, this was it. There had been a church at the end of the street because he had remembered its odd-shaped tower. “Right here,” he said to the driver. “This is where we want to get aff.”
The driver nodded and drew into the side of the road. Stuart paid the bill, and then he and Bertie strode across the busy Dumbarton Road and began to walk slowly down the quiet residential street to the right.
“It was along here,” said Stuart. “Further along on this side.”
Bertie skipped ahead of his father, looking for the familiar shape of their red Volvo station wagon. It was not a long street, and before he had gone very far he realised that he had cast his eyes down the line of cars parked along the street and there was no sign of a red Volvo. He turned to face his father.
“Are you sure, Daddy?” he asked. “Are you sure that this is the right road?”
Stuart looked down towards the end of the road. He was sure that this wa
s it. He closed his eyes and imagined that afternoon. He had taken his files from the back of the car and had locked the door. And then he had begun to walk towards the Dumbarton Road and the place where the meeting was to be held. And there had been a dog crossing the road and a motorist had braked sharply. There was no doubt about it; this was the place.
“This is it, Bertie,” he said quietly. “This is where the car was. Right here.”
Stuart pointed to a place now occupied by a large green Mercedes-Benz. Bertie stepped forward and stared into the car, as if expecting to find some clue to the disappearance of their Volvo. And as he did so, they heard a door open in the house directly behind them and a voice call out:
“Yous! Whit chu doin lookin at Mr O’Connor’s motor?”
53. Lard O’Connor
Bertie sprang back guiltily from the green Mercedes-Benz. He had not so much as touched the glittering car, but the voice from behind him, more of a growl really, would have been enough to frighten anybody, let alone a six-year-old boy on his first trip to Glasgow.
Stuart was taken aback, too, by the accusatory tone of the voice. “My son hasn’t done anything,” he said. “We were just looking.”
The man who had appeared at the door of the house had strode down the path and was now facing Stuart, staring at him belligerently. “Looking for what?” he asked. “Yous never seen a Merc before, eh?”
“I’ve seen one,” said Bertie brightly. “Mrs Macdonald, who lives at the top of the stair, has got a custard-coloured one. She offered to take me for a ride in it.”
The man looked down at Bertie. “Whit you talking aboot, son?”
“He’s just saying…” began Stuart.
“Shut your gob, Jim,” said the man. “Whit’s this aboot custard?”
“Oh really!” said Stuart in exasperation. “This is quite ridiculous. Come, Bertie, let’s go.”
The man suddenly leaned forward and grabbed Stuart by the arm. “Not so fast, pal. You’re coming in to have a word with Mr O’Connor. He disnae like people hanging aboot his street. You can come in and explain yourself to the man hissel.”
The man’s grip on Stuart’s arm was too powerful to resist, and Stuart found himself being frog-marched up the garden path, followed by an anxious Bertie, his duffel coat flapping about his crushed-strawberry dungarees. Propelled by his captor, Stuart found himself in a sparsely-furnished hallway. “Through there,” said the man, nodding in the direction of a half-open door. “Mr O’Connor will see you now.”
Stuart glared at the man, but decided that the situation was too fragile for him to do anything but comply. He was concerned for the safety of Bertie, who was standing at his side, and he thought that the best thing to do would be to speak to this Mr O’Connor, whoever he was, and explain that they had had no intentions in relation to his car. Perhaps they had experienced vandalism in the past and had, quite unjustifiably, thought that he and Bertie were vandals.
They entered a large living room. The floor was covered with a tartan carpet and the walls were papered with red wallpaper. The room was dominated by a large television set, which was displaying a football game, but with the sound turned down. On a chair in front of the television set was an extremely overweight man, the sleeves of his shirt rolled up to reveal fleshy, tattooed forearms. As they entered the room, this man half turned round, glanced at them, and then flicked the remote controls of the television set. The football match died in a fading of light.
“So,” said the fat man. “So you’ve been looking at my motor. You fancy it?”
“Not at all,” said Stuart. “We had no designs on it at all.”
The man smiled. “I should introduce myself,” he said, glancing at Bertie briefly and then returning his gaze to Stuart. “I’m Aloysius O’Connor. But you may call me Lard O’Connor. Everybody else does, don’t they, Gerry?”
Gerry, the man who had brought Stuart into the room, nodded. “Aye, they do, Lard. Nae respect these days. People have nae respect.”
Lard O’Connor raised an eyebrow. Turning to Bertie, he said: “And you, young man. What’s your name?”
“I’m called Bertie,” said Bertie. “Bertie Pollock. I live in Edinburgh and I go to the Steiner School. And this is my daddy. We live in Scotland Street. Do you know where that is, Mr O’Connor?”
“Could do,” said Lard. “Is that a nice street?”
“It’s very nice,” said Bertie. “It’s not far from where Mr Compton Mackenzie used to live. He wrote books, you know.”
Lard smiled. “You don’t say? Compton Mackenzie?”
“Yes,” said Bertie. “He wrote a book called Whisky Galore about some people who find a lot of whisky on the beach.”
“That sounds like a good story,” said Lard. He turned to Gerry. “You hear that, Gerry? Some people find whisky on the beach. Fallen aff a ferry mebbe!”
Gerry laughed politely. Lard then turned to Bertie again. “I must say I like your style, young man. I like a wean who speaks clearly and shows some respect. I like that.” He paused, and looked inquisitively at Stuart. “So what are you doing in these parts? Why have you come all the way from, where is it, Scotland Street, all the way over here? You sightseeing?”
“I left my car here,” said Stuart quickly. “I left it some time ago and now it seems to be gone.”
“Oh,” said Lard. “Walked?”
“So it would seem,” said Stuart dryly.
“Well, well,” said Lard, stroking the side of his chair. “Can you tell me what this motor of yours looked like? Model and all the rest. And the registration number.”
Stuart told him, and Lard signalled to Gerry, who wrote it down laboriously in a small notebook which he had picked up from the top of a display cabinet.
“Gerry,” said Lard. “You go and make inquiries about this matter and see what you can come up with. Know what I mean?” He turned towards Bertie. “And you, young man, how about a game of cards while we’re waiting for Gerry? You and your dad might like a game of cards. I’m very partial to a game of cards myself, you know. But I don’t always have company of the right intellectual level, know what I mean?” He nodded in the direction of Gerry, who was now leaving the room. “Good man, Gerry,” Lard went on. “But not exactly one of your Edinburgh intellectuals.”
“I like playing cards,” said Bertie. “What game would you like to play, Mr O’Connor?”
They decided on rummy, and Lard rose slowly from his chair to fetch a pack of cards from a drawer.
“You’re very big, Mr O’Connor,” said Bertie brightly, not seeing a frantic sign from his father. “Do you eat deep-fried Mars bars like other people in Glasgow?”
Lard stopped in his tracks. Without turning, he said: “Deep-fried Mars bars?”
Stuart looked frantically about the room. It would be possible to make a run for it now, he thought. Lard would be unable to run after them, with that bulk of his, but he had heard sounds out in the hall and he had assumed that there were other men, apart from Gerry, in the house. These gangsters rarely had just one side-kick, he remembered.
Then Lard spoke again. “Oh jings!” he said. “What I wouldn’t do for one of those right now!”
54. A Game of Cards and a Cultural Trip
It was an interesting game of cards. Lard had started off making every concession to Bertie’s age, offering friendly advice on tactics and making one or two deliberate mistakes in order to give Bertie an advantage. But it soon became apparent that such gestures were entirely misplaced as Bertie succeeded in playing even his more mediocre hands with consummate skill. Lard had suggested playing for money, a proposition to which Stuart had agreed only because he felt that it would be impolitic to antagonise their host. He had given Bertie five pounds to start him off and had explained that that would be his limit. But after an hour’s play, Bertie had won sixty-two pounds from Lard O’Connor and was now sitting behind a high pile of one-pound and two-pound coins.
“I’ll give it back to you, Mr O’Con
nor,” Bertie said generously. “I don’t want to take all your money.”
Lard O’Connor shook his head. “Not a chance, Bertie,” he said. “You won that fair and square. Just as I earned that money fair and square in the first place.”
Stuart threw Lard a glance, and then looked away again quickly.
“What do you do for a living, Mr O’Connor?” Bertie asked politely as he dealt a fresh hand of cards.
“I’m a businessman,” said Lard. “I have a business. But it’s pretty difficult for us small businessmen under this government, you know. So I vote for the Liberal Democrats. That’s what I do. That Ming Campbell. He’s the man. And David Steel, too.”
“I’m sure they’re very glad of your support,” said Stuart dryly.
“Aye, I’m sure they are,” agreed Lard.
The game of cards continued for a further half hour, and then Gerry returned. He stood at the door, smiling broadly. “Mission accomplished, Lard,” he said.
Lard looked round and stared at his assistant. “You found the car?”
Gerry nodded. “I did. It had been removed withoot authority, as we say. Some boys had been using it for their own purposes. So I spoke to them aboot it and explained this is not the way tae treat an Edinburgh car.”
Lard smiled. “And they agreed with you, Gerry?”
“They took a bit of persuading, boss,” said Gerry. “You know how ill-mannered some of these boys can be. Nae manners.”
Lard sighed. “Yes,” he said. “You’re right there, so you are. But the important thing is that you’ve got your car back, Stewie. How about that then?”
Stuart reached forward and shook Lard’s hand enthusiastically. “You’ve been very kind, Mr O’Connor,” he said. “I really am very indebted to you.”
Lard shrugged off the thanks. “It was nothing,” he said. “I’m only sorry that youses were inconvenienced. It gives people the wrong impression of Glasgow when they come over here and their car is taken aff them. Very unfriendly.”