Fortunes of the Heart (29 page)

Daniel grinned in delight at his enjoyment of the many
far-fetched sea stories. Placing a hand on his father’s shoulders, he gave a
reassuring squeeze.

“’Tis the God’s honest truth, Dadda. Honestly. We cured the
Chief Steward of his alcoholism that way.”

Then turning round to include his Mammy in the audience, he
smiled and gave her a wink.

“Just you listen to this, Mammy. Then you could perhaps take
your good self next door to Granny’s for a wee cup of tea?”

Kate caught his meaning at once. With Pearce suitably
entertained and already in a much more pleasant, amenable mood, Kate should
seize the opportunity to make herself scarce, while the going was good. She
smiled and nodded her understanding and acceptance of her son’s suggestion,
then with arms akimbo and a look of mock ferocity in her eyes, she said: “You
don’t really mean it, Daniel. You do have at least one story which is fit also
for my ears? My, my, aren’t I the lucky one?”

Danny Boy grinned back at her and smoothed down his wavy
beard before commencing his story. He cleared his throat a couple of times
then, confident that he had the full attention of his parents, he started.

“Well now, let’s see. It was in South Australia, at a
two-horse station called
Woomeroo
. One of the
work-horses had just breathed its last on the wharf. The poor beast just
dropped dead from over-work in hauling logs to the ship. Well, we couldn’t
leave the poor animal just lying there, now could we?”

Pearce and Kate both shook their heads, intrigued as to what
could possibly be coming.

“Right. So we were hoisting the dead horse with rope and
tackle and it was swaying somewhere between dockside and shipboard. Just at
that moment,
Chiefie
comes out on deck, doesn’t he?
Half-cut, as usual. And in the half-light, sees the swaying lifeless horse high
above us. Right?”

Pearce nodded his eagerness to hear the punch-line of this
weird tale and even Kate herself was hanging on every word. Danny pursed his
lips, as though biting back an unbidden smile.

“Well, I can still see it.
Chiefie
points up to the sky with a trembling
Inger
and
says,`My
God. There’s a horse. Flying through the sky’.”

Pearce leant forward and placed his hand on Daniel’s knee.

“And you and your shipmates? What did you say, Daniel?”

Here Danny allowed himself the luxury of a broad grin.

“Oh, nothing much. Just asked, And what particular horse
would that be,
Chiefie
? For in this dim light, we
don’t see so much as a mosquito flying through the air, never mind a bloody
horse’.”

Pearce gave a great belly laugh.

“And do you mean to say, that really cured the poor man of
his addiction to the demon drink? Is that what you’re after telling me?”

Daniel looked reflectively at his father for a long moment,
all the while stroking his beard. Finally, he grinned boyishly.

“Well, now, let’s just say he never, to my knowledge at
least, touched another single drop of the water of life all the way back across
the Indian Ocean to
Capetown
and points north. And
that is the God’s honest truth.”

While Pearce was still laughing, Danny turned aside and with
his thumb jerked an on your way’ silent message to Kate. She, for her part,
needed no second bidding.

Chapter 20

No sooner had she stepped out from the close than the wind
screamed at her in all its January fury. She shivered.

Thank God I’m only going as far as Mr McGregor’s wee shop on
a morning like this.

So intent was she on battling against the elements that she
almost cannoned into someone coming in the opposite direction and would, in
fact, have done so had it not been for quick thinking on the part of the other
person.

“Oh, ’tis yourself, Mistress Kinnon. My and you’re in a fine
old hurry this morning.”

Kate blinked the sleet out of her eyes, then wiped the
ice-cold moisture from her frozen cheeks. When her vision was again clear, she
found herself looking into the kindly eyes of Willie
Goddart
,
the local postie.

“Hello, there, Postie. Some morning, eh?”

Willie grinned and nodded.

“Aye ’tis that. And I’m the one that knows all aboot it.
Been oot tramping the streets, up and doon closes, in and oot yon stinking
wynds
since five o’clock this morning.” Here he gave an
expressive shiver. “What a bloody life, eh, Mistress Kinnon?”

Kate smiled and laid a hand on his uniformed sleeve. “Never
mind, Willie, it’s a grand steady job you’ve got. And there’s not too many of
them round about these parts.”

Postie nodded reflectively.

“You never spoke a truer word, Missus. Aye, you’re dead
right.”

Kate grinned.

“Tell you something else, Postie. You’ll not be
needin
’ to climb the stairs to my top flat for a month or
two yet. My Danny Boy’s home.”

Postie smiled.

“Isn’t that the grand news? Aye, you’ll be the happy woman.”

“Happy, I am. Not only is Danny home, but he and his father
are getting on just great; swapping stories, laughing together. And you want to
see the beautiful fan he brought me from Spain.”

Postie hoisted his bag higher on his shoulder and with his
right thumb, jerked back his uniformed cap. Then he grinned.

“A lace fan indeed. My, my, just the very thing you need in
the
Candleriggs
on a January morn.”

As they surveyed the grey streets in which daylight was
having its usual battle to pierce the blackness of the high tenements, they
laughed in unison. Kate pushed his arm away with a playful gesture.

“Away with you, Postie. The thought was there, don’t forget.
And anyway, he gave me more money than I’ve ever had in my hand before.”

The man grinned.

“Well, Missus, it’s grand to hear of somebody in this
God-forsaken dump getting’ a bit of good luck.”

“I’m off to Mr McGregor’s wee shop. I want to get some
sweeties for Hannah and Granny
Gorbals
. A great pair
that; only happy when their jaws are working overtime. Anyway, I want to tell
Mr McGregor the good news about Danny. He used to work there, you know.”

With a cheery wave from Kate, and a forefinger to skipped
bunnet from Postie, the two parted company as, all the while, the wind and
sleet screamed around them and sent litter dancing along the road and the
pavement under their feet.

As Kate entered Mr McGregor’s wee shop and heard the bell
ping behind her, she could hardly contain her impatience until such time as he
had served and conversed at length with the customers already crowded into the
cosy warmth.

Chapter 21

When Kate returned some half hour or so later to the warmth
of her cosy kitchen, the first thing that met her at the door was the sound of
male voices raised in anger

Oh, no. I knew it was too good to last.

The moment she entered the room, the two men, both red-faced
with fury, stopped speaking, almost as if someone had turned a switch.

In the ensuing, uncomfortable silence which could be felt,
it was finally left to Kate herself to speak. With great finality, she put her
purchases down on top off the table, and faced them.

“Right. Now, what’s all this hullabaloo about?”

Her men looked at one another, then as quickly glanced away
again before finally letting their eyes fall to a minute examination of finger
nails in the one case, and booted feet in the other.

“Pearce. Are you going to tell me? Or do I have to drag it
out of you?”

Her husband frowned, not least at being thus addressed in
front of his son. Then, like a petulant and naughty schoolboy, he inclined his
head towards Daniel and mouthed the words.

“It was his fault.
’Twas
your
precious son who started it.”

Then, as if this cryptic statement explained in full their
earlier dramatic outburst, he shut his mouth like a clam.

Kate’s face now suffused with colour, for it was already
apparent to her that this could be a long-drawn-out discussion. She banged a
clenched fist on the table with such force that not only did her items of
shopping jump, but Pearce himself started, as if shot from a cannon.

“Listen, the both of you. I demand to know what has
happened.”

Daniel opened his mouth to reply but his father was too
quick for him.

“Oh no, you don’t,
m’lad
. I’ll
have my say first, even if it kills me.”

By now, almost puce in the face, Pearce was half-way out of
his chair as if preparing to do battle with his son. Seeing this, Kate frowned
and, laying a hand on her husband’s shoulder, eased him back to a sitting
position.

“Kill you? Humph. Keep up that rage and it might very well
do just that, Pearce. For goodness sake, calm yourself.”

“Calm myself. Calm myself? Good God Almighty, woman. Do you
know what your precious, wonderful son did? When he was in Ireland, no less.
Aha, and we didn’t hear a word about his exploits there in the first few days
of his visit. Oh, no. We’ve been all round the bloody world and planets beyond,
listening to a lot of stupid blethers about flying horses and the like and ...”

Pearce stopped to regain his breath, if not his composure, and
although Kate knew there was much that she could have said in reminding him of
what enjoyment and laughter he’d had from those very same tall-tales, she
thought it expedient at this point to hold her tongue.

It was instead Daniel himself who jumped into the breach.

“Mammy, I’m not ashamed of what I did. I did it for the good
of the family.”

No sooner were these words out of Daniel’s mouth, than his
father grabbed hold of his walking-stick and, waving it in his son’s face like
a man demented, he screamed: “Liar. Liar: You bloody bastard, Daniel Kinnon:
You did it to shame me. Good of the family be damned: You wanted to shame me
with your devilish plot.”

At this fresh outburst, Daniel looked to be on the point of
collapse, as he nevertheless got to his feet and took a step back from the
still frantically waving walking-stick. Kate, between the heat of the room and
the intensity of hatred generated from the two men in her life, felt physically
sick and mentally exhausted. She put her head in her hands and awaited the
denouement of this drama, which she knew was bound to come any minute now.

With a renewed strength born of his hatred for his only
living son, Pearce rose unsteadily from his chair and, by leaning heavily on
his walking stick, tottered across until he was standing eyeball to eyeball
with Daniel. Then, throwing his stick to the floor where it clattered and
bounced off the gleaming brass fender, he clutched for support at the front of
his son’s jacket. Then pulling the ends tight, as if he had it in mind to
throttle the life out of his first-born, he glared into the face before him.

“As of this minute, you’re no son of mine. So take yourself
and your ill-gotten gains and get the hell out of it. Do you hear? Get to
buggary
.”

“Pearce. For heaven’s sake. Do modulate your language.
Granny
Gorbals
will hear you.”

Still clutching on to Daniel, her husband swivelled his hand
and cast her a look of utter loathing.

“Listen you; I don’t care if the whole world hears me. I
want this useless windbag out of here and damned quick about it. He can take
the spoils, the loot of his ill-conceived venture, and go.”

“God Almighty, Pearce. You keep going on about ill-gotten
gains, loot, spoils. What in God’s name did Daniel do? Rob a bank or something,
is that it?”

For reply, Pearce almost spat out the words at her. “Worse.
Much worse. He shamed me. Why, he actually ...”

When it seemed that words had failed his father, Daniel
brought his own hands up in front of his chest then, throwing them wide apart,
he managed to cast off his father’s strangle-hold on him. This was done with
such force that Pearce, caught completely off-guard, tottered and fell back,
giving his head a glancing blow on the table’s edge as he crashed to the floor.
Like a stranded whale, there he lay, a look of stunned amazement on his face,
especially when neither Kate nor Daniel made the slightest move to assist him
to his feet.

In the heavy silence that followed, Kate was aware of the
sound of a distant tramcar. The next thing she heard was Danny Boy, yelling:

“Right, father, if that’s the way you want it, so be it. You
can believe what you like, but the only reason I approached your sisters and
brothers at Laggan House was to tell them you were destitute. And that’s why
your sisters gave me some of their jewels to sell. They had no difficulty in
believing that I was who I said I was. It seems I’m now the image of what you
were as a young man. When you got dear Mammy into trouble and –”

As if her head weighed a ton, Kate shook her head wearily
and held up the palm of her hand.

“Daniel, no more. Please. But, is it really true? Did the
Kinnon sisters give you jewels? To help us?”

Danny Boy nodded.

“Aye, that they did, Mammy. And Uncle Desmond gave me a
velvet bag full of golden sovereigns and –”

Pearce had by now crawled further along the floor where, by
holding on to the leg of the table, he managed to drag himself upright. Drawing
together whatever small semblance of dignity he could muster, he drew himself
to his full height.

“Right, Daniel, we’ll have no truck with mention of Uncle
Desmond, the Kinnons of Laggan House nor their jewels and money.”

Here he pointed a trembling forefinger to the other side of
the room: