Prized Possessions (3 page)

She said, ‘I don't suppose you'd ever let me off?'

‘I wish I could,' Mr Peabody said. ‘But I can't.'

‘Never?'

‘No. Never.'

The girls were still watching him. Motionless. Solemn, but not sour.

‘More than your job's worth, I suppose,' Lizzie Conway said.

He got to his feet, the lid of the pouch snagging on the edge of the table, the tiny brass stud catching on the cloth as he tried to step back.

He felt ashamed of himself. It was as if she'd forced him into admitting his selfishness, as if he were betraying his own kind. She wasn't his kind, though. He struggled to remind himself that she was
not
his kind at all. If she had been his kind she wouldn't be living off the Calcutta Road in a property that, if the Department of Health and Sanitation had its way, would soon be condemned.

The rugs, the cushions, the tablecloth, the fancy ornaments, the new lock in the newly painted door could not disguise the fact that Mrs Elizabeth Conway lived in a slum and that he, Albert Bernard Peabody, did not. He lived far across the river in the new garden suburb of Knightswood which, he thought, gave him a certain distinction.

He put the coins into the empty pouch, fastened it, buttoned his coat and reached to the table for his bowler hat and rent book.

She covered his hand with hers. The taunting little smile had gone from her lips. Her brown eyes were calm and compassionate. She looked more striking than ever, Mr Peabody thought, not pretty the way her daughters were but with that long-chinned face, candid brow and curly brown hair caught above her ears with two tiny velvet ribbons, undoubtedly attractive.

‘I shouldn't have said that,' she murmured, squeezing his knuckles. ‘These days a man has to take what he can get to keep body and soul together. Besides' – another gentle squeeze before she released him – ‘I've got nothing but respect for what you do, Mr Peabody, nothing but the greatest respect.'

‘What
I
do? What do I do?'

‘Collecting rents from the likes of us can't be easy.' She handed him his hat. ‘It's a manly art, in my opinion.'

‘I'm not sure I see what's ma—'

‘No, it is. A manly art. Right, girls?'

‘Too true,' said Babs.

‘Absolutely,' said Polly.

For a moment Bernard Peabody thought they might be ribbing him. He glanced from one to the other in search of a telltale smirk but found nothing to indicate that Mrs Conway's compliment had not been sincere.

All three were looking at him now with something bordering admiration. He felt himself swell up. He straightened, pulled back his shoulders the way he'd done on the parade ground or, more especially, that morning when the battalion had marched through the streets of Glasgow to entrain for Flanders.

He cleared his throat. ‘Well, thank you, Mrs Conway,' he said. ‘I do my best. The times are hard for all of us, I know, but – well, I do my best.'

A minute or so later he stepped across the landing to confront old Mrs Gower and her alcoholic brother while Babs Conway waved bye-bye from the pink-lit hallway and then, to his regret, closed the glossy brown door.

*   *   *

Behind the glossy brown door Babs and Polly lingered in the glow of the lady-lamp. Babs laughed aloud and even Polly could not help but smile at the poor man's bashful confusion.

‘What do you think then, girls?' Lizzie asked as she herded her daughters back into the kitchen.

‘He's an idiot,' Babs declared. ‘A complete bloody idiot.'

‘No, he's not,' Polly said. ‘I rather like him.'

‘Aye,' Lizzie Conway said, ‘and if push comes to shove, will he do?'

And Polly, not laughing, said, ‘Yes, Mammy. He'll do.'

Chapter Two

It was a long road for a wee girl to walk from Gorbals Cross but Rosie reminded herself that she was no longer a wee girl. She was a woman, or nearly so.

If it hadn't been that she couldn't hear very well she'd have been out of school and earning good money like her sisters. It was largely her own fault she'd got stuck with the Saturday chore, however. She was the one who'd learned the ropes, in a manner of speaking, since that time a year ago when Mammy had come down with a chill in the kidneys and Babs, who pretended to be scared of Alex O'Hara, had dug in her heels and turned on the waterworks and Polly, who was in charge when Mammy was sick, had nabbed her, wee Rosalind, and said, ‘
You'll
just have to do it,' by which Polly meant go and pay O'Hara his money at the Rowing Club in Molliston Street.

And Rosie had nodded. ‘Okay.'

She
had
been a wee girl then – a year had made all the difference – and consequently she hadn't been afraid of O'Hara.

Besides, she couldn't hear his nasty voice, not unless he roared. Even then it sounded just faintly annoying, like the wail of the whistle from the UCBS bakery that made everybody else jump if they happened to be in the vicinity.

That first time, she'd been dressed in bits of the uniform that had recently become mandatory apparel – how she loved the look of that phrase – for pupils at the Institute: a neat little grey skirt that didn't even cover your knees, ankle socks, one-bar shoes, a blouse with a yoke collar and a greeny-grey cardigan, all of which Mammy had purchased without protest, though Babs had gone hysterical at the amount of money it had cost. Mr Feldman had offered to find a benefactor but Mammy wouldn't hear of it and had gone to Mr Manone again and he, apparently, had come through with the goods.

Then, rather ironically, she, Rosie, had been the one who'd had to make the trip to the Rowing Club, down among the warehouses and sheds at that point where the Clyde starts to turn back on itself and you don't know whether you're in Kingston, Kinning Park or Govan. All she knew, that first day, was that Molliston Street wasn't near the room above Denzil's public house or the basement in Grove Street or the unnameable place by the railway that she was just barely old enough to remember but that still gave Polly the creeps.

Pint glass in hand, a cigarette sticking out of the corner of his mouth, Alex O'Hara had peered at her, then, twigging what was wrong, had made the sort of kissing motions that you make to a baby or a budgerigar before she'd had a chance to take the fiver from her top pocket and offer it to him; a gesture that had caused Mr O'Hara great consternation and made the men in the background hoot with laughter.

He'd pushed her away, finger prodding into her shoulder, pushed her out of the lobby of the Rowing Club and into the alcove where the men's lavatory was. He'd raged at her for a second or two, then, relenting, he'd put the fiver in one pocket of his long overcoat, had fished a sixpence from another and had offered it to her.

She'd shaken her head.

‘Wha-aat?' he'd said, making his lips move properly for the first time. ‘Ta-aake it, da-aarlin'. It's for you.'

She'd pointed at the cigarette in his mouth and with an extravagant wave of the hand, cribbed from Gloria Swanson, had indicated that she wanted a smoke. Mr O'Hara had laughed, had taken a packet from his pocket – Gold Flake, not Woodbine – had counted out three cigarettes and had given them to her. She'd tucked them safe away in her pocket. Then he'd taken another ciggie from the packet and had pushed it against her lips. Then he'd put the pint glass carefully down on the floor and had fumbled for and found a matchbox and had struck a match and had lit the cigarette in her mouth.

She'd inhaled deeply, throwing her head back and blowing out smoke in a long, moist, vampy plume the way she and Babs rehearsed in the bedroom when Mammy was out and they could find nothing better to do with themselves.

Mr O'Hara had uttered a naughty word – she could always lip-read the naughty words – and red-faced and flustered had shoved her out of the front door into Molliston Street.

She hadn't told Polly or Mammy what had happened but, even when Mammy was well again, she volunteered for the job and, once a month thereafter, dressed in her Institute uniform, had walked all the way to Molliston Street to pay Alex O'Hara his blood money.

Rosalind Conway might be deaf, but she certainly wasn't daft. She knew who Alex O'Hara was, how he made his dough and why everyone was afraid of him. He was the man you saw about borrowing money when you had nothing left to pawn. He was the man who would come after you if you didn't shell out. He was the man who would cut your face open with the cut-throat razor he kept in the pocket of his double-breasted suit.

He was the Collector.

And she had him under her thumb.

*   *   *

Polly explained it to her on the day she turned sixteen. Polly took her out to the Black Cat Café as a birthday treat, just the two of them. She bought ice-cream and, using the mixture of signs and round vowels by which they communicated when she, Rosie, didn't want to use the little tin-plated trumpet, told her that it wasn't Mammy who'd gone into hock with O'Hara but their old man, Daddy, long gone now and probably dead.

Rosie asked why the debt hadn't died with Daddy. Polly shook her head, and told her it wasn't like that with the crowd O'Hara worked for and that Daddy had also worked for, a long time ago.

‘Daddy did die in the war, didn't he?' Rosie asked.

‘Missing,' Polly answered. ‘Believed killed.'

‘He was a Highlander, wasn't he – a kiltie?'

She wasn't able to get her tongue around the words. They felt flat and quacky in her mouth. When she spoke like this to anyone who didn't know her they thought she was weak in the head. But Polly was used to it. Polly still worked with her sometimes, though less patiently than Mr Feldman or Miss Fyfe, teaching her to blow and suck,
ta-ta
and
la-la
so that she could feel the resonance of the words in her throat.

The tin-plated hearing trumpet that Mr Feldman had finally managed to obtain for her had helped a little, for then, when she spoke slowly and softly, she could hear where she was going wrong.

She hated the trumpet, though. It seemed to anounce her deficiency, make her visibly different from everyone else. She never used the trumpet with Alex O'Hara and had already vowed to herself that she never would. In any case, after her third or fourth visit to the Ferryhead Rowing Club, she could make out what he was saying well enough, even although he hardly moved his lips.

None of the things that Polly told her that day in the Black Cat Café came as much of a surprise.

She might have missed most of the family conversations that went on but she was blessed with sharp eyes and an ability to concentrate and had already guessed that Alex O'Hara, with his long overcoat, soft felt hat and scar like a tribal mark, was part of a shadowy nether world to which her mother remained connected by dint of that long-ago marriage to Frank Conway.

‘Yes, honey,' Polly told her. ‘Daddy was a kiltie. He fought at the Western Front and we never found out what happened to him.'

‘Did he steal money from Alex O'Hara?'

‘No, from old Mr Manone.'

‘Is that what Mammy's still paying for?'

‘Yes, it is.'

‘When will it all be paid back?'

Polly pulled a face. ‘I don't know.'

‘Would you like me to ask Mr O'Hara?'

‘No,' Polly shouted, then, embarrassed, leaned across the empty ice-cream dishes and, articulating very precisely, said, ‘No. You must not say anything to Alex O'Hara. Do you understand me, Rosie? You must not go asking questions.'

‘He would tell me, you know.'

‘He would cut your throat as quick as look at you.'

‘No. He likes me.'

‘Has he told you he likes you?'

‘He gives me ciggies and chocolate.'

‘Has he…' For an instant Polly was at a loss for the right word or sign. ‘Has he – tried to touch you?'

‘I wouldn't let him.'

And that was the truth.

Mr O'Hara just grinned when she played up to him, when she put on the airs and graces that Babs had taught her. He seemed pleased that she wasn't afraid of him in spite of his line of work, in spite of the evidence of the thin white scar on his cheekbone. In any case she was never with him for long, ten minutes at most, either out on the pavement in the quiet Saturday evening street or, if it was pouring, just inside the lobby near the lavatory.

‘Are you sure he hasn't tried to touch you?'

‘No-ope.'

She stared into Polly's eyes and put on a weak, pouting expression as if she really were half daft. It was a look she could do to perfection, a look that made people think twice – practically everyone, except Mr Feldman who got riled whenever she tried it on with him.

‘If he does,' Polly said, ‘if O'Hara ever does…'

‘Tell you.'

‘Aye, not Mammy.' A finger to the breastbone. ‘Tell me first.'

There were times when Rosie thought it might be fun to have Alex O'Hara touch her.

She'd been touched once before – by Gordon Porlock, who was a full mute and had been at the Institute with her since they were both eight years old.

Gordon Porlock had gone all odd this past year or so, angry and odd. He had caught her by the arm one day in the back corridor, had tried to kiss her, had rubbed himself against her and had groped up her skirt. She had kicked him, screamed at him soundlessly, mouth wide open, registering not fright or horror but pure indignation. He had backed away, had turned and fled down the corridor, holding not his shin but his crotch. From that day on Gordon had avoided her like the plague, and she had watched Polly and Babs talk with renewed interest, and had kidded herself that she knew how to handle men.

Besides, she was beginning to like the way Mr O'Hara treated her. How he would be out on the pavement waiting for her to turn the corner at the top of Molliston Street. How he would wave a welcome, removing one hand from his pocket and fashioning a sign, like someone swearing an oath.