called Lederhosen.”
Bertie said nothing. His only hope, he thought, of averting this humiliation was an absence of leather. But again it was as
if Irene had anticipated his thoughts. “Leather is a problem, of course,” she said. “I have no idea where one would buy it, and it would probably be terribly expensive.”
“Oh dear,” said Bertie quickly. “But thank you, anyway, Mummy.”
“However,” said Irene. “Mummy has had an idea. Yet another one. You know that old chair which Daddy has? The one I’ve been meaning to get re-covered one of these days? The one where he sits and reads the paper?”
Bertie knew the old leather chair, but did not have the time to say so, as the doorbell sounded. Muttering something about not expecting anybody, Irene crossed the hallway and opened the door. A heavily-built man, out of breath from the effort of walking up the stairs, stood on the landing.
“Mrs Pollock?”
Irene nodded. She did not recognise the man, and she did not like the way that his glance shot into the hall behind her.
Stewart had told her to use the chain when opening the door, but she never did. Perhaps . . .
“Bertie!” the man suddenly exclaimed. “So there you are, son!”
Irene gave a start as Bertie suddenly materialised from behind her. “Mr O’Connor!” he said.
The mention of the name made Irene freeze. So this was that man from Glasgow, Fatty O’Connor, or whatever he called himself. She looked at him coldly. “I suppose this is something to do with our car?” she said.
Lard O’Connor smiled at her. He was not easily intimidated, and he did not want to talk to her anyway. It was Stewie he was looking for. “I’d like to talk to your man,” he said flatly. “And aye, it’s about your motor.”
“Well he’s not here,” said Irene, beginning to close the door.
“You’ll have to come back some other day. Very sorry.”
Lard O’Connor glanced at Bertie. “You keeping well, son?”
he asked. “Good. Well tell your Da that our man Gerry left something behind by mistake in the car. He’d like to have a wee look for it.”
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“But you can pick that up from the police, Mr O’Connor,”
said Bertie. “They found something in the car, you see.”
Lard O’Connor took a step backwards. “Oh jings!” he said quietly.
That evening, Angus Lordie went to the Cumberland Bar, as he did once or twice a week; but today there was no anticipation on his part of a couple of hours spent in pleasant company, conversing and catching up on the day’s news. Rather there was a heart which was still numbed by loss. Cyril always accompanied him to the bar and was a popular canine figure there. Seated under a table, the dog would wait patiently until a dish of beer was placed before him, to be lapped at in contentment. Then Cyril would rest his head on the ground and sleep for a while before waking up and looking around the room with interest.
It was a reassuring routine for both man and dog, but now it was over. Cyril was lost; he was stolen; he was, quite possibly, no more.
Angus sat alone at his table, teetering on the edge of self-pity. And then he fell in, closed his eyes, and gave himself over to thoughts of how pointless his life was. Here he was, fifty-ish, solitary, barely recognised as an artist, and then only by those who were themselves fifty-ish and unrecognised for anything very much. When had he last had a show? Two years ago, at least; and even then the paintings had hung on the walls unsold until Domenica – bless her – had out of loyalty bought one.
Tom Wilson – bless him, too – had invited him to submit something for his small-scale Christmas show, and Angus, grateful for the invitation but worried that he had nothing small to offer, had simply cut a small portion out of the middle of one of his canvases and framed that. And later, when Angus had dropped in at the Open Eye Gallery to see the show and look at what others had submitted, he had noticed a couple standing in front
of his painting, peering at it. They had not noticed Angus, which was as well, for he knew them slightly – Humphrey and Jill Holmes – and he had heard Humphrey turn to Jill and say:
“That’s funny! I could swear that this is part of a larger painting.
Don’t you get that feeling?” And Angus had slipped out of the gallery in shame and had even contemplated withdrawing his painting, but had not done so. It would come back to him later on, he feared, unsold, and in this he had been proved right.
So now he sat in the Cumberland Bar and reflected on how bad was the hand of cards dealt him. If I died tomorrow, he asked himself, who would notice, or care? Now that Domenica had gone, there were few people he could drop in on; few people who were close friends. The people he knew in the Cumberland Bar went there to drink, not to see him, and if he were not there, they would carry on drinking just the same. Oh, life was dreadful, he told himself, just dreadful. And the words came back to him, the words of a song he had picked up in the Student Union bar, all those years ago, the bowdlerised words of a song sung at Irish wakes and which expressed so clearly what he now felt: Let’s not have a sniffle, boys,
Let’s have a jolly good cry,
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For always remember the longer you live, The sooner you jolly well die . . .
“Angus?”
One of the barmen, the one he occasionally chatted with, had walked round the end of the bar and was
