maid.
‘Aye?’ She peered up at him in the fluttering light from a naked gas jet attached to a bracket sticking out from the wall opposite the door, and in answer he said what Joe had told him to say. ‘Me name’s Connor. Little Joe sent me.’
‘Oh aye. Come in.’
He followed her into a room which by its appearance was a kitchen and, after closing the door, she said, ‘Stay a minute’; then left him. A few minutes later she returned, accompanied by a man. He was a middle-aged half-caste, an Arab one, he surmised. It was his hair and his nostrils which indicated his origin. He looked Rory up and down, then said in a thick Geordie accent that was at variance with his appearance, ‘Little Joe said you wanted a set-in. That right?’
‘That’s right.’
‘You’ve got the ready?’
‘Enough.’
‘Show us.’
Rory stared back into the dull eyes; then slowly he lifted up the tail of his coat, put his hand in his inside pocket and brought out a handful of coins, among which were a number of sovereigns and half- sovereigns. Without speaking he thrust his hand almost into the other man’s chest.
The man looked down on it, nodded and said briefly ‘Aye.’ Then turning about, he said, ‘Come on.’
As they passed from the kitchen into the narrow passage the man said over his shoulder, ‘You’ll be expected to stand your turn with the cans. Little Joe tell you?’
Little Joe hadn’t told him but he said, ‘I’ll stand me turn.’
The man now led the way into another room, and Rory saw at once that it was used as a storage place for some commodity that was packed in wooden boxes. A number of such were arrayed along one wall. The only window in the place was boarded up. There was an old-fashioned stove at one side of the room packed high with blazing coals, and the room was lit by two bracket gas lamps. There were six men in the room besides Rory’s companion and himself: four of them were in a game at the table, the other two were looking on. The players didn’t look up but the two spectators turned towards Rory and the half-caste with a jerk of his head said, ‘This’s who I was tellin’ you about. Connor—’ he turned to Rory—’What’s your first name?’
‘Rory.’
‘What!’
‘Ror-ry.’
‘Funny name. Haven’t heard that afore.’
The two spectators at the table nodded towards Rory and he nodded back at them. Then the man with arm outstretched named the players one after the other for Rory’s benefit.
Rory didn’t take much heed to the names until the word Pittie was repeated twice. Dan Pittie and Sam Pittie. The two brothers almost simultaneously glanced up at him, nodded, then turned their attention to the game again.
Rory, standing awkwardly to the side of the fireplace, looked from one to the other of the men, then brought his attention back to the two Pitties. They looked like twins. They were bullet-headed men, heavy-shouldered but short. These must be the fellows, together with a third one, whom Jimmy said had started the keel business from nothing. They looked a tough pair, different from their partners at the table, who didn’t look river-front types; the elder of the two could have been Mr Kean; he wasn’t unlike him, and was dressed in much the same fashion.
Well, he had certainly moved up one from Corstorphine Town, because, for a start, they were playing Twenty-Ones, but as yet he didn’t know whether he liked the promotion or not; he certainly didn’t like the half- caste. But he wasn’t here to like or dislike any of them, he was here to double the money in his pocket and then see that he got safely outside with it. On the last thought he looked from the half-caste to the Pittie brothers again and thought it would take him to keep his wits about him. Aye . . . aye, it would that.
5
‘You’re tellin’ me she’s in the family way?’
‘Don’t put it like that, man.’
‘How do you expect me to put it? You bloody fool you, how did you manage it? Where? On the ferry or in the train? . . . All right, all right.’ He thrust John George’s raised arm aside. ‘But I mean just what I say, for you’ve seen her for an hour or so a week, so you’ve told me, when you’ve taken her around Newcastle making a tour of ancient buildings. From the Central Station into Jesmond Dene, there doesn’t seem to be one you’ve missed, so that’s why I ask you . . . Aw, man . . .’
They were standing on a piece of open land. A building was being erected to one side of it while at the other old houses were being knocked down. There was a thin drizzle of rain falling, the whole scene was dismal and it matched John George’s dejected appearance. His thin shoulders were hunched, his head hung down, his gaze was directed towards the leather bag in his hand but without seeing it. He mumbled now, ‘It’s all right. Don’t worry, I’ll manage. I’m sorry I asked you; you’ll want everything you can lay hands on to get the yard, I know.’
‘It isn’t that. You can have the two pounds, but what good’s that going to do you in this fix, I ask you. It’s a drop in the ocean and what’ll happen when she tells her folks?’
John George raised his eyes and looked up into the grey sky. ‘God! . . I just don’t know. He’ll be for murdering her. He’s an awful man from what I can gather. I want to get her out of there afore he finds out.’
‘How far is she?’
‘Over . . . over three months.’
‘Well, it won’t be long then will it afore he twigs something?’
Rory shook his head, then put his hand into his back pocket, pulled out a small bag and extracted from it two sovereigns, and as he did so his teeth ground tightly together. This was putting him in a fix, he’d had just five pounds left to make a start the night, and it could be a big night, now he was left with only three.
He hadn’t won anything that first Saturday night down in the cellar but he hadn’t lost either, he had broken even. And the following week he had just managed to clear three pounds ten; the week after he was nine pounds up at one o’clock in the morning, but by the time he left it had been reduced to four pounds, and even then they hadn’t liked it. No, none of them had liked it, the Pittie brothers least of all.
Last week when he had cleared six he said he was calling it a day and, aiming to be jocular, had added, and a night. It was the elder of the Pittie brothers who had looked at him and said, ‘No, not yet, lad.’ But he had risen to his feet, gathered his winnings up and stared back at the other man as he replied, grimly, ‘Aye, right now, lad. Nobody’s going to tell me when I come or go. I’ll be along next week and you can have your own back then, but I’m off now.’
There had followed an odd silence in the room, it was a kind of rustling silence as one man after the other at the table moved in his seat. ‘So long,’ he had said, and not until he was up the steps and into the street did he breathe freely. For a moment he had thought they were going to do him. He had decided then that that was the last time he would go there.
Three times this week he had tried to find little Joe but with no success. He was keeping out of his way apparently, so there was nothing for it if he wanted a game but to show up in the cellar again the night.
He never went with less than five pounds on him and he’d had a job to scrape that up today because during the week he had, by putting twelve pounds ten down, cleared half the cost of the boat yard, and signed an agreement that the other seventeen pounds ten was to be paid within six weeks, and he knew, his luck holding out and as long as he didn’t get into a crooked game, he would clear that. One thing about them in the cellar, they played a straight game. Anyway, they had so far.
But if he went in with only three and lost that in a run, well then, the sparks would fly. He’d have to put his thinking cap on. Oh, this bloody fool of a fellow.
As he handed the two sovereigns to John George and received his muttered thanks he asked himself where he could lay his hands on a couple of quid. It was no good asking any of them back in the house. His dad usually blew half his wages before he got home; by the time he had cleared the slate for the drinks he had run up during the week Ruth was lucky if there was ten shillings left on the mantelpiece for her. There was Janie; she had a bit saved but he doubted if it would be as much as two pounds. Anyway, he wouldn’t be able to see her until the morrow and that would be too late. Oh, he’d like to take his hand and knock some damn sense into John George
