he had left, he thought, was just about enough to carry him over.
When Rory, too, also voiced that he must be on his way there were loud, even angry cries from the table.
‘Aw, no, no, lad,’ said the big fellow. ‘Fair’s fair. You’ve taken all our bloody money so give us a chance to get a bit of it back, eh? We’ve to get across the river an’ all.’ There was laughter at this, but it was without mirth.
And so another game started, and long before it finished the uneasy sickly feeling in the pit of Rory’s stomach had grown into what he hated to admit was actual fear.
Another hour passed and it was towards the end of a game when things were once again going in Rory’s favour that the youngest Pittie brother began speaking of Jimmy as if he were continuing the conversation that had centred around him earlier in the play.
‘Your young ’un’s bandy,’ he said. ‘Bandy Connor they call him along the front . . . Saw him from the boat t’other day. Drive a horse and cart through his legs you could.’ He now punched his brother in the side of the chest and the brother guffawed: ‘Aye, his mother must have had him astride a donkey.’
Any reference to the shape of Jimmy’s legs had always maddened Rory; he had fought more fights on Jimmy’s account than he had on his own. But now, although there was a rage rising in him that for the moment combated his fear, he warned himself to go steady, for they were up to something. They were like three bull terriers out to bait a bull. He was no bull, but they were bull terriers all right.
The stories of their past doings flicked across the surface of his mind and increased his rising apprehension, yet did not subdue his rage, even while the cautionary voice kept saying, ‘Careful, careful, let them get on with it. Get yourself outside, let them get on with it.’
When he made no reply to the taunt, one after another, the three brothers laid down their cards and looked at him, and he at them. Then slowly he placed his cards side by side on the table.
The three Pitties and the half-caste stared at his cards and they did not lift their eyes when his hand went out and drew the money from the centre of the table towards him. Not until he pushed his chair back and got to his feet did one of them speak. It was the youngest brother. ‘You goin’ then?’ he said.
‘Aye.’ Rory moved his head slowly downwards.
‘You’ve had a good night.’
‘You all had the same chance.’
‘I would argue about that.’
‘Would you?’
‘I think you had a trick or two up your sleeve.’
‘What! Then search me if you’ve got a mind.’
‘Aw, no need for that, I wasn’t meanin’ the actual cards. But you’re a bit of a clever bugger, aren’t you?’
‘I’m bucked that you think so.’ He stood buttoning his coat, and noted that the half-caste was no longer in the room. He picked up his hat from a side table and went towards the door, saying, ‘So long then.’
The brothers didn’t speak. When he pulled at the door it didn’t open. He tugged at it twice before turning and looking back into the room. The three men had risen from the table. He stared at them and now the fear swept over him like a huge wave and his stomach heaved.
‘What you standing there for? Can’t you get out?’ The big fellow was approaching him, his arms hanging loosely at his sides. But strangely it wasn’t the fellow’s arms or his face that Rory looked at, but his feet. He hadn’t noticed them before. They were enormous feet encased in thick hob-nailed boots. The boots had the dull sheen of tallow on them with which they had likely been greased.
When the arms sprang up and grabbed at his shoulders Rory struck out, right, then left; right, then left, but his blows were the wild desperate punches used in the back lanes or among the lads in a scrap, as often happened in a works yard.
He remembered hearing the big fellow laugh just before the great fist struck his jaw and seemed to snap his head from his body.
He was on the floor now and he screamed when the boot caught him in the groin. Then he was on his feet again, somebody holding him while another belted into him, the big fellow. They left it all to the big fellow. He was still struggling to hit out but like a child swapping flies when the blow came under his chin, and once more he was on his back. But this time he knew nothing about it. He didn’t feel them going through his pockets, nor when the three of them used their feet on him. He was quite unaware of being hoisted across the big fellow’s shoulder and being carried past the half-caste who was standing in the doorway now and up the area steps into the dark side street, then through the back alleyways towards the river.
That he didn’t reach the river was due to the appearance of two bulky figures coming through a cut between the warehouses. One was a dark-cloaked priest who had been to a ship to give the last rites to a dying sailor. The man accompanying him was the dead man’s friend who was seeing the priest safely back into the town. But to the three brothers their shapes indicated two burly sailors or night-watchmen, and both types could do some dirty fighting on their own, so with a heave they threw the limp body among a tangle of river refuse, broken spars, boxes, and decaying fruit and vegetable, and minutes later the priest and the sailor passed within six feet of it and went on their way.
6
They were all in the kitchen, Bill Waggett, Gran and Janie—Janie still had her outdoor things on; Collum Leary and Kathleen and with them now was their son Pat; Paddy Connor, Ruth, Jimmy; and lastly Lizzie; and it was Lizzie who, looking at young Pat Leary said, ‘Talk sense, lad. ’Tis three o’clock on Sunday afternoon an’ he left the house round six last night. Who would be playin’ cards all that time I ask you?’
‘It’s true, Lizzie. ’Tis true. I’ve heard of games goin’ on for twenty-four hours. They win an’ lose, win an’ lose.’
‘He would never stay all this time; something’s happened him.’
Nobody contradicted her now but they all turned and looked at Janie who, with fingers pressed tightly against her lower lip, said, ‘You should have gone down and told the polis.’
‘What should we tell the polis, lass?’ Paddy Connor now asked her quietly. That me son was out gamin’ last night an’ hasn’t come back? All right, they’ll say, let’s find him an’ push him along the line. Where was he gamin’? I don’t know, says I. Lass—’ his voice was still gentle—’we’ve thought of everything.’
Grannie Waggett, who was the only one seated, now turned in her chair and, her pale eyes sweeping the company, she said, ‘If you want my advice the lot of you, you’ll stop frashin’. It’s as Pat there says, he’s got into a game. He’s gamin’ mad, always has been. It affects some folks like that, like a poison in their blood. Some blokes take to drink, others to whorin’. . .’
‘Gran!‘
The old woman flashed a look on Janie. ‘Whorin’ I said, an’ whorin’ I mean, an’ for my part I’d rather have either of them than one that takes to gamin’, ’cos with them you’re sure of a roof over your head some time, but not with a gamer for he’d gamble the shift off your back an’ you inside it. There was this gentleman who used to come to the house when I was in service in Newcastle. Real gentleman, carriage an’ pair, fancy wife, mansion, he had. One day he had everything, next day nowt. I tell you, me girl—’ she turned and stabbed her finger towards Janie—’you want to put your foot down right from the start or get used to livin’ in the open, for I tell you, you won’t be sure of a roof . . .’
‘Be quiet, Ma.’
Grannie Waggett turned on her son. ‘Don’t you tell me to be quiet.’
‘Be quiet all of you, please.’ It was Ruth speaking gently. ‘What I think should be done is somebody should go down to the Infirmary, the new Infirmary. If anything had happened to him they’d take him there.’
‘And make a fool of themselves askin’.’
Ruth now looked at her husband. ‘I don’t mind lookin’ a fool, I’ll go.’
‘No, Ma.’ Jimmy who had not opened his mouth so far went towards the bottom of the ladder now, saying, ‘I’ll go, I’ll change me things an’ I’ll go.’
As he mounted upwards Collum said, ‘It’s odd it is that he made no mention of whereabouts he’d be, now isn’t it? But then again perhaps it isn’t; if he’d got set on in a big school the least said the soonest mended, for you
