Tobago Street nick, drink was the blight of every evening shift. It wasn’t so much in the pubs we had trouble but in the parks and walkways by the Clyde. Gangs of broken men getting tanked up on their own special brew: a mix of meths and cheap red wine that they called ‘Jake’ or ‘Johnnie Jump Up’. It was hard to say which of the two ingredients was the real poison. I reckoned it was a recipe handed down from the Viking invasions. It would certainly account for the berserkers roaming the streets on a Saturday night.
Those that could afford to drink the real stuff – a half-gill of Bell’s chased down by a half-pint of Tennent’s – blew their pay packets at the weekend in pubs that were little more than tiled caves for garrulous drunks. Glasgow’s East End and the Gorbals itself were littered with dingy wee hostelries that refused to serve women, as much from embarrassment as from sensitivity to the gentler sex. Not that any self-respecting woman would have demeaned herself by standing ankle deep in soggy sawdust amidst a jabbering crowd of flush-faced men in flat caps. A woman’s role in the Friday-night revels was to stand at the shipyard gate, ready when the whistle went, to tackle her man and extract enough cash from his pay packet to feed her and her ragged weans for another week. I’ve seen six-footers reduced to shame-faced mumbling at the factory gate by a tiny wee fury wanting to know where he’d hidden the ten-shilling overtime she knew he’d worked that week.
So it was with some trepidation that I approached the bunker-like Mally Arms off Gorbals Cross. It was just past opening time but already there were a few old soaks at the bar. There was fresh sawdust on the floor and fresh tobacco smoke wreathing the air. There was nothing else fresh. Dark rings surrounded the corroded spittoons while a fireplace gasped out a thin trail of smoke from glowing dross. The chairs and tables had only recently been recovered from the wreck of the Titanic.
The bar itself was horseshoe shaped with a partition dividing the public from the saloon bar. The lounge had chairs with arms and lacked spittoons. The public had a dartboard and a snooker table whose green baize looked as if it had hosted the final Somme offensive.
I chose to pay a penny extra for a pint in the comparative luxury of the saloon and pushed through the dividing door. It was empty. I ordered a stout and picked up the Racing Mirror to see what I might have lost at Ayr. Not that I ever put a bet on a nag or a dog. Not since I’d heard from my dad about the tricks of the trade such as making a whippet swallow a packet of ten Woodbine before a race. I can’t recall whether it slowed the poor beast down or fired him up. But it did seem to make a nonsense of the form guides. The paper was only of use as camouflage. I glanced at it long enough for appearances then called the barman over. I was taken aback to hear my accent dropping back into the nasal grooves of my boyhood. Self-preservation behind enemy lines.
‘Got anything to eat here, pal?’
‘Pies. The wife heats them up. Be ready in about ten minutes.’
‘That’ll do the job, fine. I’ll start wi’ the one and see how it goes.’
I whiled away the time with the racing horoscopes until a steaming plate came over the counter. It held a round mutton pie, sweating and drowning in its own juices. Its sides sagged under its own internal conflict.
‘Sauce?’ the barman asked and plonked down a bottle of brown.
Surprisingly the pie tasted better than it had any right to. Maybe it was the sauce. Maybe it was nostalgia. I even contemplated a second one; this could be a long night and it was better to have some ballast on board, even at half a pint a time. I didn’t want to be rolling into Sam Campbell’s house singing ‘Glasgow belongs to me’. Not the first night. Instead I got the man in conversation while the pub was still quiet. This was going to be delicate. I was relying on people’s relish for discussing a hanging.
‘Did you know this fella Donovan, the one that’s to hang for killing that wean?’
He stopped wiping some smears on to his glass. ‘Who’s asking?’
‘I used to know him. He ran about with a pal of mine.’
‘Does that make him a pal o’ yours?’ There was an edge to his voice.
‘Naw. No way. I just saw him about.’ I wondered if tonight I’d beat St Pete’s record for denying his friend.
The barman didn’t look convinced. ‘See if he was, then yon’s the last drink you’ll taste in here. I’ll no serve any pal of that murdering bastard in this establishment.’
‘I don’t blame you. The guy was obviously a bampot. Did he look the type? I mean were you surprised?’
‘You’re not the polis, are you? Ah thought all this was by?’
I wondered if the smell of the uniform ever leaves you?
‘No. But you’ve got a good eye. I used to be. Here in Glasgow before the war. Now I work in London. Reporter.’
‘Christ, no’ another one! They’ve been round here a dozen times.’
‘This is personal. I’m just up visiting my mother. I was curious. He looked a normal sort of fella when I last saw him. They say he was badly burnt?’
The barman looked around and then leaned over the bar at me. ‘Like a horror show. Poor sod. I suppose it turned him. Nae excuse, mind.’
‘But he was a regular?’
‘Oh aye. He’d sit through in the public. Quiet in the corner. Never any bother. Kept his hat doon. Didnae want folk to see his face. Nae wonder. My wife couldnae handle it. I had to serve him.’
Now came the hard questions. ‘Did he ever talk to anyone? Any friends?’
He shook his head. ‘No’ what you’d call friends exactly.’
‘Fill me up. Will you take one yourself?’ I pushed my glass over to him.
‘I’ll put one in the tank. A wee goldie. For later. Thanks.’
‘But he had some acquaintances?’
He leaned even closer. ‘There’s always guys selling stuff roon’ here.’ He tapped his nose.
‘What sort of stuff? Fags? Meat…?’
‘A’ that. But if you want something special…’ He drew himself back. ‘Anyroad, I’ve telt you enough. I don’t know you from Adam.’
‘Fair enough, friend,’ I said. ‘But look, I’ve got a wee habit of my own. D’ye ken what I’m saying?’ I tapped the inside of my arm. ‘If you know anywhere I can get hold of some stuff, I’d make it worth your while.’ I took out a ten-bob note and laid it on the counter. ‘That’s for the pie and your own drink. Keep the change.’ I made to go.
‘Hing on, pal.’ He signed me to come closer. ‘If you can wait till the morn’s night, there might be somebody who can help. Different nights, different pubs. He comes by here on a Thursday. Regular as the coalman. About seven. OK?’ He gave me the heaviest wink I’d seen since Max Wall at the Windmill.
I did my best to return the wink and went looking for Hugh’s other pub in case it was its turn to be visited tonight. If I had no luck there I could come to the Mally Arms tomorrow night for a pie and a hit.
Doyle’s bar at Gorbals Cross was scarcely more salubrious. But the clientele seemed less likely to fall down with consumption. The beer seemed less watered too. Maybe there was a connection. I decided to play this differently. People are always ready to talk to you in Scotland. Strangers will wish you a good morning so they can comment on the weather before getting on to the important stuff like football. Women will strike up an intimate discussion about varicose veins on the bus with perfect strangers. Put that same propensity in a pub, add alcohol and time on their hands, and you’ll get their life story in a flash.
It was just after seven o’clock and I gazed through the fug looking for some likely candidates. I discounted the wee men dressed in their shabby work clothes stopping in for a snifter before facing their pale wife. I ignored the tables where there was a steady clack and slide of dominoes. I was looking for someone whose clothes were less frayed and slept in, who slipped round the room stirring the little groups like a breeze through trees, going about his dirty business, eyes swivelling. No one fitted the bill.
I sat down to wait with an abandoned copy of the Daily Record. I read it cover to cover. It didn’t take long. Ink and paper was still at a premium and the Record was down to a dozen pages. So I read it carefully, especially the reports of local crimes, to get a feel for this mean city. Nothing much seemed to have changed since I was last patrolling the streets. The gangs were still in charge of the East End but seemed more organised and less given to mass razor battles just for the fun of it. Chief Constable Percy Sillitoe had taken them on and given them a good hiding in the years before the war. Sillitoe’s Cossacks earned a justly feared respect with their mounted baton charges against rioting Orange marchers. But the gangs hadn’t gone away. They’d metamorphosed into organised criminality; protection rackets their speciality.
Today’s paper reported that internecine feuding had resulted in petrol bombs through windows and three men’s faces being slashed to ribbons in a pub fight. No wonder the police had to be such hard men. There was no
