were put to him. He looked very young, with sleek black hair and a thick powerful body which caused the too-tight blue suit to have a corrugated appearance. His face was sullen, the lips thick and sensual, and his small gray eyes suspicious. Although the crowd made no move to interfere with him, he had the look of an animal at bay, his shoulders rounded against the wall and his heavy hands clenched in his pockets causing his trousers to bulge at the thighs. A half-smoked cigarette, unlit, hung from the corner of his mouth. He answered questions quickly but impatiently, without moving his cigarette. He seemed to be interested in those at the fringes of the crowd rather than in those close to him, or perhaps in something beyond the fringes, for as the men appeared from time to time, sidling from the closes along the street, his eyes narrowed and he watched them guardedly.
Suddenly, from a window far above his head, a metal object fell. It struck the pavement with a sharp crack and ricocheted close to his feet. A hush came over the crowd and all eyes were focused on the open razor towards which his hand, after a moment's hesitation, moved. He seemed to be fascinated by the broad blue blade. He tested its edge with his thumb, his head tilted to one side like a bird's, almost as though he were listening to music, and then, very slowly, almost cautiously, he closed it within its white bone handle and looked up to see who had thrown it. The crowd followed his gaze. The girl at the window on the third story pointed twice at him.
She was not pretty. Big, with thin wispy blond hair and slack lips painted a violent red, she leaned over them all, her massive soft bosom pendulous in a blouse of white satin, her hands clasped, her snail-white arms bent, elbows on the sill. The faces — except for Johnnie's — that looked up at her were not friendly. The men were perhaps amused but their eyes were hard and calculating. One woman shouted an insult to her and went into a guffaw. The other women joined in and soon the noise was deafening. The men joked with one another and looked up meaningfully. Only Johnnie, the young man who a moment before had been the center of attention, wasn't smiling. He had a serious, almost hypnotized look on his face, and his glance was still directed at the girl.
But she was no longer looking at him. She was cursing inaudibly at the crowd. And then, when she realized she wasn't heard, she leaned forward over the sill and spat carefully at the woman who had insulted her.
A sudden angry silence came over the crowd.
A large, big-boned man, the husband of the woman who had been spat at, let out an oath and barged his way quickly towards the close which led up to the girl's apartment. The crowd fell aside to make way for him. Johnnie watched his approach without expression. It was not until the man was within a few feet of the close that Johnnie moved. He did so with a sudden snarl, the razor flashing open in his right hand. The man stopped abruptly, a yard away, facing him. A slow hissing sound came from the crowd. Johnnie crouched, the blade ready.
'Fuck off, Beck!' he said. 'Take yer bloody mug awa frae here!'
The man hesitated, glowered at the naked blade Johnnie held rigidly at the level of his face. He stood his ground, his face white and his fists clenched at his sides. There was a deadly hush. No one moved. The faces of the spectators were twisted in anticipation.
'Ah'll gie ye five seconds tae fuck off!' Johnnie said quietly.
The long white scar that ran down the left side of Beck's face from temple to chin became as white as chalk. The young man who threatened him was speaking with his father's voice, the same wolf's look.
Abruptly then, Beck turned on his heel and walked away. As the crowd fell back before his retreat, he said loudly for them all to hear: 'Ah'm no wantin tae interfere wi the mornin's sport!'
That might have justified him had it not been for the protracted shriek of a woman's laughter that rang out like the rattle of bones from overhead. Beck froze in his tracks, turned, looked over his shoulder at the young man who barred his way, and spat viciously on the street. Johnnie watched him balefully, and then, when Beck continued to walk away, he closed the razor with a snap, turned himself, and disappeared into the close.
The crowd, left to its own devices, did not disperse.
The woman was waiting for him, the door of her flat ajar. He entered cautiously.
She was standing away from the window now, near the large bed, her big breasts heavy in the white satin blouse and faintly pink beneath the material. She was wearing nothing else. Her fat slug-like belly ran outwards to its own ripple and fell inwards towards her crotch with its tuft of coarse colorless hair. The color of an old man's moustache.
Her haunches were flaccid and the big round thighs were streaked gray with dirt. The legs were fat, the ankles thick, and the toe-nails on the spatulate toes were wedged with filth. An insinuation. In one of her pudgy white hands, held between two fingers stained brown from nicotine, a cigarette wilted.
She looked at him through her watery, childlike eyes, and smiled at him with slack, very red lips.
He stood watching her with a mixture of lust and loathing. She was like any one of the prostitutes in the numerous brothels in the Gorbals. But she was an amateur. They said she had money of her own.
She shuffled in her bare feet over to a cupboard and brought out a bottle of cheap spirits. She poured out two glasses. He was fascinated by the great sack-like buttocks and the thin spines of the thighs with the network of fine red veins behind the colorless sheen of hairs. Perhaps it was the imminence of death that brought his lust to a hard knot at his vitals. But excitement gained on him. He accepted the proffered glass without protest. And when she stood against him, breathing through the slack red lips at his face, he made no move to escape her.
He felt the sudden exciting chill at his loins as her hand worked loose the buttons of his trousers and a moment later felt his sex rampant in the soft fatness of her palm.
'Come on, Johnnie!' she said huskily.
He felt himself drawn to the bed and with his trousers dangling below his hard buttocks, his belly fitted like a forehead against her. He groaned as he sank into the pale lips of her sticky slit. Her hands closed over his buttocks. With an oath he worked blindly and angrily like a gouge at her heavy crotch.
It could not last long. The woman had offered herself with sure knowledge at a moment of crisis. He was back on the street in less than a quarter of an hour.
When he reached the street, his face was wooden. The woman, returned to the window, looked down from her vantage point. When she saw Johnnie's gaze, she made a slight movement with her hand. He was smiling when he looked down again, but the smile drained away as he surveyed the crowd. It got on his nerves as well as theirs. They were glancing at him uneasily. They were waiting.
'Hey, Allison!'
A young man of his own age stepped forward from the front ranks of the crowd.
'Go an tell the auld bastard ah'm waitin!'
Allison nodded. He turned on his heel and disappeared through the crowd.
The men nearest the front began talking now, passing the news back to the fringes. It moved quickly, like an electric spark, like a catalytic agent which caused the members of the crowd to grow together again in purpose. They were elated. All disbelief was washed out of their expressions. The women especially were watching Johnnie as he took up his position against the wall. He seemed to feel the change and respond to it. His thick features were flushed and his jacket was hanging open, disclosing the vest in whose pockets at either side was a razor, the white-handled one which the girl had thrown him on the right, and a larger black-handled one on the left. They were impressed. The new item of information ran through the crowd as the first had, increasing the tension. Then, as he cupped his hands in front of his mouth to light a cigarette, a sudden shivering of glass on metal caused all heads to turn. A milk cart was turning into the street at the far end. He scowled as he threw away the spent match.
Slowly, a few yards at a time, the skinny white horse approached, drawing the rattling milk cart in its wake. At each close it halted while the boy mounted the stairs to deliver milk to the flats. The red-haired man at the reins sat high on the cart, slumped forward, and smoked a broken clay pipe. He was aware of the crowd which was thinning now but not dispersing. The women clustered on the corner, talking excitedly, and the men, in twos and threes, leaned on the walls lining both sides of the street. They watched the snail-like progress of the cart without interest. Nevertheless, the passage of the cart along the street provided a distraction, an interval of lower tension which lasted right up to the moment when, as fortuitously as it had appeared, it rounded the corner of Rose Street and left the central lane of the roadway once again deserted.
At that moment, as the rear end of the cart turned the corner, Johnnie tossed his glowing cigarette butt into the gutter and closed his jacket. Three police constables had appeared suddenly where the cart had turned and were strolling at a leisurely pace along almost the same route. The faces of the men became impassive and those who carried them opened Sunday newspapers and made the movement of relaxing against the walls. Simultaneously, those who had been hanging out of the windows disappeared from their places and the windows were closed, presenting a uniformly gray exterior. The women meanwhile gathered their shawls about them and moved deeper into the doorways or entered the flats of their neighbors at ground level until there was no sign of a
