woman on the street. Johnnie, isolated now, with at least ten yards between himself and the nearest group of men, lit another cigarette, thrust his hands deep into his trouser pockets, and stared vacantly at the pavement in front of him. He remained in this posture for some seconds and then, as though the thought had just occurred to him, he extracted a neatly folded gray cap from his right-hand jacket pocket and fitted it with great care close to his scalp. He looked up then, his eyes traveling along the groups of men reading their newspapers to the three helmeted constables who had stopped in the middle of the street, looking casual, as though they were discussing the weather or the architecture of the tenements, their hands clasped peacefully behind their backs in an at-ease position and their white faces under their dark blue, silver-studded helmets glancing upwards at the impenetrable windows and the sky beyond.
There were about forty men on the street, most of them ragged, disheveled, and wearing dirty white scarves at their necks, as though they had just got up and had come out for some reason — not particularly urgent — to discuss the morning's news. The church bells were still tolling and their sound on the cold, windless morning seemed to be devoid of all significance. No one, certainly in Rose Street, paid any attention to them. They were there in the background, a sound monotonous and plangent in the atmosphere, and for all their movement, as flat, static, and lifeless as the red coin of sun above the level of the roofs. But there was something in the air. It was too quiet. The policemen knew it and the men, while they feigned innocence, knew that the policemen knew it, but they didn't care, for sooner or later they would have to go away, and then it would happen. By the time the policemen returned, at no matter what strength, it would be too late. It would be over.
The policemen remained in that way, a close and casual triangle, talking in the middle of the street for about five minutes, and then, as casually as they had come, they went, walking the length of the street without so much as a glance to either side, leaving Johnnie on the right unnoticed, ignored, and flicking yet another stub of cigarette where they had walked with their shining boots.
The last of them was now out of sight round the corner. Johnnie nodded to a youth on the opposite side of the pavement. The youth shambled after them as far as the corner. There he hesitated to light a cigarette, looked up and down the intersection as though to satisfy himself that there was no traffic before he crossed, and then actually did cross to the wider-angle view on the opposite pavement. A moment later he looked back at Johnnie, nodded, and held his right thumb upwards, discreetly, at waist-level. Johnnie returned his nod and opened his jacket. The razors were still there, one white and one black, the sleek silver tongues at the non-cutting end of the blades pointing diagonally towards his armpits where, in the sleeve-holes of his vest, he now hooked his thumbs. At the same time he glanced down towards the other end of the street and the men, following his gaze, folded their newspapers.
Allison was approaching at a quick walk along the pavement.
The trio appeared suddenly, the father slightly in advance, and then the mistress holding the sixteen-year-old daughter by the hand. The father carried a long belt of heavy black leather in his right hand.
Johnnie saw him at once and took up his position in the center of the roadway. The crowd pressed forward and back like an ebbing tide. There was a distance of about twenty yards between the two men, the elder of whom, carrying the belt and followed at a few yards' distance by the two young women, now raised his eyes under the skip of his cap and stared drunkenly along the center lane of the street where his son, a razor in each hand crouching ready for battle, awaited him. There was an utter silence in the street. All eyes were trained now upon Razor King, who had halted, his feet apart, swaying, his powerful shoulders hunched forward like a gorilla's, and with the belt of black leather trailing the ground near his right boot. Somewhere, high above the roofs, the church bells were still tolling.
Then, suddenly, the sixteen-year-old girl had broken away from the other and was running the length of the street towards Johnnie, screaming his name. No other noise. Just the harsh strident scream of the girl and the clatter of her shoes on the stone. It took her about four seconds to reach him. And then, shifting his position slightly to meet her onrush with his left shoulder, Johnnie struck sideways with his forearm, sending her sprawling to the gutter at the feet of the nearest spectators. He was immediately on guard again, crouching, the razors held at chest level eighteen inches in front of his body. The girl was gathered into the crowd and held there by Allison and another man. In the tension of the moment as she tumbled, her skirt fluttering upward, in the gutter, no one noticed the thin red weals which disfigured her thighs.
Razor King had not moved. His small bloodshot eyes stared out derisively beneath his low forehead. Now, with a peculiar shambling walk, he advanced slowly and dangerously toward his son.
He was of exactly the same stature as Johnnie, only thicker, with battle scars all over his body. His nose had been broken by a bottle flat into his face. His clothes hung in tatters from his body, but at the neck a spotless white silk scarf was wound, and his cap, like Johnnie's, was sharp and immaculate.
Now, less than ten yards apart, neither man moved. From the windows on the fourth story above the street, because of the dark clothing of the men and because of what they held in their hands — the one, razors, the other, the long black belt — the slow approach had appeared almost beetle-like. The impression was accentuated by the minute tremor in the posture of the younger man and by the slight swaying motion of the other as he advanced. When the latter came to a halt, the whole street seemed to halt with him, to freeze to immobility, the crowd paralyzed by its own acute lust for violence, strung taut as a man is at the instant before he is involved utterly in love or dying, the protagonists seized in the religious certainty of their commitment, and the young woman in the yellow polo-neck jersey — the mistress — her long red hair falling to her shoulders and emphasizing the smooth rise of her breasts under the fine wool, at a dead stop, the muscles of her haunches rigid under her tight skirt and her feet in high heels riveted to the stone where she stood now, slightly to the side, nearer to the father than to the son, and unable to move.
Closer, at street level, where a light wind brushed a scrap of paper along the gutter, movement was more perceptible. The men were not still. The crouch of the younger man was not static. It deepened the tensions doubling and redoubling themselves at every fiber. And the older man, halted momentarily, had paused only so as not to provoke a sudden movement on the part of the other, but he was going forward now, an inch at a time. His voice when it came was gruff, ominous, and strangely calm at the same time. It created the urgent necessity, as certain chords do, for resolution.
'Pit … doon … they … weapons!'
Johnnie didn't flinch. All things seemed suspended. He made no move to obey his father's order.
'Pit … doon … they … weapons, Johnnie!'
The slight note of wonder, even perhaps of hysteria, in the repeated command seemed to draw the crowd actively into the situation. It participated in the nightmare.
The voice which shrilled out now was irrelevant, absurd. It was Allison's. Her face craned whitely forward from behind the daughter whom she held, close to her chest.
'Ye bloody well asked for it, Gault!'
Razor King's face became contorted with fury. The black belt shook in his fist. He glared hatefully behind his son in the direction of the voice.
'Aye, Allison! Ah've got you marked!' he bellowed. 'This is your fuckin work an ye'll pay for it! Ah'll come roon tae you in jist aboot two meenutes!' He looked at Johnnie again, his face set and his bloodshot eyes narrowed to slits.
'Ahm tellin ye for the last time, Johnnie! Pit … doon … they … bliddy … razors!'
At that moment, and for the first time, Johnnie wavered. His muscles seemed to slacken. A low moan escaped the crowd. Razor King breathed outwards through his twisted nostrils. His chin was tilted slightly to one side, giving the head a cocked appearance.
It might have been over.
But the next voice, a harsh slum woman's scream, acted as the detonator.
'Ayee! Awa' back hame an get yer bliddy erse skelpit! It's no that long ago yer mither wiped it fur ye!'
Johnnie moved then, straight for his father.
With a thin animal snarl Razor King hurled the belt down. His hands flashed for his vest pockets and the gleaming blades cut forward at his son's rush. Johnnie ducked, too late to avoid having his left cheek slashed open to the bone, but quick enough to be under his father's guard and to butt him with all his power with a knee to the groin. Razor King screamed with rage and pain and toppled backwards, bent like a hinge. Johnnie hesitated for a split second, and then, with the wild cry of a wounded animal, leapt cutting and kicking forward. More like a ghoul than a man he went in, his cheek streaming red blood, his mouth bellowing inarticulate words, and his terrible
