The Big Man (12 page)

‘Forget it, Frankie,’ Alan said. His hand gestured towards the busy bar. ‘I think it’s covered. We’ve even got some ladies in, the day. Civilisation at last.’

Frankie had noticed the women. He usually did. Since his teens, they had been noticing him. His looks were perhaps the gift that had stunted his growth, as gifts often do. Finding it so easy to be attractive to people when he was young, Frankie had never really matured beyond the belief that effort was a sign of innate inferiority. One of the women was Sarah Haggerty. Sarah, like Frankie’s mother, like most women, activated subtle danger signals in him. He secretly felt them to be much more substantial than he was, capable of such exotic emotions as passion and commitment. He knew his way around their anatomies all right but his visits there tended to be fleeting and functional because he had felt hidden in those marvellous recesses of flesh enough warmth and intensity to shrivel his awareness of himself into an admission of how much he lacked those qualities. Women were the place where Frankie had come nearest to having to acknowledge
the hollowness that filled his flashy suits. And since he was afraid of them, he had adopted the most popular and the most convenient camouflage. He had become a philanderer. He made sure that when he was with one woman, he was always en route to another one, in case, should he stay too long, he might discover less in himself than he wanted to find. With them, he talked a filibuster against the coming of that moment when he might confess a stricken silence and lay his head against a woman and admit, uncleverly, incomprehensibly, he loved her.

Of all women, Sarah Haggerty set that alarm system ringing loudest because, being younger then, he had come closer than at any time since to taking the chance of finding out what was really in him. She was the more banal but the more substantial truth of himself he had been in flight from for so long. She had been watching him on the phone with such honest interest that it wasn’t immodest of him to suspect that she was here to see him. The realisation did two things, in rapid succession. It made him wonder if he hadn’t been wrong, all those years ago. It made him afraid to be wondering such things. He put on his act like a visor and went over.

‘Sarah, love of my life,’ he said and kissed her hand.

The three women started laughing. The other two would be about the same age as Sarah, therefore about the same age as he was himself. One of them wasn’t bad. She was blonde and mildly plump, held an expression of coquetry to her face like a slightly battered fan. The other, he thought, was gone. Her overdone make-up was a promise so desperate it could have been a threat. She looked like a reheated meal. Sarah was still very good-looking, the only one he could have been serious about, so he made sure to pay attention to the blonde one. Sarah introduced them but he was so involved in his own routine he didn’t catch the names.

‘As always, it’s great to see you,’ he said, his eyes including the blonde woman.

‘What’s this you and Dan are up to?’ Sarah asked. ‘Your second childhood?’

She was indicating his track-suit.

‘Quite the
contraire
,’ Frankie said. He had always thought the
occasional word of French made all the difference with women. They had to be very occasional. The only other two he felt he could use with confidence were ‘
amour’
and
‘bon’.
‘This is very serious business. Work for men.’

They tell me Dan Scoular’s goin’ to fight somebody,’ the blonde woman said. The fierceness of her stare had no connection with the lightness of the remark, as if her eyes were dislocated from her mouth.

There is a rumour to that effect.’ Frankie smiled at them mysteriously. ‘Ah’ve heard as much myself.’

‘So what are you?’ the reheated meal was saying. ‘His manager or what?’

‘His trainer, lovely.’ The epithet was the toll his indifference paid. ‘Ah’m just gettin’ him fit. Givin’ him a few wrinkles. Few tricks of the trade.’

‘So where is this?’ Sarah asked. ‘You couldn’t get us some tickets?’

‘It’s not that kind of fight, Sarah,’ Frankie said. ‘A strictly private affair. Ah would if Ah could. You know that, love. Tell you what. As compensation, Ah’ll buy ye all a drink.’

He had done it smoothly, conveyed an impression without getting involved in serious business and then got out, neat as shinning down the back ronepipe as the husband arrived. He could imagine the interest he was leaving behind him.

On his way towards Dan’s table, he was stopped by Sam MacKinlay. Frankie enjoyed the experience of people reaching out to touch him. It was as near as he would get to fans tearing off a piece of his clothes. Harry Naismith and Alistair Corstorphine, the other two domino players, were sitting with him. Frankie gave them his attention the more generously because he couldn’t remember them ever wanting it before. He saw Sam as the only one of the three really worth the time, at least a quick mouth. Harry was a man lost in his fifties, who had hitched his life to Sam’s to see if he might not manage some mileage yet. Alistair was a gentle mid-thirties man, still testing life with his toe.

‘Frankie, what’s the news?’ Sam MacKinlay said.

‘He doesn’t fancy it, Sam.’

‘That’s the best ye can do?’

‘Sam. You saw the man. What he says goes.’

‘But it’s only us three and maybe old Alan,’ Sam said. ‘We’re not askin’ to book the whole North Stand. Christ, ye could smuggle that lot in in yer pockets.’

‘We’d love to see it, Frankie,’ Alistair said.

‘That’s a fact,’ Harry said.

Frankie stared past them thoughtfully, let them register how much he cared. He thought he could see a way to play Matt Mason right but it wouldn’t be to his advantage to tell them that. He thought suspense might be good for them. He had a commodity to sell.

‘Ah’ll be honest, boys,’ he said. ‘Ah asked him there. He shat on it from a great height. “Forget it!” That’s what he said. “We’re not running buses.” “You’re not on.” Those were his exact words. What can Ah say?’

Alistair put his hand to his head. Harry looked at Sam Mackinlay.

‘Come on, Frankie,’ Sam said. ‘Don’t give us that. You count a bit up in Glasgow. We’re where you come from. Big Dan’s Thornbank. So are we. And so are you. Us country boys have to stick thegither. What ye say?’

Frankie was shaking his head, wishing he could find a way to help them. He made to speak, hesitated.

‘There’s one possible way,’ he said. ‘Ach, naw. Let’s forget it. He says no, boys.’

‘Frankie!’ Sam said. ‘Just tell us the way. Come on. Ah knew you when you had vents at yer arse the tailor never made. So what’s the way?’

‘Well. There’s going to be checkers at the gate. Right? Ah could bung them a few quid. Maybe that way, Ah could get ye in. But it means it would cost ye. Maybe at least forty for the four of ye. It’s a liberty. Ah don’t want to do that with ma mates. Ah think we should forget it.’

‘Don’t worry, Frankie,’ Sam said.

He looked at the other two. The money at the moment was a myth among them but their three pairs of eyes agreed to make it somehow a reality. They sealed the agreement with smiles.

‘You do that, Frankie,’ Sam said.

‘You sure? Ah hate to do this.’

‘Ye’re doin’ us a favour. Don’t you worry. We want to see the big man do his stuff. You mark us down for four.’

‘Okay,’ Frankie said reluctantly. ‘Ah’ll do ma best. It’s not a guarantee, now. But, listen, Ah’ll really be tryin’ for youse boys.’

Frankie touched Sam’s shoulder and walked away. Harry Naismith winked at Sam MacKinlay.

‘He’s all right, him, eh?’ Alistair Corstorphine said.

‘Aye, but it’s really Sam we’ve got to thank,’ Harry said. ‘You put the pressure on there, Sam. So ye did. He was goin’ to bomb us out.’

‘Aye, so ye did,’ Alistair said admiringly.

‘Well, Ah would hope Ah know how to handle Frankie White by this time,’ Sam MacKinlay said.

His two brief public performances had reinstated Frankie’s sense of himself. Matt Mason’s ominousness was receding like a threatened headache which hasn’t materialised. But as he jauntily approached Dan Scoular’s table, there was something in Dan’s face that bothered him. He might have looked to other people just like a man enjoying himself but in the week of their training together Frankie had learned to read that face more thoroughly than most. Dan was a more thoughtful man than Frankie had at first imagined. It was just that he was seldom in any hurry to voice his thoughts. If you were observant enough, you might notice that his expressions were reacting to the conversation like afterthoughts, the eyes still watching you but opaque, the smile a second too slow, and you would realise the machinery was working away on something else. What it might be making of it you could only imagine.

Frankie just hoped it wasn’t trouble as he sat down at the table. The mood was light enough. Davie the Deaver was recounting how in his youth he had been involved in cutting down the trees of the Sahara (‘the nights were that cold there’) and had helped to make it a desert. He seemed genuinely to regret the carelessness of their actions and the devastating results. He pleaded the ignorance of the times. (‘There was never as much talk about ecology then.’) Knowing the rules.
Wullie Mairshall was patiently raising rational objections to see how Davie would cope with them. It was acknowledged that there always had been a desert known as the Sahara but it had been much smaller (‘about the size of Troon beach’) until the arrival of the army and Davie Dykes.

Like mouth music before a battle, Davie and Wullie receded and left fighter and trainer remembering the nature of what was ahead. There were fewer people in the pub. Sarah and her friends sent over a drink but Dan said his orange juice was enough.

‘Alan’s done all right the day,’ Frankie said. ‘We should be on commission.’

‘Folk keep wishin’ me well,’ Dan said. ‘Ye would think Ah was fightin’ for them.’

‘Well, ye’re from Thornbank.’

‘But they don’t know anythin’ about it.’

‘How d’ye mean?’

‘They don’t know what the fight’s about.’

‘They don’t have to. They’re supporting you.’

‘Why? They don’t know what Ah’m doin’.’

‘Dan, come on.’

‘They don’t. Ah feel as if Ah’m connin’ them. Because the truth is Ah don’t know maself.’

Frankie White was aware of Matt Mason’s voice on the phone like an earpiece to which he was permanently plugged in, being prompted.

‘You’re earning money, Dan. That’s what ye’re doin’. At a time when there’s very little to earn, you’ve found a way.’

‘Aye, but Ah’m not sure what the way is. Ah think it’s time you told me all ye know about this, Frankie.’

‘What Ah know? That wouldn’t take long.’

‘So fair enough.’

‘Dan. Take ma advice. As the man says, the more you know the less the better. You’re goin’ into a bad place. Cutty Dawson? He’s been around a bit. A lotta experience. You don’t know what ye’re goin’ to find in there. Even about yerself. We all know you’re good, Dan. But this isny a scuffle outside a pub. This is a serious matter. You’re goin’ to discover what’s in you. This is
new territory. You’re goin’ up the Amazon, Dan. You only take essentials to a place like that. Ye don’t clutter yerself with stuff that’s not goin’ to help you. Extra luggage’ll finish you. Ah’m tellin’ ye. Ye think Cutty Dawson’s worried about the ins and outs of it? He’s got one thought: batter Dan Scoular down. You be the same. It’s the only way.’

‘Cutty Dawson must’ve improved since Monday. You fancied ma chances then.’

‘Ah still do, Dan. But only if everything’s right. And Ah’m tellin’ ye the way to get it right. Will ye listen? Anyway, there’s another thing. It’s a bit late to worry. Ye took the man’s money. He’s fixed up the whole thing. If ye decided ye didny like the smell of it, what ye goin’ to do?’

‘Ah would decide.’

‘Dan, you’ve decided! You took that two hundred quid in here, what d’ye think that was? Time to think? That was money. That was Matt Mason’s money. It might as well’ve been his head stamped on the notes.’

‘Ah could have second thoughts.’

Sarah Haggerty and her friends had risen to leave and they waved across. Frankie made a very small, brief gesture of waving back, feeling distant from them, like an unwilling passenger on a ship he felt pulling away from the cosy normalcy of their lives. He had just realised it was a mystery cruise.

He remembered why he had never felt fully at home among these people. They were so simple. How did they think the world worked? How had they managed to live so long and learn so little? There was no hope for them. Industry had fleeced them for generations and they still wondered what it was all about. Whatever happened to them, they shrugged and thought maybe tomorrow would be a good day. When did they call ‘enough!’? His own mother. He remembered going with her one day to pay her rent. A woman who had been through more hard times than he wanted to think about, a woman who through it all had never treated another person beneath the high standards she modestly called ‘dacency’, and she got mixed up with the money and the clerk behind the counter, a weedy nyaff with pimples and an underfed moustache, was treating her with
contempt. The most painful moment had been outside when his mother gently lectured Frankie for swearing. ‘He was only doin’ his job,’ she said. They never learned. Now Dan Scoular was talking about ‘second thoughts’. Frankie White’s fears for himself made him speak without any of his customary attention to the image he was projecting.

‘Dan,’ he said sincerely. ‘Ye don’t get second thoughts with these people. Your second thought could be your last. You offend this man, he’ll hide in yer coalhouse for a week just to get ye.’

They stared at each other in the first moment of mutual honesty they had achieved. Dan Scoular saw very clearly the other’s fear, the self-protective need to get his message across: ‘We’re both in a place of danger, we pull together here or we both go down.’ Frankie White saw Dan Scoular’s eyes steady on him, stare into the facts, try to consider the possibilities. In the honesty of those eyes, unmuddied by any deliberate deceit, Frankie White thought he could see the thoughts surface, vivid as fish: the first was accusation but it didn’t stay long; the second looked a lot more dangerous, the refusal yet to believe that there was nothing else to do but go through with this.