The Good Provider (17 page)

‘You, Nicholson, the farmer’s boy, come over here.’

Craig put down the shovel and nervously went over to the brazier.

Malone smiled. ‘Do you know what yon idiot did wrong?’

‘Aye, he took a stick to the beast’s hocks.’

‘Rapped the poor creature to make it step the pavement, I expect,’ said Malone. ‘You’d never do somethin’ that daft, would you?’

‘Not me, Mr Malone.’

‘Farm lads would know better.’

‘Most o’ them would, aye.’

‘I hate to see an animal maltreated. It’s the horses earn the fees here, no’ the bloody men.’ He shook his head. ‘Still, I was young mysel’ once an’ I know how hard it can be to make the day’s rakes in time. Some days the horse seems against you, as well as tram-drivers an’ gate-keepers an’ terminus men. But that’s all part o’ the carter’s trade, sonny, an’ such trials have to be endured.’

‘Aye, Mr Malone.’

‘You’ll get some pay today, wi’ the others.’

‘Will I? I thought—’

‘Ach, I’m told by Bob McAndrew that you’re a willin’ lad, so I’ll pay you for the two days at full rate. How’s that?’

‘That’s grand,’ said Craig.

‘Aye, in this yard we look after our own, Craig, as you’ll find out.’

‘Thanks, Mr Malone.’

‘Buy the wife new knickers.’

Craig nodded and, dismissed, returned to mucking out with renewed vigour. He would receive only four or five shillings, of course, but he was gratified to be at last on the earning chain. Whistling, he put his wariness of Daniel Malone to the back of his mind and told himself that there were worse places to be on a fine Sunday morning than the stables in Kingdom Road.

Kirsty had not been idle. Brasso, blacklead, sugar soap and Cardinal polish were the tools of her trade and by the time that Craig returned from the stables she had the kitchen shining like a new pin. Dinner was a hot beef stew, a queen’s pudding to follow. Craig shifted the lot, including seconds, and told her that it was the best tuck-in he’d had since he’d left Dalnavert.

All morning the spring sunshine had tempted Kirsty, made her eager to be out of the stuffy kitchen and in the open air. Benevolently Craig agreed that a long walk would do them both good. He put on his flannels and jacket while Kirsty, in the hall, changed into her powder-blue costume, and young and jaunty, they sallied forth together arm in arm.

Even among Greenfield’s legions of the godless the Calvinist tradition lingered on. There was a degree of respect for the Lord’s Day, a leaning towards good togs and sobriety. Wives who normally hung their bosoms over kitchen windows would on Sunday sit behind net curtains, aspidistras and canary cages to watch the world go by unseen. Children who would shriek and thunder through closes and across backcourts six days in the week would, on peril of a warmed lug from Mammy, mooch quietly about the street and contain their energies as best they could. Bairns were not so much brought as sent to Jesus. Brushed and scrubbed and stiff in best pinnies and flannel breeks, collection pennies clutched tightly in their fists, they would toddle in sedate little gangs to the Band of Hope mission house or to one of the neighbourhood’s Sunday Schools or, smart as paint in Boys’ Brigade uniforms or Guildry caps, would march off to an afternoon church parade. The din of industry and the raucous sounds of the street traffic would be mellowed and the air itself seemed cleaner on a Sunday. As Kirsty and Craig came on to Dumbarton Road the marching-song of a boys’ brass band floated from the distance, cornets, horns and euphoniums fading and fluctuating until only the thump-thump of the big bass drum could be heard, steady as a pulse, from Partickhill.

Craig did not make for the West End park or Botanical Gardens. He turned west along Dumbarton Road, and Kirsty, who was just glad to be out and about, hugged his arm and matched her step to his as they headed along the thoroughfare into unexplored territory.

New tenements fronted shipyards and foundries, and on the right side of the road were neat new terraces with little oblong gardens to separate them from the pavement. Greenfield and Whiteinch soon fell away behind and the road broadened and green fields and blue hills could be glimpsed behind the buildings. Capaldi’s ice-cream barrow occupied a strategic corner near the Evangelist Hall, a wooden building plastered with ‘holy’ notices like a bargain store, jumping with the enthusiasm of the Saved. From a swarthy man with huge moustachios Craig purchased two ice-cream cones. Kirsty had never tasted ice-cream before. She adored the cold, smooth, sticky-sweet taste and texture of it. She licked delicately while Craig munched on his as if it were a carrot. They turned casually into a side street that narrowed to a lane that in turn reached down to the riverside behind the stand of brand-new tenements.

The river appeared to have been cut out of the buildings and pasted unevenly against pasture. A herd of Ayrshires grazed in hazy sunlight and Kirsty, seeing them, experienced a sudden little flit of longing for Carrick’s rolling dales and friendly, empty hills.

‘Craig, where are we?’ she asked.

‘God knows!’ Craig said. ‘I thought we’d take a look at the river.’

Tall black-iron railings marked off a platform of sand and gravel that jutted from the line of the bank. One long green-painted bench, surrounded by litter, occupied the space, but Craig did not sit down. He made at once for the railings and gripped them like a prisoner. Cautiously, Kirsty followed. The water of the Clyde gurgled thickly below her toes. She stared at it, fascinated. She felt as if she were on a ship that might at any moment detach itself from the shore and carry her off. She pushed the last of the cone into her mouth and, like Craig, closed her fists about the railing. She had never seen such an assured piece of water, though it was rough and ugly and mud-coloured and its banks were shored with greasy stonework from which protruded pipes and conduits that oozed ribbons of livid effluent like banners draped across an arm. All along the curve of the wall were cranes and gantries and the ribs of ships under construction, and the hulls of ships ready to be launched. Downriver, modest in the haze, she glimpsed the little towns and villages that clung to the Clyde and sucked on its industries. She stared and stared into the muscular brown water that flexed and stretched and coiled below her and could almost feel herself drowning in it.

She started slightly when Craig looped an arm about her waist and pressed his body against her bottom.

She turned her head. He kissed her ear, her cheek, her lips.

Tenement windows glittered in the afternoon light. She felt as if a hundred pairs of eyes were watching her, as if all the wives that dwelled in the courts that overlooked the Clyde had stepped quick to their kitchen windows to grin and wink down at her and shake their heads ruefully at the memory of some moment of wooing that stung their memories still.

Flushed, Kirsty did not resist. She let Craig squeeze her against the railing, poised above the water; kiss her; kiss her; press his hips against her belly.

‘Come on, Kirsty. Let’s go home.’

‘But—’

‘Please, Kirsty.’

She yielded without reluctance. She had slept against him and not felt this strange and unfamiliar response in her nerves. She had dreamed about him without being thus aroused. But she was ashamed of it happening in broad daylight, in public, and was glad to pull away from the river and into the lane, Craig’s hand locked about her waist.

They returned to the main road and caught the first horse-tram that rumbled along, not even waiting for it to halt. They seated themselves inside, knee to knee. Craig held her hand and everybody, even little girls with plaited hair and buttoned capes, seemed to know what was going on, and Kirsty did not know which way to look and how to stop a blush colouring her cheeks.

The ride cost a halfpenny each. It seemed interminable.

They got off at last at the head of Kingdom Road and ran down it and turned into Canada Road, hand in hand, out of step now and breathless. They reached the close of Number 11 and clattered upstairs. Craig could hardly find the lock with the key but fitted it at last and pushed the door open with his knee at last and pushed Kirsty inside. He closed the door behind him with his heel. He pushed her against the bunker, hands upon her breasts. He thrust against her. She could feel his hardness. His passion was not practised, not skilled. When he put his hand down to her thighs he searched her face in perplexity as if he expected her to castigate him and throw him off.

Laughter echoed from the stairwell outside. Children stampeded past the door, giggling. Mr Mills, the landing neighbour, shouted at them and reminded them that it was Sunday.

Kirsty disentangled herself from Craig’s arms.

‘Wait,’ she whispered.

‘I can’t wait.’

‘Just for a minute, till I close the curtains.’

‘Do you – do you want to do it too?’

‘Yes.’

She slipped from him into the kitchen.

The fire seeped grey smoke that hazed the kitchen. The sun, having soared over the wall of tenements, tinted the air a smoky gold. Even when Kirsty tugged down the paper blind and closed the curtain there was still a glow of light in the room. The voices of children could still be heard and the thump-thump of the marching band in the far distance, blowing itself back to supper. Nervous, breathless, Kirsty removed the powder-blue costume. She draped it on a chair. She slipped out of her blouse and shift and stepped out of her drawers. She was naked now in the haze. She hesitated, not knowing what Craig would expect from her or how he would come to her. She wondered if she should put on the nice new nightgown, fresh-smelling from its scented tissues.

Craig knocked uncertainly on the kitchen door.

‘Kirsty, I’m – I’m ready.’

She scrambled into bed, slid beneath the sheets and clasped the blanket to her chin. It was all happening so suddenly, so urgently. She was moist, though, and her breasts tingled. She realised that she was still wearing her stockings. Hastily she skinned them off and kicked them to the bottom of the bed.

Craig opened the door.

‘Are you ready, Kirsty?’ he hissed.

‘Yes.’

He was still dressed. He had removed only his jacket, not his shirt or trousers. She had been curious to see him. She clutched the blanket to her throat as he advanced to the side of the bed. Stooping he brushed her hair with his fingertips and kissed her.

‘Are you sure you’re ready?’

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘yes.’

He showed a concern that Kirsty found both irritating and touching. She had been prepared for masculine roughness, for pain and perhaps humiliation but Craig did not seem to know where to begin. Kirsty drew down the blanket, let him see her breasts. He kissed her again, put a hand to her breast. Would he be put off by her freckles? Would she be big enough to please him? She did not know what would happen next. He edged into bed, still dressed, incredibly modest for a man.

Kirsty wriggled closer to the wall but Craig made a tent of sheet and blankets and fumbled off his shirt and trousers, pushed them to the floor. Cramped in the hole-in-the-wall he touched her accidentally. She flinched at his hardness.

‘Sorry, sorry,’ he apologised, embarrassed by his awkwardness.

He eased himself down beside her, his face by hers on the pillow. She saw that he was unsure and would have taken the lead in love-making if only she had known how. She raised herself. She kissed him. The touch of his secret flesh had rendered her clumsy. She was afraid to cuddle him or rub against him in case he became too roused. She felt his fingers insinuate between her knees. She resisted out of instinct, then yielded, opened her thighs to his explorations. She winced when he found the opening. She held her breath. She tilted her hips, receiving not rejecting him.

‘Is this – this the way?’ he asked.

‘Yes. It’s all right, darling. Yes.’

There was pain, a swift stinging pain. She gasped, gasped again as she felt warmth there and a sudden horror that her body had gone out of rhythm. She caught herself. She knew what it was. She opened her eyes and looked down at the line of her body, glimpsed Craig’s muscular stomach and dark tangle of hair as he lowered himself into her. She bit her lip, gasping once more.

Beads of perspiration dappled Craig’s brow. His arms about her shoulders were slippery. He felt huge within her but not sore. She was no longer afraid, not now that it had begun. His hands stroked her back, cupped her buttocks. She was out of step with him, all at sixes and sevens. Suddenly she wanted it to be over, over and out of the way so that she might hold him quietly in her arms. He slapped down against her. She felt a strange exciting tug deep in her stomach. She heard herself groan, heard Craig panting as he beat faster and faster and faster and faster, chest slapping against her breasts. It was as if she had become someone or something else. She hated his frantic detachment even while caught in sharp expanding sensations. She pinned her arms about his waist to hold him to her. She felt him jerk and jerk and gasped when he gasped. Then he slumped, arms on each side of her head, face buried in her hair.

‘God, oh God!’ he groaned.

Kirsty lay motionless, waiting.

He pushed himself up, looked at her, smiled, kissed her brow.

‘All right?’ he asked.