Rust and Dust 2

‘There’s a strange smell in here.’ She paused in the doorway as if to gather it up and make certain. She was small but had that wide-eyed presence and sense of entitlement of being both the gaffer’s daughter and beautiful. She crinkled her fine, straight nose and her small mouth pursed, covering her pearly-white teeth, as if she was going to laugh or cry. Dressed for mourning in a fashionable flared black skirt. Tight over her stomach and small breasts, but emphasised her child-bearing hips. Crisp cotton, black blouse fastened high under her dimpled chin. Her clothing matched her jet-black hair, which fell down to her bum and swayed as she moved her head, noting the kettle on the hob. Kicking over the pile of dirty blankets for consideration with the toe of her polished shoe as an owner would kick over a dog blanket in its kennel to see if fleas would jump. Uncovering other wonders in the Howff her eyes and nose might have missed. Her tone bright and curious as a child. ‘Do you perhaps sleep here?’    

The Tink scratched at his neck. ‘I was sorry tae here about yer faither, young madam.’

Something in her switched backwards from the present to the past. In the blink of her pretty hazel eyes, she hung in the void. Her presence, a still life. Thick and black and smudged with a charcoal pencil. No more real than the tea and bread and margarine on the cluttered table in front of her. As if her father’s angry face was waiting to step into the frame. His blunt fingers brushing her aside and demanding to be seen first and last.

‘Thank you.’ She pushed her gloved knuckles to her eyes and turned away. ‘It’s been very trying times.’

In the silence, the Tink re-filled the kettle from a standpipe and put it on the gas ring to boil.

‘Perhaps yeh’d like a cuppa tea?’

He followed her liquid gaze and saw there was no place for a young lady like her to sit. Quickly, he clattered nuts and bolts from a wooden stool onto the floor and dragged it across to the corner of the table he used for eating.

‘Yes, that would be rather nice.’

She eased herself onto the stool. He felt her watching him as he made a strong pot of tea.

Placed a cup and saucer in front of her. Part of a tea service with gold edging, but small and chipped. Two cups and two saucers. More than enough for his needs. He put three lumps of sugar in the cup. It was no use being stingy, and he didn’t get visitors. He took the crusty loaf from the brown paper bag. Cut a couple of slices and slathered them with margarine. Put them on a plate and slid it in front of her. Nodded at the pint of milk. She could suit herself that way, while he poured himself a cup.

She chewed delicately and deliberately. An ungloved hand under her chin to catch crumbs. Smiling at the novelty.

He picked out a sugar lump with a teaspoon. Clamped it between his blackened teeth and sucked the tea he poured into his mouth. He cut himself a slice of bread. A crackling sound as he crunched the sugar lump.  

She reached into her pocket. Brought out a pound note and smoothed it out on the table. Put it back in her pocket and put a Palestinian penny in its place, drilled through the middle. ‘Do you perhaps know what this is?’    

‘Aye, it’s a penny.’ He shook his head. Elbows on the table. The empty cup held in both hands near his lips. He sighed.  ‘Yeh sometimes get them in the machines. And they can be a fair bugger to get oot—excuse the language.’

She took the cup from him and re-filled it. Put it down before him. Pushed the sugar closer. ‘How can it be a “bugger”!’

He sucked the sugar between his lips. ‘As I said, it jams yer locking mechanism…I told aw this tae yer faither.’

Her grey-green eyes were no longer wet. ‘Quite. He went to bed that night, right as a trivet. Drunk, of course. Always drunk. Brain fever, they said. It could happen to anyone. But it was as if he knew…as if he knew.’

She watched his greasy worker’s hands at rest on the rimmed plate and saucer.

‘Do drink your tea,’ she urged him. ‘It’s getting cold.’ She shivered. ‘The strange thing was his luck seemed to have changed. He was almost happy. Apart from his headaches. He complained about the sound of hooves pounding in place, fast and furious, as if a whole herd of horses was running amok inside his skull trying to escape. He drunk more to compensate. Could never get enough. And it affected us all. Me, Mother and my younger brother were all lifted by his better moods. Our better circumstances. Plunged down by his drunken madness.’

She took a deep breath. ‘In one of his drunken rambles, he said he’d cracked it. He’d mentioned Young Mischief. You know what that is? How appropriate and ironic that name is?’

He finished sucking on his tea. ‘Can’t say I dae.’

‘It’s a horse.’ She stroked her hair before deciding to confide in him. ‘I’m not supposed to know that, of course, being a feeble-minded woman. ‘It won the Scottish Grand National at odds of forty-to-one. Daddy made a killing. He won at least £70 000. Even more money, when East Fife won the Scottish Cup. That’s not a horse.’

She made a joke of it, but neither of them laughed.

‘Aye, that’s nice.’ He couldn’t meet her eyes. ‘Yeh’ll be set up for life, then.’ A shrug of his shoulders, stretch of his neck and a shank of the head to show their surroundings. ‘Yeh’ll no need aw this then, eh?’

‘Mmm,’ a slight nod. ‘But why do I get the impression that none of this surprises you?’

‘Me?’ he reached for the cups and saucers to clear them away.

Her hand reached across to stop him. ‘Yes, you.’   

He shrugged. ‘Dunno. I’m jist a simple mechanic.’

‘Why then did Daddy dearest press this coin into my hand? Ask me to promise—promise him on my mother’s life, or my dear brother’s life—to fling it as far as I could into the deepest and darkest part of the Clyde—from the end of the pier? And never, never to use it in any of the gambling machines or it would suck up my soul.’

‘God knows.’ The Tink got up a pushed the heal of the loaf back into its brown wrapper for later. Covered over the margarine and lifted his cup. He lifted the Palestine Penny too, as if in afterthought. ‘We’ve only got the penny-shove machines. It would take yeh a hunner life times tae loose £70 000. And that’s only if yeh played wan twenty-four-hours every day.’

He rapped the side of his head to emphasise how nutty that would be. ‘So I widnae worry o’er much. I’ll fling this aff the end of the pier if yeh want?’

He held up the Palestine Penny.

‘No.’ She pulled on her gloves and held her hand out. ‘I promised I’d do it.’

‘Och, aye. That’s alright.’ He handed it to her. Before she left, threw in, ‘Sorry, I couldnae get tae his funeral.’  

She didn’t answer immediately. Looking back from the light of the doorway into which she wandered and back into the gloom. ‘Haven’t you heard?’

‘Whit?’

‘There hasn’t been a funeral—yet. We don’t know what happened or what to make of it. His body just plum disappeared.’