Chapter Thirteen

Three Saturdays in four Polly was obliged to work until one o’clock. She did not complain about the schedule. Being well indoctrinated in the conditions of public service she tended to regard a Saturday off not as an entitlement but as a favour conferred upon the clerking staff out of the goodness of the councillors’ hearts. Besides, Saturday was a busy day for local councillors. They were mostly ordinary working men, and a couple of women, who had been elected to protect the interests of what had been – but was no longer – a small independent unit within the dominion of the City of Glasgow.

Passing of the Local Government (Scotland) Act eighteen months ago had thrown things into a state of confusion. Even Mr Laughton, the Clerk Principal, was no longer absolutely clear how power devolved downward through the reconstituted county councils or who was expected to do what for whom. The ten good men and true – plus two women – who had been elected to serve the community for a three-year term carried on much as before, for policy in the higher realms of administration seemed to be directed not at preserving the status quo but mainly at appointing convenient scapegoats to take the blame for financial mismanagement further up the monkey-puzzle tree.

By the end of 1930, therefore, there was no such thing as a burgh council operating in the Gorbals. Officially it had become a nominated local council working within the remit of a county council who – this being Glasgow – had been brought within or were certainly answerable to the City Corporation.

Polly, then, was an agent employed by the Corporation to carry out functions excisable within a district and, as far as she could make out, to do more or less what she had been doing before. This, alas, still involved working three Saturdays in any given month, not galloping out of the archway at the side door of the old Burgh Hall building until five minutes after the hour of one o’clock, and not displaying too much youthful elation that might indicate that she was damned glad to quit the place and that if it burned to the ground before Monday she would shed not one solitary tear.

Polly was a model of decorum, of course, brisk but ladylike. At twenty she was no silly wee lassie. She no longer consorted with riffraff from the dole queues or those girls who, like her sister Babs, had escaped the factory floor more by good fortune than merit. Accountants from the Assessor’s Office or the Department of Finance, not to mention visiting architects and engineers from Transport or Road Works, thought her very superior and would have been surprised to learn that her mother worked in the slops of a laundry and that Polly skiddled home not to a nice little villa in Giffnock or Cathcart but to a tenement flat in the sump of the Calcutta Road.

They would also have been surprised to learn that the haughty object of their desire was halfway to falling in love with a professional thief and that the man behind the wheel of the sleek black motorcar that was moored almost out of sight behind the iron railings of Morton Street United Free Church was none other than Dominic Manone.

Polly did not notice the Alfa Romeo at first.

She was in a hurry, eager to be home, to fry up a mutton chop and a few potatoes for a hasty dinner, to change out of her dark jacket and skirt into something less business-like and be off round to Patsy Walsh’s house in the hope of catching him at home.

She had news to impart, bad news.

She was desperate to learn how Patsy would react to this latest development and to assure him that she hadn’t betrayed him to O’Hara. She didn’t really understand why she was so anxious to keep Patsy sweet, not to have him think ill of her. Was it only because of what had happened between them on the bed or was there more to it? Was she more like Patsy Walsh, beneath the skin, than she cared to admit?

She crossed the corner of Morton Street, walking fast.

Behind her the other girls from the burgh offices dispersed, heading towards Eglinton Street or around the broad corner into the bottom of the Pollokshaws Road. The morning drizzle had eased into one of those damp nondescript December afternoons when tenements and sky seemed to merge into each other and even the passers-by had a blurry look as if they had been cut from coarse brown cardboard.

Polly was far too impatient to hang about for a tramcar.

She darted across the roadway between cars, carts and buses and turned into Farmhead Loan, a narrow pub-less street of quiet tenements that would bring her out into the nether end of the Calcutta Road. She did not even see the Alfa until it was almost upon her.

It came prowling up behind her on the wrong side of the loan. It slid to a halt ten yards or so in front of her, tyres bumping over the kerb and on to the pavement. Before it had come to a proper halt the passenger door opened wide enough to block Polly’s progress. She stopped. She hesitated, turned and might even have run back the way she had come if the man – Dominic Manone – had not told her to get in.

She went forward, stooping, handbag held tightly against her breasts as if she suspected that he might try to do what his lackey, O’Hara, had failed to do and wound her with a blade.

‘Do you know who I am, Miss Conway?’

‘You’re Mr Manone – Dominic Manone.’

He was alone in the car, at the wheel. He wore a soft, dark blue wool overcoat and a turkey-red scarf. No hat or cap. His hair was jet black, wavy but not sleek. If he had worn a hat then he would have looked older, she thought, older and more sinister. The absence of a hat lent him a certain candour, a frankness that took the edge off her apprehension.

‘Now you know who I am, will you get into the motorcar, please.’

‘What for?’

‘I have something to say to you.’

He was still leaning to the side, holding the door open.

She could smell leather upholstery, a faint whiff of cigar smoke, not too heavy, not overpowering. His eyes were dark brown, not teasing, not mocking but with a trace of anxiety in them, or possibly polite concern.

‘Get in, Miss Conway.’

‘If you’ve something to say to me, just say it.’

‘I don’t think it is right for you to be seen talking to me on the street.’

He did not grab, did not beckon. If he had done, Polly told herself later, she would have turned on her heel and left.

‘Please,’ he said.

Polly got into the Alfa, and Dominic closed the door.

*   *   *

In the course of Saturday morning Dennis put the Norton together again.

Jackie and he had been up early and had startled their father by passing him in the close as he had come in from night shift. He had peered at them and had tentatively repeated their names – ‘Dennis? Jackie?’ – as if they were half-forgotten acquaintances. Then, shaking his head in disbelief, he had gone on into the house to roll into bed, and the boys had gone trudging off downhill.

It was not the urge to earn an honest crust that had driven Sandy Hallop’s lads out into the drizzle at the ungodly hour of half past seven o’clock but a peculiar restlessness whose source neither Dennis nor Jackie could identify. Guilty consciences? Us? Never! Jeeze, man, what do you take us for? Nevertheless, the cluttered apartment at No. 10 had somehow lost the sense of inviolable security that even occasional late-night visits from coppers had failed to dent and without which both the Hallop boys felt decidedly shaky.

As soon as they had reached the repair shop, however, they had felt just a little less vulnerable. Dennis had started work on the Norton while Jackie, carefully picking kindling from the bucket with his gloved paws, had lighted a fire in the stove. He needed cheering up. Thinking of Babs Conway made him depressed. Thinking how gay and glittery the Calcutta ballroom would be in Christmas week depressed him further, for, although he couldn’t dance, he’d still have to pay a call on the Grimsdykes just to make sure they paid Stuart Royce his dues. Such matters lurked in the back of his mind. What he really craved was comfort, comfort and warmth and a sense of being somewhere that lay beyond every threat that had ever crept into his consciousness – a collection of fears that did not include appearances in court, short spells in jail or purling over the handlebars of a motorcycle travelling at high speed.

In fact, if his hands hadn’t been so tender he might have fed petrol into the tank of the big Ariel Hunter that was racked under canvas at the rear of the shed, have pointed the wheel at Eaglesham and have ridden out into the rain. Crouched on the saddle in padded oilskins he would have tackled the twisting moorland tracks that snaked across Corse Hill to Darvel, Drumclog and Caldermill and have blown all his fears away. But he couldn’t ride yet, couldn’t dance yet, couldn’t do a soddin’ thing yet except sulk and hurt and worry.

He squandered the morning seated in front of the stove drinking mug after mug of Camp coffee and smoking cigarettes while his brother checked the Norton’s crank bearings and rockers, steering head and fork links, and generally made sure that the machine was fit to advertise in the Motor Cycle and worth twenty-five quid of some sucker’s money.

It was going to be one of those days, Jackie decided, one of those dead, nothing-to-look-forward-to days that had marred his childhood and lured him into the streets at an early age in search not of pleasure but simply relief from the monotony of being a small, powerless boy in the dreary acres of the Gorbals in the gloom of mid-winter afternoons.

Shortly after noon young Billy turned up. Jackie sent him down to the Co-op to buy a tin of bully beef and half a dozen bread rolls, and the brothers, Billy included, lunched al fresco on the bench before the stove.

Halfway through the meal Billy lifted his head.

Corned beef and bread roll dripped raggedly from his mouth. For an instant, he had the furtive mien of a small animal caught tearing at a lion’s kill.

‘Somebody’s comin’,’ he said as the door of the shed creaked open.

‘Only me,’ Tommy Bonnar announced.

‘What d’ you want?’ said Dennis.

‘Lookin’ for Patsy. Thought he might be here.’

‘Well, he ain’t,’ said Jackie. ‘Haven’t seen him since you know when an’ I don’t care if I never see the bugger again.’

‘O’Hara’s on to him.’ Tommy wiped his nose on his coat sleeve and coughed. ‘The word is we got away wi’ five or six thousand quid.’

‘Well, we bloody didn’t,’ Dennis said, as if that were an end of the matter.

‘Manone’s offerin’ blood money,’ Tommy said.

Billy chewed with a grinding motion of the jaws, the meat in his mouth already reduced to pap. Tommy glanced at the boy and frowned.

‘Brother,’ Jackie explained. ‘What d’ you mean – O’Hara’s on to him?’

‘Sniffed him out straight off,’ said Tommy. ‘Was round there last night.’

‘Who told you?’ said Dennis.

‘Patsy’s old man.’

‘How much is Manone offerin’?’ Dennis said.

‘A lot,’ said Tommy. ‘Enough t’ get O’Hara’s interest.’

‘Think he knows about us?’ said Jackie.

‘Naw, only Patsy. Only suspicions.’

‘What d’you do, Jackie?’ Billy said. ‘What d’you get off wi’?’

‘Shut your mouth, kid,’ Dennis told him.

‘Patsy won’t crack,’ said Jackie.

‘But she might,’ said Dennis.

‘Babs?’ Jackie said. ‘Nah, nah.’

‘I mean the other one – Polly.’

Jackie set down the enamel coffee mug and rubbed a hand over his jaw, the grubby fabric grating on two-day stubble. He pondered for a second, then said, ‘She’s Patsy’s problem.’

‘She’s our problem, for Chrissake,’ said Dennis.

‘Aye, maybe Dennis is right,’ said Tommy.

‘What’s that supposed t’ mean?’ said Jackie.

‘She knows Dominic Manone, doesn’t she, but,’ Tommy stated.

‘Her mam does, aye,’ Jackie admitted, grudgingly. ‘Everybody knows Lizzie’s payin’ off interest to Manone. She as good as told me that Dominic Manone was her protector the very first time we met.’

‘Who takes the dough to O’Hara every month?’ Dennis said.

‘The kid sister,’ said Tommy. ‘Rosie, the dummy.’

‘Jeeze!’ said Jackie. ‘Don’t tell me you think the girls would sell us out?’

‘How do I bloody know?’ said Tommy, coughing again. ‘I ain’t screwin’ one o’ them.’

‘Well, I ain’t either.’ Jackie grinned in spite of himself. ‘Not yet.’

‘Women!’ Dennis snarled. ‘Soddin’ bloody women!’

‘Patsy’s the one,’ said Jackie. ‘If it’s Patsy they’re on to then he’s the one we gotta worry about. Where is the bugger anyhow?’

‘I wisht I knew,’ said Tommy.

‘Maybe he’s done a bunk,’ said Jackie. ‘Gone off t’ France or somewhere. I mean, you know what Patsy’s like.’

‘He’s broke,’ said Tommy. ‘Broke an’ in hock.’

‘You sure?’

‘I’m sure,’ said Tommy. ‘Told me himself last week.’

‘Hey!’ Jackie sat up straight. ‘You don’t think he could be dead already?’

‘Naw,’ said Dennis. ‘Patsy? Naw, not Patsy Walsh.’

‘Jeeze!’ said Jackie. ‘I mean if they’ve already got to Patsy, what hope is there for the rest o’ us?’

‘Bugger all,’ said Tommy.

*   *   *

He drove out through Hutchesontown into Oatlands, swung down McNeil Street into Adelphi Street and brought the Alfa prowling to a halt on the river road.

Polly had never been inside a private motorcar before. Padded leather deadened the clatter of trams, the thunder of trains, the crying of the gulls that hovered above the brown waters of the Clyde. A few football supporters were already trickling towards the stadium via the bridges but the chalky outlines of the People’s Palace across the river on Glasgow Green seemed misty and remote. She felt pleasantly cut off from the bustle of the city.

If anyone but Dominic Manone had been at the wheel she might have enjoyed the experience. As it was, she was reluctant to betray herself, to appear less than sophisticated. She had not asked where he was taking her or why they had stopped at this particular spot.

She looked from the side window, thinking how odd it was that the boundary line that separated the parliamentary divisions ran straight up the middle of the river. She wondered if the rowing teams that sculled their graceful shells above the tidal weir realised that they were dipping in and out of royal history. When she turned from the window she found that he was staring at her.

‘What?’ she said. ‘What is it?’

‘You do not look at all like your mother,’ Dominic said.

‘I should hope not,’ said Polly.

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Would you like to be told that you looked like your father?’

‘I can hardly remember what my father looks like.’

‘Your uncle then,’ said Polly. ‘You know what I mean.’

‘Yes, I do know what you mean.’

Dominic conceded the point without relaxing his grave, unobtrusive scrutiny. She wondered if he hid his feelings deliberately or if this was how all Italian men behaved. She could not read him as easily as she read Patsy. There seemed to be nothing on the surface and, for all she knew, nothing much beneath as if he were too handsome to have any character at all.

He said, ‘I am trying to find out who robbed my warehouse.’

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ Polly said.

‘I think that you do.’

‘Is that why you sent Alex O’Hara round to our house last night?’

‘To your house?’ Dominic said. ‘I did not know of this.’

Polly wondered if his surprise could possibly be genuine.

She said, ‘Well, you’ll know about it when my mammy comes to see you.’

‘Did he – did O’Hara hurt you?’

‘Hah!’ said Polly. ‘What do you think?’

‘I really knew nothing of this,’ Dominic said.

He adjusted his position, hand on the back of the seat an inch from her shoulder. If he touches me, if he brushes me with his fingertips or gives me a pat to reassure me then I’ll know he’s lying, Polly told herself.

To her relief he sat back, leaned his arms on top of the steering wheel and stared through the windshield at the empty street and the traffic that flowed, foreshortened, over the Albert Bridge.

‘Did he hurt you or frighten you?’ Dominic said.

‘Both,’ said Polly. ‘He frightened all of us, especially my sister Rosie. And he cut the hand of a – a friend of ours who happened to be visiting at the time.’

‘A female friend?’

‘No, a man,’ said Polly.

‘Did your friend report the assault to the police?’

‘My mother persuaded him not to.’

‘Am I to take it,’ Dominic said, ‘that you told O’Hara nothing?’

‘What was there to tell?’ Polly allowed exasperation to show. ‘We know nothing about what happened at the warehouse, nothing except what my sister Babs told us. How could we? I can’t imagine what O’Hara thought a bunch of women might be able to tell him.’

‘Something that your friend Walsh might have let slip.’

Polly had expected to be challenged about her friendship with Patsy. O’Hara had caught her out in a lie and, being as shrewd about some things as he was ignorant of others, had come rushing in like a blind bull. The fact that she was protecting someone made it difficult to feign innocence. If Mr Manone had picked on Babs for this little ‘chat’ Babs would immediately have negotiated terms – which, perhaps, was what Dominic Manone expected her to do.

‘I was with him that evening,’ Polly said. ‘With Patsy Walsh, I mean.’ She hesitated, calculating how much of the truth would seem like the whole truth. ‘I wasn’t – I wasn’t in bed with him, if that’s what you might be thinking.’

‘You did not spend the night?’

‘No, I left quite early.’

‘How early?’

‘Nine or half past.’

She waited for his next question, sure that it would concern Patsy.

He glanced at her, arms still folded on top of the wheel. She could smell a spicy sort of odour, very faint and pleasant. She was dying for a cigarette but did not have the gall to ask for one or take one out and light it.

‘Is your sister okay?’ Dominic said.

‘O’Hara shouldn’t have scared Rosie, particularly as she doesn’t hear very well.’

‘No,’ Dominic agreed.

‘My mother is furious.’

‘I will talk with her,’ Dominic said.

Polly said, ‘I thought you protected people.’ He glanced at her, an eyebrow raised. This time she was sure that his surprise was genuine. She went on, ‘Isn’t that how you make your money? Don’t people pay you to protect them from the likes of O’Hara? Don’t we pay you enough?’

‘You pay me all I ask for,’ Dominic said. ‘But that is a debt – the interest on a debt, I should say. I have done things for your mama…’

‘Now you want us to do something for you,’ Polly said.

Her hands were cold. With the engine not running the interior of the car had rapidly become chilly. She kept still, though. An instinct told her that she had nothing to fear from this man.

‘You want us to tell you who broke into your warehouse in Jackson Street and stole your money,’ Polly said. ‘That’s a bit ironic, don’t you think?’

‘Ironic?’

‘Implausible.’

‘What is implausible?’ Dominic said.

He no longer pretended to stare down the empty street. He stared at her instead. A speculative little glint in his dark eyes added dimension to his character. Polly found it difficult to despise him. He was as unlike Patsy Walsh as it was possible to be and yet behind his smoothness he too seemed self-contained and just a little desolate.

‘That you should have to come to folk like us to get what you want.’

‘You know nothing about me, Polly.’

‘No,’ Polly agreed. ‘But you think you’ve been betrayed.’

Again the glint in the eye, the compression of the dark brows. She had surprised him again, by her perspicacity this time rather than her boldness.

‘It’s that you can’t put up with, Mr Manone, isn’t it?’

He paused, considering. ‘I am not so sure I have been betrayed.’

‘What will you do if it turns out you have been?’ Polly said. ‘Assert your authority. Take revenge?’

‘Perhaps.’

‘What if you make a mistake?’

‘Pardon?’

‘What if it was all a mistake?’

‘Was it?’ he said. ‘If you tell me it was a mistake I will believe you.’

She smiled, not smugly. ‘I don’t know whether it was a mistake or not. I don’t know who betrayed you, if anyone did. But if I did…’

‘You would not tell me?’

‘Why should I?’ Polly said. ‘Out of gratitude for what you’ve done for my mother and my sisters?’

‘O’Hara should not have threatened you.’

‘It makes no difference,’ Polly said.

‘To me it does.’

‘Really? Why’s that?’ said Polly.

‘Because I have respect for you, for your mama.’

‘Because she pays you…’ Polly began.

‘For other reasons too.’

‘To do with my father?’

‘I did not know your father, not well at any rate.’

‘You were only a boy when he went away, weren’t you?’

‘Not much more than a boy,’ Dominic agreed. ‘Not quite old enough to fight in the war.’

‘Do you regret that?’

‘Do I regret what?’

‘Not having had a real war to fight in?’ Polly said.

‘Of course not. I am glad of it.’

‘So, instead, you’ve got this war of your own going on.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘No, you do not understand how it is with us.’

‘Business?’ Polly said. ‘Business and respect and honour? Right?’

He seemed about to answer her, to put something into words that might excuse or at least reveal what he wanted with her, why he had brought her here and what the conversation signified. He said nothing, though. He lifted a leather-gloved hand and tapped it on the top of the steering wheel, then reached for the ignition key and started the engine.

‘Where are you taking me now?’ Polly said.

‘Home. To your home.’

‘I thought you didn’t want us to be seen together?’

‘If you know nothing and have nothing to hide what does it matter?’

‘I didn’t say I’d nothing to hide. I’ve plenty to hide,’ Polly said.

‘Not concerning who robbed my warehouse, however,’ Dominic said.

‘Not about that, no.’

‘In that case you can have no objections if I drop you at your close.’

‘None at all,’ said Polly.

‘And if I wait for you outside?’

‘Wait for me? For what?’

‘Does your mother not have a payment to make this afternoon?’

‘Dear God!’ Polly exclaimed. ‘Is that what all this is about? Are you fretting in case my mother won’t shell out your miserable fiver?’

‘I take it you will not be sending the girl, the little one?’

‘Rosie? Sending her where?’ Polly said. ‘To meet with O’Hara? Don’t be ridiculous. Of course we won’t.’

‘So you will be the one to make the payment?’ Dominic said.

‘I suppose I will be, yes.’

‘I will drive you,’ Dominic said. ‘I’ll wait in the motorcar while you tell your mother where you are going and until you pick up the money then I will personally drive you to the Rowing Club.’

‘To meet with Alex O’Hara?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why don’t I just give you the fiver?’ Polly said. ‘I assume it finds its way into your pocket eventually.’

‘The money is not the point,’ Dominic said.

Polly frowned. ‘You want O’Hara to see us together, is that it?’

‘Yes.’

‘What a jolly good idea,’ said Polly.

*   *   *

He had been drinking by fits and starts since the pubs opened at eleven. Only habit had steered him towards Molliston Street about half past two o’clock. He was sufficiently sober to realise that the odds against Rosie showing up were impossibly long but just sufficiently tipsy to imagine that she might actually have enjoyed the rough stuff and come looking for a bit more of the same.

He had done nothing about Walsh and Bonnar. Serious thinking would be necessary before he made his next move. He had a hunch that Bonnar and Walsh might be waiting for him. After what had happened last night he didn’t want to charge into anything. Anyhow, he’d still had his regular collections to make and more than a few fivers were tucked into his pocket before he succumbed to the temptation to nip into Brady’s for a quick one.

Brady’s wasn’t his only stop as he meandered across Bridge Street, down Nelson Street into the Paisley Road, and after the pubs closed down to the Rowing Club where the bar remained open all afternoon. There he handed his collections to Tony Lombard who counted the cash and put it into an envelope marked with his name. Then he ate a couple of mutton pies and a pickled egg, washed down with a pint of heavy.

By that time it was almost half past three and dusk was settling in, streetlamps were being lighted and an inexplicable melancholy entered O’Hara’s soul. He wandered into the billiard room in search of Tommy Bonnar before he remembered that Tommy was high on his list of suspects and, being a wise wee man, wouldn’t be hanging around looking for trouble. Then he tried to talk to Tony, but Tony would have none of his blathers. Eventually, more sober now than not, he wandered out into the street and, hands in pockets, shoulders slumped, peered towards the corner in the hope that he would see Rosie skipping towards him just as if nothing had happened.

He was still standing there, a Gold Flake dangling from his nether lip, when the Alfa prowled into view.

At first he thought Guido was at the wheel, Dominic in the passenger seat but as soon as the motorcar stopped he saw that Dominic was driving and that the person beside him was a girl.

He did not recognise her at first.

It wasn’t Rosie, though. He knew it wasn’t Rosie.

He removed the cigarette from his mouth, dropped it to the pavement and watched the girl climb out of the Manones’ motorcar.

She had long legs inside a pleated black skirt, a haughty look that suggested she might be a toff. It wasn’t until she moved into the circle of light that fell from the Rowing Club’s doorway that he recognised Polly Conway.

He felt a stab of anger. This was the bitch who had humiliated him. He hated her for not cracking, for letting Walsh do things to her, for looking the way she did, for being so far above him that he could never hope to do anything to her except pull her down. Pull her down is what he would have done if it hadn’t been for the motorcar and the man inside the motorcar.

Dominic Manone got out of the driver’s door. He folded his arms and leaned on the Alfa’s sloping roof.

Mr Manone said nothing.

Mr Manone did not interfere.

Mr Manone watched the girl come up to him and offer him the note. She held it cocked between finger and thumb. She wore skin-tight kidskin gloves that made her hands look slender and ladylike. She dabbed the fiver towards him.

‘Take it,’ she said.

He glanced at Mr Manone, who gave no signal to tell him what to do.

‘Come on, you bastard, take it,’ the girl said.

He uncoupled his hand from his overcoat pocket and reached out for the banknote. She swallowed it up in her hand, not teasing the way Rosie did but with an arrogance that he found almost vicious.

He blinked. He could see her sneer, and within the same corona, the same field of view, the Italian behind her.

He blinked again, rage numbed by bewilderment.

‘Do you want this too?’ the girl said.

When he saw what she had in her other hand he stepped back.

It was an involuntary motion like a spasm in a nerve, a tic over which he had no control. He stepped back, arm raised to protect his face.

She held the razor – his razor – in her gloved hand.

‘Come on,’ she said, ‘take it. It’s yours, isn’t it? Take it.’

He wanted to look at Mr Manone but he couldn’t take his eyes off the girl, off that vixen face, off the coil of brown hair that bobbed across her cheek, off the open razor in her fist. He had never seen a woman brandishing an open razor before and the spectacle made him queasy.

She came forward again. He backed away, heels knocking on the steps of the Rowing Club. He thought some of the boys might be behind him – Tony Lombard, Irish Paddy – but they were not his boys, not when Mr Manone was there; you owed loyalty only to the man who paid you.

He covered his face with his forearms.

‘Know what you are, O’Hara?’ the girl said. ‘You’re a born coward.’

She tossed the razor – his razor – on to the pavement, the banknote after it. She pivoted on her heel and walked away, turning her back on him as if he posed no threat at all. She leaned on the slope of the roof of the Alfa.

‘Now, Mr Manone,’ Polly said, ‘now that’s done I would be grateful if you would drive me home.’

‘By all means,’ Dominic said politely, and stepped around the bonnet of the motorcar to open the passenger door.

*   *   *

Babs said, ‘So what did he do then?’

‘I dunno,’ Polly said. ‘Just stood there, looking sick.’

‘I don’t mean him,’ Babs said, ‘I mean him.’

‘Dominic?’ Polly said. ‘He brought me back here.’

Lizzie glanced over her shoulder. ‘Did he tell you to call him Dominic?’

‘No,’ Polly admitted. ‘But – well…’

‘Don’t you go gettin’ ideas above your station, my girl,’ Lizzie said. ‘It’s Mr Manone to the likes of us.’

‘Yes, yes,’ Polly said.

‘What did it feel like,’ Babs said, ‘squaring up to O’Hara?’

‘Terrific! Absolutely terrific!’ Polly said. ‘Never felt so – so…’

‘Powerful,’ Rosie suggested.

She leaned across the table, watching and listening intently.

‘Not exactly powerful,’ Polly said. ‘That’s not the word. Excited, maybe. So much in – in control.’

‘Because he was with you, of course,’ Babs said, nodding.

Lizzie transferred two plates of minced beef pie hot from the oven. A bowl of mashed potatoes and a dish of green peas already graced the table. When the oven door opened the heat in the kitchen became almost stifling. She carried two more plates to the table, seated herself and began to eat.

‘I’d love to have been there,’ Babs said, ‘just to see that bugger’s face.’

Lizzie, saying nothing, ate.

She looked weary and was more reticent than usual while her daughters chattered around her. She spooned potato on to Rosie’s plate and with a wag of the forefinger indicated that she, Rosie, should begin to eat. She knew that the sprightly little winds of youth had blown many of the clouds of doubt away. They carried nothing for long at that age, Lizzie reminded herself, and were perhaps the better for it.

‘Are you going to Manor Park tomorrow?’ Polly said.

Lizzie shook her head.

‘Why not? I told Dominic to expect you.’

‘I’m sure he’ll be holdin’ his breath,’ Lizzie said.

‘I thought, if you’re going – I thought I might come with you,’ Polly said.

‘Oh, aye! Aye-aye!’ said Babs. ‘What about poor old Patsy then?’

‘I may go round there later tonight,’ Polly said.

‘Dancing?’ Rosie said, loudly.

‘Not dancin’,’ said Babs.

‘I don’t want you goin’ anywhere by yourselves,’ Lizzie said quietly.

‘Why not?’ Babs cried.

‘Because I say so.’

‘Mammy, I’ve got to see Patsy some time,’ Polly said.

‘I’m goin’ to Grandma’s. You can come with me if you like.’

‘What’s the alternative?’ Babs said.

‘Stay here, stay in the house. All of you.’

Babs sighed and shovelled a forkful of minced beef pie into her mouth. In fact, she hadn’t intended going out. She’d broken with Jackie and wouldn’t go chasing after him. If he was as keen on her as he said he was then he’d come panting after her in his own good time.

Meanwhile, she’d lie low for a week or two. Christmas was coming up and she could do with a few long lies, a few days just lounging about the house taking it easy. By the look of the weather it wouldn’t be a white Christmas or even a grey New Year, just another of those dreary seasons when all it did was drizzle. If the worst came to the worst she would persuade Polly to go along to the Hogmanay dance at the Socialist Sunday School, though that was hardly going to seem like a Wow! after dancing with Jackie at the Calcutta.

Alex O’Hara’s visit was still fresh in her memory and she didn’t have to be told how edgy things were on the street or why Mammy didn’t want them going out alone. While she resented the trouble that Jackie Hallop had got her into she didn’t anticipate that it would last long, not now that Polly had Dominic Manone on her side; not even madman O’Hara would dare defy Mr Manone.

‘Nice, ain’t he?’ Babs said. ‘Mr Manone, I mean.’

‘Very nice,’ said Polly. ‘Not what I expected. Very pleasant and polite.’

‘Handsome too.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Did he say anything about our daddy?’ Rosie asked.

Her sisters stared at her.

Lizzie went on eating, eyes down.

‘Why would he do that?’ said Polly.

‘I thought you might have asked him,’ Rosie said.

‘Well, I didn’t,’ Polly said. ‘We had more important things to discuss.’

‘Like what?’ said Rosie.

‘Like…’ Polly shrugged.

Her face was flushed with the heat of the kitchen but excitement had given her an appetite that not even Rosie’s stupid questions could blunt. She covered her moment of uncertainty by filling her mouth full.

She wondered what Dominic Manone would have for his supper, what succulent Italian delicacy would be on his plate. Memories of the afternoon remained astonishingly vivid. Being in the motorcar, being alone with Dominic, the intense satisfaction beating bully-boy O’Hara at his own game had given her a tangy taste of power – yes, power was the word for it – that made everything seem bland by comparison.

‘He didn’t know your father,’ Lizzie said.

‘He’s says he did,’ said Polly. ‘Slightly.’

‘Oh, you did talk about Daddy then?’ said Rosie.

‘Just a mention in passing.’

Lizzie laid down her knife and fork, squaring them on her plate. She looked up. ‘Who’s comin’ to help me with Grandma?’

‘Tonight?’ said Babs. ‘Why tonight? What’s wrong with tomorrow?’

‘I’ve got somethin’ else to do tomorrow.’

‘Like what?’ said Babs.

‘Like none of your business,’ Lizzie said.

‘To do with Dominic?’ said Polly.

‘To do with me.’ Lizzie hesitated. ‘Might as well tell you, I suppose. I’m goin’ to visit Mr Peabody.’

‘At home?’ said Rosie.

‘Aye. It’s long way across town to Knightswood,’ Lizzie said, ‘so I don’t know when I’ll be back. That’s why I’m goin’ to Grandma’s tonight.’

‘Why are you visiting old Peabody?’ Babs said.

‘To see how his hand is,’ Polly suggested, ‘and to give him our thanks?’

‘It’s the very least I can do, don’t you think?’ said Lizzie.

And Polly answered, ‘Oh, yes.’