Chapter Nineteen

Polly was aware that ominous changes were taking place in the Conway household. By her own account Rosie had fared well at her interview. She was optimistic that she would be offered the job at Shelby’s and would soon be earning twenty-five shillings a week and stepping out on the rocky road to independence. At the same time, Polly realised, Babs and she were being made to assume responsibility for their own mistakes and that, while she would never abandon them, Mammy would never again treat them as prized possessions.

They had let her down, had failed to live up to her high expectations. Mammy had every right to punish them. But, Polly reckoned, it wasn’t spite or selfishness that had prompted her mother to shift the onus of responsibility, but that she, Mammy, had fallen in love. While Babs might mock that excuse or consider it no excuse at all and dismiss the reality of loving as so much sentimental twaddle, Polly was intelligent enough not to condemn what she did not understand. She had an inkling, just an inkling, of what had possessed her mother, what had changed her.

She recalled very vividly indeed what she had felt that night before Christmas when Bernard Peabody had proved himself more of a man than any of them would ever have suspected, more brave and daring than Patsy Walsh could ever be; that plain, ordinary, honest man with his hand closed round an open razor, refusing to let go in spite of the pain. She wondered if that was what love was about, an acceptance of the pain that went with the responsibility of loving someone; wondered too how it must feel, that sort of responsibility, that intensity, that constant need to be worthy one of the other, and if she would ever find a man who would make her feel that way.

On Friday morning she stole time from office routine to type out a letter to Dominic. She signed it, sealed it and put it away in her handbag. As soon as she was released from work that evening, she caught a tram to Molliston Street and delivered the letter at the door of the Rowing Club, gave it into the hand of an Irishman who promised to see that it reached Mr Manone without delay.

On Saturday afternoon Polly left the Burgh Hall at five past one o’clock.

She hurried out into the street in a state of nervous expectation. There was no sign of the Italian motorcar.

She felt a stab of anger that Dominic had not obeyed her summons and, almost in the same heartbeat, a sudden sense of loss at a promise that had never been made. She had been wrong to expect him to drop everything and rush to be with her, to put away his own concerns to attend her. She remembered Rosie’s silly assumption that Alex O’Hara was her ‘boyfriend’ when patently he was nothing of the kind; had she also made a fool of herself by believing that Dominic Manone was attracted to her when in reality he couldn’t have cared tuppence?

The Alfa glided up behind her as she stalked along the pavement. He brought it in against the kerb and, leaning, opened the passenger door.

Polly hesitated, tied by a vestige of annoyance that he had not been stationed right at the doorstep, had kept her waiting, kept her guessing even for a couple of minutes. There was also relief, though, and a surge of pure breathless pleasure at seeing him again. She slid into the passenger seat as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

‘Thank you for coming,’ she said.

He fashioned a little gesture with his right hand, a gesture that she would come to know well. He was smiling, and his smile seemed to reflect feelings that were hidden within her too, pleasure at meeting again.

He put the motorcar into gear and drove off, eased the Alfa around the corner into Eglinton Street and swung left, heading for the Glasgow Bridge. He sat low in the leather seat, almost as if he did not want to be seen. He wore the soft woollen overcoat, the red scarf, no hat. He looked younger, almost boyish. A curl of dark hair had strayed on to his brow and Polly was tempted to touch it, to tease it back into place. She laughed for no reason, and felt her concentration scatter, the whole weary weight of accusation and negotiation, the dreadful necessity of putting herself in this man’s hands vanish as the motorcar crossed the river into Glasgow.

She said, ‘Where are you taking me?’

‘For lunch,’ he said. ‘I imagine you won’t be expected home for a while.’

‘No,’ Polly said. ‘I told my sisters—’

‘Your sisters?’ Is it a conspiracy I have to deal with?’ Dominic said.

‘No conspiracy,’ Polly said, ‘just me.’

‘I think I may be able to cope with just you,’ Dominic said.

‘Did I do wrong?’

‘I don’t know,’ Dominic said. ‘Did you?’

‘In sending you a letter via the Rowing Club?’

‘Oh, that,’ Dominic said. ‘No. It gave the lads something to gossip about.’

‘Gossip?’ Polly said. ‘About you, about – us?’

‘My aunt thinks you’re dangerous,’ Dominic said.

The Alfa was locked at the junction of Jamaica and Great Clyde Street, trapped by a brewer’s dray and a tram. The tram loomed large by Polly’s side. She was conscious of four or five men hanging on the platform, peering in at her as if she were a fish in an aquarium. She could hear them shouting remarks in a friendly sort of way. Babs would have given them an unladylike sign of displeasure or would have mouthed swear words at them. Polly simply looked away.

A moment later the tramcar lurched like something in a fun fair, dodged away from the Alfa, and rattled out of sight.

‘Dangerous? Why would your aunt think that?’ Polly said.

‘She thinks that you sent me a letter of romance.’

‘How ridiculous!’ Polly said, pleased. ‘Didn’t you show it to her?’

‘No,’ Dominic said. ‘I prefer to let her think that’s what it was.’

‘Well, it wasn’t,’ Polly said.

‘I know,’ said Dominic.

The Alfa nosed along the busy riverside through carts and drays. Polly could just make out the slabby grey shapes of ships moored at Custom House Quay and then, with another spin of the wheel, they were heading into an area of warehouses and tenements at the back of St Enoch railway station.

‘Where are you taking me?’ Polly asked again.

‘Goodman’s,’ Dominic told her. ‘Okay?’

‘Okay,’ said Polly.

*   *   *

Summer, winter or spring, Saturday half-day was a thing of joy for Bernard Peabody. He did little that was constructive with his free time; escaping the confines of the city brought him pleasure enough. He had a strip of garden at the back of the terraced cottage and had begun to tinker with improvements soon after his mother and he had moved in. In a veiled, patient way he had plans for an Alpine rockery that ran contrary his mum’s demands for a vegetable patch.

Gardening, however, was not on Bernard’s mind that mild January afternoon; nor was football, nor strolling a favourite route through the new public park; nor was anything very much except getting himself ready for a twilight ride back across Glasgow to the Gorbals to pick up Lizzie soon after she got home from work, to take her out for a quick fish tea and on to the pictures; the Coliseum probably, where Syd Chaplin was starring in A Little Bit of Fluff, which he’d heard was a priceless gem of reckless adventure.

He just prayed it wouldn’t be too reckless for Lizzie’s taste, or that she wouldn’t think he was trying to take advantage of her, though what Bernard envisaged by that euphemism would have made Jackie Hallop and even young Babs chortle at his naïveté. It wasn’t that Bernard wasn’t a man of the world – he had seen more nastiness in his lifetime than most men – he simply lacked experience with the opposite sex. He still tended to regard them, Lizzie in particular, as somehow morally superior to anything in trousers. ‘Taking advantage’ then would be a wee bit of hand-holding and an experimental nudging of knees under cover of darkness in the back row – no, not the back row, the middle row of the balcony if, that is, the Coliseum even had a balcony.

So he pondered on Lizzie and balconies while he scraped away at his chin with a safety razor and, without vanity, studied his face in the oblong mirror that was propped above the sink.

He tried to imagine what a woman like Lizzie could possibly see in him. He wasn’t square-jawed and handsome, broad in the shoulder or strong in the arms – God, there were fifteen-year-old apprentices who had more muscles than he had – but the run-in with O’Hara had increased his confidence and the kiss, that tender, muffled kiss under the Sunday lights, had given him such a boost that he’d felt invincible for days afterwards.

He was, so he believed, a practical chap and had devised a sort of strategy. He wouldn’t try to sweep Lizzie off her feet with his masculine appeal. Instead, he would go about things in a down-to-earth manner, to bring about the desired result – the result he desired, that is – in the not too dim and distant.

He glanced at his right hand, unbandaged now. The diagonal scar across the palm was still plainly visible and even tended to bleed just a little when he gripped anything too tightly. But he had healed quickly and whatever aches and pains the drying wound incurred were easily ignored.

He scaped the safety razor carefully over his Adam’s apple and then, for absolutely no reason he could think of, began to sing.

He didn’t even know what he was singing – ‘One Alone’ from Sigmund Romberg’s The Desert Song, as it happened – or why he suddenly tossed down the razor and, spreading his arms, filled the cramped little room with the sound of his voice, lifting and lilting, laying it on thick, as if he were centre-stage at the Alhambra. He sang for himself, not for the entertainment of the neighbours through the wall, or for his mother, or even for Lizzie, drudging away at the tubs in the Sanitary laundry on the other side of the city.

He sang because he was happy, because he hadn’t sung for himself or anyone for many years: he hadn’t lifted his voice, except in kirk, since he’d marched down to the quays with the other lads, kilts swinging and rifles shouldered, with the whole damned town turned out to see them off, waving and cheering; he had sung then, by God, had sung lustily and gladly, a hero among heroes: ‘Madamzelle from Armentieres’, and ‘Tipperary’, and ‘Till the Boys Come Home’. But after that day he had sung very little: after a month in the field he had sung not at all – until now.

‘Bernard, stop makin’ that awful noise.’

‘I’m singing, Mum.’

‘Then stop it.’

‘Why should I?’

‘I don’t know what’s got into you these days.’

‘Sure you do, Mother, just think about it.’

‘I prefer not to think about it,’ his mother said from outside the door.

‘By the way,’ Bernard said, ‘I’ll be out tonight an’ I might be late. Don’t wait up for me, please.’

Silence: then, ‘Late?’

‘I’m goin’ to the pictures with Lizzie.’

Silence: ‘I see.’

He dismantled the razor and wiped the blade clean, dried it and the razor’s separate metal parts and put them into the tin box where they were kept. He rinsed out his shaving brush – waiting. He knew his mother was still hovering outside. He gave a mischievously little shrug of the shoulders, put his brow against the wooden door, and said in a sonorous tone, ‘Last tram.’

Silence: ‘I hope you’re not goin’ to do anything foolish, Bernard.’

‘You mean, anything you wouldn’t do?’

‘You know what I mean.’

He opened the door suddenly. She was loitering in the attenuated little corridor, already wearing her broad patterned coat and floral hat. He had no idea where she was going and did not much care. Some church or Guild outing. Some collective shopping trip. Why she regarded her social life as more interesting and important than anything he chose to do was beyond him. She took no pleasure in his pleasure. She grudged him his happiness because it was none of her doing. If he had been going out to a concert with one of her friend’s dismal daughters then she would have been egging him on. She would have been sure of him then, certain of retaining her place on the moral high ground.

‘No, Mother,’ he said, grinning, ‘what do you mean?’

‘That woman,’ Violet Peabody said.

He was too relaxed to let her annoy him, to scratch at his guilt.

He laughed. ‘I’m goin’ to the pictures not the altar, Mum, and “that woman”, as you so delicately put it, is quite safe – fairly safe – with me.’

‘I really don’t understand you, Bernard.’

‘I know,’ Bernard said. ‘You never have,’ then breaking into song again, flipped the towel across his shoulder and sauntered into the bedroom to dress.

*   *   *

If you walked across the iron suspension bridge that links Carlton Place with Custom House Quay, turned right then left, you would have stumbled into a neighbourhood that even the most informed Glaswegian could not properly define and that Polly, Gorbals born and bred, knew hardly at all: a conglomerate of old commercial and domestic properties bearing down on queer little shops that peddled everything from second-hand suits to wigs and bird-seed, accordions to cheap false teeth; beer cellars impregnated by the smoke of locomotives shunting in and out of St Enoch’s and the scaly stench of the fish market that lay beyond the Bridgegate; plus a couple of eating-houses cherished by the cognoscenti, dingy little places that served wonderful lunches and dinners without breaking the bank. Goodman’s was one of these.

Goodman’s was favoured by small-time businessmen, lawyers from the Justiciary Court, newspaper reporters, and policemen who had something to celebrate, like a birthday or a promotion or, now and then, a hanging.

It was not dauntingly formal. In addition to oysters, jugged hare and venison it served quite homely dishes like pork chops, liver savouries and beefsteak pudding. Twenty-six tables packed the ground-level room. On weekdays it was impossible to find space between noon and half past two. On Saturdays it was a little, just a little, quieter. In any case, Dominic had booked a corner table in advance. To her surprise Polly did not feel out of place. She certainly did not appear out of place in her ‘office’ outfit, for there was a distinctly commercial air to the clientele and she was by no means the only young woman being treated to Saturday lunch.

She studied the handwritten menu, selected broth, a beef pudding to follow, and only when the waitress had gone, glanced around the room.

‘No signs of a trade slump here, I see,’ she said.

‘Is that a Communist sentiment?’ Dominic asked.

‘Just a passing remark,’ Polly said.

‘Our friend Walsh would not care for this place.’

‘Patsy? I doubt it.’ Polly brought her attention back to Dominic, something not difficult to do. He was seated back in his chair, forearm resting on the table, right arm folded across his chest in a manner that Polly thought just a wee bit Napoleonic. ‘If you’re fishing for information about Patsy Walsh,’ she said, ‘don’t bother. I’ll tell you what you need to know.’

‘Has he left Glasgow?’

‘Yes. Last week.’

‘On what day?’

‘Friday, I think.’

‘Night train to London?’

‘Probably,’ Polly said. ‘I don’t know where he is now, however. Somewhere on the Continent.’

‘I have no intention of searching for Patsy,’ Dominic said. ‘I’ve nothing against him, you know. I am glad he’s gone, to tell the truth.’

‘Really?’ Polly said. ‘Why would that be?’

‘Because I would not be here with you otherwise.’

She was startled by his directness – or what seemed like directness. She thought about it for a moment, long enough to read ambiguity into the compliment, then said, ‘I don’t belong to Patsy Walsh. I’m not especially attached to him. In fact, I’m relieved to see the back of him too.’

‘He is not for you?’ Dominic asked.

‘No, he isn’t for me.’

‘Did you give him money?’

‘How did you … Yes, I gave him some money.’

‘How much?’

‘I don’t think that’s any of your business.’

‘Perhaps not,’ Dominic said, ‘except that I’d like to make it up to you.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Pay you back.’

‘At everlasting interest?’ Polly said.

Dominic shook his head. ‘Not a loan.’ He sat forward, coming closer. He didn’t look round, didn’t seem furtive, or embarrassed to be discussing money with a woman. ‘I will give you back what you gave to Walsh. In full. No hidden charges, Polly, no interest due.’

‘Why would you want to do that?’

‘Because I can afford it and you can’t.’

‘I didn’t persuade Patsy to leave because you asked me to,’ Polly said.

‘I know.’

‘Are you paying me to keep my mouth shut?’ Polly said.

That surprised him. He drew back, frowning. He might have allowed some of the persuasive softness to go from his voice if, at that moment, the waitress hadn’t returned with the broth. She placed the bowls before them and offered a pepper-pot. Dominic waved her away with a polite motion of the hand.

He lifted his spoon, weighed it in his fingers for a moment, deliberately not looking at Polly. Still not looking at Polly, he said, ‘About what?’

‘The reason I wrote to you, asked you to meet me today.’

‘So it was not a letter of romance after all?’

‘Anything but,’ Polly said.

‘How disappointing,’ Dominic said.

‘I’d never have found the nerve, never have had the cheek to do that,’ Polly said. ‘It’s business, just business.’

‘Concerning Patsy Walsh?’

‘No,’ Polly said, steeling herself, ‘concerning us.’

‘Us?’

‘Your family and my family,’ she said. ‘Your father and my father.’

His surprise was palpable, a kind of alarm.

He said, ‘My father lives in America. What does he have to do with us?’

‘My father didn’t steal from your father,’ Polly said. ‘My daddy had nothin’ to do with the money that went missing. You know it. You’ve known it all along. I know it too now.’

‘If he – why did he run then? Why did he enlist?’

‘Because somebody accused him and he was afraid.’

‘Afraid?’

‘Afraid that your father would do to him what somebody did to Tommy Bonnar. Afraid for his life, and my mother’s life too, probably. He took the blame and ran away, just like Patsy, only with more justification.’

‘This is all – all news to me.’

‘Oh, don’t pretend,’ Polly said. ‘You’ve taken money from my mammy for years for no reason. There was nothin’ to pay back, no debt, honourable or otherwise. I think you knew it. I’m sure you knew it.’

‘I was only a boy when…’

‘I thought you’d say that,’ Polly told him. ‘You weren’t a boy at all, Dominic. You were a young man. Old enough to understand what was going on. I’ve heard you talk, I’ve heard talk about you. Precious little goes on that you don’t know about. You make it your business to know things. You knew that my daddy was innocent. I think that’s why you looked out for us. Took our money with one hand and looked out for us with the other.’

‘Where did you pick up this story?’

‘It isn’t a story,’ Polly said. ‘It’s the truth. I can prove it, if necessary.’

‘Prove it? How?’

She did not answer that question. ‘What’s more,’ she continued, ‘I think you’ve had a bit of a conscience about it, which suggests to me that you know who stole the money in the first place.’

‘How could I possibly…’

‘Who pointed the finger at my dad.’

She had kept her temper admirably – so far. Beneath the table, she pressed her knees together and squeezed her fingers tightly into fists.

She was still in command of the situation. At any moment, though, she expected Dominic to say something that would raise her hackles and sweep away her self-control. She would have preferred to talk of things other than the past, matters other than betrayal and deception and extortion. But this was the substance of his life and she could not blink the fact that it was also the bond that had brought them together, that link and nothing much else.

‘I do not know who pointed the finger at your father,’ he said. ‘My father may know that but I have no intention of asking him.’

‘What about your uncle?’

‘Guido? What about Guido?’

‘He would know. He’s bound to know.’

‘Polly,’ Dominic said, ‘that part of it, you have to let it go.’

‘Why should I?’

‘It’s too long ago.’

‘God!’ Polly said, scathingly. ‘Too long ago! We’re still paying for it.’

‘All right,’ Dominic said. ‘Eat your soup.’

‘Eat my…’

‘Eat your soup and we will talk about it rationally.’

‘I’m not upset.’

‘You have every right to be upset,’ Dominic said. ‘Please. Eat.’

‘Talk about what rationally?’ Polly said.

‘How I can best make amends.’

‘I see,’ said Polly.

She lifted her spoon and began to eat.

Dominic smiled and began to eat too. They ate in silence for a moment or two then he looked up at her and said, ‘Good?’

‘Yes,’ Polly agreed. ‘Very good.’

*   *   *

On her way from the tram Babs encountered Dennis. She had in fact come up behind him as he’d been staggering back from Brady’s where he’d been drinking the last of the profits on the sale of the two motorcycles. He had turned the short journey into an epic – at least the alcohol had – and had covered God knows how much territory, reeling from one side of the Calcutta Road to the other in great ragged loops and half-circles so that it seemed like a miracle that he had wound up in Lavender Court at all.

Here whatever was left of his senses – mere homing instinct, perhaps – had kicked in and he had put himself into intermittent communication with the tenement wall, rolling and rubbing along it, guided by the iron works’ eternal flame. Babs came clicking round the corner at her customary fast lick and spotted her lover’s brother at precisely the same moment as he came into opposition with empty space – a close-mouth – and, deceived by darkness, leaned heavily upon it, leaned and leaned, listing and reeling into the close so that by the time Babs reached him he was lying in an astonished heap on the horizontal stone amid cat pee, crumpled newspapers and crushed cigarette butts.

‘Dennis, for God’s sake!’ Babs said. ‘Get up.’

‘Canny.’

‘Get’ – a toe to the tail-bone – ‘up.’

The mumbled mouthful was not flattering to womankind; Babs didn’t take it personally. She leaned over, grabbed Dennis by the lapels and hoisted him to his feet. He lolled against her, burping, his gaze fixed on some translucent will-o’-the-wisp that danced across the backs, that skipped and shimmied over the black pools like sunshine on fresh asphalt. He watched the sonsy fairy dance and felt the lassie’s breasts against his back and, though Barbara knew it not, had one of those odd laxative visions that come upon drunks and poets from time to time, a moment of love for all mankind, a woolly, welcoming epiphany that told him what it meant to be a man.

Babs too knew what it meant to be a man.

She side-stepped neatly as Dennis, with surprising ease, chucked up his breakfast and an ocean of brown beer.

‘You are,’ she said, ‘disgustin’,’ and stomped off out of the close, leaving Dennis swaying like a mountain ash and wondering if he should topple forward or backward or if he might somehow make it home to bed.

Babs exited from one close, walked thirty paces, entered the close at No. 10 and, without sympathy for anyone who might be sleeping within, battered on the door of the Hallops’ flat until Billy opened it.

Babs was in no mood for sauce. ‘Your brother’s lyin’ blind drunk in the close next door,’ she snapped. ‘Tell Jackie t’ go an’ fetch him.’

‘Jackie’s in bed, but.’

‘Then get him up, sonny, get the bugger up.’

She stomped upstairs to the top-floor landing and rapped on the glossy brown door. No answer; no one, apart from Rosie, was at home. Mammy was at work, of course, and – now she remembered – Polly had told her that she intended going into Glasgow straight from the office and wouldn’t be back until late afternoon. Babs toyed with the notion that Polly might be out there with a chunk of her money – Auntie Janet’s money, technically – stuffed into her handbag, shopping like a mad woman. But that wasn’t Polly’s style; whatever had taken Polly up town it wouldn’t be that, wouldn’t be larceny.

Babs let herself in with her latch-key.

She lobbed her hat on to the lady-lamp and went into the bedroom. No Rosie. She took off her coat, tossed it on to the bed and went through the hall to the kitchen. Still no Rosie, no sign of Rosie.

Babs experienced a slight spooky shiver; the deserted kitchen, all clean and tidy, reminded her a little of Lon Chaney’s basement in Street of the Damned. Anger melding into apprehension, she pulled back the curtain on the niche bed. Rosie’s body was not sprawled upon the quilt, however, and Babs, with a little snort at her own stupidity, soon found her sister’s neatly printed note upon the table, propped against the bowl that covered the plate that supported the cold pork pie that was supposed to be her, Babs’s, lunch.

Gone to the library. Back at four. Love Rosie.

Babs sighed, put on the kettle and, unbuttoning her jumper and blouse as she went, returned to the front bedroom to change.

She felt isolated in the empty apartment, not lonely, certainly not threatened, just – cut off. She’d been feeling that way for several days. She suspected it might have something to do with what had happened with Aunt Janet or maybe with the fact that Rosie was about to land a job in the city, for a job in Glasgow was considered better than a job in grimy old Govan. She was a wee bit envious of Rosie, envious of Polly too. She didn’t have her sisters’ natural good looks or refinement, the collection of articulate little habits that lifted them, albeit only an inch or two, out of the pack and made them different. She wasn’t different. She was much the same as other girls in other closes; not starving, not sick, not ambitious. She didn’t want a big house, fancy furniture, fur coats – well, maybe one fur coat: all she wanted was to have an easy time and, now and then, some fun, lots and lots of fun.

Knock-knock.

‘Who’s there?’

‘Jackie.’

‘Jackie who?’

‘Don’t be a clown, Babs. It’s Jackie, from downstairs.’

She had peeled down to her Twix wool-silk vest and drawers, had loosened but not removed her stockings and her elastic pull-on brassiere.

She didn’t know why she’d changed or what she was going to change into, what she was going to do for the rest of the afternoon let alone the evening. She had taken her clothes off just to be comfortable and would have munched her pork pie with the plate on her lap and her feet propped on the side of the range, toasting her bum like a bread roll.

She padded into the hall, not dishevelled but – what was the word Polly used, that naughty French word? – déshabillé. Yep, she knew what the word meant now, standing there, not even shivering, with Jackie just outside the door. Her niggling sense of isolation departed, erased by Jackie’s Hallop’s presence.

Suddenly she was herself again, her own sweet, adorable self.

‘Bab-sey, open the bloody door, eh?’

She opened the door.

She struck a pose, one arm raised, hair fluffed out.

‘Hello there, big boy,’ she drawled. ‘Whut cain I do faw you?’

‘Jez-zus!’ Jackie said. ‘What’s this?’

‘What does it look like?’

‘Jez-zus!’

‘Are you just gonna stand there like a dooley?’

‘What? Nah, I’m … I found Dennis.’

‘Good,’ Babs said. ‘Now, come in.’

‘But you’re not decent.’

‘That’s because nobody’s home.’

‘Aye, aye!’ said Jackie, grinning, and skipped eagerly into the hall.

*   *   *

‘I’ve one question for you,’ Polly said, ‘one question to begin with: how long did you intend to let my mother go on paying?’

‘Until you no longer had need of my protection,’ Dominic said.

‘Oh, that’s rich,’ said Polly. ‘That really is rich.’

‘It is, however, the fact of the matter,’ Dominic told her. ‘How shall I put it? I inherited not only your father’s debt—’

‘There was no debt.’

‘All right, I accept that,’ Dominic said, placatingly. ‘I inherited what I thought was a genuine debt from my father and with it a certain obligation to look out for your welfare.’

‘You sound like a damned politician,’ Polly said. ‘Trust me, pay your taxes, and I will protect you. You may not like it but I know what’s best.’

‘That is a very harsh judgement on our system of government.’

‘Never mind the government,’ Polly said. ‘What are you going to do to make amends? You won’t be getting your monthly screw from us from now on, that’s for sure. A few shillings may mean nothing to you, Mr Manone, but it means a lot to us.’

‘Polly, my business is built on shillings.’

‘Some business!’ Polly said.

She wasn’t angry with him. In spite of having consumed a substantial lunch she was clear-headed and sharp, enjoying the thrust and parry, gratified to be standing up to a man who had had such a shadowy existence on the periphery of her awareness for so long, who had had such an influence on her life and whom she had blamed, willy-nilly, for every bad thing.

‘I will tell you this,’ Dominic said, ‘for it’s no great secret: it is not my business at all. It is still my father’s business. He keeps a close watch on what I do here in Scotland. He also takes a lion’s share of our profits.’

‘How is that done?’ Polly asked.

‘By credit transfer,’ Dominic said.

‘I mean, why do you do it?’

‘What choice have I?’ said Dominic. ‘He is my father. Everything I have I owe to his enterprise, his industry. He gave me everything.’

‘And takes most of it back,’ said Polly.

‘Well.’ Dominic shrugged. ‘Since the market crashed he needs every penny just to keep his head above water.’

‘Is he a gangster?’

‘No.’

‘Are you a gangster?’

‘What do you think?’ Dominic said.

‘My daddy was – only they didn’t call it that back then.’

‘Not everything I do is strictly within the law,’ Dominic admitted. ‘You know that already, of course. Walsh must have told you.’

‘I didn’t need Patsy to tell me,’ Polly said. ‘I’ve been to the Rowing Club. I’ve met O’Hara. I’ll tell you something, I used to hate you. Really. I used to loathe and detest you.’

‘Used to?’

It was far into the afternoon now. Clamour from the streets had quietened. In an hour or so men would come pouring into the city from the football grounds, pubs would open and Glasgow would be possessed by other Saturday sounds, all raucous and belligerent. Within Goodman’s the tables had begun to empty, waitresses were clearing and re-setting for dinner. On the table in front of Polly nothing remained of the meal except a heavy silver coffee pot, little cups and a dish of sugar cubes.

‘I don’t know what to make of you,’ Polly said quietly.

‘Is that why you are so reluctant to ask me for what you want?’ Dominic said. ‘Or do you not really know what you want?’

‘Oh, I know what I want,’ Polly said. ‘I want money.’

He frowned and nodded at the same time, as if the banality of her request had disappointed but not surprised him. ‘How much?’

‘One hundred and fifty pounds, in cash,’ Polly said.

He nodded again, but said nothing.

‘And,’ Polly went on, ‘final settlement of the debt that never was.’

‘The hundred and fifty,’ Dominic said, ‘is that by any chance your estimate of what your mother has paid to my family over the past dozen years?’

‘No,’ Polly said. ‘I’m prepared to write that off.’

‘That is very generous of you.’

‘I take it you’re not quibbling?’

‘No, I’m not quibbling,’ Dominic said. ‘But I am curious about the exactness of the sum.’

‘All I need,’ Polly said, ‘is enough to settle our debts and to be free and clear of any further obligation to you or your family.’

‘Ah!’ Dominic said. ‘And then what will you do?’

‘I think,’ Polly said, ‘my mother intends to get married again.’

‘So she told me,’ Dominic said.

‘You disapprove?’

‘On the contrary,’ Dominic said. ‘What about you?’

‘What about me?’

‘Will you marry?’

‘I might,’ Polly said, ‘if someone asked me.’

‘Someone, not just anyone?’ Dominic said.

‘No, not just anyone.’

‘So you have no one particular in mind?’

Polly said, ‘Aren’t we drifting off the subject, rather?’

‘The money? That is not a problem. I will see to it that you have your hundred and fifty pounds in cash no later than Monday afternoon. I will have it delivered to you personally at the Burgh Hall. I take it you do not want your mother to know where the money comes from?’

‘That’s right,’ Polly said. ‘And our so-called debt to the Manones?’

‘Written off,’ said Dominic.

‘In that case,’ Polly said, ‘I doubt if we’ll see each other again.’

‘That,’ Dominic said, ‘is my one regret.’

‘I can’t believe,’ Polly said, ‘you’ve grown so attached to us that you’ll miss us for one moment. Surely you’ve enough “obligations” to keep you occupied without bothering about some scruffy lot from Lavender Court.’

‘If,’ Dominic said, ‘if we do meet again, Polly, neither one of us will be in debt to the other or under any obligation.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘It would be just you, and me.’

‘I still don’t see what you—’

‘I think you do,’ said Dominic.

‘Dear God!’ Polly said. ‘Don’t tell me you only agreed to my terms because you think I’ll—’

‘No obligations,’ Dominic said. ‘None.’

‘Am I supposed to feel grateful?’

‘I was hoping for something other than gratitude.’

‘Huh!’ Polly could think of no other reply, no honest reply. ‘Huh!’

Dominic said, ‘If I happened to be waiting outside your office next Saturday at one o’clock would you ignore me?’

‘Of course not. I’m not that impolite.’

‘Would you have lunch with me again?’

‘I – I might.’ Even to Polly’s ears, it sounded lame; worse than lame, it sounded coy. She had never thought of herself as a flirt and had no intention of letting Dominic Manone put her into that position. She squared her shoulders. ‘What would be the point?’ she said. ‘Look, what do you want from me?’

‘I think I want to marry you,’ Dominic said.

‘What?’

‘I would, however, be prepared to settle for another lunch engagement.’

‘Are you … is this the beginning of a courtship?’

‘Probably,’ Dominic said. ‘Lunch? Next Saturday?’

And Polly, without hesitation, said, ‘Why not?’