The Walk Home Part 6

Then the council tore down the tenements, and moved out the families in the long summer holidays. All those weeks, she'd been high and dry on the new scheme pavements, trying to find the old Kinning Park kids she used to knock about with. Brenda thought of the hours she'd spent, was.h.i.+ng clothes with her mother at the kitchen sink, yapping about all those untold neighbours moving in; peering across the Drumchapel back court at all the new folk behind the windows, guessing which were prods and which were papes. Her Mum never got tired of that game.

All that seemed an age ago, like a different life. One she'd put far behind.

Only then Brenda saw Lindsey, and how she was blinking at Franny's picture, as though she hadn't wanted to face up to this until now. Eric married a Catholic.

"That's why they fell out. Eric and your Dad."

Lindsey said it, flat. Like she'd been happier while she could tell herself there was a different reason. She turned to Brenda: "Was it bad like that here as well?"

Maybe she'd thought nowhere could be as bad as Ireland. She didn't wait for an answer anyhow, Lindsey just let out her breath in confirmation: "That's why Eric had to get away from him."

Brenda nodded, quiet. It was hard to hear it, said straight out like that, bald fact: her brother and father went twenty years without talking, neither of them budging, two decades lost to both of them. She'd sooner have closed the subject, only then she saw the look on Lindsey's face, like she'd been let down.

"How come you never said? About Franny. You could have just told me."

Brenda knew she should have.

She'd come close, any number of times, and she wished just now that she'd taken that plunge, instead of it coming out in a mess like this. She'd started off thinking Graham would let slip, surely, or one of his brothers; someone else would take that onus. Brenda ended up leaving it so long, part of her had kidded on, the girl already knew it; that it was unspoken but understood anyhow, in all their Franny conversations. And what to say now?

"I'm sorry, love. I wasnae tryin tae hush it up."

Brenda could see that must be just how it felt.

Maybe Lindsey thought she was ashamed.

Maybe she was.

Where the girl came from it could be life and death, which side of the great divide you grew up. Why folk over here wanted part of that was a mystery to Brenda. It was mostly just the ignorant who stuck their oar in, as far as she could make out, glorying in someone else's fight, or taking the battle to the football grounds. All those idiots who sang rebel songs at Celtic Park, or smashed out the green traffic lights at junctions when Rangers lost, stabbing each other on the side roads after Old Firm cup ties. They talked like they were carrying the torch, from the Reformation to the Troubles, but Brenda thought it was just small-minded, taking pride in bearing grudges.

Lindsey asked: "What did your mother say? Nana Margaret? Couldn't she have got your Dad to see sense?"

Brenda shook her head: "She'd pa.s.sed by then, a good couple ae years back." Not there any more to temper him, if she ever had.

And anyhow, Brenda wanted to get one thing straight: it wasn't Franny she was ashamed of, it was her Dad. She said: "Franny was her ain woman, aye? An she was just right for Eric."

Brenda thought Papa Robert had known that fine well, even without her mother there to point it out.

"My Da could never bring himself to say it. He just couldnae get over hissel. His ain hurt, aye?"

He said it all went back to Louth. And he'd told them enough times: how they didn't think about things long enough, go back far enough, take the time to understand. All the blows his family suffered.

"Course Eric wouldnae hear it."

Her brother had told her it was just bigotry, and it didn't matter how their Dad dressed it up. So Brenda sighed now, telling Lindsey: "It was a hard fight, aw told."

She'd spent so many years as the go-between, choosing her words; not just with her father, but with Eric as well. Always thinking before she spoke: what she could say and what was best swallowed. It got so she couldn't even talk to Malky, he got so sick of all that back and forth, and the grief it caused.

"I mind when Papa Robert died. It was a relief, aye?"

It wasn't what a daughter should say about her father's pa.s.sing, but there it was. She'd said it now, and it was true as well: she'd needed a break from all that strife. Brenda thought they all had, the whole familya"a fresh start, a gloss put on the pasta"and she looked at Lindsey now, hoping she might understand.

Lindsey gave no sign, not at first, she just turned back to Eric's picture, Franny's early morning profile. Then she said: "He's been drawing Papa Robert. Eric has. He showed me, just this week."

It gave Brenda a jolt to hear that, and it must have shown, because Lindsey went on: "They're nice. Eric's new drawings."

And she smiled a bit, like she hadn't expected that either.

"He told me he's not done a picture of your Dad in years. He's always got stuck before, when he's tried."

Lindsey put her head to one side.

"Now I can see why."

She met Brenda's eye, soft, like Brenda was forgiven, or getting there in any case; she'd grown up with Papa Robert too, after all. Then Lindsey said: "Eric's done three big sheets of your Dad and his roses. Planting them up. Back when you were kids."

Brenda could only blink at first, taking in the news. Only then she thought it made sensea"almosta"for Eric to draw that, because they hadn't always argued, her brother and Dad. Far from it, in fact. Those early Drumchapel years were good ones, maybe their best times. When Eric started at the High School, Papa Robert had dug over the earth in front of the house, and then they'd heeled in those roses, just the two of them, like to mark his fine achievement. So he must have known their father was proud of him, even if he never said as much.

"Our Da was a proud man, aye."

Lindsey nodded, wry: "That's what Eric says too. He's drawn the bushes all thick and twisted, from Papa Robert's hard pruning. But he told me the blooms were glorious."

"So they were." Brenda remembered. "They went on for months. Summer tae the first ae the frosts. Fed by the tea leaves he used to fling at the roots, mornin and evenin, efter the pot had cooled."

She lapsed into thought again, thinking of her father's good sides. A long time since she'd had cause. All their close neighbours had loved those roses; folk of both denominations and none. They were a scheme landmark, and her father a scheme legend: resolute. His patch of Drumchapel wouldn't go down the tubes, not while he had life and breath, and when he was on your side you were glad of it, right enough.

Brenda was loved, she'd never doubted that. But Eric was the firstborn, the clever one, her Dad's best hope, and maybe her brother was drawing what that had felt like. She hoped it helped him to remember. Papa Robert had read the paper up at the table of an evening while Eric did his school work, not keeping check, or helping, just there to be companionable. They went to the library together on Sat.u.r.day mornings too. They cycled across to Partick, because that's where Papa Robert worked, and Brenda used to sit on the steps and watch them go down the road: two bikes and two sets of big, blunt bones.

So how did it come to all that fighting? Brenda thought: it should all have been so different.

Only the girl took her arm then, leaning in close, telling her: "I'd sooner Eric was drawing Franny. If I'm honest."

Brenda nodded: agreed. And they shared a small half-smile, the hurt between them healing.

Stevie was still crying, though, at the row he'd just been given. Brenda caught sight of her grandson, hiding his face, all wet-cheeked, and red behind his freckles, and then she felt sorry for shouting.

"Dinnae take it tae heart, son."

He wasn't to blame, not for any of this, or the daft words he used. Lindsey put a palm to his cheek to soothe him: "You gave us a shock, that's all. It's a sore subject." Complicated. "You weren't to know."

Brenda cleaned a house in Hyndland, she had done for years, where the family were Italian, way back, three generations. There was a picture of them all in Rome, up on the mantelpiece, taken in the 1970s, when they were lined up on St. Peter's Square to see the new pope. The kids were still young then, and open-mouthed, the three of them squashed up together at the front of the crowd, huddling close to Mrs. C, who was oblivious; on cloud nine, arms flung high, reaching for John Paul II as he pa.s.sed, her fingers almost touching his upraised hand.

Brenda ran a duster over the frame, that ecstatic face, every Wednesday afternoon. And the Sacred Heart in the bedroom too, that gave her the creeps at first, but she'd grown immune. She'd never told the family that her Dad was an Orangeman, although Brenda did think it might appeal to them, their sense of humour. The kids were all grown now, and she'd heard them ribbing their mother about that Rome photo, and Mrs. C laughing too, saying she'd come over all heat-of-the-moment at the sight of His Holiness. But Brenda still kept her little secret. Life was just that bit easier sometimes, if you glossed over the details.

Mrs. C looked after her grandson now, on days her daughter worked, and her husband doted on the baby. He let him fall asleep in his arms instead of the cot, and he went down to the Celtic shop too, to get him a baby-sized strip, with a bib to catch the dribbles, in the same green and white, with Papa's Little Tim printed across the middle.

So maybe Tim could be funny now. Brenda didn't know. She crouched down next to Stevie anyhow; his small face still a bit teary, a bit wary. He asked her: "You gonnae say tae Uncle Eric?"

Brenda sighed: she hadn't yet decided. She told him: "We'll have tae give it back, aye? His picture."

Stevie shook his head: "I took it for my Maw, but."

He'd taken it for Lindsey.

This boy was full of surprises. Brenda didn't know what to say to that, so Stevie just turned to his mother, and buried his face in the folds of her T-s.h.i.+rt.

"Aw, son." Lindsey put her arms about him. She still had hold of the drawing, and it looked like she wanted to keep it.

Brenda caught sight of her brother's lines again, the way he'd sketched his Frances, comfortable, middle-aged, still lovely. She wondered if it was a new one. It hurt to look at, so she thought it must hurt to draw it.

She didn't know if they should put it back. If they should risk that. Brenda didn't think she could face Eric's today in any case. She rubbed her forehead and looked about herself, at the wide hall and all the woodwork; all these hours they'd been here, and the floors still had to be mopped. They'd spent half the morning in someone else's house, going into things that still cut so deep. That shouldn't still hurt so much, surely. Only they did.

10.

The boys had tiled two walls in the main bathroom by late Thursday morning anda"stealing asidea"Jozef was impressed. There was no way they'd manage both bathrooms by Friday, but he didn't tell them that: they were keen and he knew this was to his advantage. They kept on well into the evening, until it was dark enough to need the lights on, and by the time they called it quits, they had only the floors left to complete.

Stevie was laying plywood in the ensuite when the developer arrived on Friday morning. The boy didn't look up during the inspection, he just kept on with his measuring and fitting, pencil tucked behind his freckled ear, but Jozef had the uneasy feeling that he was listening to everything. To the developer's specificationsa"it had to be brushed steel for all the fittingsa"and to how Jozef pointed out the neat silicone seals around the shower tray as well. Even if it was strange to be overheard, Jozef liked what he saw: all the tiles lining up precisely at the corners. He told the developer: "We deliver good workmans.h.i.+p, yes?"

And the man threw a last, grudging look around the ensuite.

He left Jozef with three catalogues of bathroom fittings, with Post-it notes marking the relevant pages. Jozef made all the phone calls, costing everything upa"steel shower rails and towel rails and tapsa"but then he didn't place any orders. It was hot again, and nearly the weekend, and the past few days had started badly but finished well, with plenty of good work completed, even if the developer couldn't bring himself to say it. They were close to halfway done now, and it was midsummer too, the warm days becoming a heatwave, so Jozef walked down the road to the off-sales and bought two pallets of cans: enough for everyone.

His workers stood around by the back steps drinking before they went home, with Stevie joining them, almost. The boy kept to the edge of the group, avoiding Tomas, and Jozef thought that was a good move.

On Sat.u.r.day, the whole place was quiet. Jozef slept until eight, which was late for him, then had some breakfast and went back to bed. He dozed and read; a whole stack of newspapers from home that his sisters sent him. Marek knew Jozef's weekend habit, and he'd told him it made no sense when he could get Polish TV news in his room, or on his phone, and while it was still news too, not a week or more old.

Jozef thought it was a mistake sometimes, having family on the job. He was uncle to Marek before he was boss, and Marek crossed lines that shouldn't be crossed with all his you should see yourself and why do you do that? Jozef was glad his nephew wasn't here at the weekends, so he could read in peace: keep up with home, keeping home at arm's length. So much easier to do it like that.

Jozef went to the launderette, late in the afternoon, once it got cool enough to drop off his week's clothes, and when he got back in, he remembered the boy. It was his second weekend here, and Jozef wondered if he was in the top flat; what he was up to. He stood and listened for sounds from up there, but there was nothing: just the church clock marking the hour, and him at the bottom of the wide stairs.

It was getting dark when he got a phone call from Marek. Jozef had just finished eating, and he thought his nephew sounded drunk, out and about the pubs again. But he wasn't with Tomas, or any of the others. Marek spoke fast, tripping over his words, making little sense, until he said he was with Stevie.

"We're in Mount Florida. At the last job."

Marek told Jozef he was in the back court behind the unfinished tenement, and then: "Bring the van, bring the van, yes? Stevie's inside, right now. He's getting us the towel rails."

Jozef cursed down the phone, and he cursed on the drive there. Half past ten and the evening streets were lit up, all the shopfronts, the pub-goers out in short skirts and T-s.h.i.+rts. Jozef almost turned round twice, at two different junctions, thinking he should leave the idiot boys to deal with this. It was their mess, and if they got picked up by the police, it was their look-out as well. But then the police might come to the house, anda"besides, besidesa"Jozef could never justify that to Ewa.

Marek had told him to drive up the lane, the one used by the refuse trucks, but Jozef parked on the street instead and walked up the rutted track, peering over the bin sheds. The back court was gloomy, only a few lights on in the windows in the high walls all around, but it was easy to spot the right block, scaffold-clad and pitch black. Jozef cut across the gra.s.s and found Marek by the back steps, keeping to the shadows, with a towel rail propped against the wall beside him. Marek put a hand to it, excited, and whispered: "There's another one up there too."

As though Jozef didn't know that already. He had to bite back the urge to shout, give his nephew a clout. He couldn't look at Marek, so he looked up instead, at the scaffold and wall, taking a step back, two, to get a clearer view; the boy must be inside there somewhere. Jozef glanced around the windows behind, on either side, checking for watchers, the sashes open to the summer night. He could see a woman was.h.i.+ng up on a top floor: would she make them out against the dark gra.s.s, if she looked down here?

Jozef stood in the evening gloom and warm, heard the dik-dik-dik of a blackbird; the bird as rattled as he was. No sign of the boy yet.

His eye caught something at the stairwell window, a shape being lowered: a long rectangle. Marek saw it too, stepping over, punching Jozef's arm, so Jozef grabbed his fist, he hissed: "It's no game. This is reckless. Stupid. You hear me?"

Looking up again, Jozef could just make out the boy's face, a white shape up against the dark window. He'd tied a cord to the towel rail and he was letting it down the side of the building, slow and careful. It slid down the narrow gap between scaffold and wall for almost a storey, but then one corner caught the sill below; not badly, but enough to set the towel rail turning on its rope. Marek sucked in his breath, and Jozef did as well, antic.i.p.ating the loud clang, metal against metal, and then the towel rail made contact with the scaffold. Jozef flinched. The sound echoed around the back court, and the boy stopped letting out cord abruptly. Jozef stood tight, eyes up, and the towel rail hung where it was, swaying in the half-light.

He shot a look across the back court to the woman he'd seen before, and she was still at her sink, eyes down at the suds. He saw no faces at any of the other windows, but were there more lights on now?

Jozef looked into the scaffold again and spotted movement, high among the bars. Even before Marek said anything, he knew it was Stevie. His nephew whispered: "You watch him, he's fast."

The boy dropped hand over hand, aiming for the towel rail. Jozef thought he must have tied it off at the window, and he must be petrified too, but Stevie was getting closer now, and from the deft way he moved, he didn't look it. Jozef could see his hands and how he swung himself, gripping the bars, and then letting go, taking hold of the bar below. Easy and skilful. He had a second cord looped across his chest, and he stopped now and slid that off, securing the towel rail to the scaffold. The knots of the first cord proved stiff, he had to work at them with his teeth, but once they were loose, Stevie hooked both arms around one of the horizontals to steady himself, and then lowered the towel rail down. The whole thing was done so swiftly, it was as though he did this nightly.

"You'll have tae catch hold," he hissed to Jozef from the poles. "Havnae enough rope, pal. Quick."

And then Jozef found himself stepping forward, arms up to catch the stolen goods.

In the morning, still in bed, Jozef contemplated putting the towel rails in the skip out front. Or going across town to find some other skip to dump them. He'd have made Marek do that himself last night, except he thought Marek had drunk too much to drive. Jozef had dropped him at the end of his road; not at his door, he'd made him walk. And then it hadn't felt safe to leave the towel rails in the van overnight, so he'd brought them inside, after Stevie had gone upstairs.

They stood in the kitchen recess now, next to Jozef's tool bag, under some dust sheets. Jozef looked at them while he ate his breakfast, feeling absurd for hiding them, and for driving them back here in the first place; he should have just put them in one of the Mount Florida bin sheds, and left the two young ones to walk home.

Jozef heard the boy's feet on the stairs, and then the outside door fall closed. Coming up for nine on a Sunday morning, who knew where he was going? Not to church.

Jozef rarely went himself. How many years since his last confession? Last night's events would make for an embarra.s.sing disclosure, and Jozef felt absurd again, imagining how it would sound, spoken out loud. He'd have liked to laugh about that with someone; with Ewa. He knew if she were here now, she'd be in the pews across the road, if only to listen out for Polish voices; she'd had her ways of staving off homesickness. Jozef knew Ewa would have taken Marek along too, for company, or maybe out of family duty. So then he wondered what she'd make of what happened last night. If she'd think he was failing in his duty of care to her nephew.

He was in over his head looking out for those boys.

Marek was young and still foolish, but Jozef doubted the tiles and towel rails were his idea. Stevie was even younger, but he was the one who'd done the stealing. The boy hadn't been drunk, and Jozef didn't think it was another game to him either. It was as though he'd done it to please; not Marek, but Jozef. The boy had dropped down from the scaffold to stand beside him, red hand on his knee, red-eared with pride and the effort of climbing, as if he thought Jozef might be proud of him, or grateful.

So Jozef had lost it.

"No more. You understand me?"

He'd stood and scolded him, like a child.

"You don't come back here again."

Uncomfortable with the memory, Jozef stood up now in the empty kitchen and went to get his tools. He didn't like Sundays: too quiet and long, and too easy to spend them mulling, he often just ended up working. Jozef had done the same thing with his London weekends, because Romek always had extra jobs for extra cash, and when he thought back to that time now, he found it hard to decide: had all that work made Ewa turn for home, or had it kept him going when things started going wrong?

Jozef wanted this job to go the right way, and so he stood in the recess, making a list in his head of tasks for the coming week. The bathrooms had to be finished, all the fittings, and Jozef looked at the towel rails under their dust sheet camouflage, thinking the developer was due to come again on Friday. Then he remembered the man's grudging approval of the tiling, and after that he just wanted to get this job over and done with.

Stevie came back as he was finis.h.i.+ng in the ensuite. The boy stepped inside the small room, with his holdall on his shoulder, and looked at the towel rail, fitted neat against the wall.

Jozef kept packing away his tools, ready for some smart-mouth remark, but none came. Stevie just stood there, expectant, in his worn-out trainers, as though he was waiting. But for what? It made Jozef think again, how hard this boy was to figure out. He only felt sure of him when he was working.

He'd brought the smell of launderette with him: tumble dryer and clean clothes, and a bag full of bread rolls and biscuits too. Jozef looked at him: all ready to start his working week. So he asked: "Did Romek teach you to fit a radiator?"

"Aye."

"Then you can fit the other towel rail."