A Chancer (33 page)

I’ll give her one? he asked.

Vi nodded. He rose, laying his plate near to his tea. The packet of biscuits was in the cupboard. When he held one out to her the girl shook her head slowly, staring at him. He smiled. Okay
Kirsty? And set it on the quilt beside her. She looked away from him, her attention reverting to the book.

Vi had been watching. While he collected his plate and sat down she said, Sometimes she can be funny.

He nodded.

But if she is dont take it personally.

Naw.

Okay?

Aye. He smiled at her; he was cutting a piece of the fried haddock, forking it into his mouth. He reached for the mug, sipped at the tea. Vi was also sipping tea and their gazes met.

So the wedding turned out okay after all?

Aye it was fine. Tammas shrugged. Everything just seemed to pass in front of my eyes. One minute I was getting the ring off Rab in the morning; next thing him and Rena were in the taxi and we
were waving cheerio. It was a strange feeling.

Even stranger for them . . .

Aye, hh – and Rab but he had everything happening at once, rushing back up from Hull on the Friday afternoon and then having to leave first thing on the Sunday morning; plus it’s his
birthday next week, he’s twenty.

Vi frowned.

Tammas had sniffed and he looked at the plate, dug the fork into a large chip, dipped it into the sauce.

Vi now smiled. She shook her head and laid her knife and fork on the plate. Aye, she said, I knew it. And yous grew up the gether didnt you?

What?

You and your pal Rab, you’re the same age. Ho, God, I knew it. Milly and Joe were wrong and I was right. So what is he older than you or what?

What?

Your pal Rab, is he older than you?

What d’you mean?

What’re you blushing for Tammas?

What?

Your face – it’s bloody scarlet so it is!

He made no reply. He was balancing the plate on his knees, holding the knife and the fork in either hand. Eventually he gazed at her. Well what would you’ve done if I’d told you the
truth? Hh, you wouldnt’ve bloody looked at me.

Vi sighed, shaking her head. You really have got a cheek but I’m no kidding you. She stared at him: Are you only nineteen?

Naw, twenty.

Twenty. So you’re older than him are you?

About six months.

Is that the truth?

Christ sake Vi.

Well sometimes you dont know with you.

He sniffed and stared away, soon he dropped his gaze to the fireplace. There was a chip on the end of his fork; he ate it, glancing sideways. Kirsty still seemed to be engrossed in the picture
book. And Vi had resumed eating. Listen, he muttered, you’re only two years older than me.

Am I?

Aye.

How do you know?

I just know.

Who told you?

He shrugged.

Who told you?

Vi, there’s no point worrying about ages.

No point worrying about ages? what you talking about?

There’s just no point worrying about it.

Who’s worrying about it?

You are, Christ, the way you’re going on. I knew it was you when Joe asked me right away back when we were up the
Royal
, I knew it, I twigged right away. Tammas shook his head and
he lifted the plate from his knees and laid it on the fireplace. He reached for his cigarettes from the mantelpiece.

Vi was watching him. You’ve no finished eating yet.

I know.

Tammas, dont act like a wean.

I’m no acting like a wean. It’s no me that’s bloody – Christ! He shook his head and stuck the cigarette in his mouth and fumbled open the matchbox. It’s no me, he
said.

Tammas, you’ve hardly touched your food.

Sorry.

It’s a waste of money but so it is.

He nodded. I’ll pay you for it next time I’m over.

O. Vi sniffed and she stood up, gripping her plate and cutlery. She stepped round in the direction of the sink. Tammas sat smoking and staring at the electric bars glow. And when is the next
time you’ll be over?

Pardon?

Quite plain.

He swivelled and made as though to stand to his feet but she waved him back down and he continued to sit as he was. Quite plain, she said: When is the next time you’ll be over?

The next time?

O God the bloody next time, the N.E.X.T., the next time, the bloody next time!

The end of the week. I’ll be over the end of the week. Christ, I’ll just . . . the end of the week.

She had raised her arm and shut her eyelids and he got up and went over to her but he did not touch her. She opened her eyelids and said: You’re blocking the view.

Vi.

You’re blocking the view.

He stepped to the side, leaned his hand on the back of the settee, staring at her. Vi turned to face the sink. She lifted the teapot and asked, Want more tea?

No really

She nodded.

I dont feel like it.

She nodded again. Maybe you’re as well going.

D’you want me to?

O God . . . She put down the teapot.

Do you want me to go?

Do what you bloody like, she said and turned abruptly, walking past him to sit where she had been sitting before.

Tammas waited a moment then he coughed and he stretched across for his cigarettes and matches.

Kirsty was looking at him, the biscuit showing in her hand.

Then Vi muttered, Remember your jacket.

He walked to the door, into the lobby, uplifted the jerkin from the peg there, having left the door ajar. He hesitated but only a moment, he unlocked the front door and stepped outside onto the
landing, and closed the door, staring at the letterbox. He went downstairs quickly though only one step at a time and on arrival at close level he paused, and stayed, facing back up the space right
the whole way up to the top. When he reached the closemouth he stopped again; he shook his head, sighing, and he muttered, For fuck sake . . . and rubbed the corners of his eye sockets with the
thumb and forefinger of his left hand. Then he felt into each of the pockets in his jeans and then the same with his jerkin. Snowflakes were landing inside the close. He zipped up the jerkin.

It was lying quite thickly, making the different sounds dull so that when a vehicle passed it seemed to do so in silence. When he stepped off the pavement a faint crunching
noise came from the snow drifted in at the kerb.

He was walking at a steady pace, head bowed into the swirl and keeping tight in to the tenement walls. Every so often he shook the snow off his jerkin and head but his hair was soaking now and
his wrists always wet at the gap between the jerkin cuffs and edges of the pockets. And his cigarette packet was also wet. He brought it out as he went, checking the actual cigarettes were dry,
then paused by a shop doorway to light one. A policeman stepped out of the next close, hands in his coat pockets and no snow covering his cap. Tammas continued walking, staring straight ahead,
replacing the cigarettes in his pocket.

As he passed a corner he saw a clock on the interior wall of a bank: quarter of an hour since he had left Vi’s house.

The Clyde was not too far distant now and wide gap-sites had appeared. On one of them stood a pub, its brickwork showing it was once the ground level of an ordinary sized tenement building.
Music was coming from it and it seemed to be ‘live’; a sort of folk music. He cut in at its rear to shelter while getting a cigarette alight. He kept the cigarette fixed in at the
corner of his mouth but as he crossed the bridge the wind was fierce, making it burn quickly and he nipped off the ash and returned it to the packet. There was a slope down the other side and his
left shoe skidded as he turned the corner and he seemed set to do the splits but just managed to grab a hold of the railings and stop himself, his right hand onto the ground to be balancing.
Fucking bastard, he cried, and he glanced around. Three guys stood across the street, in an inshot near to another pub, talking away, not appearing to have noticed him at all. He wiped his hands on
his jeans, shaking his head, muttering, Fucking bastard.

He started walking quickly then began to trot, attempting to land each foot on the ground as flatly possible, his left arm swinging freely while his right hand gripped the cigarette packet in
the pocket of his jerkin, and he was making a groaning noise which was gradually becoming louder till it changed into a continual grunt of Ya bastard Ya bastard Ya bastard Ya bastard, each Ya
bastard simultaneous with his foot hitting the ground. Another twenty minutes and he was thudding into his own close and leaning against the wall, his forehead resting upon his right forearm, his
breathing harsh, a raking screeching sound.

After a time he pushed himself away from the wall, bending half over and placing his hands on his knees, taking longer, more controlled breaths. Down the middle of the concrete floor was one
long wet patch where folk had passed on their way up the close. His eyelids shut. There was a throbbing at his right temple. He raised his hand and kept it there, feeling the bone at the side of
his skull. He covered his eyes with both hands and straightened, turning side on to rest his shoulders against the wall, his hands dropping. Eventually, stepping nearer the closemouth, he cleared
his throat and sucked in a breath of air, before blowing a mouthful of catarrh towards the street. And he brought out his cigarettes and withdrew a whole one and smoked it there.

•••

An old guy who was needing a shave was sitting on the floor with his back against a radiator, his legs splayed open. Tammas looked away as he passed on along the corridor and
into the ward where his grandmother was. She was asleep, seated on an armchair by a window with a blanket tucked about her legs. There was another old woman in the next bed and she was awake and
watching him although she seemed to be lying in an awkward position, as if she had been propped to sit upright and then toppled sideways. Hullo, he said and when she made no answer he turned from
her and lifted a chair out from a stack, placing it carefully about three yards from his grandmother, in such a fashion that his view out the window was unrestricted. Across the way was the
Nurses’ Home and occasionally nurses did appear, normally in twos and wearing capes, their arms linked and chatting together, walking quite fast. Layers of grey clouds in the sky. His
grandmother was looking at him. He smiled. Hullo grannie. How you doing, you okay?

I’m fine.

He nodded. She was still looking at him and he smiled. No as cold now as it was . . .

She gestured at the mobile cabinet near to the top of her bed; there was a jug of water on it.

D’you want a drink?

Yes. She was pointing to the cabinet drawer and he reached over to pull it out. Some plastic cups were inside. He poured her water into one and gave it to her and she took it in both hands; she
glanced towards the ward door before sipping.

I’m maybe going up to Peterhead to work, he said. There’s no anything doing here at all except for maybe a job in a factory I could get. But I’d rather be out in the open air .
. . He grinned.

She sipped at the water again and made a slurping noise.

And are you eating your food alright?

No . . . She smiled, shaking her head.

Margaret was saying it’s better now – because that wee highland nurse is back and giving them all what for!

His grandmother smiled.

From the next bed the old woman called: Hullo.

Hullo. He smiled.

She pointed at his grandmother and asked, Is she a relation?

Mm. She’s my grandmother.

That’s nice.

Tammas nodded and looked back to his grandmother who was sipping at the water but moving her left hand at him; wanting him to take the water from her now, holding the cup towards him. He put it
back onto the cabinet. She placed her hands in her lap and raised her eyebrows. He smiled.

And are you married? the other old woman said.

No, hh!

Have you got a girlfriend?

Tammas smiled at her and then at his grandmother who was watching him.

Tch! The old woman shook her fist at him, chuckling. Then she added, She’s your grannie? That’s nice.

Aye. He said to his grandmother: Mrs Brady was asking for you.

O.

She was saying she’ll take a trip out to see you when the better weather comes in. Her legs are no very good either.

His grandmother nodded. She shifted slightly, looked towards the ward door. Another visitor was coming in, an elderly man with a bunch of flowers. And a woman followed, going to a different
bedside, holding a couple of shopping bags and breathing noticeably, as if she had been hurrying.

Have I seen you before? asked the old woman in the next bed.

Tammas smiled. I’m no sure; it’s usually my sister that comes.

O.

Aye, Margaret, you’ve probably seen her.

O.

She usually comes a couple of times a week.

O, that’s nice.

Tammas nodded. His grandmother was still gazing towards the door. Outside two nurses had appeared from beneath the window, arms linked and heading across the grounds in the direction of the
Home. One of them was smoking a cigarette and looked a bit like Betty from the back.

•••

He joined the queue at his signing on box but when he reached the counter the clerk told him he would have to go to the
inquiries
desk because he was nearly half an hour
late. Three benches were in use here and he had to squeeze in on the end of the third, next to a woman of about 30 who was fidgeting with a handful of documents. She was smoking and chewing and
smelled strongly of perfume and every so often she nibbled on the skin at the corners of her right thumbnail. When she finished the cigarette she dropped it to the floor but did not stub it out and
she lighted a fresh one immediately. The other one smouldered where it had landed. She returned the lighter and cigarette packet into her handbag then put in the documents as well, and withdrew a
paperback book, flipped through its pages. Soon she was engrossed in reading, the smoke from the cigarette drifting straight into Tammas’s face.