The Big Man (37 page)
Authors: William McIlvanney
Dan smiled and nodded. In that moment he understood why the pub was so busy. The word was out from somewhere else, Frankie or Vince or Betty, as well as from Matt Mason. This wasn’t a casual group of drinkers. It was an expression of solidarity. Looking around at their separate faces and postures, he sensed a disguised unity among them, an army in mufti. He thought that if somebody were to come to the door of the pub just now and summon him by name, a lot of these men would stand up in answer.
He thought of the moment outside the Black Chip disco. They knew more than their smiles and their clowning and their self-deprecation would readily admit. They were ready to share his pathos. He was glad to share theirs. The more who knew the truth, the more hope he had. Like them, he believed in the simple things he would try to do. If he could, he would watch his children grow up. He would be with Betty.
‘Hey, Dan!’ someone shouted. ‘Ye goin’ to stop laughin’ so loud? Ah canny hear myself thinkin’.’
Some laughed and he was laughing too. He felt the joy of being here, whatever the terms. Tonight or tomorrow it might come. He wasn’t unique in that. It was what his father had faced,
and countless others. And when he spoke, his voice was an echo of the generations of people who had stood where he was standing.
‘Ah’ll have another pint when ye’ve time, Alan,’ he said.
ROSE TREMAIN
THE SWIMMING POOL SEASON
Best of Young British Novelists 1983
Winner of the Angel Literary Award 1985
The lines of love and longing, if you drew them, they’d criss-cross Pomerac like a tangle of wool’
After the collapse of ‘Aquazure’, his swimming pool construction business, Larry and Miriam Kendal have exiled themselves to a sleepy French village. When Miriam is summoned to her mother’s deathbed in Oxford, Larry begins to formulate a dazzling new idea: the creation of the most beautiful, most
artistic swimming pool of all.
Around them, Rose Tremain weaves the intricate fabric of the lives of two communities: Miriam’s mother, Leni, clever, beautiful and arrogant. Polish Nadia, tortured by the passions of her sad and guilty past. Gervaise the peasant woman – content with her boisterous German lover and confused husband. And the young tearaway Xavier, in love with the virginal
Agnès.
‘Sharp, eloquent, pure’
David Hughes, Mail on Sunday
‘Rose Tremain has the rare gift of an inclusive sympathy towards her characters and the ever-rarer talent among English writers of being able to write with absolute conviction
about love . . . we watch enthralled’
Observer
‘Rose Tremain seems impressively mature as a writer . . . It has a particular kind of excellence and is an entertaining book’
Sunday Times
