The Good Provider (49 page)

When this thought had first come to David it had seemed heretical. When he ransacked his memory, however, he discovered to his dismay that many of the episodes that had seemed innocent and amusing when he was a boy in China were not so at all, that his view had changed with knowledge, changed so radically that he felt alienated from those growing years, from the man who had spawned and raised him, who had planned his destiny so meticulously.

Jack too had doubts about their father but he refused point-blank to discuss them with his brother. David did not press. He had sought advice from Professor Landels, a moral philosopher. To his astonishment the professor did not accuse him of bad faith or betrayal, did not urge him to stand firm and do his duty as was expected of him. Old Landels had been very understanding, had explained that doubt is the core of the human condition, the inheritance of the Christian, and that a man who does not suffer doubt about his actions and beliefs is a man who does not grow. David had also written of his problem to Uncle George who had replied quickly and told him in plain terms that he must make up his own mind what to do but that he, George, would stand by him in any event.

David seated himself at the table. He lifted his father’s last letter to which he must now reply. Like all the letters that had gone before, it was not a letter at all really but more of a sermon.

‘I ask you to remember,’
David read,
‘that the salvation effected by our Redeemer includes infinitely more than deliverance from the guilt, power and pollution of sin.’

David sighed. He did not know what the words meant. Sin was a ‘problem’ not an experience, a puzzle in morality, not a burden that he felt upon his soul day after day. In Lutheran dogmatics the whole life of a Christian was dedicated to repentance from sin. But what that sort of sin felt like, how it was expressed, David had no idea. He read on.

‘And when millions of ages shall have elapsed and millions more have run their course, His felicity shall be ever on the increase. Yes, David, though now you scarcely possess a clay-built hovel, though your garments be coarse and your fare scanty, Jesus is your Saviour and Heaven is your home.’

To whom had his father written those words? Not to him. His rooms, thanks to Uncle George, were solid and comfortable, his garments fine and his fare anything but scanty. What had gone through his father’s head when he had penned those platitudes?

Impatiently he flicked the letter aside, got up, went to the window once more and lifted the curtain. He could see only the orb of a street-lamp and the railings directly below.

It was on a night like this that he had first met the young woman, Kirsty Nicholson, in Walbrook Street. The memory of that encounter was vivid and unfading. When he thought of her it made him feel warm. He did not know why this should be. Such emotions had not been discussed with professors of divinity or explained by demonstrators in medicine. Perhaps that feeling was sin, a pollution for which he should suffer tormenting guilt. Perhaps that was the thing that had escaped him when he cut into the leathery dead flesh of the corpses in the anatomy rooms and separated veins from arteries and muscles from bone. If so it was not as he imagined sin to be, though she was wife to another man and big with another man’s child. He did not want to possess her. He wanted something for which there was no exact definition. There were no girls like Kirsty Nicholson in Fanshi, girls with auburn hair and freckled noses and smiles that could warm even the coldest winter night.

The only person in the whole wide world for whom he felt love was his brother; yet he must part from Jack, sacrifice Jack to appease his longing to remain here in Scotland, to cling to the place and its people, to be part of it. Yes, that was what he wanted; all he wanted. He did not want to have strangers about him. It was after all no great enigma, no problem in faith. It was simplicity itself.

David dropped the curtain and shut out the haar. Quickly he stepped to the table and seated himself. He was sick of bland obedience, of half-truths, of holding himself at a distance. He slipped a sheet of foolscap from the drawer, uncapped the ink bottle and picked up a pen.

Dear Father
,

I realise that it will come as a great surprise to you and as a disappointment but I have decided not to return to China and to Mission Work but to remain here in Scotland and seek a parish of my own
.

He applied blotting paper and sat back. He read what he had written. He could hardly believe that he had done it, had been so direct, so explicit. He had nothing more to add, nothing more to say.

He laughed with sudden relief and, elated, signed his name.

Mrs Swanston and Mrs Walker came into the close together. Each carried a large wicker shopping-basket from which wafted the delicious aroma of friend fish.

‘It that yoursel’ up there, Mrs Nicholson?’ said Mrs Walker.

‘It is.’

‘What’s that you’re doin’?’ said Mrs Walker.

‘Cleanin’ the lavatory.’

‘You’re a night early, are you not?’ said Mrs Walker.

‘I had time tonight.’

‘My, my! But should you be doin’ that at all?’ said Mrs Swanston.

‘I’m all right, really.’

‘I must say,’ said Mrs Walker, ‘that you do look a bit peaky.’

‘I’ve a wee pain, that’s all.’

‘When’s it due?’ said Mrs Walker.

‘Twenty-six days,’ said Kirsty.

‘A little light exercise will do you no harm,’ Mrs Walker said. ‘Before I had Charles I papered the back room.’

‘Aye, but Charlie wasn’t your first,’ said Mrs Swanston.

‘I had no trouble with Jim either,’ said Mrs Walker.

‘Well, I had trouble wi’ them all,’ Mrs Swanston confessed. ‘Before birth, durin’ birth, an’ ever since.’

‘Have you been to the doctor?’ said Mrs Walker.

‘Aye.’

‘Who is your doctor?’

‘Doctor Godwin.’

‘We go to Doctor Newfield. Up in Hillhead.’

‘I thought he was a chest doctor?’ said Mrs Swanston.

‘He’s a highly-thought-of gentleman in the medical profession,’ said Mrs Walker. ‘A consultationist at the Western. He charges a considerable fee. Frank thought it was worth the expense, you know, to see me right.’

‘Aye,’ said Mrs Swanston, unimpressed.

‘Doctor Godwin’s all right,’ said Kirsty. ‘He gave me a bottle.’

‘Och, a bottle,’ said Mrs Walker. ‘I had pills.’

‘Pills for what?’ said Mrs Swanston.

‘For – something we ladies don’t talk about.’

‘The constipation?’ said Mrs Swanston.

‘I’m getting this fish in before it turns cold,’ said Mrs Walker, and went into her apartment without another word.

‘Her!’ said Mrs Swanston. ‘She’s right, though. I’d better dish up supper to my crowd before they come lookin’ for me wi’ knives at the ready.’

‘They’ll be needin’ a good hot meal tonight,’ said Kirsty, ‘with the weather so cold an’ raw.’

‘Aye, no hint of an early spring.’ The woman patted her arm. ‘Are you sure you’re feelin’ all right, lassie?’

‘I’m just tired.’

‘Cheer up. It’ll soon be over.’

‘Goodnight, Mrs Swanston.’

‘Goodnight, Mrs Nicholson.’

Breaking Warder Caine’s neck proved far easier than Malone had supposed it would be. When he was younger and making his way in the world he had snapped the odd arm at the elbow and had, for a year or so, specialised in breaking folks’ fingers but he had never been employed to kill a man with his bare hands.

Once, long ago, Billy had shown him how it should be done; hand over the mouth and chin, elbow locked about the windpipe, a jerking motion upwards to separate the bones at the top of the spine. Malone wondered if he had strength enough for the task but found himself charged up and more than equal to it. He had decided during his afternoon promenade that he would not have a better chance and with the plan laid out in his mind he had elected to go for it. Come what may, once he laid a finger on Warder Caine he was utterly committed to escape from Barlinnie and to stay out of the clutches of the law for evermore. If something went wrong, if luck ran against him, then he would die at a rope’s end. No leniency would be shown to him. He would be topped for sure – and that would be that, the end of Daniel Malone.

Warder Caine never really knew what hit him. He had brought in the tin mug and the tin plate with No. 679’s dinner on it. He had seen No. 679 only three hours before when he took him out for air. He should have been in long before dinner-time to collect the oakum pickings and give No. 679 a brush with which to sweep out the cell, but he had gotten into an argument with Warder McIntosh and had ‘bent’ the regular routine just a little, would do it all at the one visit, not just with No. 679 but with the four other hard labourites in the new block.

It was this irregularity in Caine’s routine, plus the fact that the day had been misty, that determined Danny Malone to play his hand. The first part of it was easy, dead easy. Caine was only seconds into the cell, had just put the tin mug and the tin plate upon the bed and had turned to look at the oakum pile on the canvas rug on the floor when Malone, without any warning at all, gripped him round the jaw and, with one twist of arms and shoulders, broke his vertebrae as if they had been made of porcelain.

Danny Malone lowered the warder’s body to the floor and knelt by it. He unbuttoned the uniform and unlaced the boots. Caine was a lot skinnier than he was but he got himself into the gear as best he could, strapping on the belt very tightly to draw in his girth. He put on the hat too and hastily scooped the quantity of plucked oakum into the centre of the canvas, folded up the corners and made a bundle of it. He took the keys, only three on the ring since Caine had not been an official turnkey, from Caine’s fingers and hoisted the bundle up into his arms so that it hid his face. He dragged the warder to the bed and put him into it and went out of the door, which had not been closed, into the corridor.

He held the oakum bundle aloft with his left hand and arm and kept his right hand free so that he could reach quickly for the hilt of the sabre which dangled at his side in its scabbard of varnished leather. Possession of the sabre, and the satisfaction he had gained from doing for the bloody warder, heated Danny Malone’s blood, imparted such a welling of encouragement that he discarded his plan to keep cool and use stealth and, when he got within twenty yards of the elderly warder who kept the block gate open at the corridor’s end, flung away the bundle and ran for it.

The elderly warder was taken by surprise. He rushed at the big iron gate to slam it shut but Malone was already upon him. The man did not even have time to cry out. He was old, older than Danny, and wore a particularly high collar. Malone did not attempt to find a grip that would enable him to practise his new-found skill. He throttled the old bastard, thumbs dug deep into the windpipe. It was done quietly, very quietly. The old boy slumped without a peep, only the iron gate grating and clanging a bit when his knees pushed it on its oiled hinges. Malone unclipped the big round ring from the man’s belt and also took the small ring from his fist. Now he had about a dozen keys and, if his observations had been accurate, only two doors to clear before he got into the yard. He dragged the old warder into the end corridor and locked the gate on him.

Behind him was a short corridor and a warders’ cubby which, he thought, gave on to a staircase that led up to the main halls. To the right, beyond the cubby, steps went up to an exposed gallery which in turn led across to a door in the prison’s inner wall and gave access to the promenade. He had been that route with Caine. Gas had not yet been installed in this part of the block and the corridors were lit by long-barrel lanterns. He took one of the lanterns from its hook.

Behind him somebody, a prisoner, shouted, ‘What’s that? What’s happenin’? Where’s my bloody grub?’

Malone was tempted to tell the bugger to shut his mouth but he restrained himself and, with the lantern in his left hand, stole towards the arch of the cubby.

Inside the room were two warders. He recognised one of them as McIntosh but the other was a stranger. Luck was running his way, however, for both warders were poring over a newspaper that was spread open on a table, a racing-sheet most like. Trays with prisoners’ dinner on them cooled on a dresser by the serving-churns.

Malone crept softly past the arch and turned on to the narrow flight of steps that went up to the gallery. He had counted out the steps, fourteen. Caine had always made him go up first and had kept well behind him in case of monkey business. Sometimes there was a warder on duty at the top of the steps. Not tonight, though. The main cell blocks, where ordinary prisoners were housed, were above him. He thought that he could hear them muttering, a sound like waves on a pebble shore; only imagination. He wanted to make a dash for it, to clatter along the iron gallery, but kept control of his emotions, moved casually on to the span that crossed some fifteen feet above the communal well of the block.

Never had he felt so exposed, so vulnerable. Warders walked below him. Locking up? He could not be sure of the routines here. Yes, locking up. Clash of doors, the clack of keys, hearty voices, prisoners calling out to each other. He looked down at the pinching boots and through the fretwork of the gallery to the heads below. As a hard-labour prisoner his contact with warders had been limited. He did not know them and they would not recognise him on sight, though a close inspection would reveal him for what he was. The door in the inner wall seemed miles away. He did not hurry, though. He walked steadily along the gallery carrying the lantern, as if he had a purpose, a duty to perform.