The Good Provider (59 page)

‘I don’t know.’

‘Will I ask him?’

‘He’ll just run away an’ then come back again.’

‘Must drive ye daft, Craig, havin’ a shadow.’

Craig shrugged. ‘You get used to it.’

‘Is he starved, is that it?’

‘He never asks for anythin’.’

Peter stopped, turned and stared at Sammy Reynolds who made no attempt to ‘vanish’ but stopped too and stood, hands in trouser pockets, looking back at the coppers. He wore a filthy shirt and had abandoned shoes and stockings for the summer months. His hair, tousled and unwashed, made a sticky sort of halo round his head.

Craig called out, ‘Hey, Sammy, can ye no’ sleep?’

Sammy answered, ‘I’ve got somethin’.’

‘What’s that then?’ said Craig.

‘Got somethin’ good.’

‘Come on over, Sammy, an’ let’s have a swatch at whatever it is.’

‘What about him, but?’

‘Constable Stewart’ll no’ bite you, not if you’ve done nothin’ wrong,’ said Craig. ‘Hurry up, though. I’m off shift in ten minutes.’

Sammy hesitated and then came forward.

Peter whispered, ‘Does he not go to school?’

‘Only when the truant officer catches him.’

Sammy was shy in the presence of a stranger, though he had been observing Peter Stewart for most of the week and had dogged Craig’s tracks on back-shift and day-shift and must know by now all the routines and systems of the burgh force.

‘What’s this you’ve got then, Sammy?’ Craig said.

The boy fumbled in the breast pocket of the torn shirt and brought out a whistle on a chain.

‘See,’ he said proudly, holding it up.

‘Where did you get that?’ said Craig.

‘Found it.’

‘Don’t lie, son,’ said Peter Stewart.

‘I did. I found it.’

‘It’s a nice one,’ Craig said. ‘Can I see it for a minute?’

Sammy extracted the chain from his pocket and dangled the whistle out for Craig’s scrutiny.

Peter Stewart said, ‘Is it real?’

‘Aye, it’s real. It’s old an’ rusty but it’s got a number on it,’ Craig said. ‘Where did you find it, Sammy?’

‘On the midden.’

‘Where?’

‘Our midden.’

‘At the Madagascar?’

‘Aye. Buried down deep,’ Sammy said. ‘It’s good.’

‘He shouldn’t have that,’ said Peter Stewart. ‘It’s official issue.’

‘I wonder who it belonged to an’ why he threw it away.’

‘Mine now,’ said Sammy and swung the whistle back into his possession on the short length of chain. ‘See, I can blaw it.’

‘No, Sammy, don’t—’

Too late; the boy stuck the whistle into his mouth, puffed out his cheeks and gave a great blast that, to the constables’ relief, resulted in no more than a hiss from the rusted barrel.

‘It’s broken,’ Peter Stewart said.

‘Naw, it’s no’,’ Sammy cried. ‘Hear this.’

He thrust the whistle into his mouth once more and blew again, reddening with effort, but managed no sound but a lisping hiss.

Peter glanced questioningly at Craig.

Sammy wet-lipped and panting, said, ‘Is that no’ awful good?’

‘First class, Sammy. Just like the real thing.’

‘Like you do it.’

‘Aye, just the same.’

‘Be like you, eh?’

‘When you grow up, perhaps.’

‘Got ma whistle already.’

‘Give it another go, Sammy.’

Still no sound of any volume came from the pitted barrel. Only Sammy could hear the good strong ardent blast that would make dogs sit up and take notice, would make bad men cower and bring coppers running to his side.

‘Good, eh?’

‘Craig, we should report—’ said Peter Stewart.

‘Marvellous, Sammy,’ said Craig. ‘Now you keep that whistle polished an’ in tune until we’re ready for you; right?’

‘Right, Mr Nicholson.’

‘Say goodbye to Constable Stewart.’

Sammy snapped his right hand to his brow, saluted smartly. Peter Stewart did not return the mark of respect but turned and walked off towards ‘the spectacles’ that overhung the corner of Banff Street and Brooks’ Loan. Craig fell into step with him.

‘That whistle had an official number on it,’ Peter said.

‘An old number.’

‘The lad’s crazy anyway.’

‘Look behind, Peter.’

At a respectful distance Sammy marched along bootless, bare feet matching the constables’ gait, an unmistakable mimicry. He still had his hand to his brow and the whistle in his lips, cheeks huge with the force of the blasts he blew.

‘Cheeky young devil!’

‘Harmless,’ Craig said. ‘Anyway, can you not hear it?’

‘What?’

‘The whistle.’

‘What?’

‘I can – when I listen hard enough.’

‘You’re as daft as he is, then.’

‘I wish I was,’ said Craig. ‘By God, I wish I was.’

The Greenfield had but one park, a modest fifteen acres of lawns, flowerbeds, trees and shrubs. It had been presented to the burgh in the year of 1871 by the family of Sir James Forrester who had been born to a pig-farmer’s wife in a hovel near the Madagascar and, by dint of hard work and imagination, had risen to become a magnate in shipping and had made a vast fortune in trading with Canada. For its size the Forrester Park was excellently well equipped. It had a bandstand, a boating-pond, a playground for children and an imposing statue of Sir James in the centre of a cartwheel of gravel pathways. Towards the river there were groves of willow and great dark banks of evergreens and two great chestnut trees and quiet arbours where lovers, if they were quick, might kiss and touch unseen. Its walks were broad and could accommodate two perambulators riding abreast and there were many sheltered benches along their lengths. While the Forrester did not have the ‘tone’ of the West End or the Botanical Gardens it attracted a fair share of nursemaids and nannies as well as street arabs and old folk and it was to the Forrester that Kirsty wheeled her son to take the air each afternoon when the weather was fine.

She had a need to be out of the house, to be on the move, and she needed time with her baby when she did not have to creep about and remember that Craig was asleep in the front bedroom and wonder if he was being disturbed by kitchen sounds or by Bobby’s occasional wails.

It was Mrs Frew who had presented her with the perambulator, a magnificent carriage-style Cornwall with a joined hood, brass handles and a clip brake. It was quite the handsomest pram in the park, Kirsty felt, and the envy of all the other mothers and nannies. With her strength resumed after the ordeal of that terrible night in March she walked briskly, bowling along the outer walk before she cut down the long avenue that divided the park and linked its two gates. Sometimes, quite often in fact, Nessie Frew would catch a tram up from Walbrook Street and would wait for Kirsty on a bench near the main gate and would walk with her and have a shot with the pram; and sometimes Mrs Frew would bring a picnic in a basket and they would spread a blanket on the grass under the trees and drink tea from a flask or fizzy lemonade and eat seedcake and Nessie Frew would talk and talk and talk and reveal to Kirsty aspects of her character that she had shown to nobody else, not even Hughie, and exchange confidences with the young woman in the assurance that her ‘secrets’ would be safe with her friend; and Bobby, this past week or two, would seem to be listening too as if he found his ‘Aunt Nessie’s’ confessions fascinating, until he was distracted by trembling leaves overhead or the glitter of sunlight on the pond or the sudden whirring flight of a fat pigeon as it swooped down to scrounge for crumbs.

Afternoons in the park meant a lot to Kirsty whether Nessie Frew was with her or not, and she felt restored and strengthened by her jaunts out of the shadow of the tenements, freed for a time from the thin but perceptible tensions of her odd, uncertain ‘marriage’ to Craig. She had come so far since that bitter blue evening when she had led the horse up to Hawkhead, when Clegg had terrified her, and Craig had stood by her. But since then she had glimpsed a world of possibilities, had seen things that she could not have imagined twenty months ago, had met people of a different stamp from the villagers of the Carrick. Perhaps if she had married Craig in Bankhead kirk, all neat and legal, had become his wife in that narrow and familiar landscape she would not have had in her a faint, inconstant yearning, a restlessness that she could not properly define, a need to taste the adventure of romance.

Stern with herself, and loyal, however, she put no names and no faces to that misty feeling, and told herself, sometimes out loud, that Craig loved her as best he could and showed it as best he could and had kept his end of the bargain by providing security and a home.

Craig had been in a jovial mood that morning. He had kissed her, had held Bobby on his knee for three or four minutes while she had fried bacon for breakfast. But Craig had gone off to bed straight after the meal and had been snoring before the Burgh Hall clock had struck seven. She had sat on the low chair by the grate and had uncovered her breasts and had fed Bobby the first of the six small feeds that the senior female nurse at the Samaritan had recommended. Kirsty had no notion of what a ‘small feed’ meant or how to measure one and she let the infant suck until he seemed satisfied. She had no lack of milk, had not, as had at first been feared, become dry in the wake of her ordeal and from loss of blood. Her arm and shoulder had healed rapidly, leaving only slender white scars and an itching that did not seem to want to go away. She felt that she was in good health again and had certainly found energy enough to care for Bobby-Come-Early who needed a great deal of attention in those first months of life.

Kirsty was utterly devoted to her son, possessive but not foolishly so. She did not fly off the handle when Craig lifted him awkwardly from his cot, when Mrs Frew planted scores of moist kisses all over his brow, when Mrs Swanston prodded him critically and declared that he was not very sturdy and would be lucky to survive a winter, not even when young Calum Piper tried to lull him to sleep by playing a reel on the chanter right into the hood of the pram. Even so, she preferred to have him all to herself, to revel in the unique intimacy of their relationship and not have to divide her attention with Craig or anyone else.

On that beautiful summer’s afternoon there seemed to be no threat at all to Bobby’s comfort; no wind, no trace of rain, no acrid drift of smoke from the tannery, not even the anvil clang of the foundry or the pounding of its massive steam hammer to make him blink. She had him peacefully to herself and experienced a touch of contentment which some fortunate women substituted for happiness without ever knowing the difference.

She scudded along the pavement to the park at a speed that, in six months or so, would have Bobby sitting up and prattling with delight. Now, though, he lay on his side, snug under lace and protected from the sun by a canopy of pale brown Holland. His eyes were open, that dark little glint in them, and there was no sound of protest on his lips. Perhaps Bobby too was content, Kirsty told herself, though she could no more tell with him than she could with Craig what it was that swung his little moods about, that made him girn at one minute and lie quiet and good as gold the next.

She bowled through the gates of the Forrester and glanced at once towards the bench where Mrs Frew sometimes sat.

Nessie Frew was not there today.

David Lockhart was. He had his aunt’s wicker basket on his knee and a book in his hand. He wore a jacket of cool grey linen and black shoes. He did not seem to need to see Kirsty to know that she had arrived and he turned at once and got to his feet, put the book into the basket and, smiling, came forward to greet her.

Kirsty flushed. It had been three months now since she had last seen David. He had come to call on her during her stay in the Samaritan but she had been too groggy to do more than thank him for saving her life, and saving her baby too. He had been modest, had protested the importance of his role in the events of that night, had left a bunch of Dutch daffodils by the side of her bed and had gone back, she supposed, to his own sort of life.

He had written to her once, through Aunt Nessie Frew, and Kirsty had written back to him, a short note of gratitude. Since then she had heard news of him only through Mrs Frew, and not much of that. For a moment, though, when she saw him there in the sunlight she felt that she had known him all her life long, that she had never been without him in her heart. She knew instantly that there was no sin and no deception in her feelings for him, only that their lives were out of kilter and all that she was and all that she supposed David to be would keep them in this innocent state, meeting and parting, yet never being quite separate again.

She stared at him, then dropped the brake on the pram.

David put his fingers self-consciously to his collar.

‘Don’t you like it?’ he asked.

‘I didn’t realise that you’d become a minister.’

‘Well, not quite the genuine article, not yet.’

‘But the dog-collar—?’

‘Brand new. I bought it off the shelf this morning.’