The Piper's Tune (20 page)

‘He isn't here then?' Cissie whispered. ‘He didn't come?'

‘Who?'

‘Forbes.'

‘No,' said Lindsay. ‘Didn't he tell you he wasn't coming?'

‘He was vague about it. You of all people know what Forbes is like. Actually, we don't have much to say to each other these days. I mean, we don't see that much of him at home.' Cissie's question had a hint of point: ‘I suppose you do know where he is this evening?'

‘Oh, yes,' said Lindsay. ‘A prior engagement.'

‘Hah!' said Cissie.

‘One of his college friends has been signed on by Cunard and has taken his classmates out to celebrate.'

‘They'll have gone drinking, I expect.'

‘Dinner, I believe, at Miss Cranston's.'

‘I just hope I don't have to put Forbes to bed afterwards.'

‘Come now,' Lindsay said. ‘Forbes isn't a boozer.'

‘That's true,' Cissie conceded, then added, ‘Well, at least you know where he is and who he's with.'

‘I'm not Forbes's keeper, you know,' Lindsay said.

‘Which is probably just as well,' said Cissie as Mr Dambmann, leader of the orchestra, appeared from the wings, and the audience broke into applause.

*   *   *

‘Greetings to you, Bertie,' Forbes McCulloch said affably. ‘Sure and I didn't expect to see you here on a Saturday night.'

‘Well, I…'

‘Riding your luck, are you?'

‘Well…'

‘Where is she?'

‘Downstairs.'

‘In the public?'

‘No, in the street.'

‘In the street! That's takin' a bit of a risk, old man,' Forbes said. ‘I mean, there's no saying what she might not get up to in the street.'

‘Please, it's my daughter you're talking about.'

‘All the more reason to bring her up.'

‘How can I? Bolitho will have my guts if I do.'

‘Not if she refrains from shaking her little basket, he won't.'

‘She wants to see you,' Albert said.

‘Thought that might be the case.'

‘She insisted on coming. I told her you wouldn't be here, but…'

‘But I am here, aren't I, old chap? Ready and waiting.'

‘Look, Sylvie's my responsibility, a – an innocent child.'

‘No, Bertie, whatever else she may be,' Forbes said, ‘she isn't a child.'

‘I don't want her to come to any harm.'

‘Then bring her up.'

Albert shook his head.

‘Can't,' he said. ‘Daren't.'

‘Who are you really afraid of? Me, or Billy Bolitho?'

It was on the tip of Albert's tongue to confess that he was more afraid of Sylvie than anyone else, but somehow that did not seem like the sort of thing you should be admitting to a stranger. Billy Bolitho's ladies were strong in number, for the upper room was crowded with gentlemen intent on pleasure. Albert had never been through the curtain at the rear of the room, had never been seriously tempted by the painted whores, even though some of them were hardly much older than Sylvie. He looked across the tables to the bar where Billy Bolitho, minus apron, was bossing the barmaids about and, at the same time, joshing the customers. Even when he laughed Mr Bolitho managed to look hostile. He was manager, and co-owner along with Mr Joseph Kirby whom nobody could recall having seen about the place in many a long year.

Forbes said, ‘I'll go down and fetch her, shall I?'

‘No,' Albert said. ‘Please don't.'

‘God, what a timid chap you are, old son,' Forbes told him. ‘Aren't you going to have a flutter since you're here?'

‘Not with Sylvie waiting in the—'

‘She could be my guest. I'm not afraid of Billy Bolitho, even if you are.'

‘She just wants to see you.'

Forbes grinned, showing what Albert interpreted as a dimple. It didn't do to study the Irishman too closely; with his long, dark lashes and charming smile it would be all too easy to fall under his spell, even if you were a man. He wore a fawn-coloured sporting coat and a high-necked pullover, no collar, no cravat. He had the appearance of a wealthy farmer or landowner, older, much older, than his years. Albert knew who Forbes McCulloch really was, though, and what his connections were and that there was more brass than copper behind him.

‘Well then,' Forbes said, ‘why don't you have a shake of the dice if that's your fancy, and I'll go down and keep your little pet lamb company for a quarter or half an hour?'

‘Did you come here just to see her?'

‘Don't flatter yourself – or her, Bertie. I came here because I'm off the leash for once and fancied a bit of a drink and a bit of a spin.'

Albert glanced wistfully around the mirrored room. He loved Kirby's, had loved it from the moment he had been in a position to fork out the stiffish annual fee and elevate himself from the public bar to the company of the gentlemen upstairs. No riffraff here: it was, in its way, more respectable than the Western Club – or so Albert liked to believe. Some came to drink, some to gamble, others to seek consolation with the ladies, so free and uninhibited in their behaviour that only a prude could object to them.

All God's children, Albert thought, each and every one of them.

He heard the toothy rattle of the dice-cup, the snicker of billiard balls on the long green tables, breathed in the rich effluvia of perfume and cologne, cigar smoke and whisky and the blond beer that the barmaids drew so expertly into tall fluted-glass steins, frothy with head, beaded and beautifully chilled.

‘Oh, sod it!' Albert said. ‘Half an hour then. No, twenty minutes. But don't bring her up here, please. I need your word that you won't do that?'

‘You have it, Bertie,' Forbes said.

‘And don't…'

‘Pardon me?'

‘Don't, you know, do anything to scare her.'

‘Heaven,' Forbes McCulloch said, ‘forfend!'

*   *   *

He came down the steep staircase towards her. Three men had gone in and up just before him and, seeing his approach, had left the door open. She watched him from her stance in the lane, from under the hissing gas lamp on the wall. Two of the men had addressed her, had made suggestions that she was too mature to find offensive and, if truth be known, had actually found rather flattering. She had told them she was waiting for her father and could not go with them because her father would be very annoyed if she did.

‘Aye, and who's your pa then?' they had asked her.

‘Mr Bolitho,' she had answered.

They had gone scurrying away like frightened rabbits and had opened the door with a key and then she had seen him, Irish, coming down the stairs.

He had his hands in his pockets and he was dancing. Dancing down the steep wooden stairs with all the agility of the brown-skinned man, an acrobat, that the London branch of the Coral Strand had sent to Glasgow to put on a show last summer, to drum up contributions for the fund. He looked dark too, dark and acrobatic. He looked quick and rhythmic and poised. His hat was tipped back from his forehead. His lips were pursed as if he were whistling a tune that only he could hear, a tune to which his feet kept time.

She felt the breath go out of her at the sight of him.

God had answered her prayer. What she was doing could not be wrong if God had answered her prayer.

He was here, he was coming for her.

Her dandy, her destiny.

‘Hello, sweetheart.' He stepped across the lane, tugging his hands from his pockets: Sylvie felt as if he were reaching for her, reaching out to claim her. ‘Dada's got business to attend to. He sent me down to look after you.'

‘Yes.'

He offered his arm, not his hand.

She took it naturally, fell easily into step with him, not skipping.

‘Where are you taking me?' she asked, at length.

‘You'll see,' Forbes answered, grinning, and led her briskly round the corner into St George's Road.

*   *   *

It had been the devil of a week, the devil of a journey home.

Tom had persuaded Martin to leave Portsmouth before the horse-power trial which had taken place in seas that Melrose deemed ‘moderate' but that seemed a little more steep than that to Tom. Fortunately the wind had flattened before the
Banshee
had steamed out into the Channel for her coal-endurance test and the run to Bilbao and back – a distance of over a thousand nautical miles, a fair haul for an old torpedo-boat in the spring season – had been completed almost without incident. He had nursed the boilers as best he could and had had MacDougal stand guard over the navy stokers who were inclined to be lazy and erratic. And there had been a spot of bother during the brief coaling dock at Bilbao when one of the stokers had somehow lost a tooth and MacDougal had somehow acquired a shiner – neither mishap being related to the other, of course.

On returning to Portsmouth, it had taken him half a day to check his figures against those on Jason Melrose's records and sign for the accuracy of the reports, then MacDougal and he had hot-footed it to London just in time to catch a Friday-night sleeper to Glasgow. He had arrived, bleary and stiff, in Central Station in the grey light of morning, had bid the foreman farewell and, indulging himself for once, had hired a hackney to take him out to Queensview which he reached just as breakfast was being cleared away.

Mrs Grogan, the landlady, had been kind enough to find him a spare plate of porridge and a couple of fried eggs, however, and he had eaten alone in the dining-room, relieved to be back where he belonged.

His mail, such as it was, had been put in his room and, as soon as he had washed, shaved and changed his clothing, he carried the letters into the parlour, seated himself in the dusty moquette armchair in the window alcove, lit a cigarette and opened the first of the three envelopes.

It was, as he'd expected, the monthly bill from his sister-in-law, Florence. He cast his eye down the list of items: camisole, stockings, a moirette silk petticoat – whatever that was – at twelve shillings and ninepence, Nainsook knickers at five shillings and sixpence. Tom didn't doubt the accuracy of Florence's accounting – purchase receipts were enclosed – but he did sometimes wonder where the great heap of clothing that Sylvie had acquired at his expense was stored, for the Hartnells' apartment was small and spartan. He checked Florence's addition, found it correct, sighed and put the bill to one side to deal with shortly.

He opened the second envelope: a personal memo from Perry Perrino scripted in bright green ink informing him that there would be a massed choirs practice in St Andrew's Halls at two o'clock on Sunday afternoon and that he, Perry, hoped that he, Tom, would be able to attend.

Pleased that he had not been left out, Tom put that letter aside, too.

He opened the third envelope and gave a little grunt of surprise: a printed invitation to a musical evening with Mr Owen Franklin at Harper's Hill. Across the bottom of the card Owen Franklin had scribbled: ‘Do hope you can come, Tom,' as if he were already one of the inner circle and deserved the old boy's personal attention.

He lifted his cigarette from the ashtray and inhaled deeply.

This Sunday, ‘The Cameronian's Dream'.

Next Saturday, an ‘At Home' at Harper's Hill.

By gum! Tom thought. Things
are
looking up in the world.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Floating Capital

‘What,' Lindsay said, ‘do you want to do this afternoon? Go out for a walk?'

‘In this dreary weather?' Forbes said. ‘No, I'm perfectly happy to sit tight and wait for Runciman to fetch us afternoon tea.'

‘Miss Runciman.'

‘Miss Runciman then.'

Forbes stretched an arm along the back of the sofa and toyed with a lock of Lindsay's hair. She felt no particular excitement. She knew by experience that nothing would come of his flirting. She would have preferred to be out of doors, even if only for a short promenade along Brunswick Crescent. Forbes was right, though; the weather was not conducive to exercise.

A mild, misty drizzle enveloped Clydeside. Drab evergreens and trees not yet in bud dripped moisture, the big windows of the drawing-room were opaque with condensation. Church that morning had smelled distinctly damp, not wintry but bluff and loamy. The weather had failed to quash Papa's enthusiasm for the massed choir rehearsal, however. He had hurried off straight from kirk to catch a bite of lunch at Harper's Hill before Donald and he walked the short distance to St Andrew's Halls together.

Forbes had appeared at the front door about half past two o'clock. Miss Runciman had shown him into the drawing-room.

Lindsay had been been upstairs in the library engrossed in the latest issue of
The Shipbuilder
when Miss Runciman, wearing her everlasting smile, had announced Forbes's arrival. Showing no sign of annoyance at the interruption, Lindsay went downstairs at once, prepared to behave as if she were overjoyed. The sight of Forbes in his Sunday best had given her a lift, for however tedious she found his conversations of late his charm more than made up for it.

By half past three, though, she was bored again. She was loath to admit even to herself that she took less and less pleasure in Forbes's company these days. She still loved him, of course she did, but she could hardly recall the magnetism that had once attracted her to him.

He toyed with her hair, then, letting his hand slide from her shoulder, appeared to lose interest. He rolled out of the sofa, put his hands in his trouser pockets and meandered to the window.

Then he said, ‘Are you in a position to get married yet?'

He jingled coins in his pockets and did not seem in the least interested in her reply.

‘What do you mean, Forbes, “in a position”? Of course I'm in a position to get married. I'm single and over twenty-one.'