William McIlvanney - The Papers of Tony Veitch

It was an advantage Charlie never abused. Even now, in the security of the locked pub, he measured his participation carefully, knowing how enjoyment leaves you open. He had drunk a couple of moderate whiskies and joined quietly in the chorus of one of the songs.

It wasn’t that he knew his place so much as he knew where it wasn’t, which was hospital. This was Dave McMaster’s event. Charlie was content to listen to yet another of Dave’s stories.

‘So they’re along at the Barras, right? One of them’s dressed up as Santa Claus. A hundred-weight of cotton wool an’ Army surplus wellies. The ither yin’s got the toays, things like dinky cars an’ half-chewed bubblegum. Santa lures them in an’ his hander takes the money. All day they’re at it, an’ all the time they’re nippin’ intae the pub tae get mair central heating. Well. By about shuttin’ time they’re in again. Divvyin’ up. Only the helper’s doin’ a two-tae-me, wan-tae-you job on Santa. Santa gets slightly annoyed. Wallop! Can ye imagine it? A present from S. Claus. Then he’s tattooing his ribs wi’ the wellies. Swearin’ enough to set his beard on fire. Funniest bit wis when the bouncer threw him out. Santa’s lyin’ on the pavement an’ the bouncer’s shouting, “Ye’re barred, Santa! Ye’re barred.” The barring of Santa Claus.’

Charlie shared the laughter but not the abandonment that went with it in the others. Charlie wasn’t just participating in the evening, he was understanding it. The other three were paying court to Dave.

The girl was his. Every time he talked, her eyes ate him whole. She laughed at his jokes as if laughing was a contest. With her polite accent, her fancy clothes and her blonde sophistication, she belonged in the Crib like a virgin in a brothel. But then there had to be more to her than first impressions suggested. She had been around Dave for a month now. Whatever was turning her on to him, it couldn’t be his suave manners.

Dave McMaster was a new version of an old type. Charlie had seen it many times, the tearaway with ambitions to have a reputation that went further than his friends, to promote violence from a hobby to a career.

In a fight between two young rival Possil teams one night, Dave had gone berserk with a bayonet, scattering more than six of them. Charlie could imagine how he must have wakened up next morning to a reputation as demanding as a heroin-addiction. He had progressed from there but Charlie still had his doubts about him. Dave had come on fast. He was now right-hand man to Hook Hawkins, who among other things minded four pubs roughly in the Saracen area for John Rhodes, including the Crib. Dave was ambitious. What Charlie wondered was whether his ambition wasn’t too heavy for him.

None of the others seemed to be sharing Charlie’s doubts. They were as critical as a fan-club. Besides the girl, there was Macey, a small-time break-in man, and a boy called Sammy that Charlie didn’t know. Probably Macey was trying to get his reputation to go further than it could on its own by giving it a tow from Dave’s.

Sammy was a tourist, somebody Macey had introduced. He looked like a cousin from the country. His eyes were shining with appreciation of Dave’s toughness. He was probably the kind of gruesome simpleton who would have bought a ticket for a road accident. He desperately wanted to be one of them but he couldn’t help himself. He was so square you could have laid him out and used him for a table.

He had tried to tell a funny story and it came out roughly like someone describing a golf-ball hollow by hollow. But he could sing, a light, sweet voice that didn’t deserve him. It had occurred to Charlie that Sammy should have stayed home in bed and just sent tapes.

‘It’s true,’ Dave was saying. ‘When they went to see him, he had a turning-lathe in the bedroom. Didny even know what it was for. Just stole it in case it might be valuable. First time he knew whit it was was when he heard the charge.’

Their laughter didn’t measure the funniness of what was being said, just the authority with which Dave had said it. He had a confidence which could make an atmosphere where anything he said grew funny, although transplanted into a retelling it might wither into nothing. They were still laughing when the knock came at the street door.

Dave made a face into the pause.

‘Check it, Charlie,’ he said. ‘Unless it’s somebody special, they’re bombed out.’

Charlie went through and opened the door, keeping it on the chain.

Through the gap, he saw Cam Colvin. There were two people behind him but Charlie couldn’t see who they were. He didn’t have to. Cam Colvin was enough. Charlie wished John Rhodes were here.

‘Mr Colvin. Can ah help ye?’

‘You can help yourself by opening the door. Unless you want your pub to be open-plan.’

Charlie knew his duties, and they didn’t include standing up to Cam Colvin. Dave had said only to let him in if it was somebody special. Cam qualified. Charlie slid the chain.

Behind Cam, Mickey Ballater and Panda Paterson came in. Mickey had been out of Glasgow for a while, was less well known than he had been, but Charlie had a long memory. Panda was named after his deceptively comforting appearance, a hulking heaviness topped by a roundly innocent face. He might be a teddy-bear but the claws were real.

Charlie’s face showed none of his surprise at their presence. Neither of them was a Colvin man. Charlie, aware of the imminence of Paddy Collins’ death, could only suppose that they had turned up at the Vicky to prove their goodwill to Cam, like a retrospective alibi. But surely Ballater didn’t come up from England just to do that. Both of them had known Paddy Collins but that didn’t explain why they were here. Charlie didn’t like it. He had a fairly precise knowledge of which people belonged with which and strange groupings always upset him. They usually meant trouble. He locked the door and followed them through and went behind the bar.

Cam Colvin stopped a little way from where the others were sitting. They saw a medium-sized man in a Crombie coat. All his clothes looked expensive but just a bit behind current fashions, as if he had been reading The Tailor and Cutter in a dentist’s waiting-room. His hair was slightly long but carefully cut. Charlie wondered if they knew what they were looking at.

In the shifting league-table of professional Glaswegian hard men, established informally by those who know, in pub conversations and awesome anecdotes, Cam Colvin was currently at the top. The qualities most commonly cited as justifying his place there, like goals for and goals against, were his extreme viciousness and his absolute caution. He had a name for acting with brutal exactitude, like a paranoid computer.

For him to threaten his way into a pub minded by John Rhodes didn’t indicate carelessness. It meant there was something very serious on his mind.

‘Cam,’ Dave said. ‘Charlie, get the man a drink. What’s it to be?’

Charlie didn’t move. He knew who was giving the orders.

‘I’m looking for Hook.’

‘He’s not in the night, Cam. What’s it about?’

‘I didn’t say I was looking for you. I’ll explain it to him. Where is he?’

The voice was light and flat and it made the talking clock sound effusive.

‘Not a clue,’ Dave said. ‘Ah don’t think he’s at home the night. Can ah give him a message?’

Cam walked past Dave through to the other room. He came back into the doorway.

‘Put on the lights,’ he said to Charlie.

Charlie did. While Cam was gone, Panda Paterson was studying the girl as if she was on the menu.

‘What’s your name?’ he asked her.

‘None of yer business,’ Sammy said.

The sound of his voice shocked even him. It had happened by a kind of spontaneous combustion, an accident of the atmosphere. He had become so involved in his awareness of this place, which he had heard of, in the presence of Dave and the others that he had spoken somehow from his sense of them rather than himself. He was left looking round glumly as if trying to find whose voice had come out of his mouth. Panda was studying him like a culture.