Peter May - The Lewis Man

Tommy was a short man with a round, shining face beneath a smooth, shiny head. His shirt collar was frayed. He wore a grey pullover with egg stains down the front, tucked into trousers a size too big that were held up high around his stomach by a belt tightened one notch too many. There were holes worn in the toes of his carpet slippers.

He ushered them into a narrow hallway with dark wallpaper, and a front room which probably trapped the sun during the day, but which was dingy now in the dying evening light. A smell of stale cooking fat permeated the flat, along with the faintly unpleasant perfume of body odour.

But Tommy was a man of cheerful disposition, with sharp dark eyes that shone at them through frameless glasses. Fin figured that he was probably in his mid to late late sixties. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’

‘That would be nice,’ Marsaili said, and he talked to them through the open door of the tiny kitchen scullery as he boiled a kettle and brought out cups and saucers and teabags.

‘I’m on my own these days, ever since my missus died about eight years ago. More than thirty years we were married. Still can’t get used to being without her.’

And Fin thought that there was a certain tragic irony in both starting and finishing life all alone.

Marsaili said, ‘No children?’

He appeared at the door, smiling. But it was a smile laden with regret. ‘Afraid not. One of the big disappointments of my life. Never having children, and being able to give them the kind of childhood I would have wanted for myself.’ He turned back into the scullery. ‘Not that I could have given them that much on a bank clerk’s salary.’ He chuckled. ‘Imagine, a lifetime spent counting money, and all of it belonging to someone else.’

He brought their tea through in china cups, and they perched on the threadbare fabric of ancient armchairs dressed with grubby white antimacassars. A black-and-white framed photograph of Tommy and what had to be his wife stood on the mantelpiece above a tiled fireplace where a gas fire glowed dully in the gloom. The photographer had captured the mutual affection in their eyes, and Fin was moved to think that Tommy had, at least, found some happiness in his life. ‘When were you at The Dean, Tommy?’

He shook his head. ‘Couldn’t give you exact dates. But I was there for a few years in the fifties. It was run by a brute of a man, then. Anderson, his name was. For someone in charge of a home supposed to provide comfort and refuge for orphans, he didn’t like children very much. A foul temper, he had. I remember one time he took all our things and burned them in the central heating furnace. Retribution for having fun.’ He chuckled at the memory.

From somewhere he was able to find humour in the story, and Fin marvelled at the human capacity for making light of the worst that life could throw at you. An endless resilience. It was all about survival, he supposed. If you gave in, even for a moment, you would be dragged down into the dark.

‘Of course, I wasn’t only at The Dean. You got moved around quite a bit. It was hard to keep friends, so you just stopped making them. And you never let yourself hope there might be an end to it. Even when the grown-ups came to look at us, and pick out one or two for adoption.’ He laughed. ‘They wouldn’t do it now, but in those days they used to give us a good scrubbing, get us all dressed up in our best togs, and stand us in a line while ladies smelling of French perfume and men that reeked of cigars came and examined us, like sheep at a market. Of course, it was always the girls they picked. Wee boys like me had no chance.’ He leaned forward. ‘Can I refill your cups?’

‘No thanks.’ Marsaili put a hand over her still half-full cup. Fin shook his head.

Tommy stood. ‘I’ll have another one myself. If I have to get up in the night, I might as well have something in the tank to empty.’ He returned to the scullery to bring the kettle back to the boil. He raised his voice to be heard above it. ‘There was one place I was in that got visited by Roy Rogers. Remember him? Famous cowboy he was, in films and TV. Came touring round Scotland with his horse, Trigger. Stopped off at our orphanage and picked out one of the lassies. Adopted her and took her back to America. Imagine! One minute you’re a poor wee orphan lassie in a home in Scotland, the next you’re a rich man’s daughter in the wealthiest country in the world.’ He came back out with a fresh cup in his hand. ‘Of such things are dreams made, eh?’ He sat down, then suddenly stood again. ‘What am I thinking? I never even offered you a biscuit.’

Fin and Marsaili politely declined and he sat down once more.

‘When I got too old for the orphanages they put me in a hostel in Collinton Road. They were still talking then about an older boy who’d come to stay for a short time about ten years before. Returning home from the navy, and his family had no room for him. Something like that. Big Tam, he was called. A handsome big fella by all accounts. One of the other boys had heard there were auditions in town for the chorus of South Pacific and suggested Big Tam put himself up for it.’ Tommy grinned. ‘You know what’s coming.’

Neither Fin nor Marsaili had any idea.

‘Big Tam was Sean Connery.’ Tommy laughed. ‘Big star. And we shared the same hostel! He came back to Scotland for the opening of the Scottish Parliament. First time a parliament had sat in Edinburgh for nearly three hundred years. I went along, too. Historical moment, eh? Not to be missed. Anyway, I see Sean as he’s going in. And I wave at him from the crowd and shout, “How are you doing, Big Tam?”’ Tommy smiled. ‘He didn’t recognize me, of course.’

Fin leaned forward. ‘Was The Dean a Catholic home, Tommy?’

Tommy’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. ‘Christ, no! That Mr Anderson hated Catholics. Hated everything and everyone, come to think of it.’

Marsaili said, ‘Were there ever any Catholics in the home?’

‘Oh, aye, but they never stayed. The priests would come and fetch them and take them away to some Catholic place. There was three of them once, I remember, got whipped off double quick after a boy died on the bridge.’

‘What bridge was that?’ Fin asked, his interest suddenly piqued.

‘The Dean Bridge. Crosses the Water of Leith just above the Dean Village. Must be a hundred-foot drop.’

‘What happened?’

‘Oh, nobody knew for sure. There was lots of gossip and speculation, of course. Some bet, or dare, about walking across the ledge on the outside of the parapet. Something like that. Anyway, some of The Dean kids were involved. Sneaked out one night, and a village boy fell to his death. Two days later those three Catholic kids were gone. Taken away in a big black car by all accounts.’

Fin felt a stillness in his heart, that sense of being close enough to the truth to touch it. ‘Do you remember their names?’

‘Oh,’ Tommy shook his head. ‘It was a long time ago, Mr Macleod. There was a lassie. Cathy, or Catherine, I think it was. And two brothers. One of them could have been John. Maybe Johnny.’ He paused, searching back in his mind. ‘I do remember quite clearly the name of the boy who died, though. Patrick Kelly. Everyone knew the Kelly boys, of course. They lived in the Dean Village, and their dad was involved in some kind of criminal gang. Been to prison, they said. The boys were right tough nuts. You stayed out their way if you could.’ He tilted his head in a moment of lost reflection. ‘A bunch of them came up to the Dean a few days later looking for the daftie.’

Marsaili frowned. ‘The daftie?’

‘Aye, the brother. What was his name …?’ Recollection broke suddenly in his eyes, like dawn light. ‘Peter! That was it. Johnny’s brother. Nice laddie, but not quite right in the head.’