Catherine Cookson - The Gambling Man

‘But everything is included. And a permit to ferry stuff up and down the river.’

‘And what’s the son wanting for it?’

‘Thirty-five pounds.’

‘ What! ’ It was a shout. ‘You havin’ me on?’

‘No, I’m not, that’s cheap. There’s the boat, and all the wood. And you haven’t seen his tools. Then there’s the furniture. There’s three rooms up there, I’ve been in them. He used to give me a cup of tea now and again. He lived on his own. They’re big rooms. You don’t get much of an idea from here.’

‘But there’s no boat, he must have had a boat.’

‘Aye, his son took that.’

‘That son knows what he’s doing. Has he been pumping you?’

‘No. Why no, man, why would he pump me? Only that he knew I used to talk to his old man. He came here once or twice when I was in the yard and when he saw me t’other day he told me. He said—’ Now Jimmy turned away and walked up towards the house, his body seeming to rock more than his bowed legs and Rory called after him, ‘Well, go on, finish telling me what he said.’

‘It doesn’t matter; as you said, it’s a dream.’ And now he swung round and stabbed his finger towards Rory as he ended, ‘But some day, mark my words, I’ll make it come true. I don’t know how but I will. I’ll have a place of me own where I can build a boat an’ ply a trade. You’ll see. You’ll see.’

‘All right, all right.’ Rory walked towards him now. ‘No need to bawl your head off.’

‘You bawled first.’

‘Well, I had a right.’ He now passed Jimmy and walked up and into the end of the slipway, over which the building extended, and looked towards the ladder that was fixed to the wall and ended in a trap-door, and he called back over his shoulder in an amused tone, ‘Is this how you get in?’

‘No, of course, it isn’t,’ Jimmy said scornfully; ‘there’s steps up and a door, you saw them. But—’ And now his eyes were bright again as he went on, ‘I can show you inside, I know how to get in through the hatch.’

‘What we waitin’ for, then, if it’s going to cost us nothin’? So go on, get up.’

The desire was strong in him to please this brother of his and to keep his dream alive for a little longer. He watched him run up the vertical ladder with the agility of a monkey. He saw him put his flat hand in the middle of the trap-door, jerk it twice to the side, and then push it upwards. He stood at the foot of the ladder and watched him disappear through the hole. Then he was climbing upwards, but with no agility. He wasn’t used to crawling up walls he told himself.

When he emerged into the room he straightened up and looked about him but said nothing. Just as Jimmy had said, there were some good pieces of furniture here. He was amazed at the comfort of the room. The whole floor space was covered with rope mats fashioned in intricate patterns. There was a high-barred fireplace with an oven to the side of it and a hook above it for a spit or kettle. A good chest of drawers stood against one wall, and by it a black oak chest with brass bindings. There was a big oval table with a central leg in the middle of the room, and the top had been polished to show the grain. There were three straight-backed wooden chairs and a rocking chair, and all around the walls hung relics from ships: brass compasses, wheels, old charts. He walked slowly towards the door that led into the next room. It was a bedroom. There was a plank bed in one corner but slung between the walls was a hammock. And here was another seaman’s chest, not a common seaman’s chest but something that a man of captain’s rank might have used, and taking up most of the opposite end of the room was a tallboy.

‘It’s good stuff, isn’t it? Look at his tools.’ Jimmy heaved up the lid of the chest to show an array of shining tools hung meticulously in order around the sides of the chest.

‘Aye, it’s good stuff. He was no dock scum was your Mr Kilpatrick. Everything orderly and shipshape.’

‘Of course he wasn’t dock scum. He was a gentleman . . . well, I mean not gentry, but a gentleman. He had been to sea in his young days, ran off, so he told me. His people were comfortable. They took his son when his wife died, that’s why the son doesn’t want anything to do with the water front. He’s in business, drapery.’

‘What’s up above?’

‘It’s a long room, it runs over both of these. It’s full of all kinds of things, maps and papers and books and things. He could read. Oh, he was a great reader.’

Rory looked down on Jimmy. He looked at him for a long moment before he was able to say, ‘I’m sorry.’

‘What’ve you to be sorry for?’ Jimmy had turned away and walked towards the window where he stood looking out on to the river.

‘You know what I’m sorry for, I’m sorry you can’t have it. If I had the money I’d buy it for you this minute, I would.’

He watched his brother’s face slowly turn towards him. The expression was soft again, his tone warm. ‘I know you would. That’s why I wanted you to see it an’ to hear you say that, ’cos I know if you had it you would give it me, lend it me.’

Rory went and sat in the rocking chair and began to push himself slowly backwards and forwards. Thirty-five pounds. A few nights of good play somewhere and he could make that. He once made thirteen pounds at one sitting, but had lost it afore he left. But if he were to win again he’d smilingly take his leave. That’s if he wasn’t playing against sailors, for some of them would cut you up for tuppence.

Suddenly jumping up from the chair, he said, ‘Come on.’

‘Where?’

‘Never mind where. Just come on, let’s get out of here.’ But before dropping down through the trapdoor he looked about him once again as he thought, It’ll kill two birds with the one stone. Janie. Janie would love it here, she would be in her element. There was the room up there, that would do Jimmy. He closed his eyes and shook his head. He was getting as barmy as Jimmy . . . But there was nothing like trying.

When they were out of the yard and on the road again he stopped and, looking down at Jimmy, said, ‘Now I want you to go straight home. You can say that you saw me, and I was with a fellow. We . . . we were going to see the turns later on. Aye, that’s what to say, say we were going to the theatre later on.’

‘You’re goin’ in a game?’

‘Aye, if I can find a good one.’

‘Aw, Rory.’

‘Now, now, don’t get bright-eyed, nowt may come of it. But I’ll have a try. And if we could put something down to secure it—’ he punched Jimmy on the shoulder—’the fellow might wait, take it in bits like, eh? If he’s not short of a bob he could wait, couldn’t he? And it isn’t everybody that’s going to jump at a place like that. But . . . but as I said, don’t get too bright-eyed. Just tell them what I told you, and if I shouldn’t be back afore they go to bed, tell them . . . well, tell them not to wait up.’

‘Aye, Rory, aye, I’ll do that. And . . . and you be careful.’

‘What have I got to be careful of?’

‘You hear things, I mean along the front, about the schools an’ things. There are some rough customers about.’

‘I’m a bit of one meself.’

‘You’re all right.’

They looked at each other, the undersized bow-legged boy with the angelic face and his thick-set straight-backed, arrogantly attractive-looking half- brother, and each liked what he saw: Rory, the blind admiration in the boy’s face, and Jimmy, the strength, determination and apparent fearlessness in this man he loved above all others.

‘Go on with you, go on.’ Rory thrust out his hand, and Jimmy turned away. Again he was running, and not until he had disappeared from view into the main thoroughfare did Rory swing about and stride along the waterfront in the direction of the pier. But before he came to the high bank known as the Lawe, on which stood the superior houses with their view of the sea and the North and South piers, and which were occupied by ships’ captains and respectable merchants of the town, he turned off and into a street which, from its disreputable appearance, should never have been allowed to lie at the skirt of such a neighbourhood as the Lawe. There were only eight houses in this street and they all had walled back yards and all the doors were locked. It was on the third yard door that he knocked, a sharp knock, rat-tat a-tat, tat-tat, and after some minutes it was furtively opened by a man hardly bigger than a dwarf.