Vi sighed, shaking her head. You really have got a cheek but I’m no kidding you. She stared at him: Are you only nineteen?
Naw, twenty.
Twenty. So you’re older than him are you?
About six months.
Is that the truth?
Christ sake Vi.
Well sometimes you dont know with you.
He sniffed and stared away, soon he dropped his gaze to the fireplace. There was a chip on the end of his fork; he ate it, glancing sideways. Kirsty still seemed to be engrossed in the picture book. And Vi had resumed eating. Listen, he muttered, you’re only two years older than me.
Am I?
Aye.
How do you know?
I just know.
Who told you?
He shrugged.
Who told you?
Vi, there’s no point worrying about ages.
No point worrying about ages? what you talking about?
There’s just no point worrying about it.
Who’s worrying about it?
You are, Christ, the way you’re going on. I knew it was you when Joe asked me right away back when we were up the Royal, I knew it, I twigged right away. Tammas shook his head and he lifted the plate from his knees and laid it on the fireplace. He reached for his cigarettes from the mantelpiece.
Vi was watching him. You’ve no finished eating yet.
I know.
Tammas, dont act like a wean.
I’m no acting like a wean. It’s no me that’s bloody — Christ! He shook his head and stuck the cigarette in his mouth and fumbled open the matchbox. It’s no me, he said.
Tammas, you’ve hardly touched your food.
Sorry.
It’s a waste of money but so it is.
He nodded. I’ll pay you for it next time I’m over.
O. Vi sniffed and she stood up, gripping her plate and cutlery. She stepped round in the direction of the sink. Tammas sat smoking and staring at the electric bars glow. And when is the next time you’ll be over?
Pardon?
Quite plain.
He swivelled and made as though to stand to his feet but she waved him back down and he continued to sit as he was. Quite plain, she said: When is the next time you’ll be over?
The next time?
O God the bloody next time, the N.E.X.T., the next time, the bloody next time!
The end of the week. I’ll be over the end of the week. Christ, I’ll just. . the end of the week.
She had raised her arm and shut her eyelids and he got up and went over to her but he did not touch her. She opened her eyelids and said: You’re blocking the view.
Vi.
You’re blocking the view.
He stepped to the side, leaned his hand on the back of the settee, staring at her. Vi turned to face the sink. She lifted the teapot and asked, Want more tea?
No really
She nodded.
I dont feel like it.
She nodded again. Maybe you’re as well going.
D’you want me to?
O God. . She put down the teapot.
Do you want me to go?
Do what you bloody like, she said and turned abruptly, walking past him to sit where she had been sitting before.
Tammas waited a moment then he coughed and he stretched across for his cigarettes and matches.
Kirsty was looking at him, the biscuit showing in her hand.
Then Vi muttered, Remember your jacket.
He walked to the door, into the lobby, uplifted the jerkin from the peg there, having left the door ajar. He hesitated but only a moment, he unlocked the front door and stepped outside onto the landing, and closed the door, staring at the letterbox. He went downstairs quickly though only one step at a time and on arrival at close level he paused, and stayed, facing back up the space right the whole way up to the top. When he reached the closemouth he stopped again; he shook his head, sighing, and he muttered, For fuck sake. . and rubbed the corners of his eye sockets with the thumb and forefinger of his left hand. Then he felt into each of the pockets in his jeans and then the same with his jerkin. Snowflakes were landing inside the close. He zipped up the jerkin.
It was lying quite thickly, making the different sounds dull so that when a vehicle passed it seemed to do so in silence. When he stepped off the pavement a faint crunching noise came from the snow drifted in at the kerb.
He was walking at a steady pace, head bowed into the swirl and keeping tight in to the tenement walls. Every so often he shook the snow off his jerkin and head but his hair was soaking now and his wrists always wet at the gap between the jerkin cuffs and edges of the pockets. And his cigarette packet was also wet. He brought it out as he went, checking the actual cigarettes were dry, then paused by a shop doorway to light one. A policeman stepped out of the next close, hands in his coat pockets and no snow covering his cap. Tammas continued walking, staring straight ahead, replacing the cigarettes in his pocket.
As he passed a corner he saw a clock on the interior wall of a bank: quarter of an hour since he had left Vi’s house.
The Clyde was not too far distant now and wide gap-sites had appeared. On one of them stood a pub, its brickwork showing it was once the ground level of an ordinary sized tenement building. Music was coming from it and it seemed to be ‘live’; a sort of folk music. He cut in at its rear to shelter while getting a cigarette alight. He kept the cigarette fixed in at the corner of his mouth but as he crossed the bridge the wind was fierce, making it burn quickly and he nipped off the ash and returned it to the packet. There was a slope down the other side and his left shoe skidded as he turned the corner and he seemed set to do the splits but just managed to grab a hold of the railings and stop himself, his right hand onto the ground to be balancing. Fucking bastard, he cried, and he glanced around. Three guys stood across the street, in an inshot near to another pub, talking away, not appearing to have noticed him at all. He wiped his hands on his jeans, shaking his head, muttering, Fucking bastard.
He started walking quickly then began to trot, attempting to land each foot on the ground as flatly possible, his left arm swinging freely while his right hand gripped the cigarette packet in the pocket of his jerkin, and he was making a groaning noise which was gradually becoming louder till it changed into a continual grunt of Ya bastard Ya bastard Ya bastard Ya bastard, each Ya bastard simultaneous with his foot hitting the ground. Another twenty minutes and he was thudding into his own close and leaning against the wall, his forehead resting upon his right forearm, his breathing harsh, a raking screeching sound.
After a time he pushed himself away from the wall, bending half over and placing his hands on his knees, taking longer, more controlled breaths. Down the middle of the concrete floor was one long wet patch where folk had passed on their way up the close. His eyelids shut. There was a throbbing at his right temple. He raised his hand and kept it there, feeling the bone at the side of his skull. He covered his eyes with both hands and straightened, turning side on to rest his shoulders against the wall, his hands dropping. Eventually, stepping nearer the closemouth, he cleared his throat and sucked in a breath of air, before blowing a mouthful of catarrh towards the street. And he brought out his cigarettes and withdrew a whole one and smoked it there.
•••
An old guy who was needing a shave was sitting on the floor with his back against a radiator, his legs splayed open. Tammas looked away as he passed on along the corridor and into the ward where his grandmother was. She was asleep, seated on an armchair by a window with a blanket tucked about her legs. There was another old woman in the next bed and she was awake and watching him although she seemed to be lying in an awkward position, as if she had been propped to sit upright and then toppled sideways. Hullo, he said and when she made no answer he turned from her and lifted a chair out from a stack, placing it carefully about three yards from his grandmother, in such a fashion that his view out the window was unrestricted. Across the way was the Nurses’ Home and occasionally nurses did appear, normally in twos and wearing capes, their arms linked and chatting together, walking quite fast. Layers of grey clouds in the sky. His grandmother was looking at him. He smiled. Hullo grannie. How you doing, you okay?