The thing in him as he sat on the cold stone of the dyke, with the river flecking at his feet, wasn’t a thought but an emotion. He had buried a part of himself. So he sat accepting the void, without having any good words with which to decorate it, without a reassuring thought in which to enshrine the past. It was as if above him his own cold star had come out. Ill-equipped as he was, he would follow it. Rising, he felt suddenly the complexity of the night around come over him like a blackout. He needed company.
The corner wasn’t so much a place as an institution. It had its own traditions and standing orders. Small groups formed round different topics of conversation by a kind of spontaneous cohesion. In the course of an evening, a casual activity, like sparring or conundrums, would isolate certain people in it as if it was a games-room. But a precise observation or a new anecdote would be relayed from knot to knot like an announcement. The various groups remained complementary to a central unit. Solidarity was what it was all about. A typical expression of it had been the night a stranger with a Glasgow accent came to the corner.
He had been drinking, not enough to make him unsteady, just enough to activate his malice and crystallise it in his eyes. There would be perhaps two dozen men at the corner, lined unevenly along the wall of the Meal Market.
The stranger stopped at the first one and said, ‘Good evenin’, bastard.’
Although his voice was casual, the reaction, even among those who couldn’t have caught what he actually said, was instantaneous, like an electric charge passing along them. Twenty-odd men stiffened.
Somebody muttered, ‘Naw. Naw, sir,’ almost pleadingly.
The stranger walked slowly along the line, mixing his insults with the measured deliberation of someone trying to brew a riot. The silence of the others was a debate. He was a big man. From his jacket pocket a bottle protruded. He might be too drunk to know what he was saying.
‘Fine,’ a voice said. ‘That’s fine! On ye go hame noo.’
‘Ah’ll fight any one of ye first. In a fair fight. Jessies! A bunch o’Jessies!’
The main problem was a technical one. His malice was indiscriminate and they couldn’t all answer it. The stranger drew lots for them.
The Pope’s a mairrit man,’ he said.
He had reached the end of the line.
‘A meenit, chappie!’ a voice said.
It was Tadger Daly, father of ten. A champion had been chosen. The big man turned. Tadger was walking towards him.
‘That’s a nasty thing tae say, chappie. Noo . . .’
The big man’s right hand was easing the bottle out of his pocket. From about four feet away, Tadger took off. In mid-air his head looped so that it hit the big man’s nose, which opened sickeningly (‘Like the Red Sea,’ somebody later suggested). When the big man lay on the ground, there was a moment in which the physical ugliness of what had happened almost became dominant, until someone said matter-of-factly, That’s whit ye call doin’ penance, big man.’
And another remarked, ‘You were the richt man fur the job, Tadger. As the Pope’s auldest boy, ye were the natural choice.’
The incident was in perspective. Water and a cloth were brought from a nearby house. Tadger helped in cleaning up the big man. Then a couple of the men conducted him, wet cloth still held against his nose, to the end of the street, off the premises, as it were, and faced him towards the railway station. The whole thing had the quality of a communal action, and had been conducted without rancour.
That night became part of the history of the corner. Any memorable incidents, remarks or anecdotes would be frequently gone over in the nights immediately following their occurrence, like informal minutes of previous meetings. Later, they would recur less often, having been absorbed into the unofficial history of their lives, the text of which was disseminated in fragments among them. Any man who stood at the corner had invisibly about him a complex of past events like familiar furniture, the images of previous men like portraits. The corner was club-room, mess-deck, mead-hall. It was where a man went to be himself among his friends.
5
But tonight it was quiet. A dozen or so were douring the evening out. Tam joined Buff Thompson and Gibby Molloy, who were standing in silence together.
‘Aye, Tam,’ Gibby said.
Buff nodded and winked.
‘A clear nicht,’ Tam said.
And each stood letting his own thoughts feed on him.
Their silence was the infinity where three parallel despairs converged. Over the past few years Buff’s whole nature had contracted. The gradual recession of his physical powers had taken with it his defensive reflex of wry humour, and left him stranded on the hard, unrelieved futility of his own life. With only a few years ahead of him, he was clenched round a frail sense of purpose that was diminishing to nothing. Gibby’s natural habitat was moroseness. Living alone with his mother, held in a net of trivia, his life consisted of occasional spasms of wildness contained in a long inertia.
For Tam the moment was a funeral service for a former self. Tam Docherty, Catholic, seemed finally dead. He couldn’t resist going back to memories of his boyhood, like holding a mirror to the corpse’s mouth. But no strong doubts came to cloud his thought. There was in his head a clarity, a cold emptiness. The talk of the others at the corner seemed less related to him than the sound of the river had.
He still hadn’t spoken by the time Dougie McMillan came up. Dougie wasted no time.
‘Ah’m lookin’ fur a local lad wi’ a notion o’ the game,’ he said. He flashed his jacket open to show that he was wearing his professional pockets. This is a nicht that wis made fur poachin’, boays. Ah’ can smell the salmon. They’re lyin’ doon at Riccarton Water waitin’ tae surrrender. Noo Ah’ve a couple of vacancies. Wan oan the net an’ wan tae be steerer. Who’s it tae be?’
The others laughed.
‘Who’ll pey the fines?’ Buff asked.
‘Ma lawyers attend tae a’ these wee things. Noo, come oan, boays. Don’t make a rush like this. Form an orderly queue. Buff, Ah’m sorry Ah hiv tae turn ye doon. Ye’re guid but ye’re auld, son. Tam Docherty. There’s ma man. The finest hundred-yards melodeon-player in Ayrshire. Tammas. Ah guarantee success. Riccarton’s yer oyster. I will make youse fishers of fish.’
Since Tam’s mood was unemployed, and since this was a night for picking out the lining of your pockets, he felt interested in any diversion. He let Dougie banter him into the idea of a poaching expedition. Gibby, who had been wilting with boredom for more than an hour, suddenly bloomed with enthusiasm, and insisted on offering his services. Conscious of the danger involved in using somebody subject to such unpredictable fits of not unobtrusive violence, Dougie was doubtful. He only agreed after making clear the special terms of Gibby’s contract.
‘Nae brainstorms,’ he cautioned, as if they were a hazard as avoidable as taking matches down the pit. ‘An’ if we pass ony shithoose doors, fur any favour shut yer een. In case ye get the notion.’
Gibby nodded soberly, guaranteeing sanity at all times. Now that the outing was fully manned, there was an atmosphere of expectancy as they waited for darkness. Gibby especially was impatient. He had suggested that he should go up and let his mother know, in case she worried. But when Dougie replied that she might not let him out to play again, Gibby abandoned the idea sheepishly. Dougie had the net and a couple of rough towels in the special pockets that were sewn inside the jacket, so that there was no need for anybody to bring more gear. Even Buff caught the fever. While they waited, he recounted a long, involved story about how he had been taught the art of guddling salmon. He