turn was to put on a West-end voice and repeat something Garson had said. The incon- gruity of chaste correct speech coming from Savage’s loose mouth gave the Brotherhood an uneasy amusement and they laughed guiltily when he imitated a girlish walk to go with his imitation of Garson’s girlish voice.
‘It was Ai who found the money, but Ai don’t want any share, ow now, thenk you.’ Sa metter of fect, Ai think Ai ought to inform the polis.’
He picked up a phone from mid-air, dialled a number in the same place, and squeaked, writhing like a striptease dancer, ‘Ello, ello, Sat Whitehall 1212? Ken Ai hev a wurrd with the Chief Constable, pulease? Ello, ello, ello! Satchoo, Chief Ai jist want to report there’s an awful lot of boys here has an awful lot of money. Kin Ai claim a reward for telling you?’
‘Ach, wheesht,’ said Specky, past being amused. ‘You’ll make jokes about money once too often. Somebody’ll hear you.’
‘You know Percy’s rule,’ Skinny accused him. ‘And it’s a wise rule too. We promised never to mention money outside.’
‘I’m fed up wi’ him and his great god El,’ Savage retorted lightly. ‘Money’s money the world over, and ye might as well admit it. Kidding yerself it’s something mysterious and supernatural, the way Percy talks, it’s daft. Where’s wee Garson? I want to see him. Did ye notice he’s still no’ taking any money?’
They ambled on together, a little gang of them, till they caught up with Frank Garson crossing the waste land between the Steamie and the back of Bethel Street, a desolation of hard earth and dockens.
‘Oi, Garsie!’ shouted Savage, a domineering note in his voice.
Garson turned obediently and waited. He was always polite, even to people who were rude to him. Savage came close up and flipped his finger tips against the waiting boy’s nose.
‘When are you gaun tae start taking yer share o’ the lolly?’ he whispered, smiling maliciously.
It vexed him, it provoked him deeply and sharply, that Garson stuck to his position that they ought to report the finding of the money and wouldn’t take any part of it. Garson knew he would never go to the police on his own, especially when they had the money so long, but Savage didn’t know that. He was afraid Garson would turn informer and he wanted to incriminate him by forcing money on him. Being a reasonably intelligent youngster, Garson saw what Savage was up to and he had the wit to see that taking a little would make him just as guilty as taking a lot. He determined from the beginning to take nothing and he was nowhere near yielding now. He would keep his hands clean against the day of reckoning that would certainly come. But he went to the Friday Night Service every week because he enjoyed the strangeness of it in the candlelight. Percy’s sermons and the hymn singing satisfied a longing for communion with his mates. He was lonely, and he needed the Brotherhood, he was still so young.
‘Are ye feart somebody catches ye wi’ a pound note in yer pocket?’ Savage persisted against the silence facing him.
‘I just don’t want any money,’ Garson answered simply. ‘That’s all. I think you’re all making a terrible mistake. And you’ll be sorry one day. You’ll see.’
‘Then you shouldn’t be coming to the cellar at all,’ Savage argued, pushing him away. ‘You’ve no right to be coming to Percy’s Friday Night Services. That’s only for folk that believe in El, like Percy says, it’s no’ for heathens like you that believe in nothing.’
He turned and grinned to the gang that had followed him in pursuit of Garson, amused at his use of Percy’s language and wanting them to be amused too. They watched with dull faces.
‘I go to them because I want to,’ Garson said boldly. ‘I don’t have to defend myself to you. I’ve a right to go. It was I who found the money.’
‘I tellt ye, I tellt ye!’ Savage crowed triumphantly to the gang. ‘Oh boy, oh boy! It was Ai who! Oh brush my shoes, Cherlie! My maw’s a duchess!’
He flicked a finger tip against the tip of Garson’s nose and asked abruptly, ‘How is yer maw noo? Dyever see her?’
The flick in the nose angered Garson. It was surprisingly painful. It made his eyes water. In an instinctive response he hit out at Savage and missed him. Savage cackled and danced round him.
‘Haw, haw! Ye couldna hit a coo on the erse wi’ a banjo!’
Garson lunged again and missed again.
‘Haw, haw, ye hivna got a maw!’ Savage chanted the rude rhyme, and sang on malevolently, ‘Yer maw ran awa’ wi’ a darkie.’
‘She didn’t!’ Garson screamed in a frenzy. Yet it was all he had ever heard said, and his denial was an act of faith in the ultimate goodness of the universe. If he accepted common gossip as the truth then the world was bad, but the world couldn’t be bad. It was good, Percy was good. His father was good. School was good. The stories he read were good. He tried to grapple with Savage, to catch him and choke him, but he was far too slow, and he was blinded with tears of anguish. Then as he blundered and lurched this way and that way, Savage stood stock still and faced up to him.
‘Come on and I’ll fight you then,’ he said, suddenly grim and blood-thirsty.
The Brotherhood formed a ring with a rapid manoeuvre worthy of well-trained troopers, and the surplus members climbed on to the top of the pre-nuclear-age air-raid shelters to watch the fight from there and cheer the winner from a ringside seat.
Garson blinked, trying to see his enemy clearly through tears that reflected a cruel world. He had a brief intuition that the people were evil after all, and if that was how it was there was no use fighting. He was beaten before he started. He was no fighter anyway. He was smaller, sligh- ter, far less of a brawler by build and temperament than Savage. But he had to fight even though it was useless. He would die honourably. He shaped up clumsily, nervously, and while he was still making up his mind whether to lead with the left hand or the right Savage punched him right on the nose with one hand and then bang on the eye with the other.
Garson yelped and wept, and Savage hit him in the stomach. He put his hands there to console the shock and Savage smacked him on the ear. In a few seconds he was a quivering helpless morsel of inadequate boyhood. Blood came down his nose over his lips and he was squeamish at the salty taste of it, the water brimming over his eyes kept him from seeing right, and the bells ringing in his ear made him lose all sense of balance and direction. He stumbled and flailed. Still he wouldn’t give in. He wouldn’t turn and run. He didn’t know where to run to. He kept on trying to fight, but he had no idea of fighting. Savage was radiant with the lust of punishment. He had no mercy. He was a wily battering ram, and Garson was the young lamb bleating at the slaughter.
Skinny filtered silently through the rowdy mob as soon as he saw it was a case of murder, and ran for Percy. He found him with his big feet in Tulip Place and his head in the clouds. He was thinking about the stranger. He was always thinking about the stranger. But now he was beginning to feel safe again, it was so long since he had seen him. He was rather proud of his plan for making sure nobody entered or left the cellar if there was anyone odd hanging about the corner: one of the Brotherhood stayed outside at every service and if he saw any stranger he was to play in Tulip Place and keep kicking a ball against the cellar door as if he was practising shooting and collecting rebounds. That was the warning. A simple signal that no stranger could recognize for what it was, Percy was sure. So far there had been no need for the sentry to kick a ball against the door. Perhaps the stranger had gone away for good. Perhaps he was in jail. He looked a real jail-type. Whatever he was he didn’t seem to be a danger any longer.
Last to leave the cellar, the dreaming lord of uncounted wealth, Percy paid off the sentry and ambled down Tulip Place in grim meditation, welcoming the headache it gave him as the price he had to pay for being a thinker. It was all very well looking after a crowd of ungrateful schoolboys, but it was time he did something for himself too. He had his career to think of. All this time gone and he hadn’t even got around to finishing that Ode to Speed he had started.
‘Savage