Laidlaw by William McIlvanney

Author:William McIlvanney [McIlvanney, William]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780857869975
Publisher: Canongate Books

27

MacLaughlan’s was a small family-owned firm in York Street. It was all blank walls and windows blind with dust. Upstairs there was a big communal room that served as canteen, locker-room and fly smoke area. That was where Laidlaw and Harkness found themselves, waiting among oily jackets, the smell of print and abandoned tea-cups brown with tannin.

While they were waiting, a small man in a boilersuit came in.

‘Hullo therr, boays.’

It was a vaudevillean’s greeting to his audience. Instant theatre. He looked the part. The boilersuit looked as if it had been made for somebody else and he was just standing in. It had been washed far away from its original colour and it was covered in oilstains of varying intensity, like a collage of his past. The bonnet hung miraculously on the back of his head. His face showed whisky-veins.

‘Jist in fur a quick yin before we lowse. Ah only enjoy smokin’ in the firm’s time.’

He pulled up a leg of his boilersuit and fished in his ruler-pocket. A dowt black with oil emerged. He dusted some of the fluff off it and lit up.

‘Like smoking T.N.T.,’ Laidlaw muttered to Harkness.

‘Travellers, eh? Listen – Ah’ve got a story fur youse. See that press there?’

He pointed to a big walk-in cupboard with the door ajar.

‘This is gospel. No’ last week but the week before. Big Aly Simpson. Bloke in the work. He’s fond o’ his nookie an’ that, ye know? Me. Ah’d rather hiv a fish-supper. Anyway, there’s nane o’ us perfect. Dinner-time. The horn goes. Back tae the galleys. Except Big Aly an’ Jinty. Jinty’s a big lassie that works wan o’ the machines. Well, she’s no’ that big, but everybody’s big tae me. Ah yince broke ma leg fa’ing aff the kerb. But she’s gemme. So the two o’ them wait in the canteen here an’ lock the door. Jist gettin’ doon tae it, when they hear somebody tryin’ the door. Then there’s the voices talkin’ aboot gettin’ the key. Panic stations. Big Aly’s a mairrit man. Likes tae think that everybody else’s heid buttons up the back. So he hides in the press there. Jinty sorts herself an’ sterts yawnin’ an’ that. Goes tae the door an’ opens it. “Ah must’ve fell asleep,” she says, blinkin’ like Snow White. Well, Wullie Anderson comes in. Whaur dae ye think is the first place he makes fur? The press there. Tae get a new brush-heid. Opens the door. There’s Big Aly. Standin’ like Count Dracula. Ye widny credit it. Know whit Big Aly says? Cool as ye like. “Is this where ye get the bus for Maryhill?” An’ that’s the truth.’

Through the small man’s laughter, Laidlaw said to Harkness, ‘That’s what I love about Glasgow. It’s not a city, it’s a twenty-four-hour cabaret.’

As the foreman came in with Sarah, the small man stood on his cigarette and disappeared into the press in one movement. He emerged holding some rags and saying, ‘Jist up tae get the machines cleaned before we lowse, Charlie.

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