The Papers of Tony Veitch by William McIlvanney

The Papers of Tony Veitch by William McIlvanney

Author:William McIlvanney
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Canongate Books


21

‘Blankets? Pull this over the head, ye’ve got a fallout shelter. Hand-knitted from Polar berrs. Ah’m tellin’ ye. Wake up in the mornin’, ye see the frost on the windae in the shape o’ two hands up. It’s surrendered. At a fiver a whack, Ah’ve got to sell them quick. Polis see me, Ah’ll get arrested for insanity.’

Mickey Ballater moved on. He wasn’t in the market for blankets. Paddy’s Market in Shipbank Lane was a nostalgic experience for him, a walk into the past that momentarily blurred his present purpose. There must be streets like this in any city, he supposed, but this one was different for him. It was where he came from, a re-enactment of the way he used to live. He felt as if they were flogging his own past.

What struck him wasn’t the blanket-seller’s spiel. That was untypical of this street, more like an echo of the Barras, the city’s official market where the brashness of commercial success came out at you like a lasso. This was a quieter place, mute with resignation. It was a street of dead eyes and indifferent glances.

Down one side there was a series of holes in the wall, lock-ups where a conglomerate of scruffy goods were howked out of the dimness to be sold. The catch-as-catch-can quality of the articles was indicated by the fact that few sellers specialised in anything but most sold whatever they could get their hands on. Down the other side were those whose premises were no more than a patch of ground on which they laid what looked like the remnants of their private possessions. The market still lived up to a name that implied a place where mendicant Irish immigrants could buy.

Mickey became angry at the thought of those who, sitting in plush places, said there were no longer any real poor. If this stuff was being sold, who else would buy it but the poor?

He remembered the house in Crown Street and an old bitterness came back. These were people he had once been part of. He thought of his father using the booze as blinkers, of his mother not able to live one day in which a penny wasn’t important. He thought of his sister, broken-hearted because the joiner she was going with packed her up, his mother keening in the background that Prince Charming had ridden away.

He was different. His wife lived in a private house. Where a second-hand bike at thirty bob had been something he waited two years for, his three daughters took a personal stereo for granted. He was going to keep it that way.

‘Excuse me, aul’ yin,’ he said.

She looked up as if a glance was a boulder she was tired of lifting. Her face was a derelict cul-de-sac. The junk behind her was like a load she was yoked to, ensuring that she would never move anywhere else.

‘Ah’m lookin’ for Danny McLeod.’

She nodded along the street.

‘Auld Danny’s up there. The wan at the very end. Silly auld bugger.



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