‘Are you still on about me taking my share of the work?’
A stir of temper gave me an unwelcome surprise. I very rarely got angry but it would come on me without warning. Sometimes afterwards I could hardly understand why I had reacted so badly.
‘I do my share,’ I said. ‘But I’m not doing more than my share. I’m not a mug.’
Davie snorted.
‘Talk sense, ya young clown.’
The dangerous movement of temper coiled tighter. I was no good at arguing with words. I couldn’t find them, and when that happened the anger pressed inside me. At school in my fourth year it had pressed too hard. I broke the prefect’s cheekbone and they wanted to expel me but the evidence came out of how I had been provoked. The headmaster was sympathetic: I was one of the bright boys who was going to do the school credit.
Desperately I tried to sidetrack what was happening.
‘You lot have been at this game for years. And you’re a team. Know one another.’
Any words would do.
‘Not at all,’ Davie said. ‘Years! Jesus! This is a fly by night outfit. I’ve been wi them three months. And the monkey,’ he moved his eyes in the direction of Primo, ‘he joined up the day before you came.’
The miracle happened. The tension washed out of me – and only because he had dropped his voice on ‘monkey’, careful against even the outside chance of being overheard. I had been taken off the hook.
As if he realised there had been a change, he harked back to where we had started.
‘Why should the monkey tell Andy tae chuck it? He’s too stupid to ken he’s being kidded.’
‘I wouldn’t bet on it. If he did take exception, Andy would have to run for it.’
‘Oh, the Uni teaches ye to be smart.’
I had not realised he had a grudge against students. ‘Yooni,’ he said, dragging it out like one of the gobs ofslime that parted so affectionately from his lips.
‘Don’t need to be smart to know Primo could hammer Andy into the ground wi one hand stuck up his jumper.’
I had gone through my life making resolutions to keep my mouth shut. The empty pot rattles loudest: that was the kind of proverb my mother had branded into me; I told myself, a still tongue and keep your ears open. It had never worked so far. I was a strong silent man who liked to gossip.
Behind me Andy’s voice crackled, ‘Gentlemen o leisure, are ye?’ and Davie sneered discreetly as I twitched like a frog’s hind leg. ‘Top floor – right hand side – auld party name o Morrison.’
If he had heard me, he gave no sign, but pantomimed a kick at the big man resting against the wall.
‘Shift your arse, jumbo. You’re no paid tae get a tan.’
Primo opened one eye and smiled peaceably.
It was a two-room and kitchen flat. Morrison was old and tremulous. He explained that most of his furniture was going into store.
‘Ye’ll be careful with that,’ he kept saying.
‘No sweat, grandpa,’ the cheerful Andy repeated with never a sign of being ruffled or getting impatient. The reassurance came automatically, ‘No sweat, grandpa.’ Davie sniffed steadily as we worked.
‘My wife had beautiful taste,’ the old man explained. ‘Bought at the auctions.’
Everything we lugged out was old and solid: oak tables and dutch dressers, everything wood without a veneer or plyboard from front to back. Sweat ran down my chest and my side niggled. Too many years had polished the stairs smooth. I groped for every step and wished I had toes that would grip like a monkey on a branch. Using my operation as an excuse to Andy, I had brought a curse on myself.
When we had emptied the flat, except for one wardrobe, the old man produced a six-pack of lager.
‘Would you care for a refreshment?’
We drank and studied the monstrous wardrobe. It came to within inches of the ceiling and hid most of that wall.
‘My wife was very proud of it.’ He was drinking tea from a tumbler. I’m a teetotaller myself, he had said, producing the beer, but I don’t object in others. His thin old man’s hand curled blue around the glass. ‘She’d be sad to see this day. Not that I blame my daughter. With a young family she has no room for my furniture. But I’ll not see it sold.’
Andy opened the doors and peered inside.
‘Unbelievable,’ his voice came muffled from inside. ‘It’s in one piece. I was sure it would split up. Here, get it out frae the wall till I check.’
Before we could work it out, Primo took one end and flexed it out a couple of feet. Andy squinted along the back.
‘Bloody solid,’ he reported. ‘They must have had a hell of a job getting it in here.’
‘We were very lucky,’ Mr Morrison said seriously. ‘The outside door and this room being in line. It wouldn’t have been possible otherwise.’
‘That was right lucky,’ Davie said grimly. He had finished one can and was opening one of the two that was left. He walked the length of the wardrobe, then came to the middle and leaned on it with one hand. Apart from his face getting red, nothing happened. ‘Come on!’ he said. ‘I’m no paid enough tae shift something like this. It’s out o order. Ye’d need a block and bloody tackle.’
‘Oh, no.’ Morrison looked alarmed. ‘They had no equipment when they brought it.’
‘How many did it take tae bring it up?’ Davie demanded.
As the old man blinked, I had the eerie impression he looked cunning.
‘Oh, I can’t remember that. It was such a long time since. Four like yourselves – or maybe three.’
‘And the rest,’ Davie said.
‘We’ll do it,’ Andy said. ‘It just takes a bit o thinking. No sweat, grandpa.’
‘Join the professionals,’ Davie said and gathered stuff into the back of his throat audibly.
Andy began lifting out drawers and stacking them neatly out of the way. The wardrobe was furnished on both sides with tie racks and shirt drawers, drawers for socks and little drawers for bits and pieces. They were all empty except one of the small drawers that had three cufflinks in it. Old Morrison fished them out apologetically, wrapping them in his handkerchief and tucking the lot into his breast pocket.
‘This should have gone earlier,’ Davie said.
‘Not at all,’ Andy said. I had never thought to see a fifty-year-old furniture remover bridle. ‘It’s all planned. Don’t you worry. There’s a place for it.’
‘Once it’s down.’
‘Don’t give me that. The flaming boy here would give ye a showing up.’
Davie disconcerted me with a look of snot-green venom.
‘He’s too educated tae know there’s something tae worry about.’
The wardrobe doors were closed and locked with a little brass key produced by Mr Morrison, who winced as we bound a rope round the brute.
‘Make it two,’ Andy said.
After that there didn’t seem to be any excuse for not starting.
We managed it to the first landing and put it down for a rest. Primo had taken the front end by himself with Andy at the back and Davie and me in the middle. The weight was incredible. I leaned across the bannister to get privacy while I gasped for air. Behind my thighs the long muscles jerked and twitched.
‘You could die doing this.’ I said.
‘Not you, boy,’ Andy said. I could see the sweat starting out under the grey line of his hair. ‘You’re a horse.’ He grinned. ‘You’ve earned your corn too for a change.’
‘No way!’ Davie’s nose had gone as sharp as a bacon slicer. He was a rickety monument to a life’s diet of cream buns and chips. I couldn’t imagine how he survived this job. He sobbed at me, ‘Ah don’t think you’re lifting the bastard at all.’
‘You’re a boring little prick,’ I said.
When he came at me I watched his hands, which was a country boy’s mistake. A good footballer when he heads the ball bangs it with the hard bone at the ridge of the forehead. That’s where Davie – who must have been a handy player, at school, or even among the juniors – and often outside the dancing when the boys lined up for trouble – was going to connect, not with a leather ball but across my nose and teeth.