Edward Kane and The Voice of the Spider. Chapter 1: A Little Paintbrush Had Painted Little Spider Webs

Quiet too on the home front. The landlady – the Widow Thomson – was understood to be visiting her sister-in-law somewhere in Dundee and so any knock on the Kane door would not be in respect of that six weeks’ rent now outstanding.

Enough in the larder for now. No need to trouble the Pawnbroker just yet, but the Shadow of the Three Balls did hang over the household. Enough in the (entirely notional) wine cellar to cater for the modest tastes of the young Advocate (with a significant corkage reward to the Cockney manservant/bottle-opener, Mr Horse).

Kane was buried in his copy of The Scotsman, only half-listening. ‘I’m sorry, Horse, you were saying?’

‘I said – did I ever tell you about the time I got struck by lightning, sir?’

Kane peeped over the top of his newspaper. The young Advocate’s Cockney manservant was sitting at the battered table, pensive, drinking tea from his old tin mug and taking slow draws from his long clay pipe.

Kane shut the newspaper, folded it in half and placed it on his lap. ‘What an odd thing to say, Mr Horse. What has prompted this unusual topic?’

Horse nodded: ‘It’s just that I was in The Doric last night, sir, and the barmaid Rosie was telling me that her little cousin got struck by lightning last Tuesday.’

‘And how is he?’

‘He survived, sir. But deaf as a post now.’

‘“Deaf as post”?

‘Lightning blew his ears off.’

Kane sat up in his chair: ‘Goodness, Horse. What an awful story.’

The manservant nodded: ‘Reminded me of the time I got struck an’ all.’

‘By lightning?’

Horse nodded: ‘I was fourteen. Waking across a field in the rain. Just ignored the thunder and lightning. I mean – what are you meant to do? Open field. Big flash across the field and – I swear, sir – killed seventeen cows in one go. Cow bodies everywhere.’

Kane was wide-eyed: ‘My goodness, Horse – what a story…’

‘I know, sir. It was like something out of the Bible, it was…’

Kane – a Son of the Manse – racked his brain: ‘Like The Destruction of Sennacherib.’

‘No, sir – this was Bethnal Green.’

Kane’s eyes were wide: ‘Goodness – seventeen cows. And what of you, Mr Horse? What was the effect on you?’

‘I was as right as rain, sir.’

‘Heavens be praised.’

‘I say “right as rain”, but…’

‘But?’

Horse frowned – then gave a little chuckle: “I say, “right as rain”, Mr K – but when I got home…’

‘Yes?’

‘When I got home and took off me shirt, it looked like some bloke had drawn little pictures all over my body.’

Kane closed his eyes and shook an uncomprehending head: ‘“Pictures? Pictures of what?’

‘All over my body. Like somebody had took a little paintbrush and had painted little spider webs. All over my back.’

Kane considered this for a moment. Then: ‘May I see them?’

Horse shook his head: ‘No sir. Disappeared after a couple of days. Well creepy it was.’

Kane sighed: ‘You have certainly lived a charmed life, my man.’

‘You don’t know that half of it, Mr K.’

‘Although, when I think on it now, I have noticed that you do jump when there is a loud knock at that door. Is that from your early experience with thunder?’

‘No, sir. That was from my recent experience with the landlady looking for the rent…’

****

‘Your man is correct, Edward. Deafness is quite common.’

Kane and his friend, Collins, were sat in the Reading Room of the Advocates Library drinking their coffee.

Kane smiled: ‘My friend Collins – you do amaze me on a near-daily basis. How do you know such things?’

Collins sipped at his coffee: ‘My father. A physician. He spent his early career as a country doctor. He would regale his children with tales of bucolic ailments. A great number of shepherds crossing open fields. Being struck by lightning is perhaps more common than you think, my friend.’

‘And deafness.’

‘Blows out the eardrums.’

Kane shook his head. ‘It doesn’t bear thinking about.’ He smiled and sipped his tea: ‘And were you never tempted to follow in your father’s medical footsteps.’

Collins: ‘Never had the stomach for it, Edward. My father would relish tales where he would remove an arm or a leg. I get woozy cutting into a leg of lamb…’

The friends laughed, but their conversation was interrupted by the presence of a Faculty Servant standing silent at the side of table. Kane looked up and smiled: ‘Yes?’

‘Mr Kane, I thought that you would like to know that one of the messenger boys – carrying letters – has just been asking where your box is, sir. And there also aappear to be some people for you in the Hall.’

Kane’s face assumed the desperate look of a parched man in the desert who has just spotted a raincloud. He leapt up from his seat: ‘If you will excuse me, Collins. I was not expecting…’. And he dashed off.

Collins raised his coffee cup in cheers towards the retreating figure of his friend: ‘And here’s to a welcome bolt from the blue…’

****

Kane stood at the entrance to the great Parliament Hall and looked around, his head moving from side to side. Busy today. More like a marketplace than the grand expanse that used to house the old Scottish Parliament. Advocates in their horsehair wigs and black gowns – friendly opponents – promenading side-by-side, thrashing out the terms of an agreement to avoid having to leave it to the judge, the Lord Ordinary; anxious clients, dressed in their finery as if going to church of a Sunday, silently praying for a resolution; solicitors and their messenger boys, going from group to group, carrying the latest letters and updates on witnesses both present and unexpectedly absent. And – in a tiny little window, high above that legal carnival – a court Macer shouting out the names of the cases to attend at the courtroom immediately.

Kane squinted through the flow of the crowd. His attention was drawn to a group of people huddled under the statue of Forbes of Culloden. An odd assembly: A handsome man in his fifties dressed in top hat; a nurse, her hair scraped back with a white cap balanced on her head like a little paper boat; a coachman, all shiny black boots and with brass buttons running down both sides of his shaggy woollen coat. And in the middle of this protective circle, the reason why they had all attended at Parliament House – seated in a wicker bath-chair, a gnarled, twisted woman sitting with a walking stick balanced between her knees. A lady so old that it would be impossible to guess her age beyond eighty years. The handsome man looked in Kane’s direction and gave the Advocate a gentle tip of his top hat. Kane waded through the human currents and approached the group. The gentleman gave a slight bow: ‘Mr Kane, I presume?’

Kane bowed back. Advocates and Edinburgh solicitors do not shake hands. ‘Pleased to meet you, sir.’

‘And you, Mr Kane. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Blane of Blane and Urquhart.’

More bowing. The solicitor motioned down towards the ancient figure in the bath-chair: ‘And may I present my client, Lady Carmunnock.’

The Advocate was inclined to smile and bow, but this was interrupted by a crackly voice from the bath-chair: ‘He’s too thin.’ The figure in the chair appeared to be examining the Advocate through a large pair of opera glasses. ‘Too scrawny…’

The solicitor Blane turned to the Advocate and gave a boyish grin: ‘You will appreciate, Mr Kane, that the good Lady Carmunnock prider herself on being – how shall I put it – a shrewd judge of character.’

The lady railed on: ‘Look at him, Stephen.’ She motioned the glasses towards the now uncomfortable Advocate. ‘It’s plain as a pikestaff. This boy gets no work. No letter in his box. So, no work. So, no food in his larder. Too thin.’ She placed the opera glasses on her lap. ‘Get me a different one. A fat one. One who makes a good living on his abilities.’

The solicitor gave the Advocate a bashful look: ‘Mr Kane, I apologise sir, for having troubled you in this fashion, but…’

The young (thin) Advocate – who had the distinct feeling of having finished last in a race in which he was the only runner – raised his hand to ward off the apology.

‘Absolutely no need to apologise, Mr Blane. I quite understand. It is the case that the man – or in this case, the Lady – who pays the piper calls the tune.’ He looked down at the figure in the bath-chair: ‘And for your edification, madam,’ he bowed again, ‘my light frame, I attribute to my father.’

The lady croaked: ‘Your father?’

‘He was slender of frame himself. All of his life. In fact at the time of his death, he would sometimes wear the very same suit of clothing that he wore at the time of his ordination.’

The lady scrunched up her scraggly face: ‘Your father was a Catholic priest???’

‘My father was a Minister of the Church of Scotland, Lady Carmunnock. Now, if you will excuse me…’

Kane bowed, about to take his leave – but the lady raised her hand and pointed her stick: ‘What did he die of?’

Kane frowned: ‘I beg your…’

‘The father. The clergyman. What did he die of?’

The Advocate shuffled on his feet. This was not a conversation he expected to have with a stranger in the middle of Parliament Hall. ‘They…they could not tell. The physicians were of the opinion that his heart had just stopped.’ Kane had the picture in his head. ‘My father sat in his chair, his favourite chair, and sat down to read a book. We found him later, apparently asleep. With the book against his chest. My mother called him in for supper, then, well…’

At this point, Kane noted Mr Blane the solicitor studying a scrap of paper. Blane leaned down into his aged client: ‘Lady Carmunnock, I do not mean to press you, but I have made a list of three other Advocates…’. The old lady waved him away and focused on the Advocate with her opera glasses: ‘And what was the book?’

‘The book?’

The lady was impatient: ‘The book on your father’s chest. What was the book?’

The Advocate was somewhat taken aback, but replied: ‘As I recall, he was reading “The Memoirs of Benvenuto Cellini” – the Florentine artist.’

The lady gave a slow nod, as if in approval. Then: ‘And what about you, Mr Kane, do you read?’

Kane gave a patient little smile: ‘My occupation demands it, my Lady.’

Lady Carmunnock shook an impatient head: ‘No…no…I mean do you read read …for pleasure, is my meaning’

‘When I have the time…’

‘And what are you reading at the moment?’

‘“Bleak House”, my Lady’

‘Bleak House? Bleak house?? Dickens! Sensational trash.’ She shook her aged head: ‘Oh, Mr Kane, I fear that you have become vulgarised by the practice of Law….’

At this point, the solicitor again bent down: ‘Lady Carmunnock – I’m sorry, we have limited time today…’. The crotchety figure waved the solicitor away (again): ‘Oh, Stephen – don’t be such a…such a fuss-pot…’. She took the opera glasses and pointed them at the young Advocate before her: ‘This one will do. He seems decent enough. And he looks as if he needs the work. And a good meal. And perhaps we can improve his taste in reading material…’

Tomorrow in The Scotsman: And in the Middle of that Circle

Edward Kane and Mr Horse: Volume II of the Collected Short Stories. Available from Amazon and Kindle