Edward Kane and The Voice of the Spider. Chapter 10: Luck Had Nothing To Do With It
Mr Horse and the foreman, Conar Boylan sat in the filthy drinking den and drank on. The Irishman grinned and continued his narrative: ‘So the day came to decide who was going to get the money to take one of us across the water to Edinburgh and one of my brothers – I think it was Padraig – said: “But how are we going to decide this?” And I said “We should draw lots - like them soldiers did under the cross – you know, when they were trying to decide who got Jesus’s clothes and such.” And everybody nodded. And then Padraig…tell a lie, it was Michael…said: “So what do we use? Do we draw straws or matches or what?” And at that point, I was lighting my pipe, and I had this little fella out…’. Boylan shook the little tobacco tin in his hand and Horse heard the scrunching sound of matches inside. ‘And I said “Here you go – whoever draws the shortest match wins”. And so we had our pick of the matches, and when we laid the matches side-by-side, what did you know: it was my match was the shortest. By a whisker! I scooped up the money on the table and left before there was a fight. And it was that money that paid for me, the wife and the girl to get away to Scotland.’
Horse nodded. ‘That was lucky.’
Boylan laughed out loud: ‘Ha! Luck had nothing to do with it, my friend.’ He opened the tin and emptied some matches onto the table. They all looked the same. Boylan appeared to pick one up at random and nodded towards Horse: ‘Your turn.’ Horse picked up a match. Boylan nodded towards him. ‘Now lay it down.’ Horse laid the match onto the table. The Irishman laid his match beside it. Boylan’s match was very, very slightly shorter. Horse nodded: ‘Lucky…’. Boylan grinned: ‘Lucky? No. You see, a few weeks before me and me brothers drew the lots, I fell in with one of them fellas from the travelling fair and I asked him to teach me some of his tricks, like. So, after a couple of swigs from the bottle, that loosens his lips and he teaches me the trick of how to win every time when you draw the lots.’ He held up the tin. ‘You take your tin of tobacco and matches. And inside, you take one of the matches and you make it just that whisker shorter than all the others – and then you mark it – see!’ Horse lifted up the winning match from the table. Right enough, on very close examination, Horse became aware of a tiny mark on the match – to the unwitting bystander, a natural flaw in the wood. So small that you would not notice it if you weren’t looking for it.
Horse put it back on the table and nodded: ‘So it was that match took you to Scotland then.’ Boylan nodded and began to scoop the matches back into the tin: ‘That tiny piece of wood took me and the wife and my wee Peggy…’ (Horse realised that this was the first time that he had ever properly heard the factory girl’s name – ‘Peggy’) ‘…took us all the way from County Clare to Edinburgh.’ The foreman closed the tin: ‘We slept on the floor for a time. With me uncle. Conar Boylan – same name as me. Uncle Conar came here in the Twenties. Made a very good living, he did, working on the roads. Then as a water caddy. Then started work at the glass factory. A real proper grafter, he was. Could turn his hand to anything. And yer man, the late Lord Carmunnock, God rest his soul, took a shine to him and didn’t Conar end up running the factory for him. Became the foreman.’
Horse nodded, sipped at his rum and put two and two together: ‘And that’s how you ended up being employed at the glassworks…your uncle…’. Boylan laughed: ‘Top marks, ye English bun!’ He wiped his mouth with his sleeve and jiggled the empty tumbler before him: ‘And would you look at that – me drink seems to have evaporated. Must be the heat in this place.’ He gave a knowing smile and slid the glass over the table towards his newest (English) drinking partner. Horse gave a perfunctory smile, got up and walked over to the counter and asked the Lady of the House for two more rums. He looked around. It might have been still light outside, but here in that filthy drinking den under the South Bridge the gloom was unremitting.
Dark, but far from unhappy. A healthy hubbub of voices – all with a distinct Irish brogue – echoed in those chambers. Isolated pools of light from the separate tables, where Horse could just make out – at one table – a game of cards; then on another, a figure slumped over; at another, a heavily-rouged lady chortling and balancing on the knee of a drunken navvy. A fiddler – his hat between his feet and that hat being guarded by a snarling dog – was taking requests for tunes from the Old Country and nodding in thanks at every farthing that was tossed in. This was one of those rooms where Irishmen of all colours could come and not be suspected or insulted or spat upon. A dingy Irish shebeen right there – but hidden – in the centre of the Scottish capital. Horse took it all in and nodded to himself. Then heard a gruff Irish voice behind him: ‘You’re a long way from London, are ye not?’ Every bar has one. The bully. Standing close – a bit too close – Horse was suddenly aware of a very, very large individual standing beside him. Horse looked up: “Yer what?’ ‘I said – you’re a long way from home, are ye not?’ Horse rubbed his chin: ‘About 400 miles, I think.’ He grinned: ‘But I’ve never tried to walk it…’. The stranger leaned in: ‘Well, maybe you should try walking it now.’
On Monday in The Scotsman: Having Trouble with Big Brendan?
Edward Kane and Mr Horse: Volume II of the Collected Short Stories. Available from Amazon and Kindle