Edward Kane and The Voice of the Spider. Chapter 9: I Was Caned at School

Blane smiled: ‘Her ladyship was incandescent.’

‘With me?’

‘With the judge. I recommended that she return home and I said that I would pay her a visit later. Maybe pour some oil on those troubled waters.’

The Advocate thought for a moment, then: ‘I don’t know what else I could have…’

Blane held up his hand and stopped them both in their tracks: ‘Mr Kane – you said everything that could be said. And more. But sometimes The Law is against you and it’s as simple as that. I have explained all of this to her ladyship.’

They resumed their walk. Kane spoke: ‘The key here – of course – is the father, Boylan. If he could just be persuaded…’

Blane cut him off: ‘That is highly unlikely.’

‘You seem very certain, Mr Blane.’

The solicitor shook his head: ‘Her ladyship asked me to speak to him – yesterday – in anticipation of today’s court hearing…’

‘And?’

‘…and I was invited by Conar Boylan – in no uncertain terms, Mr Kane – to attend at a certain place notable for its fires and the abundance of its many sinners…’

Both lawyers walked on for a time saying nothing. Kane broke the silence: ‘The judge says that if the father does not attend the hearing next week, then the whole case will be thrown out.’

Blane nodded: ‘I have advised her ladyship to fund legal representation for the father, so that we can resolve this matter once and for all.’

‘You have told the client to pay for the lawyers on the other side?’

‘She is bound to lose, Mr Kane. You and I both know that. In that event, she would be liable for the other side’s expenses anyway. This way – we may get proper legal argument and our client has her day in court. We can do no better than that. And in any event, the father will never agree now…’

‘”Now”?’

‘I reported back to the good lady the terms of my conversation with Boylan. Her immediate instruction was to relieve him of his employment.’

‘She…?’

‘She sacked him, Mr Kane. Two weeks’ notice.’

Kane shook his head: ‘So – in seven days from now, when we get back in front of the judge – the child’s father will find himself on the verge of being unemployed.’

‘And – a week later - without a roof over his head, Mr Kane. Remember, the employment includes accommodation. He will be homeless ere long.’

Kane frowned: ‘But…if the father is homeless, then…then what is to happen to the little girl?’

‘That – Mr Kane – is a very good question…’

****

‘Of course that foreman bloke, the dad, won’t let go of her, Mr K! I mean, that’s his little girl, ennit?’

The young Advocate sat in his wing chair by the fire sipping his rum and milk: ‘I’m not convinced that he was thinking ‘That’s my little girl’ when he was punching her in the mouth, Mr Horse.’

Horse nodded: ‘Mind you, if she wasn’t his little girl, then he wouldn’t be allowed to punch her in the mouth in the first place, would he?’

Kane tapped his fingers on his knee: ‘It’s The Law that is the problem here, Mr Horse.’

‘Never thought I’d hear you say that, sir - you of all people.’

‘The disciplining of a child. A vexed question. Discipline is one thing, but...well...for example, I was caned at school.’

Horse guffawed: ‘And here’s me thought you was a goody-two-shoes an’ all!’

‘The welts may have faded, Mr Horse, but the memory is still painful. I’m not saying that it was fair, you understand, but in my own case, it proved effective.’ Kane sighed: ‘Not so for some of the other boys…’

Horse puffed on his pipe: ‘Honest truth, sir, it wasn’t the girl what needed the punch in the mouth – it was the father.’

‘How so?’

‘He’s a lazy beggar, that one. Did you not see that when you was there, Mr K? It was the girl was running about the place, barking at the workers – even me – and keeping them right. It was like she was the foreman, not the dad.’

Kane sat back in his chair: ‘Academic now, Mr Horse. Lady Carmunnock has terminated Boylan’s employment. Fourteen days from now, father and daughter will be begging on the streets.’

Horse thought for a moment, then gave a grin: ‘Wouldn’t it be a coincidence, just a coincidence, like, if I was to meet Boylan coming out of the factory and say that I owe him a drink for giving me that bit of work the other day…’

​****

‘Came here in ‘45. Either that or waste away.’ The foreman Boylan’s thick Irish brogue cut through the din of the filthy (and illegal) drinking house in the Cowgate. He gulped his rum: ‘“An Gorta Mor”, they called it, “The Great Hunger”. We were lucky. Got out before Black ’47.’ Boylan closed his eyes tight: ‘Black ’47. They say that if you want to know what Hell looks like, my English friend, then walk the streets of Skibbereen in the year of Our Lord 1847. But getting away was the devil’s own job.’

Horse had ‘accidentally’ bumped into Conar Boylan as the foreman was leaving the glassworks. Boylan was now warming his hands at the candle on the table, then nursing the fourth tumbler of cheap rum between his fingers.

‘Some people say that we were lucky. Lucky? Not me, me friend, not me.’ He leaned forward in his chair – conspiratorial now: ‘I can tell you now, because everybody else is dead. And who are you going to tell, eh? People in England?’ He laughed.

Mr Horse reciprocated the laugh and raised his glass in a sort of ‘tell-all’ cheers and Boylan continued: ‘The four Boylan brothers – that was me, Padraig, Colm and Michael. Four brothers. Born a year after each other, with me the oldest. I don’t remember whose idea it was, but we took the notion that if we all put our pounds, shillings and pence together, then we could maybe send one of us – just one of us, mind – over to Edinburgh and that brother would make a bit of money, then send for the next one, then we would have two brothers in Edinburgh and they would be doing the working and sending the money back home and bring the next one over. Until all four brothers had escaped. You get my meaning?’

Horse nodded, all ears.

‘But the question was: who goes first? Who is first to get onto that boat and get away? But I knew it was going to be me. Because of this.’ Boylan gave a little chuckle and produced a small tin box from his pocket. ‘Because of this…’

Tomorrow in The Scotsman: Luck Had Nothing To Do With It

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