The Gambling Man

‘You deserve to drop down dead, you bloody fool you. Do you know he could have you up? And he’s the one to do it an’ all; he’d have you along the line afore you could whistle. You must be up the pole, man.’

‘I think I’ll go up the pole soon if things don’t change.’

‘What you want to do is to pull yourself together, get things worked out straight. Leave your Uncle Willy and Aunt Meg, he’s able to work, he’s nothin’ but a scrounger, and take a place on your own.’

‘What!’ John George turned his face sharply towards him. ‘Take the furniture and leave them with three bare rooms or tell him to get out? What you don’t understand, Rory, is that there’s such a thing as gratitude. I don’t forget that they were both good to me mother after me da died, aye, and long afore that; and they helped to nurse him the two years he lay bedridden.’

‘Well, they’ve been damned well paid for it since, if you ask me . . . All right then, say you can’t do anything about them, an’ you want that lass . . . well then, ask her to marry you and bring her into the house.’

‘That’s easier said than done. If I took her away her father would likely go straight to old Kean and denounce me.’ He now put his hand to his brow, which, in spite of the raw cold, was running with sweat, and muttered, ‘But I’ll have to do something, and soon, ’cos . . . oh my God! I’m in a right pickle . . . Rory.’

‘Aye, I’m still here, what is it?’

‘There’s something else.’

‘Aw.’ Rory now closed his eyes and put his hand across his mouth, then grabbed at his hard hat to save it from being whipped by the wind from his head. ‘Well, go on.’

‘It doesn’t matter. Another time, another time; you’re not in the mood . . . Look—’ he pointed suddenly—’Isn’t that Jimmy?’

They were passing the road that led to the Mill Dam and the river front. Rory stopped and said, ‘Yes that’s our Jimmy . . . Jimmy!’ he shouted down the lane, and Jimmy who had been walking with his eyes cast down looked upwards, then came dashing up the slope at his wobbling gait.

‘Why, fancy seein’ you, I mean both of you. An’ I was just thinking of you, our Rory.’

‘You were? Why? You another one that wants a sub?’

‘No, man.’ Jimmy laughed. ‘But I was thinkin’ that when I got home I’d ask you to come down here again. Now wasn’t that funny.’

‘I can’t see much to laugh at in that, not yet anyway.’

‘Well, it was something I wanted to show you down on the front.’ He nodded towards the river. ‘Come on.’ He again indicated the river with his head, then added, ‘And you an’ all, John George.’

‘I can’t, Jimmy, I’m sorry. I’m . . . I’m on me way home.’

‘Aw, all right, John George, I understand, it’s your day for Newcastle.’ He laughed.

John George didn’t laugh with him, but he repeated, ‘Aye. Aye, Jimmy, it’s me day for Newcastle.’ Then nodding at him, he said, ‘Be seeing you. So long. And so long, Rory. Aw, I forgot. What about the other, I mean . . . ?’

‘Leave it till Monday. And mind, don’t do any more damn fool things until then.’

‘I’ll try not to. But what’s done’s done. Nevertheless thanks, thanks. You’ll have it on Monday. So long.’

‘So long.’

‘What’s up with him?’ Jimmy asked as they went down towards the road that bordered the river.

‘He’s been a damned fool, he’s mad.’

‘What’s he been and gone and done?’

‘Nothing . . . I’ll tell you some other time. What do you want me down here for?’

‘I want to show you something.’

‘A boat?’

‘Aye, a boat. An’ something more than that.’

Rory looked down into the young face. It was always hard for him to believe that Jimmy was nineteen years old, for he still looked upon him as a nipper. He was more than fond of Jimmy, half- brothers though they were; he liked him the best of the bunch.

‘Where we going?’

‘Just along the front, then down the Cut.’

‘There’s nothing but warehouses along there.’

‘Aye, I know. But past them, past Snowdon’s, on a it, youll see.’

After some walking they had turned from the road that bordered the warehouse and wharf-strewn river front and were clambering over what looked like a piece of spare ground except that it was dotted here and there with mounds of rusty chains, anchors and the keels and ribs of small decaying boats, when Jimmy, squeezing his way between a narrow aperture in a rough fence made up of oddments of thick lack timber, said, ‘Through here.’

Rory had some difficulty in squeezing himself between the planks, but when once through he looked about him on to what appeared to be a miniature boatyard. A half-finished skeleton of a small boat was lying aslant some rough stocks and around it lay pieces of wood of all shapes and sizes. A few feet beyond the boat was the beginning of a slipway bordered by a jetty and he walked towards the edge of it and leant over the rail and looked down into the water; then from there he turned and surveyed the building at the far end of the yard.