The Gambling Man

‘You ask me that! Well, you’ve just had a nightmare an’ you’ve just cleared up somethin’ that’s been puzzling me for a long time. You! Do you know what I could do to you this minute? I could spit in your eye, Rory Connor. I could spit in your eye.’

He now leant his stiff body back against the wall. He’d had a nightmare, he’d been talking. He was sweating, yet cold, it was always cold on the river at night. With a thrust of his arm he pushed her aside and got out of the bed and pulled his trousers on over his linings, but didn’t speak; and neither did she. But when he went towards the door to go into the other room she followed him, holding the candle high, and she watched him grab the matches from the mantelpiece and light the lamp. When it was aflame he turned and looked at her and said quietly, ‘Well, now you know.’

‘Aye, I know. And how you can stand there and say it like that God alone knows. My God! to think you let John George take the rap for you . . .’

He turned on her. His voice low and angry, he said, ‘He didn’t take the rap for me, he took it for himself. He’d have been caught out sooner or later; he’d been at it for months.’

‘Aye, he might have, but only for a few shillings at a time not five pounds.’

‘No, not for a few shillings, a pound and more. I’d warned him.’

‘You warned him!’ Her voice was full of scorn. ‘But you went and did the same, and for no little sum either. It was for your five pounds he got put away for the year, not for the little bits.’

‘It wasn’t. I tell you it wasn’t’

‘Oh, shut up! Don’t try to stuff me like you’ve been doin’ yourself. That’s what you’ve been tellin’ yourself all along, isn’t it, to ease your conscience? But your conscience wouldn’t be eased, would it? Remember our first night in this place. You nearly knocked me through the wall ’cos I mentioned his name. I should have twigged then.’

‘Aye, yes, you should.’ His tone was flat now, weary-sounding. ‘And if you had, it would have been over and done with, I’d have gone through less.’

‘Gone through less! You talkin’ about goin’ through anything, what about John George?’

‘Damn John George!’ He was shouting now. ‘I tell you he would have gone along the line in any case.’

‘You’ll keep tellin’ yourself that till the day you die, yet you don’t believe it because the other night you promised to set him up when he came out. Eeh!—’ she now shook her head mockingly at him —’that was kind of you, wasn’t it? And I nearly went on me knees to you for it.’

‘Janie—’ he came towards her—’try to understand. You . . . you know how I feel about being locked in, and I was bad at the time. I was bad. God! I nearly died. And that was no make game, I couldn’t think clearly not for weeks after.’

As his hand came out towards her she sprang back from it, saying, ‘Don’t touch me, Rory Connor. Don’t touch me, not until you get yourself down to that station and tell them the truth.’

‘What!’ The word carried a high surprised note of utter astonishment. ‘You’d have me go along the line now?’

‘Aye, I would, and be able to live with you when you came out. It isn’t the pinchin’ of the five pounds that worries me, an’ if nobody had suffered through it I would have said, “Good for you if you can get off with it,” but not now, not the way things are; not when that lad’s back there. And you know something? When I think of it he could have potched you, he could have said you were the only other one who had a key. He could have said you were a gambling man and would sell your own mother. Oh aye—’ she wagged her head now—’you would sell your real mother for less than five pounds any day in the week, wouldn’t you? Poor Lizzie . . .’

The blow that caught her across the mouth sent her staggering, and at the same moment Jimmy came rushing down the ladder. Without a word he went to her where she was leaning against the chest-of-drawers, her back arched, her hand across her mouth, and he put his arm around her waist as he looked towards Rory and said, ‘You’ll regret that, our Rory. There’ll come a day when you’ll be sorry for that.’

‘You mind your own bloody business. And get out of this.’

‘I’ll not. I’ve heard enough to make me as sick as she is. I can’t believe it of you, I just can’t. And to John George of all people. He’d have laid down his life for you.’

Rory turned from the pair and stumbled to the mantelpiece and, gripping its edge, he stared down into the banked-down fire. That he was more upset by Jimmy’s reactions than by Janie’s didn’t surprise him, for he knew he represented a sort of hero to his brother. He had never done one outstanding thing to deserve it but he had accepted his worship over the years, and found comfort in it, but now Jimmy had turned on him.