The man smiled. Mungo had to look away to stop staring. He would dream about this man later, he would think about how his thick fingers crammed into the pockets of his jeans, how there was chafing on his muscular neck where the coarse wool of his jacket irritated his stubble. The man laughed. “What is it wi’ you two? Is it yer first night on earth?” He looked inside the duffel bag again. “Auld Jocky is better for shanking blades and the odd oboe. Ah’d take these out to the West End, look along the Byres Road. They’ve got fancy houses and antique shops out there. There are actual pedlars of other people’s old shite, if ye can fuckin’ believe it.” With that the workie put his money in his breast pocket. He strode across the pavement and got back into his van, the engine came to life with a great rattling shudder.
He leaned out the window and said to the hairdresser, “Haw, you wi’ the trinkets. If ye want a lift ah’m heading out yon Finnieston way. If ye don’t mind a wee walk I can drop ye close enough to the West End?”
The young man nodded and walked around to the passenger side. The workie was watching Mungo. He leaned out of his window and tapped his hand on the door as though Mungo should come closer. Mungo crossed over to him, and the workie said, “Here, how old are you?”
Mungo hesitated a moment. “Nearly sixteen.”
The man smiled and Mungo felt his pulse quicken. The workie pointed at the side of the van. “Can ye read that sign?”
Mungo gazed at where the man was pointing. Davey MacNeil. Plumbing, Bathroom and Kitchen Fitting. Fair price – fast work. Duke Street. Tel: 554 6799. Mungo nodded, he was confused. “Aye, I can read it.”
“Can ye remember it?”
Mungo glanced at it again. “Aye. So?”
“Guid. Ah’m Davey. See when you turn twenty-one, can I take you for a drink? Will ye gie us a wee phone?” The workie winked at Mungo, his blue eyes sparkling with mischief. Mungo must have nodded, but he wasn’t aware of it. Davey released the handbrake and the van trundled off. Mungo watched it join the evening traffic.
A new voice cut into his thoughts. “Haw. Whit’s yer game, pal?”
Mungo turned on his heel. Jocky was standing in the doorway of the pawnshop, he had a claw hammer in his hand. “Ah’ve seen you every day this week, just watchin’ the place. You one of the young Tongs? Think ye can fuckin’ rob us?”
Mungo shook his head. “Naw. I’m no from the Calton. Are you Jocky?”
“Whit if ah um?”
“I’m looking for Maureen Buchanan. I’m Mungo. I’m her boy.”
Mungo wasn’t sure what he had expected, but he had a feeling that the man would have been annoyed at his sudden appearance. Mo-Maw had given him the impression that Jocky didn’t like the messy bits of her life, that he and his siblings were like the used plates that she kicked under her bed and hid beneath the bed skirt. Jocky surprised him when he lowered the hammer and said, “Right, Will ye be wanting a cup of tea?”
The inside of the pawnshop was more cluttered than the windows. There was a battalion of upright hoovers along one wall, and behind the security glass were the cases of rings that the signwriting promised. Mungo peered at them, he knew nothing about the fashions of ladies’ jewellery but all the women he knew had quick, busy hands and these rings seemed heavy and impractical. Jocky locked the door, he led Mungo behind the counter and into the storeroom at the back. He rinsed two tea mugs and filled the electric kettle. There was a rail of wedding dresses gathering dust.
“Do you sell everything?”
“Aye. Every manner of thing if there’s money in it.” Jocky shovelled heaped spoonfuls of powdered milk into the mug. “But it’s no really about sellin’. It’s about haudin’. Sugar?”
Mungo nodded. “I’ve never been in a pawnshop.”
“Och, there’s nothing to it. It’s just a big storage shed. Money lending, int it?” Jocky offered Mungo a biscuit, and when he took one, Jocky pushed another on him. He pointed at a low stool for Mungo to sit on. “That fella ye were talking tae. He brings his trumpet in here every so often. Every time he pretends like ah came up the Clyde in a banana boat. But ah gie him a couple of poun’ for it, and then when wages day comes, he buys it back for a wee bit more than ah gave him.”
Mungo chewed the soft biscuit. “So, how much do you want for my mother then?”
Mungo had meant it as a joke, but Jocky handed the boy a cup of tea and carried on as though he hadn’t heard him. “There used tae be guid money in it. Decent families needing a wee bit o’ cash to tide them over tae Friday. But now it’s aw junkies rippin’ electronics out of their mammies’ flats and puntin’ it fur skag.” Jocky nodded at a stack of record players. “And who wants tae buy used stuff anymair? It’s aw new, new, new wi’ people these days. It breaks: they bin it. It doesnae go wi’ the wife’s latest haircut: they bin it.”
Mungo looked around the storeroom with a different perspective. What had first seemed like a bounty of treasures waiting to find new homes now seemed like a dumping ground for unwanted relics.
Jocky slumped on his stool with a groan. He was a short man and stout, but his fat hadn’t slackened into corpulence yet, there was still a muscularity to him; he looked like he could handle himself in a fight. He slurped on his tea. “What the polis can never know is ah make a killin’ wi’ blades and shanks and the odd shooter. Thank fuck the Young Teams are aw fightin’. That’s where aw the money is these days, drugs and violence. The rest of it widnae buy ye a lick of an ice cream cone.”
Mungo wondered if Hamish had ever been here.
“Did ye know there is a vogue to weapons? Like an actual fashion trend? Some of these fighters carry on like they were lassies buying dresses in Paris. ‘Oh naw, ah don’t want a bowie knife – every cunt already has a bowie knife. Ah want somethin’ mair elegant. Somethin’ that screams me.’” Jocky chuckled as he lit a cigarette. He offered his packet to Mungo, but Mungo declined. Now that they had discussed the pawn business there seemed nothing left to talk about, other than the woman who was strung between them and tied them together. It seemed like neither of them knew how to broach the subject of Maureen. The silence went on for an uncomfortably long time. Jocky smoked his fag. Mungo’s tea cooled.
“You don’t look anything like her. Maureen, that is.”
“I know. She’s says I look lit my da but …” Mungo didn’t bother to finish the sentence. “How is she anyhows?”