Manuel’s chin is swollen. His eye is bruised. He has a cut on his lip, not deep but swollen, red and angry. The real damage is to his ribs, which are cracked. He keeps his arm tucked into his side and his breathing is shallow.
To waste time, Manuel takes his cigarettes out of his inside pocket and taps the packet on his knee, knocking a single cigarette up. It’s a good trick. It impresses people. He saw it in a movie and practised and practised until he perfected it. He sees Watt watch the gravity-defying miracle from the corner of his eye and give a fond, drunken smile at the trick.
Manuel puts the cigarette between his lips and pulls the packet away, flicking his lighter and holding the flame to the tip. The paper crackles as it takes the flame. He inhales but doesn’t reach for the door handle and now they both understand that he’ll stay in the car until he has finished smoking it. They are both pleased at the reprieve.
Orange halogen street light catches thick cables of white smoke exhaled through his nostrils. The smoke flattens on his knees. Oily smoke rolls across his lap and lifts slowly into the air.
For no good reason Watt titters, remembering something of the night and Manuel echoes the sentiment, puffing a laughing sound out of his mouth. Watt nods and smiles and Manuel realises for the first time that Watt thinks they are the same. That makes Manuel laugh properly, and Watt laughs along with him. Watt is the only one laughing together. Manuel is just laughing. They’re tired and drunk and they sit in the car laughing.
They hear the tramp of work boots behind them, coming up the quiet street. Manuel watches in the side mirror. An older man in a jacket and bunnet, a muffler and overalls, carrying his lunch tin under his arm.
The man reads the car, the not-work-jackets, the smoke curling in the cabin and knows the men have been out carousing all night. He tuts and sparking ash blows from the stubby Woodbine hanging from his lip. Manuel watches the sparks die in the wind. Manuel reads that the man makes a virtue of hard graft. He thinks he is a good man because he works hard for no money. He sees suddenly that Manuel is looking at him and drops his gaze, masking his judgement, passing the car. He speeds up and is swallowed by the blackness at the end of the road.
Manuel works out where that man lives. He is coming from the back of the estate, is about fifty and wearing clothes fit for heavy, dirty work. He has a piece tin with him, which means he isn’t coming home for lunch. The jacket is pressed though, so he has a wife. He must work far away. He is walking over the fields, not down to the main road for the bus to either Hamilton or a works in Glasgow. He’s going over to the Edinburgh bus stop. His gait suggests he has been walking for a block or more, he’s into the stride of it. It’s the father Connelly. Three daughters. The oldest daughter married two weeks ago. Manuel remembers seeing the scramble outside the house. His mother will know them from the chapel.
The bride’s scramble is a tradition. As she leaves her parents’ house for her wedding the bride casts handfuls of loose change into the street as a last gesture. Children scramble for the money. The bride throws money away because she won’t need her own money any more, once she’s married. It’s a tradition that will die as cars become more common and the shortcomings of inviting small children to reach under moving vehicles becomes more obvious. Good scramblers can get a lot of money on a Saturday, if they know to listen out for news of weddings and manage to get to more than one.
Manuel tried to marry once. She was decent.
Watt titters again, his belly shaking on his thighs. He is now trying to revive the moment when they were both laughing, two minutes ago. The night is puttering to a stop like a car with no petrol.
Manuel takes another draw on his cigarette and gets back to his train of thought.
She was decent and clean. Manuel didn’t know if he loved her but he felt something strong about her. She reminded him of his mother. Peter wrote anonymous poison pen letters to her, warning her off Peter Manuel. He is a beast and has a dark past. You can do better. Peter still doesn’t know why he did that. It bothers him.
‘We going in for a cup of tea?’
Watt turns to Manuel, smiling drunkenly. He is drawling badly and his blinking is uncoordinated. Manuel imagines his mother’s face if she saw Watt. He imagines her heavy silence hanging in the house over the next few days. He imagines her, bowed in the dark at the kitchen table, reciting her rosary for him when he happens in for a drink of water. He imagines her naked and raped and stabbed and lying in the neat front garden.
‘No.’
Watt doesn’t know what to say about that. He shuts his eyes and shakes his head.
‘Wee cup of tea?’
Manuel looks across the garden to the window into his parents’ front room.
It’s dark behind the glass but light glimmers from the kitchen. On the inside sill of the front room is a small plaster statue of St Anthony. A beacon. A priest gave it to his mother.
Watt slurs, ‘I’m too tired to drive back without a cuppa. Come on, let’s just go in.’
‘No.’
‘Come on, Peter, I need a cup of tea.’
‘Wish we’d got in the cellar.’
Watt follows the misdirect, laughs and nods and gives a low whoop, a half-laugh, and looks away. They are both glad they didn’t get through the door. The erotic frisson of that part of the night is distant and confusing now.
‘You been in there?’
‘No,’ said Watt, ‘but I’d certainly like to!’
Manuel breathes an affirmative ‘Ha!’
‘Ha! Come on.’ Watt has the car door open, leans back in the seat to lever himself out.
‘No!’ Manuel grabs his arm. ‘No!’
Their eyes meet. They are both surprised that Manuel expressed an emotion. He is breaking character.
‘No,’ Manuel corrects his tone. ‘I’ll bring tea out here.’
Watt looks sad. ‘You won’t have me in your home.’
Manuel glances at the dark front-room window. His mother’s face bobs to the surface. Brigit steps back, swallowed by the shadows again, but she has seen the car and knows he is there.
‘I can’t bring you in.’
Watt is looking at the window too and saw Brigit’s face. ‘Was that your mother?’
Manuel stubs his cigarette out in the car’s brimming ashtray.
‘Why can’t I come in?’ ‘She’s seen you in the papers…’
Watt looks at the window, as if all of the rejection he has been subjected to is there, behind the glass, denying him tea.
Manuel rubs the salt in gently. ‘I hardly can, Bill. It’s my family.’
Watt is drunk. His moods slide across the surface of his face, water on oilcloth. ‘I know, I know… It’s your family.’
Manuel opens the car door.
‘Wait here.’