The Gambling Man

‘She’s right, Rory. It’s daft to tramp down all the way to Westoe for it’ll be another couple of hours afore you get back. And then with it coming down like this. Well, as Janie says . . .’

Rory peered from one to the other before he answered, ‘Imagine the reception I’d get if I told them back there I’d left you at the arches. They’d wipe the kitchen with me.’

‘But you’re not leavin’ me at the arches; John George’ll see me right to the door. Look.’ She turned and pushed John George away, saying, ‘Go on, walk on a bit, I’ll catch up with you in a minute at the Dock gates.’

When John George walked swiftly from the shelter of the arch Rory called, ‘Hold your hand a minute . . .’

‘Now just you look here.’ Janie pulled at the lapels of his coat. ‘Don’t be such a fathead; I’d rather know you were safely back home in the dry than have you set me to the door.’

‘But I won’t see you for another week.’

‘That didn’t seem to bother you all afternoon, ’cos you’ve done nowt but play cards.’

‘Well, what can you do back there? I ask you, what can you do? There’s no place to talk and I couldn’t ask you out in the freezing cold or they’d’ve been at me. And I wanted to talk to you, seriously like ’cos it’s . . . it’s time we thought about doin’ something. Don’t you think it is?’

She kept her head on the level, her eyes looking into his as she replied, ‘If you want a straight answer, Mr Connor, aye, I do.’

‘Aw, Janie!’ He pulled her roughly to him and pressed his mouth on hers and when she overbalanced and her back touched the curved wall of the arch she pulled herself from him, saying, ‘Eeh! me coat, it’ll get all muck.’

‘Blast your coat!’

Her voice soft now, she said, ‘Aye, blast me coat,’ then she put her mouth to his again and they stood, their arms gripped tight around each other, their faces merged.

When again she withdrew herself from him he was trembling and he gulped in his throat before saying, ‘Think about it this week, will you?’

‘It’s you that’s got to do the thinking, Rory. We’ve got to get a place an’ furniture ’cos there’s one thing I can tell you sure, I’m not livin’ in with me dad and grannie. I’m not startin’ that way up in the loft. I want a house that I can make nice with things an’ that . . .’

‘As if I would ask you. What do you take me for?’

‘I’m only tellin’ you, I want a decent place . . .’

‘I’m with you there all the way. I’m not for one room an’ a shakydown either, I can tell you that . . . I’ve got something in me napper.’

‘Gamblin’?’

‘Well, aye. And don’t say it like that; I haven’t done too badly out of it, have I now? But what I’m after is to get set on in a good school . . . A big school. And there’s plenty about. But you’ve got to be in the know.’

‘What! be in the know afore you can get into a gamblin’ school?’ Her voice was scornful. ‘Why, you’ve been up at Boldon Colliery where they have schools . . .’

‘Aye in the back yards an’ in the wash-houses. I know all about Boldon Colliery and the games there, hut they’re tin pot compared to what I’m after. The places I mean are where you start with a pound, not with a penny hoping to win a tanner. Oh, aye, I know, there’s times when there’s been ten pounds in a kitty, but them times are few and far between I’m telling you. No, what I’m after is getting set on in a real school, but it’s difficult because of the polis, they’re always on the look out—it’s a tricky business even for the back-laners. That’s funny,’ he laughed, ‘a tricky business, but it is. Remember what Jimmy said the night about notices in the works? They try everything to catch you out: spies, plain-clothes bobbies, touts. It’s odd, you know; they don’t run you in for drinking, but you touch a card or flick a coin and you’re for it . . . Anyway, as I said, I’ve got something in me napper, and if it works out . . .’

‘Be careful, Rory.  I get worried about your gamin’. Even years ago when you used to play chucks and always won, I used to wonder how you did it. And it used to worry me; I mean ’cos you always won.’

‘I don’t always win now.’

‘You do pretty often, even if it’s only me da’s monkey nuts.’

They both made small audible sounds, then moved aside to let a couple of men pass. And now she said, ‘I’ll have to be goin’, John George’ll get soaking wet . . . Eeh! I always feel sorry for John George.’

‘Your pity’s wasted, he’s too soft to clag holes with, I’m always telling him. It’s right what she said’—he jerked his head—’those two old leeches suck him dry. He gets two shillings a week more than me and yet look at him, you’d think he got his togs from Paddy’s market. And he might as well for he picks them up from the second-hand stalls. And this lass he’s after . . . he would pick on a ranter, wouldn’t he?’

‘Well, he’s not a Catholic.’

‘No, I know he’s not. He’s not anything in that line, but he goes and takes up with one from the narrowest end of the Nonconformists, Baptist-cum- Methodist-cum . . .’

‘What’s she like?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Doesn’t he talk about her at all?’