Part 7 (1/2)

Jozef handed him the spanners, and the boy raised his eyebrows: ”Just now?”

Jozef nodded: ”When you've changed out of those.”

He pointed at his shoes.

”Then you can spend the afternoon plastering, on the first floor, if you want. I can pay you. Time and a half, yes? So you can buy your own work boots.”

Stevie gave a small smile, and then he asked: ”You'll be payin me fae what I've saved you, aye?”

He flicked his head at the towel rail, so then Jozef had to smile himself, because the boy was right. He'd already done the calculations in the van last night: two towel rails were three hundred pounds, give or take. It was a good chunk of what was owed him from Mount Florida, and there was some satisfaction in that.

11.

Stevie's cousins lived in the high flats; Uncle Brian's boys and Malky Jnr.'s. They were bigger than Stevie, all in secondary, but he still got to go to their houses after school, some afternoons. If his Mum had work on, then Stevie's Dad would arrange it, so they'd be there at the school gates with their pushbikes, and Stevie got to sit on their handlebars, gripping tight, while they rode him home fast to make him laugh.

There were always kids out around the high blocks, even on days it was cold. Way more kids than lived round Stevie's, playing football on the gra.s.s where it said no ball games. There were plenty games he could join in with, even if there were some kids who wouldn't have ita”get tae f.u.c.ka”Stevie's cousins being big, it meant he was safe, and he could always go and be with the older boys anyhow.

Tall as men to him, Stevie stood amid them while they traded words, smoking f.a.gs, after the kickabout was done with. The days got longer, turning into summer, and all the wee kids were called inside, but Stevie could sit out on the low wall with the big boys till his Mum arrived.

His Dad liked him playing with his cousins, and after school broke up he dropped him there some mornings, if he had a late start at work. Uncle Brian and Auntie Cathy would be out already, and then Stevie's Dad would have to lean on the buzzer to get the big boys out of bed.

”Did your Maw say I was droppin Stevie?”

”Aye, aye. Nae bother. We just forgot.”

They'd come down the stairwell in their boxers and bare feet to fetch him, and Stevie's Mum rolled her eyes about that later when she heard.

”Bunch a layabouts, so they are.”

”Ach naw. Just growin boys, enjoyin their holidays.”

Stevie's Dad thought it was funny, and Stevie didn't mind it either, because after his Dad was gone, he got to sit and watch Uncle Brian's big telly while his cousins slept on a bit.

Only then Stevie's Mum got him up early one morning, first thing, and she didn't take him to his cousins'; she took him with her on the bus instead, and she dropped him off at Uncle Eric's.

”Sure this is all right? It won't be every morning, just the days I'm working.”

”Aye, on you go.” Eric smiled while Stevie came inside.

But then after his Mum left, the flat was quiet, and Stevie stood and looked about himself. The old man didn't have a telly, or toys, or kids out playing in his back court. Just his desk and all those files.

They made Stevie think about that picture he stole.

It was months ago now, but he knew his Mum had kept it: at home in a s...o...b..x in her bedside drawer, alongside the coaster with the two of them on it. And then Stevie worried: if his Gran had told Eric. If that's why he was here and not with his cousins. He looked at his uncle, who pointed to the sofa: ”Sit down, son, an I'll read tae you. I've some stories you should know, aye?”

Uncle Eric read to him every morning he was there over the holidays.

It was always the Bible, so Stevie thought this was maybe his punishment. Except the old man didn't plod through from start to finish like Papa Robert. He told Stevie: ”I'll only read you they bits that matter. Promise.”

Some days he'd have the big book open and ready on the sofa. Other mornings, Eric would thumb for ages through the gold-rimmed pages, scanning the lines, whistling through his big teeth. He'd break off in the middle of a line, impatient. Or he'd mutter: ”No no no, b.l.o.o.d.yh.e.l.lno.”

And start afresh, somewhere entirely different.

Eric told Stevie: ”Not aw the Bible is poetry. They bits that are, but. They'd stand alongside any book. Ecclesiastes now, or mebbe Lamentations. For love is as strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals ae fire, which hath a most vehement flame.”

The old man sucked in his breath, eyebrows up, like that was amazing.

”Aw that heart, aye? Cannae beat it. That's Song ae Solomon.”

Eric always said what part he was reading before he started; the book and the chapter it was from, and what the people in it were called. Stevie could read a bit by now, so he'd sit close, and follow his uncle's finger along the words. But there were so many of them, and they were dead small too, it made Stevie tired, so he'd shut his eyes, and then he could feel Eric speaking more than hear him. It was like a hum in his chest, low and steady, and that was nice, so Stevie mostly just followed the old man's voice; the sounds it made if not the sense.

After the story was finished, Eric would get Stevie to say what he remembered.

”Just tell me they bits that stuck.”

He'd tap Stevie's forehead, gently, with a fingertip, and then he'd smile when Stevie couldn't come up with anything much.

But there were days he made sure of Stevie's attention: ”Can you mind who Isaac is, son?”

Eric stopped one morning, in the middle of a reading, and when Stevie shook his head, the old man said: ”He's Abraham's boy. Right?”

Sitting back, eyes sharp.

”You listenin?”

Stevie nodded: he was now.

Eric told him this story was important; he was reading it for something he was drawing. And then he went over the parts he'd read so far.

”Abraham's takin Isaac up tae Moriah. They're climbing up the mountain. An it's because G.o.d tellt him, see? Abraham's tae make a burnt offerin ae his boy.”

Stevie nodded again, even if he didn't know what that meant. Only Eric wasn't fooled: ”Abraham's takin Isaac up the hill tae kill him.”

Stevie blinked.

It hadn't sounded like that was happening. Just a lot of words; just the same as Eric always read. Stevie leaned forward and stared at the page, but he could only find the big black pu, and wu and le that started the columns. Nothing about dads who kill their sons. He'd never heard a story like that before. His own Dad shouted sometimes, if Stevie dawdled, or whined too much about having cold fingers, but that's as far as he went.

Eric shut the book, and then he got up and went to his bureau. He chose one of his good pencils, and a thick sheet of paper, and then he beckoned Stevie over.

”Come an see.”

He drew all the Patriarchs instead of reading more; Eric laid them out in a family tree, and he said it would help Stevie understand it all better, in time anyhow, the way the stories and the people all connected.