Free The Big Man by William McIlvanney Page B

yer pockets.’
    ‘And what are the right reasons?’
    ‘Ah’m not always sure. But he seemed to be.’
    Matt Mason held up his glass and paused before taking a drink. He might have been showing off his rings.
    ‘You want to make some money?’
    Dan Scoular looked slowly round the group at the table. His look separated himself from them, as if they were a conspiracy.
    ‘What?’ he said. ‘Was that an interview for a job?’
    ‘In a way.’
    ‘But, mister, Ah didny apply.’
    ‘All right. But I’m asking you. Do you want to make some money?’
    ‘Who doesny want to make some money? But there’s money and money.’
    Matt Mason looked at Frankie White.
    ‘Does he like talking in riddles?’ he said and looked back at Dan. ‘There’s only one kind of money. The good stuff. Unless it’s home-made. And this won’t be. All right?’
    ‘Ah just mean some money’s dearer than others. Some just costs sweat. Some costs yer self-respect. What do Ah do for it?’
    ‘You do what you’re good at. You fight.’
    ‘For money? You mean in a ring?’
    Matt Mason was enjoying the revelation to come. He took out a leather cigar-case and offered Dan Scoular a cigar. Dan shook his head. Eddie, who had taken out his cigarettes, didn’t seem to notice Frankie White about to take one. He held out the packet to Dan Scoular.
    ‘Ah don’t smoke.’
    ‘Ah told ye,’ Frankie said.
    But he missed the point. It wasn’t a matter of checking on his information. It was improvised stage-business, self-taught management technique for controlling situations. Matt Mason’s timing was a matter of instinct but what he used it to promote was a well-rehearsed performance. He lit Eddie’s cigarette with his gold lighter and then his own cigar. He re-emerged looking at Dan from behind a slowly dissipating cloud of smoke, Merlin of the cigar.
    ‘I’m arranging a bare-knuckle fight,’ he said.
    Dan Scoular looked across towards the others in the bar as if checking his location in normalcy. Having confirmed his fix on where he was, he looked back at these three as if they weresomewhere else, maybe inhabiting their own fantasy or just trying to take the mickey out of him. Frankie White was nodding reassuringly.
    ‘What for?’ Dan said.
    ‘It’s a complicated story,’ Matt Mason said. ‘Frankie White’ll tell you. If you agree to do it. If you don’t, you won’t have to know, will you?’
    ‘Ye’re kiddin’.’
    ‘I stopped kidding when I came out of the pram.’
    Dan took a sip of his pint. It seemed to feel strange in his mouth. The idea was so bizarre that he came at it tangentially.
    ‘Ah’ve had a few scuffles,’ he said. ‘But they were always for a reason.’
    ‘Money’s not a reason?’
    ‘A fight in the street’s different.’
    ‘What’s different? You’re doing the same thing, aren’t you? It’s man against man.’
    ‘Naw. It’s different. Ah’ve watched a lot of boxing on the telly. That’s a different game. More complicated. Street fightin’s just two things.’
    ‘What would they be?’
    ‘Suddenness. And meanin’ it. Ye go fast. If ye can, ye go first. An’ ye stop when it’s over. That’s all Ah can do.’
    ‘Should be enough.’
    ‘Anyway,’ Eddie Foley said, ‘that’s not true, big man. Listen –’
    Vince Mabon had come over to their table. Matt Mason looked up as if wherever he sat he was booking a private room and Vince hadn’t knocked. Eddie Foley cut his sentence dead. It was less polite than talking on and ignoring Vince’s presence would have been.
    ‘Excuse me, Dan,’ Vince Mabon said. ‘Ah want to thank you for what you did there.’
    ‘Any time, Vince. We’ve got to protect the nation’s intellectuals.’
    But the demon of sloganising that was in Vince had to climb on to even his gratitude like a soap-box.
    ‘But I still don’t agree with that kind of violence. That wasn’t the kind of violence I was talking about.’
    ‘Maybe,’ Matt Mason said, ‘he