Free The Big Man by William McIlvanney Page A

had been in the car came in and sat at their table. Matt Mason introduced him.
    ‘Ah think Big Billy has a slight case of concussion,’ Eddie Foley said. ‘His head hit the ground with a terrible wallop.’
    The domino players were shouting over.
    ‘Thanks, mate.’
    ‘Cheers!’
    ‘All the best.’
    Matt Mason gave them a regal wave.
    ‘A lucky hit, you think?’ he asked Eddie Foley teasingly.
    Eddie Foley laughed.
    ‘Came out a telescopic rifle, that punch. If that was lucky, beatin’ the Light Brigade was a fluke. This man can go a bit.’
    ‘He would have to against Cutty.’
    ‘Wait a minute,’ Dan Scoular said. He looked at Frankie White. ‘What did you set me up for here?’
    Matt Mason held up his hands.
    ‘I can explain,’ he said. ‘You want to give me a minute?’
    ‘Ah don’t know.’
    Dan Scoular was trying to work out what had happened to bring him here. He had said ‘Hey!’ and the word had been as mysterious in effect as ‘Open Sesame’. His night had been transformed. The result was slightly dazzling but he didn’t like being dazzled and beyond the surface laughter and brightness he had already glimpsed shadows that troubled him. Frankie White had been standing at the bar when Dan came in but he hadn’t just been standing at the bar. Matt Mason had been sitting with the man Dan hit and now he hadn’t even asked about him. It was as if the man had served the purpose he was brought for. He was expendable. Someone had been waiting in the car to switch on the lights. Dan had thought he had been getting involved in a spontaneous fight but it had only been a controlled experiment. In doing what he had thought was winning for himself and Vince Mabon, Dan had been winning, it seemed, for Matt Mason. It had been a fight Matt Mason couldn’t lose. The rules were strange here.
    ‘Dan,’ Frankie White said. ‘Just listen to the man a minute, will you? Please?’
    Alan had brought the drinks across, rested a stepfatherly hand on Dan’s shoulder as he put down his pint.
    ‘That’s how we used to breed them in these parts,’ he said, staking an early claim to proprietorship of this evening’s legend.
    Dan sipped his pint and waited. Realising Alan had gone off without giving him anything, Eddie Foley passed a pound to Frankie White.
    ‘Get us a whisky and a half pint, Frankie.’
    Dan Scoular watched Frankie White’s receding back with thoughtfulness.
    That was Billy Fleming you saw away there,’ Matt Mason said.
    ‘How is he?’ Dan asked Eddie Foley.
    ‘Beat,’ Matt Mason said. ‘You ever lost a fight?’
    ‘Aye.’
    ‘How many?’
    ‘Just the one. But Ah haven’t had too many.’
    ‘Who was that?’
    ‘Ma feyther.’
    ‘Your father? What age were you?’
    ‘Ah would be nineteen.’
    ‘How did that come about?’
    Dan Scoular looked at him, decided that whatever his reasons for asking were, he had no reasons for not telling.
    ‘Ah was a cocky boy. Ah hit a man for no reason. Just because Ah felt like it. He didny want to fight. Ah broke his jaw. Ma feyther took me out the back door. An’ hammered me.’
    Matt Mason gave the event his expert consideration, offered the balm of his wisdom to the dead wound.
    ‘Maybe you weren’t trying. I mean, fighting your father. That’s bound to put brakes on you.’
    ‘Oh, Ah was tryin’ all right. But Ah was in the wrong. That’s a bad corner to come out of.’
    ‘You superstitious?’
    ‘What’s that got to do wi’ superstition? Ah walk under ladders an’ everythin’.’
    ‘I mean, having less chance if you’re in the wrong?’
    Frankie White had returned from the camaraderie at the bar. He put down Eddie Foley’s two drinks. Eddie held out his hand and Frankie remembered the change. Dan Scoular watched the handing over of the silver. He took a sip of his pint.
    ‘Look,’ he said. ‘Ah just believe in certain things. Like what ma feyther told me that day. If ye can’t fight for the right reasons, keep yer hands in