Free The Man In The Seventh Row by Brian Pendreigh Page A

flat. I think it was different when he was there. The area was different. His family had come from Ireland, his mother was a cleaner and they lived in a two-room flat without its own toilet, beside the brewery, the smelly part of Fountainbridge. It was much rougher then.'
    'And the Battys?'
    'The Battys lived in a two-bedroom flat, with its own toilet, above their own butcher's shop, at the city centre end of the street.'
    Quick as a flash Anna chips in: 'That must have been offal too.'
    His mother thought it was awful. Her father had worked in a bank, but both her parents died before Roy was born. She always said Fountainbridge was temporary, as if she expected to wake up one morning and find the whole neighbourhood gone. Doreen would have been happier if home had been in Marchmont or Comely Bank, and if business had not been such an offal business, but her main complaint was the neighbours and the neighbours' children.
    'You can take the man out the bog,' her husband said, 'but you can't take the bog out the man.'
    Roy tried to translate this into words he understood: 'You can take the man out the toilet, but you can't take the toilet out the man.' Yes, it seemed to make sense.
    'What does cunt mean Mummy?' Stephen asked. 'Mary wants to show me her cunt for thruppence.'
    His mother shrieked and said they must leave, leave, leave. Three times. Just like that. And she cried when Roy came home with a bloody nose given to him by two boys who claimed to be 'the Brewery Boys'. Somehow it became four boys when Roy tearfully related the details. It was no ordinary bloody nose. There was blood everywhere, a trail that led from the flat, down the stairs, back to the scene of the crime. But it was not simply the amount of blood that qualified the bloody nose as extraordinary, but the way in which it was sustained. One of Roy's assailants had stuck a pen knife up Roy's nose and pulled it right through the flesh.
    'I hate this place,' Doreen Batty said. 'Sometimes I just want to ...' She held her head in her hands.
    'Kill yourself?' suggested Roy innocently.
    'It would be worse if you weren't here, Mummy,' he continued, as the blood dripped from his wound. 'I saw it on television with Grandad and he explained it.'
    His mother looked up.
    'The man thought he couldn't look after his family and he wanted to kill himself. But the angel showed him how much worse they would be if he wasn't there. The angel showed him that it is a wonderful life.'
    Roy's mother pulled him to her and cried even more. Her tears diluted his blood.
    He smiled to cheer her up, though, in truth, he had not liked the film much. Neither had his grandfather, who said it was a load of bunk, which sounded like swearing to Roy. He considered it best not to repeat his grandfather's word.
    Roy and his grandfather preferred westerns and war films. Or silent comedies, with Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd. His grandfather had first seen them when he was Roy's age and now they were repackaged in segments for television, wild, surreal slapstick that ended with the most poignant, haunting music Roy had ever heard, an elegy for a departed era. Departed eras. Departed eras provided films like The Adventures of Marco Polo , The Adventures of Robin Hood and The Last of the Mohicans . Adventures on the high seas with titles like Captain Blood and The Buccaneer that told you all you needed to know about what you were about to see. Adventures in far-off lands with titles like Gunga Din and Beau Geste that were full of exotic promise and mystery.
    ' Beau Geste ,' his grandfather sighed. 'They don't make them like that any more.'
    'Is it a true story?' Roy would always ask. 'Is it a true story?'
    And, more often than not, it would be, no matter how incredible it seemed. Robin Hood really did steal from the rich and give to the poor, Marco Polo really did discover China and bring back silk and mints with holes in the middle, and John Wayne really did defeat the Japs at Iwo Jima.
    It was his