A Scots Quair (73 page)

But when he heard that Feet fairly sat up, as every soul did now in front of the Arms:
Mrs Colquohoun? Where might
she come from?
And the Cleghorn body had said
From Segget.
Her man was a minister-creature there, though I'm damned if she
looks it, a fleet trig woman that could muck a byre more ready any
day than snuffle a psalm
. At that poor Feet was took sore
aback, he never could stick the proud bitch at the Manse; but he'd made a deposit for the lodgings already and couldn't well ask for the silver back. So off he'd come home and got ready to pack—and faith, did you ever hear the like of that?

Afore night was out all Segget had heard, and half of the Mearns afore the next day, postmen ran for miles over parks with the news, old Hogg hammered four soles on the same pair of boots he was in such a fash to give the tale out. And when Mrs Colquohoun went down to the station, straight and cool, with her trig-like back, her hair coiled over each lug, fair daft, some thought it bonny, you were damned if you did—the half of Segget was keeking from its windows, and wondering about her, how she'd get on, what was she thinking, what was she wearing, had she had a bath on the previous night, did she ever think of a man to sleep with, how much did she measure around the hips, could she greet if she liked, what was her temper, how much of the hundred and fifty was left, was that loon of hers, Εwan, as dour as he looked, would he land in jail or would he get on?

At half-past five the clock would go
birr!
in the narrow long room you had ta'en for yourself, you'd wake with a start and find yourself sprawled in weariness right across the great bed, dark the guff of the early Spring, no cheep of birds here on Windmill Brae, clatter of the clock as it started again with a hoast and a rasp; and you'd reach for the thing and switch it off and lie still a minute, hands under your neck in the pad of your hair, fingers rough-seamed and scraping your skin. And you'd stretch out under the bedclothes, long, till your muscles all creaked, legs, hips and ribs, blessedly, you'd still a passable figure. Syne you'd throw off the blankets and get from the bed, the floorcloth cold as a Christian's heart under the naked soles of your feet—off with your nightie and stretch again and look from the window at the coming of dawn, lacing its boots and grabbing its muffler and pelting across the roofs of Duncairn. In a hurry the same you'd wriggle in your vest, stockings and knickers, slip on your dress, getting warm already in spite of the floor and the
frozen gleam of grey granite outside. And you'd open the door and go down the stairs, quick, and looping back your hair, to the cold prison walls of the kitchen, smelly, fling open the window, in rushed the air and a smell of cats you could cut with a knife. At first that smell had made you near sick, even Jock the house-cat, a clean beast enough, but you'd no time for such luxuries as sickness now-a-days, lighting the gas, the kitchen range, your hands swift on kettles and frying-pan, eyes on the clock and ears wide open for the first stir of life in the morning's morgue.

At six you were up at Ma Cleghorn's room with a cup of tea and a knock at her door and go in and draw back the window- curtains, let up the blinds, bang! She'd wake up and groan
Is't you, Chris lass? Losh, you spoil me, just
, she meant the tea, and you'd say
Oh, havers
, she spoke Duncairn and you'd got the same gait. And Ma Cleghorn would give another bit groan and drink up the tea and loup from the bed, swack as you like, an old woman only a minute afore but filled now with tea and a fury to work.
The Bulgars'll soon be on the howl
for their meat. Whatever made me take to the keeping of lodgings?

You'd say
A BOARDING-HOUSE
,
please, Mrs Cleghorn
, one of the jokes that the two of you shared, Ma'd give a great snifter through her meikle nose:
Boarding? B'God, it's
leathering they want. And I haven't a pair of bloomers to my
name that's not darned so a body can hardly sit down. I've a fair
bit padding of my own to ease it, you haven't, get out of the damn
trade, lass, afore you're like me and take to bloomers instead of
them frilly things you wear—God be here, they'll kill you yet dead
with cold. Aren't your legs froze?

You'd say
Not them; fine legs
, and Ma struggling into her blouse would say
You're no blate. Who told you they're fine?
And you'd say
Oh, men
, and she'd nod to that, great red face topped with greying hair like the face of a war-horse out of Isaiah (as you'd once thought, minding back through the months to Robert's reading from the Bible in Segget).—
Ay,
no doubt they have, and enjoyed them fine. And would again if
you gave them the chance
.

Syne you'd to tear to the kitchen again, in time for the ring
from Miss Murgatroyd's room, dying for her tea the poor old wretch, solemn you'd carry it up to her room, the best in the house, three guineas a week. She'd quaver out of a lace nightcap:
Is that you, Mrs Colquohoun? And you have my tea?
Oh, that's Such Fine
, she was awful genteel, poor spinster body with her pensions and potterings, not a soul in the world hers and respectable down to her shrivelled toes, wabbling hands and meek quiet eyes, Episcopalian, serving tea for the whist drives up at the Unionist Club…. And Ma Cleghorn, watching her taik down the street, would ask who in God's name would be an old maid? She'd often used to think when her Jim was alive and would come back from the Fish Market stinking so bad that his shirts hung out on a washing day would bring the cats scraiching for miles around—she'd used often to think
I wish I were single, trig on
my own, not handled, not kenned, with nobody's seed ever laid in
me!
But losh, when he died she had minded him sore, night on night and would fain have had him again though he smelt like a kipper mislaid in a drain when he'd cuddle you, feuch! They were sosses, were men, but you'd only to look at the Murgatroyd creature to make you mad to go tearing out and grab the first soss that you met in breeks—
Half-past six,
Chris; will you waken your Εwan?

He slept in one of the two rooms of the upper floor, the other empty, his window looked down on the glare of Footforthie at night that changed to a sick yellow furnace- glow, unstill, staining the sky on the morning's edge. You'd wanted him to change to another room, and he'd asked you why and you'd told him he'd surely get sick of it—working down there all day and seeing it all night. But he'd shaken his shapely, sleekèd head, no fancies or flim-flams with Εwan at all:
It'll neither wake me nor send me to sleep. Only a light in the
sky, you know, Chris
.—So you'd turn the handle of his door and go in and meet the sting of the sea-wind there, the window wide open, the curtains flowing, Εwan dim in the light of the early dawn, lying so still, so still he slept that near every morning you'd be startled the same, feared that he lay there dead, so quiet, you'd shake his shoulder and see as you
bent the blankets he'd thrust away from himself, pyjamas open wide to the waist, curling dark down on a boy's breast. Strange to think that this was your Ewan, once yours and so close, so tiny, so small and weak, sexless, a baby, that had grown a body tall as your own, slimmer, stronger, secret and strange, blossom and fruit from that seed of yours…. In a queer pity you'd look and shake him awake:
Ewan, time you
were up!

He'd start awake quietly, at once, like a cat, and look at you with those deep, cool eyes, neither grey nor green, grey granite eyes.
All right. Thanks. No, I don't want tea. I'll get an
apple for myself, mother.
MOTHER
!
I said I'd get it for myself!
And he'd be out of bed and have reached the dish and caught an apple afore you got near.
You've enough to do without
waiting on me
.

—
But I like waiting on you. Wouldn't you wait on me?

—
I suppose so, if you were sick or insane. What's the time?
And lean out half-naked from the window ledge to peer over Duncairn to Thomson Tower.
Splendid. I've time for a dip in
the Forthie
.

He'd be out of the house as you gained the kitchen, an uproar by then of banging pans, Ma Cleghorn cooking porridge and bacon and sausages and coffee and cocoa and tea, and swearing out loud at the young maid, Meg, who slept at her home away down in the Cowgate and was supposed to come up each morning at seven.
Call that seven?—Then
you're blind as well's sweir. Stack up the range and be nippy
about it. Mrs Colquohoun, will you lay the table?

You were aye
Mrs Colquohoun
when Meg was about, Ma Cleghorn treating you distant, polite, for the sake of discipline, so she said. You'd gathered the way of setting the table in the big ben room so quick your eyes hardly followed your fingers, porridge plates for Sim Leslie (who'd come from Segget where they'd called him Feet) and Mr George Piddle, the
Runner
reporter, thin and
he-he'ing
, minus his hair so that he could go bald-headed for news. Bacon for Miss Murgatroyd and Mr Neil Quaritch: Mr Quaritch worked on the
Runner
as well, a sub-editor creature, aye reading books
and sloshing them to death in the
Runner
next day. But you rather liked the wee ferret man, red eyes and red hair and a red nose as well, and a straggle of beard on an unhappy chin, Ewan said he'd gone sozzled with reading rot rather than with knocking back gills of Glenlivet…. Mixed grill for Miss Ena Lyon, the typist, powdered and lipsticked, and awful up-to-date, baggy a bittie below the eyes and a voice like a harried peahen, poor lass. Porridge for young Mr Clearmont, nice loon who went to the University and was awful keen on music and jokes, you could never make head nor tail of either as he always guffawed out, young and hearty, right at the point—if there was a point. Ma Cleghorn didn't think much of him, she said if ever he'd a thought in his head it'd be easy to tell it, you'd hear the damn thing rattling about like a stone in a tin. But she was jealous a bit, you thought, of the lad's university and books and book- learning…. Bacon for young John Cushnie, all red, the clerk in Raggie Robertson's Drapery Depot, half-sulky, half-shy and would spend half an hour roping up his neck in a speckled tie, he shared Archie Clearmont's room but nought else…. Eight o'clock and you hit the gong, breakfast all ready set on the table.

And down they'd all pour and sit in about, Miss Murgatroyd sitting neat as a pin, Such Fine, and eating her grape-fruit up like a sparrow pecking at a bit of dung (you laughed: but you sometimes wished that Ma wouldn't say those things about folk so often: the picture stuck, true or untrue, and you never saw them in real likeness again); Sergeant Sim Leslie supping his porridge and goggling at you over his collar; Ewan eating quick, clean and indifferent, lost in his thoughts or else in a book, all squiggly lines and figures and drawings; Miss Ena Lyon, complete with complexion, eating her bacon and talking to Clearmont, he'd been to a concert the night before and Miss Lyon was saying she liked music as well—just loved a talkie with a Catchy Choon. Poor Mr Piddle with his long thin neck and his long thin head, as bald as a neep and something the shape, would snap up his meat in a haste to be gone in search of news for the
Daily
Runner
, a fine big paper, the pride of Duncairn, and awful useful for lining your shelves; Cushnie, red-eared and trying to speak English, would call out above the folds of his tie
Will
ye pass the cruet? I'm in a gey hurry. Me and Mr Robertson have
the Spring Sale on
; and Mr Neil Quaritch would push down his cup,
May I have another, Mrs Colquohoun?
he'd left his breakfast untasted as usual.

And Ma Cleghorn would sit at the top of the table, her big red face set square on its neck, sonsy and sturdy, you'd liked her from the first, she you, you supposed you'd neither of you frills, you'd seen over much of this queer thing Life to try hide from its face by covering your own with a ready-made complexion out of a jar, or ready-made morals from the Unionist Club, or ready-made fear and excitement and thrill out of the pages of the
Daily Runner
…. And you'd sit and stare at your own porridge plate till Ma would call out:
Will
you fill up the cups?

By ten the lot would have clattered away, on trams and buses, on foot and a-run, tripping along like a sparrow, Miss Murgatroyd, Mr Piddle whirring away on his bike like a snake going pelting back to the Zoo, Miss Ena Lyon with her heels so high that her shoulders drooped and her bottom stuck out, quite up-to-date, Εwan in dungarees, no hat, books under his arm, black hair almost blue, shinning down the Steps of Windmill Brae two at a time, hands in his pouches…. And they left the real work of the house to begin.

You and Ma Cleghorn couldn't run to more help than Meg for the washing-up in the kitchen, Ma took the first floor with the dining-room and sitting-room and swept them and dusted them and tore up the rugs and went out to the back and hung them on the line and thrashed them to death in a shower of stour. You had the bedrooms, Ma'd asked if you'd mind—
Some of them stink like a polecats den
. You'd said you didn't care, we all stank sometimes. And Ma had nodded,
Fegs, and that's true. But fancy you being willing to let on—you
that was wed to a minister body!

You'd mind that speak as you redded the rooms, gathered
the mats and pulled wide the curtains, opened the windows and made the beds, swept out and polished each of the rooms, emptied slops and carried down washing, and cleared the bathroom of razor blades and bits of paper stuck with shaving-soap hair, other things that Miss Murgatroyd would half-hide, so would Miss Lyon in a different way…. Wife to a minister—wife to Robert: it faded away in the stour of the days though only last Spring you had been in Segget, had slept beside him in those chill hours that had come trailing down a blanket of dark to cut you off one from the other, Robert sleeping sound while you woke and heard the wail of sleet from the Grampian haughs. All ended, put by, Robert himself no more than a name, you'd loved him so deep that the day he died something had broken in you, not in your heart, it didn't break there, something in your belly went numb, still, and stayed so … but the queerness of things! You could hardly mind now the shape of his face—his eyes, were they grey or blue?—Oh God! … And you'd sometimes stop and feel sick to think how quickly even your memories went, as though you stood naked in an endless storm shrilling about you, wisp by wisp your garments went till at last you'd stand to all uncovered—love, pity, desire, hope, hate put by under the sail of the endless clouds over Cloud Howe, the Howe of the World—