A Scots Quair (84 page)

They were trudging together up through the streets, half-lighted, smell of urine and old food seeping out from dark doorways, sometimes a grunt as a man would turn in his sleep in the heat, sometimes a snuffle of wakeful children. Ellen said nothing for a little while and Ewan had half- forgotten her when she asked of a sudden:
Are you losing
heart?

He said
Eh?
and then
Oh, about capitalism? Losing heart
would do a lot of good, wouldn't it?

She said then something, queer kid, he was to remember:
Anyhow, your heart's not in it at all. Only your head and
imagination
.

—
And I'm not in much danger of losing either. You don't
quarrel with History and its pace of change any more than you
quarrel with the law of gravitation. History's instruments, the
workers,
'
ll turn to us some time—even though it's only for a
sixpenny hop. You or I to see to hiring the hall?

Ellen said she thought it had better be him, the only one suitable was the Lower School, and they didn't trust her too much there already. And Ewan looked at her, pale kid, tired kid, and felt an indifferent touch of compassion. Where else might she be if it wasn't for this belief she'd smitten on him?—at a dance, at the pictures, in a pretty dress. And he dropped the thought, with indifference again. Much better as she was, seeing she wasn't half-witted.

They were into the Lower Cowgate by then, ten o'clock and the pubs were spewing out the plebs, raddled with drink, kids crying in the gutter, Ewan saw a man hit a woman in the jaw, she fell with a scream and a bobby came up and an eddy of the crowd came swirling around, and they couldn't see more, going up Sowans Lane. But halfway up they came on a
woman pulling at the coat of a man who was lying half in a doorway, half in the gutter.
Och, come on home, you daft
Bulgar
, she was saying,
or the bobbies'll damn soon land you in
the nick
. But the childe wasn't keen to go home at all, he was saying what they wanted was a little song—
Come on, you
bitch, and give's a bit tune
. And the woman said of all the whoreson's gets she'd ever met he was the worst: and what song did he want then, the neep-headed nout? And he said he wanted the songs his mucking mother sang, and Εwan and Ellen didn't hear more, they were out of the Sowans Lane by then, on to the Long Brig where it spanned the Forthie, and stopping to breathe from the Gallowgate fug.

And then, as Εwan stood there and whistled under-breath, indifferently, far away in his thoughts, he became aware of Ellen Johns by his side wiping her eyes in helpless mirth:
History's the funniest of jokes sometimes. If we'd had the courage
of our convictions do you know what we would have done back
there?

He said
No
, and stared a cool surprise.

—
Why
,
STOPPED AND SANG HIM SOME WILLIAM MORRIS
!

Ma Cleghorn had taken Chris to the Talkies, to get out of the stew of the house for a while, she said she was turning to a cockroach, near, and Chris to an earthworm out in that yard. Meg would see to the tea for the folk, wouldn't she, eh? and Meg said she would, Meg had kittled up a lot of late, Chris thought as she went to her room to change. When she came down Ma was waiting for her, dressed all in her braws with a big black hat, with bead work upon it, and a meikle brooch pinned in under one of her chins.
There you are, lass, though,
God be here, you're wearing so little I can see your drawers
. And Chris said
Surely not
, and stooped to see
Anyhow, I can't wear
more than I'm wearing
. And Ma said maybe but it was a damned shame to go about with a figure like that, half- happed and stirring the men to temptation. And they'd better get on, near the time already, what in Auld Nick's name were they gossiping for?

So they got on the tram and soughed down Royal Mile, and up Little James Street to the Pictured rome; and paid for their seats and went in and sat down; and Chris felt sleepy almost as soon as she sat, and yawned, pictures wearied her nearly to death, the flickering shadows and the awful voices, the daft tales they told and the dafter news. She fell asleep through the cantrips a creature was playing, a mouse dressed up in breeks like a man, and only woke up as Ma shook her:
Hey, the meikle film's starting now, lassie, God damn't, d'you
want to waste a whole ninepenny ticket?

So Chris had to stay awake and see that, all about a lassie who worked in New York and was awful poor but awful respectable, though she seemed to live in a place like a palace with a bath ten feet in length and three deep, and wore underclothes that she couldn't have afforded, some childe had paid for them on the sly. But the picture said No, through its nose, not her, she was awful chaste but sore chased as well, a beast of a man in her office, the manager, galloping about the screen and aye wanting to seduce the lassie by night or by day. And instead of letting him and getting it over or taking him a crack in the jaw and leaving, she kept coming home in tears to the bath, and taking off her underthings one by one, but hiding her breasts and her bottom, fair chaste. Syne she met with a man that managed a theatre, though he looked from his face as though he managed a piggery and had been born in one and promoted for merit, a flat cold slob of a ham of a face with little eyes twinkling in the slob like currants, he was the hero and awful brave, and he took the lass to the theatre and made her sing that the skies were black and she was blue, and something that rhymed with that, not spew, and all the theatre audiences went wild not with rage, but joy, they'd been dropped on their heads when young: and the lassie became a famous actress and the film did a sudden close-up of her face with a tear of gratitude two feet long trembling like a jelly from her lower eyelid. And she and the slob were getting on fine, all black and blue, my lovely Lu, when along came the leader of a birn of brutes, a gang, and kidnapped the lass,
grinding his teeth in an awful stamash to sleep with her; and took her away to an underground den; and was just about to begin at last, and Chris was just thinking it fairly was time, would they never get the job over and done?—when in rushed the hero and a fight began and chairs were smashed and vases and noses, and the lass crouched down with her camiknicks showing, but respectable still, she wouldn't yield an inch to anything short of a marriage licence. And that she got in the end, all fine, with showers of flowers and the man with the face like a mislaid ham cuddling her up with a kiss that looked as though he was eating his supper when the thing came banging to an end at last.

Ma said God be here, now wasn't that fine? It must be a right canty place, this New York, childes charging about like bulls in a park trying to grab any lass they saw—even though the creatures were all bone and no breast and would give a man as much joy in bed as a kipper out of an ice-box, you'd think. Ay, she'd fair made a mistake a twenty years back when she stopped her Jim emigrating, faith. He'd been keen as anything on going to America, a man had loaned him a bit of a book about Presidents being just plain working folk, born in cabins and the queerest places; and maybe Jim thought that he had a chance, he'd been born next door to a cabin, near, his mother was bairned on the trawler
Jess
. But Ma'd put him off, like a meikle fool, to think she might now have been out in New York with big Jews chasing her in motor-cars and offering to buy her her undies free…. And God, the bit show was over, it seemed.

But she wouldn't have it that they should go home, they'd have tea at Woolworth's in the Royal Mile. And in they went in the Saturday crush, full of soldiers and bairns and queans, folk from the country, red and respectable, an eident wife with a big shopping bag buying up sixpenny tins of plums and her goodman standing beside her ashamed, feared he'd be seen by a crony in Woolies, and she'd be telling him,
Look,
Willy, such cheap! Mighty, I'll need a pound of that
; and buy and buy till he'd near be ruined. And hungry Broo folk buying up biscuits, and queans with their jingling bags and
paint, poor things, trying on the tin bits of rings, and mechanic loons at the wireless counter, and the Lord alone knew who wasn't in Woolies, a roaring trade and a stink to match, Ma fought her way through the crush like a trawler taking the tide from Footforthie and Chris followed behind and felt sorry for a man who'd left his feet where Ma's came down, he cried
Hey, you?
and Ma said
Ay? Anything to say?
and he said
Ay, I have. Who do you think you are—Mussolini?
And Ma cried over her shoulder
Faith, I could wear his breeks
and not feel ashamed. You never had a thing under yours, you
runt
.

So up at last, sitting down in the tea-room, Ma ordering eggs and scones and pancakes and butter and honey in little jars, Chris gasped
But whatever's all the feast for?
Ma said Och, she was sick of cooking herself, and the sight of those feeds that they had in America fairly stirred up a body's stomach. Losh, wasn't it fine to think of the lodgers sossing on their own?—
though your Εwan and our Ellen, the sleek wee
cat, are out again together the day. Would you think the two of
them are getting off?

Chris said not them, they had just gone Socialist as young folk would, some plan they had to link up the Labour folk with the Reds. Ma nearly choked on a mouthful of egg, God be here, whatever did they want to do that for? Chris said for good—or so the two thought, and Ma said they'd think mighty different soon, the Reds were just awful, look what they did in Russia to that poor Tsar creature back in the War—shot him down in a cellar full of coal, and buried the childe without as much as God bless you. Chris said she didn't know anything about it though it sounded as though it maybe messed up the coals, as far as she knew neither Ellen nor Εwan had yet shot anybody, even in a cellar. Ma said No, but she wouldn't trust Ewan, a fine loon, but that daft-like glower in his eyes—
Och, this Communism stuff's not canny, I
tell you, it's just a religion though the Reds say it's not and make
out that they don't believe in God. They're dafter about Him than
the Salvationists are, and once it gets under a body's skin he'll
claw at the itch till he's tirred himself
.

Chris said she supposed she thought the same, had always thought so, but that didn't matter, if Ewan wanted God she wouldn't try and stop him; there was plenty of mess to redd up in the world on the road to where He was maybe to be found. Ma said she didn't believe there was, this daft Red religion was maybe needed in places where there was a lot of corruption, coarse kings that ran away with folks' silver and prime ministers just drunken sots. But where would you find the like in Duncairn? …
Now, don't start on me, we'll just
away home. Eh me, to think of those New York childes tearing
after the women like yon! Where would you see the like in
Duncairn?

With one thing and another it was late that night afore Chris went up the stairs to her bed, Ewan had looked round the kitchen door and cried good night a good hour before, Ma had gone off to dream of New York, the rest of the lodgers were sound in their beds. And Chris was taking off her clothes, slow, tired to death with the evening's outing—why did folk waste their time in touns, in filth and stour and looking at shadows when they might have slipped away up the Howe and smelt the smell of the harvest—oh! bonny lying somewhere on a night like this! … And just as she sat and thought of that, not sad but tired, she heard a commotion above her head, the clatter of footsteps, and syne a door bang, a woman's voice—for a minute she was back in the Picturedrome, watching and hearing that shadow-play that was never limned in a toun like Duncairn—And then as a bigger stamash broke out she opened the door and ran up the stairs.

Ake Ogilvie told the tale the next day to Ma Cleghorn, Ma lying at rest in her bed, she'd gone to bed with a steek in her side and was lying fair wearied till Ake looked in. He said
Ay,
woman, I hear you're not well?
and Ma said his hearing was still in fair order—
sit down and gie's a bit of your crack. How
are you and your Provost creature getting on?

So Ake filled up his pipe, sitting sonsy, green-eyed, with
his curling mouser and Auld Nick brows, a pretty childe as Ma had thought often. And he said the Provost's bit influence had been fairly heard in this house last night, hadn't the mistress been waked by the noise? And Ma asked
What
noise? Was the Provost here?
and Ake said No, God, the lass escaped that, it was only one of his Bacchic chums.

Syne he started to tell of the Saturday outing of the Duncairn Council to High Scaur Hill. Ma knew of the new waterworks built there?—Ay, she'd known, faith, or at least her rates had. Well, the official inspection had been billed for the Saturday and the Provost had come to Ake at the sawmill and said that he'd want him to join the bit outing, he'd want his opinion on the timber-work. And Ake had said Ay, he didn't much mind, though he'd little liking for councillors and such.
Still, the poor Bulgars have to live somehow, haven't
they, Jimmy?
and the Provost grinned sick and said he was still the same old Ake.

Well, the whole lot set out on the official treat, Speight, Bailie Brown and the Dean of Guild, all the Bailie billies and a wheen hangers-on, two coach loads hired with the Duncairn rates to give a treat to the City Fathers. And who should the
Daily Runner
send but the wee Mr Piddle, like a snake on the spree, he squeezed into the back of the Provost's coach,
he-he!
and sat down by the side of Ake with his little note-book fluttering, grinning like an ape, the City Fathers all brave in their braws. And off the jing-bang had rolled to the Scaur.