A Scots Quair (88 page)

Chris said she'd heard that and knew it to be true, whatever intention Ma had once had of altering her will to surprise Niece Izey she'd never had the time to carry it out. And Miss Urquhart pursed up her holy-like mouth and said she would realize her share, she'd no fancy for the keeping of lodgers herself, not a decent work, she'd always thought. Maybe Mrs Colquohoun would buy her out?

Chris said
I've no idea what I'll do. But I'm dead tired now
.
Will you watch by your aunt?
Niece Izey gave a kind of a shiver:
Oh, but I don't know a thing about nursing. You won't
leave me alone with her, will you?

Chris looked at her in an idle pity, too tired to hate the poor, fusionless thing, a black hoodie-crow scared of a body not yet quite a corpse but ready to pick out its eyes when it died.
I'm going up to rest in my own room a while. If there's any
change you can run up and tell me
.

Without taking off her clothes she lay on the bed and drew the coverlet over her, not intending to sleep, only rest and lose her aches in the dark. But afore she knew it she was gone, sound, the last whisper she heard the fall of the snow pelting Duncairn in its New Year's Eve.

She woke from that with a hand on her shoulder, the lanky niece had lighted the gas, she was all a-dither and the long face grey.
I'm feared she's gey ill, and Oh, how you were
sleeping. I thought I would never waken you
.

Chris got off the bed and tidied her hair. And as she did so she heard from Ma's room an antrin sound—a blatter of words, then a groan of pain. She was down the stairs and into the room, Izey trailing behind in a lank unease, and saw that it couldn't be very long now, she had better send for the doctor at once.

Ma Cleghorn was fighting her last fight with the world she had jeered at and sworn at throughout her life, gallant and vulgar, untamed to the end, her arms beating the air in this battle. Chris wiped the spume from the swollen lips, the smell of death already in the air, and did not move as she sat by the bed, the niece went out of the room to be ill, down in Duncairn a late tram tootled; and the dreich fight drew to its close, begun a sixty years before, ending in this—what for, what for?

And suddenly Ma's lips ceased to twist and slobber with their blowings of brownish spume, her hand in Chris's slackened with a little jerk; and she stepped from the bed and out of the house and up long stairs that went wandering to Heaven like the stairs on Windmill Brae. And she met at the Gates St Peter himself, in a lum hat and leggings, looking
awful stern, the father of all the Wee Free ministers, and he held up his hand and snuffled through his nose and asked in gawd's name was she one of the Blessed? And Ma Cleghorn said she was blest if she knew—
Lets have a look at this
Heaven of yours
. And she pushed him aside and took a keek in, and there was God with a plague in one hand and a war and a thunderbolt in the other and the Christ in glory with the angels bowing, and a scraping and banging of harps and drums, ministers thick as a swarm of blue-bottles, no sight of Jim and no sight of Jesus, only the Christ, and she wasn't impressed. And she said to St Peter
This is no place for me
, and turned and went striding into the mists and across the fire-tipped clouds to her home.

The sleet had ended. Looking up in the lift Chris saw it lighten and the cumuli clear, a stiff wind blowing the New Year's Day into the eyes of Duncairn below, wakening down there and about her, wakening while she stood here frozen like—oh, like a corpse, like Ma up there in the blinded room, if Ma
was
there, no day for her, just the dark, no snow, sun never again or shadow or cold.

Long ago Robert would have been able to put in fine words the things that you felt—or could even Robert? Could he have put in words both your pity and desire to laugh— laughter because death was so funny and foolish?

… And whatever next—oh, whatever next?

And then, as always at breaking point, she felt cool and kind and unworried no longer, brisk and competent, unwearied, she whistled a little as the sleet went by.

No worry could last beyond the last point, there was nothing awaiting her but her life, New Year and Life that would gang as it would, greeting or laughing, unheeding her fears.

And she went up the steps to death and life.

COMING DOWN THE steps of Windmill Brae in the blaze of the late May afternoon Chris paused at the mirror, dust-sprinkled in summer's beginning, and looked at her blithe self with a cool curiosity. If finery made fine birds, she thought, she'd peacocks beaten to the likeness of sparrows, new hat and dress, new shoes, new gloves, new-bathed—oh, new to her skin at least!

And, so she supposed, behind this newness and those cool eyes in the mirror, the fugitive Chris was imprisoned at last, led in a way like the captives long syne whom men dragged up the heights to Blawearie Loch to streek out and kill by the great grey stones. Caught as they were: she, who had often lain down in the shadow of the Stones—oh, daft to blether in her thoughts like this, when all that was happening to her today was as common a happening throughout the world as getting up, getting down, sleeping and waking….

Sleeping—

Even the cool amusement behind which she shielded could not restrain that shudder of disgust, goodness knew why, what was disgusting about the business? Going back to a life again full and complete from a half-life, unnatural, alone and apart. But she pulled off her gloves and stared at her fingers in a sudden, unreasoning spasm of panic. Oh, however had she come to betray herself so? Better the sleet and the grey despair of that five months ago when she last climbed here, no road or vision before her at all—

When young Alick Watson taiked home one night to the Cowgate in the middle of January and told the news that a strike was on, there was no going back to Gowans and Gloag's till they'd stopped the making of shell-cases and cylinders,
Meg Watson asked
And what does that mean?—that a lot of
tink brutes like yourself'll gang idle?

Alick said that it meant she could give him less of her lip, Christ, wasn't there even a cup of tea? And him on picket the morn's morning.

Meg was wearied from her work at Windmill Place, she said he could get the tea for himself, he'd have plenty of time for cookery classes now he was out on his half-witted strike. And who did he expect would keep him, eh? Father or herself or that Red sod Selden? She'd aye known that Alick was a silly gawpus, she could bet they hadn't all come out on strike.

Alick said she could bet herself blue in the face, they'd all come out that had any guts excepting a few of the sods in the office. Meg said she was glad Mr Tavendale and his like had more sense, Alick stared at her and then gave a laugh:
Ewan Tavendale? Why, you silly bitch, it's him that's
organized the whole mucking strike—he's been going it for weeks
now, him and his League. They'd never have brought off the
strike at all if it hadn't been for the speeding-up as well—chaps
doing double work in the same spread of time. And we're all out
the morn and the whole damn business led by your Mr Tavendale,
see?

Then he said in a minute he was awful sorry—
I didn't mean
to vex you, Meg
. And she snuffled and dabbed at her eyes, making out she'd a cold, she hadn't—what had he said, what was wrong with her? And he glowered at his sister in the littered, cold room, with the rags on the beds and the rickety chairs, something about her looked queer to a chap….

Why should she greet when he spoke about Ewan?

Stephen Selden, the lodger, came in at that minute, Alick told him the news, he was fair delighted. He said that the Communist local would help, they'd take over the running from this daft young League. Alick asked what the hell it had to do with the Communists—or Tavendale's League, if it came to that? It was only the concern of the Gowans chaps. But Selden said it was every worker's affair that another was fighting for his livelihood and to put down the manufacture
of armaments. He himself would be along at the picketing the morn.

And there sure enough he was at the gates with a birn of others when the morning broke, a crowd of Broo chaps from all over Duncairn standing about easy and looking at the gates and watching the half-dozen men on picket. Folk took a bit dander across the calsays and cried out to ask what the strike was about? The pickets said there was a statement to be issued soon, they'd nothing to say until that was done. And they stood and gowked at the gates, damned cold, or looked back up the streets to the fug of Footforthie, Alick and Norman and the new Stores chap, Bob, two old men who worked in Machines, and a young chap who looked like a toff, folk thought, 'twas said he was a gent who worked in the Office. Whatever could he be doing on strike?

At nine o'clock, with the crowd gey thick, two bobbies came barging through the press and stood up on either side of the gate, one a young constable childe from the country, that everybody liked, a mere loon, with no harm and a cheery smile that he couldn't hide though he tried to look solemn as a sourock now, standing under the eye of his sergeant, the big ugly sod that had come to Footforthie, some called him Feet and some called him worse, Leslie his name, a heavy-looking brute with bulging eyes and a grind of a voice.
Stand back
there!
he cried to the folk round about, and somebody sounded a raspberry, and everybody laughed.

Then folk looked round and saw that a car was coming, the manager's car, slow, Sergeant Leslie opened the gates and gave it a wave in. But one of the pickets, the young toff, held up his hand, every body stared, Christ, didn't he know the manager?

But the car slid to a stop and Ewan went forward and talked a minute to the manager, he said
You is it, Tavendale?
Yes, I've heard all the story. This'll mean one thing certain
enough, anyhow:
you'll
not come back to Gowans and
Gloag's
. Ewan said they would see about victimization when the strike was over: what about the manager himself coming out? And the manager reddened and said to his chauffeur
Drive on!
and Sim Leslie caught Ewan's shoulder:
Stand
away there, or I'll have you ta'en in!

A fair growl went up from the folk at that, no body could stop strikers picketing their works. Who did the fat sod think he was—Hitler? And two loons at the back threw a handful of clinkers over a baulk, they splattered all about the big sergeant's helmet and his meikle red face, like a sow's backside, went a mottled grey:
Stand away there!
though not a soul stood within ten feet. Some chaps cried
Let's pitch him
into the Dock
, Broo chaps that had nothing to lose anyway, and God knows the mischief that mightn't have happened but that some of the older folk with sense cried out to the young ones not to haver, where the hell did they want to land —in the nick? And the young toff nodded to the bobby, Feet:
We've a legal right to be here to argue with anybody who
tries to gel into the Works…. Lads, here's the first of the
blacklegs coming
.

Sure enough they were, a dozen of the muckers, the most of them foremen like old Johnny Edwards, dandering along in a bouroch, fair hang-dog, though laughing out loud and gey brassy, fair brave if it wasn't for the wamble of their eyes and hands. They pushed through the stir, syne the picket tackled them, there rose a surge and a stour so that folk couldn't see. Then the gates were opened and in they all went, the dirty blacklegging lousy scabs. Why the hell hadn't the Reds flung them into the Dock? What the hell were Reds for but to take up a row?

Alick Watson pushed through to relieve Εwan Tavendale, Ewan said he didn't think more would come, the lot for the day, but the morn—well, there'd be a stamash, for the Union wasn't supporting the strike and there'd be no strike pay unless they could raise it…. Then he said
You look fearfully
solemn, Alick
, and smiled at a body that way he had, dark and kind, like a bit of a quean. Alick went a bit red and said
Don't
haver
. And then:
That silly bitch, my sister, seemed awful
concerned about you last night
.

Ewan said
Meg? Oh yes, I know her. Works at our house—
she's a nice leg, Meg. But you wouldn't know, being only her
brother. Bye, bye, I'm off to the committee rooms. Trease is to
raise a fund for the strikers
.

He came home soaked to the skin that night with tramping the rain and helping the Reds to raise an unofficial strikers' fund. But Gowans had been killed stone-dead for the day, they hadn't even got the furnaces going. He sat and told this to Chris in the kitchen, drinking hot cocoa, and then stretched and yawned:
But you're never bothered about such
things, Chris. Wise woman. Goodness, I'm tired
.

Chris told him he wanted a bath and his bed, and off he should get; but he turned at the door to ask what next was to happen to the house? Was Chris to carry on without Ma Cleghorn?

Chris said she supposed so as Ma was in heaven or at least in the kirkyard of Kirrieben. Ewan laughed and yawned in a breath,
Yes, I know. But I meant
—Chris said she didn't know, she'd see, if he didn't get tirred and into a bath she'd be carrying on without him, anyhow.

He nodded and came back and kissed her, kind, much slower and kinder than once he'd been, though his mind was far off with his strike, she supposed. Queer loon that he was, lovely loon, on even him change working its measure as sunlight on granite bringing out the gleams of gold and red through the cold grey glister. For a little while after he'd gone she stood still, thinking about him, tender, amused, in a puzzled fear: then sat by the table and thought of herself and the awful soss that Ma's death had left.

Izey Urquhart had had a valuator in and valued Ma's things and share of the house at a price that had made Chris gasp. And Izey had said that unless they were ta'en over, she'd sell the gear and the house-share as well,
she
had no fancy for the keeping of lodgings. If the lodgings could have spoken they might have answered up canty that they had no fancy for being kept by her, Chris had thought, but hadn't said it, just nodded, and been given a week to decide.

A week. And when that was over—what?

She went on with washing the supper dishes, Meg she'd
sent home that afternoon, the quean had looked queer and nearly fainted, she'd almost ta'en Ma's place after her death and worked like a Trojan, too much for a girl of her size, Chris had thought—absently, noting Meg filling out a bit, pale still, but not that slat of a board with a dress tacked on it that once she'd been.

Ewan met in with Ellen the evening of the next day, going up to her room, and they stopped close and smiled on the dark stair's turn. And a queer, sharp pang shot through Ewan's heart looking down on the sailing thought-shapes in her eyes, far down deep in the sweet kitten face. And he'd kissed her only once in his life!

Trembling, he put his hands under her arms, the lights changed to a hurrying, twinkling flurry, they kissed and quivered a minute together, and stood breathing, listening, and kissed again.

He said, mimicking her English phrase
That was fun!
and she flashed back
I've known worse!
and slipped from him: looked down from the step above:
Coming out a walk?

He said he'd just come in; and anyhow it was raining like—She nodded,
Like hell, but I like the rain. Don't you?

He put up his hand on hers on the stair-rail and felt the quiver of blood in her fingers:
I like you at any rate
, and stared at the fingers so that Ellen whispered
Aren't they clean?
And pulled them away and ruffled his hair:
There, I'll be ready in
less than a minute
.

She was ready in ten and they went out together to the windy squall of the February night, a flicker and flow of wet lights and sounds. He asked where they'd go and she said Doughty Park, and they made that in a little under twelve minutes, wide open heath that lay furth of the toun, the great trees shoomed and pattered to the rain, they passed two bobbies with glistening capes and came under the shelter of a strumming beech. Here the lads of Duncairn would take their lasses on summer nights, fair scandalous, and behave to them in that scandalous way that first had launched humankind on the globe. But this night was a treey desolation,
rain-pelted, Ewan remembered that night of the year before when they'd gone that walk to the Beach and stripped and splashed a mad dip in the sea. He asked Ellen if she minded as well, she was close beside him, snuggled in the lithe.

Yes. Goodness, how silly we were! Dirty little tykes…. Oh,
Ewan, listen to the wind!

So he listened, but only with half an ear. That night on the Beach—what had been dirty about it? Ellen said
Didn't you
want to see me naked? I did you; but I didn't say. That was why
it was dirty, you know
. And thought:
No, I don't suppose you
did, funny Ewan
.

She was silent for a long while after that, leaning up against him, hearing the rain, content and content, she could stay there all night. She said so and Ewan said he could as well, only he mightn't be so funny this time. And at that she said, sobered, that she didn't suppose he would, it was damnable for him to have fallen in love, much better to have stayed out safe and sound so's he didn't much care what she looked, how she was. And now—

So they began making plans for the future, they'd get married some time when Ewan had a salary, Ellen would be forced to leave her school. She asked how much of a salary he'd get and he said indifferently
Perhaps four pounds
, and she said
But I get as much as that now—Goodness, we'd have to
stay in the Cowgate!

He said nothing to that, she thought she had hurt him and was kind to him a little while, playing a child's game with him under the patter of the night-blinded trees, kissing him with eyelids against his cheek, butterfly kisses, rather fun. Abruptly he pushed her away, cool and quick:
Don't fool,
Ellen
, in his old-time voice, hard, the voice of the student Ewan that she hadn't heard since New Year's Eve.