A Scots Quair (90 page)

He looked up and nodded, douce and green-eyed:
Ay, lass,
and your bed
.

Chris went through that day betwixt anger and laughter, the last would come on her in the funniest way, pour over her in a sudden red, senseless wave. Marriage?—marry a lout like him, lose all that she'd ever gained in her life with Robert, the Manse, Ewan her son? The impudence of him—Oh, the beast, the beast! And she'd stand and suddenly picture him, the sneering, half-kindly, half-bull-like face, the face of the folk of the Howe throughout, canny and cruel and kind in one facet, face of the bothies and the little touns … and she'd shiver away from the thought of him, thought of impossible touches, caresses, those red, creased hands and that sun- wrinkled body … awful enough to make her feel ill.

At the dinner hour he came back with the others, she served him and them, sitting where Ma Cleghorn once had sat, no faces missing from about the board. And Neil Quaritch looked at her: Neat piece of goods. Sulky and sweet in a breath as one of those damned unbreeked little novelists
would put it. Queer the resemblance between her and Ogilvie —chips of the same bit of stone in a way—

John Cushnie, sweating, looked over his tie and wondered, lapsing to keelie-hood a moment, if she were as put-you-off as she looked. Should start with a woman twice your own age, he'd heard…. And he coloured richly over his pimples, not decent to think of a woman like that, especially now he'd ta'en up with that nice girl from an office, real superior, that he'd met at a dance—

Archie Clearmont thought, switching off Stravinsky,
Lord, what a thrill to kiss her just once!

Ena Lyon thought she was putting on side, as usual, and her just a Common Servant.

Ellen looked up from her plate at Chris and smiled at her, dark, and thought she looked nice and queer in a way, as though newly cuddled.

Εwan had come back from the picket at Gowans, he thought
Chris looks queer
, and then forgot her, trying to work out in his mind the balance likely to be left in the voluntary fund when they'd paid out the first week's pay to the strikers.

Miss Murgatroyd called
Eh me, Mrs Colquohoun, You're
fairly looking Right Well today. Has your lad been sending you a
love-letter, now?
and beamed round the table like a foolish old hen, all the others looking down at their plates, uncomfortable … silly old bitch … blithering old skate … randy dame … silly thing … sex-repressed … half-witted old wombat. … And a sudden impulse came on Chris, looking down the table and smiling at Miss Murgatroyd:

No, though it's something much the same. I had a proposal of
marriage this morning
.

There was a dead silence round the table a second. Εwan hadn't heard, Chris saw his indifferent face and her heart sank, on that impulse she'd thought he'd ask
Who proposed?
and she'd tell the whole table and watch Ake's face. But he hadn't heard; and the others began a babble: Who was the lucky man? Was she to accept? Chris laughed and shook her head and said nothing and the talk passed on to other things.

Ake sat and ate up his meat, calm and sonsy, but biding
when the others had gone. Then he looked up and pushed back his chair, slow, certain: and looked over at Chris.

Ay, mistress, you cook a gey tasty meal. But a word in your lug:
try no tricks on me. I'm not your fool nor any body's fool
.

Chris looked at him in a curious pity,
It was a silly caper,
Ake
.

He said that that was fine, then; and when would she let him know about this partnership business?

Chris said she didn't know, but soon, anyhow; and was moved to a stark curiosity:
Ake, why do you want to marry me
so bad? Just to sleep with a woman: that all? I've been married
twice already, you know, and it doesn't seem it was lucky for the
men
.

He said he was willing to take his risk; and he didn't suppose that Colquohoun or Tavendale had thought themselves cheated, however they ended.

She said she had little mind for any man again, that was the plain truth of it. If she married at all it would be with little liking, necessity only the drive.

Ake nodded:
We'd soon alter that, never fear
. And fear itself leapt in her heart at his look.
There's no woman yet that I
couldn't content
.

Trease wouldn't squeal, an old hand him, and the Station Inspector wouldn't let the chaps go into his cell and give the bastard a taste of what he needed, he could raise hell in the courts over-easily, he knew the law inside out and bottom up. So he was letten out, laughed, and went home; and still there wasn't the ghost of a clue to point to the names of the striker sods who'd flung the pepper or drowned old Edwards.

The Gowans gates pickets had a fair dog's life, bobbies badgering them backward and forward, keen to have out their sticks and let fly. The manager had ta'en on a bouroch of blacklegs with a bit of the plant on the go again, but bobbies or no to march by their side the scabs were scared to their marrow-bones to be seen going in or out of the Works.

Sergeant Sim Leslie went to the Inspector and said he wasn't sure, but he had an idea, that the striker at the bottom
of most of the business was the young toff Tavendale from the Gowans office. He'd known him back in the toun of Segget, as coarse a loon as you'd meet anywhere.—And the Chief said
Is this a moral homily? or what have you got to say
about him?
And Feet habbered a little and then got it out: That assault on him at the Beach last year when he was taking a couple in charge for naked bathing—ay, not a stitch—he was nearly sure 'twas the Tavendale loon; besides, his stepfather had been a Red, a minister that fair demoralized a parish. And the Chief said he wasn't interested in genealogy, had Feet any clue to this Tavendale having drowned Johnny Edwards or thrown the pepper?

Feet said he hadn't; and went back on his beat on the Docks patrol that centred now round the Gowans gates. The picket was dozing away in the lithe from a stiff bit blow of wind from the harbour as Feet came bapping along the calsays. He stopped and looked at the nearest picket, a surly- looking young sod he was, cowering down in the shelter of a barrel. And this picket instead of raspberrying him as most of the impudent muckers would do, looked round about him sly and said low:
Hey, Feet, a word with you, there
.

Feet asked if he knew who he was talking to, and the picket said
Ay, fine that, think I'm blind? Look here, if you want to
know who started the pepper business look out for the next birn of
pickets that relieves us and spot a long, dark-like chap of my age
.

Feet nearly louped in his meikle boots, but he showed not a sign, just gave a bit purr:
Tavendale, d'you mean?
and the picket said
Ay. The bastard hasn't been able to keep his hands to
himself—or other things about his rotten self either. He's done me
dirty and it's my turn now
.

Feet said
You'll come and give evidence?
but the picket said
Away to hell with you. Think I'm your pimp, you bap-faced
peeler? Find out your evidence for yourself
.

Feet thought of taking him a whack on the head, with his truncheon, like, to teach him manners; but the rest of the picket was getting suspicious and rising to its feet and dandering near, it wouldn't do to rouse the coarse brutes, they might heave even a sergeant into the Docks, they'd no
respect for the weight of the Law. So Feet swung away down to the Gowans gate to the constable body that was stationed there; and the picket came up and cried
Hey, Alick, what was
that whoreson gabbing about?

Alick Watson turned up the collar of his coat, and the chaps thought it funny he was shivering like that.

Chris stood in her room and looked out of the window at the quick-darkening February afternoon. It was this day only a year ago that Robert had died in the pulpit of Segget, the blood gushing suddenly up on his lips as he preached his last sermon with a broken heart, Robert, kind, a dreamer, a lover of men, lover of his Chris once with passion and humour, sweet and leal and compassionate. And the world had broken his heart and his mind, his dreams grey ash that had once been fire. In that last sermon he'd preached for salvation ‘
A
stark, sure creed that will cut like a knife, a surgeon's knife
through the doubt and disease—men with unblinded eyes may yet
find it
—' not Christianity, or love, or his Socialism, some dreadful faith that he might not envisage. And then he had died; and she minded his lips, stained red, bubbly red, and the curl of the hair on his head, dear alive hair on a head that was dead….

… Oh, less kind to you than I might have been. And I can't help it now, that's by and put past, nothing helps now, as little as you can I ever see a way out of all the ill soss. Not that I think I would look if I could, I've no patience with crowds or the things they want, only for myself I suppose I can plan. And I stand in the bareness, alone, tormented, and you … Oh, Robert man, had you stayed to help somehow we might have found the road together….

Daft old wife to weep over something long by that couldn't be mended, her nature hers, his his, all chances gone in that dust of days they'd known together in Segget, in love, in estrangement, in fear and disgust—all ash with him and finished forever. And on this day of all she must try to decide … sell herself like a cow, a cow's purpose, in order to keep a roof over her head.

And abruptly she was minding Robert's study in Segget, the panelled walls black-lined with books, the glint of peat-light on the chairs, the desk, Robert sitting deep in a chair, head in hands, she herself looking down at him in pity and disgust because of that weak God he feared and followed. And with that memory something seemed to blow through the room, blowing out the picture like a candle-flame … she had finished with men forever, and could never again stir to a semblance of life that something which died when Robert died. Better a beggar in Duncairn's wynds than sell herself as she'd almost planned.

And so she would tell Ake Ogilvie tonight.

When Alick Watson reached home in the Cowgate after coming off picket at Gowans and Gloag's he met the old woman going trauchling out, away to her afternoon cleaning up for a widow body that bade in Craigneuks. She said
God be
here, are you back again? Well, try and do something for once for
your meat. Your sister's lying in her bed, no well. If she wants
anything, see that you get it her
.

Alick said he could do that without being blackguarded, Meg was his sister, wasn't she? And the old woman said not to give her his lip, the useless skulking striking sod, wasn't he black ashamed to live off his folk's earnings? And Alick said
Away to hell. Did I ask to be born in your lousy bed in this lousy
toun?
and brushed past her, swearing soft to himself because of that stricken look in her eye.

Inside he got ready a cup of tea, bread and corned beef, and sat and ate, Meg asleep in the other room, he heard her turn and toss once, and stopped and listened, better to busy himself with souch sounds he needn't think then of what he had done … slipped the pepper poke into Ewan's pouch, Christ! if the other chaps ever found out—

And then Meg called
Alick, I heard you come in. Will you
bring me a drink of water?

He carried it to her and put his arm under her, lifting her, she was heavy already though he was the only one of the silly sods that had seen it yet. And because he aye had liked her so
well, as she him, though they'd never let on, he found a sharp pain in his breast as he held her. Then she pushed him away in a minute, and was sick.

Alick said that he'd better go get the doctor, and she said not to talk like a neep-headed cuddy, couldn't a lassie be sick now and then?

—
Ay, but not that kind of sickness, Meg. When was it you
were bairned?

She said
Eh?
and then lay still for a minute, staring; he said it was no good to look at him like that, he'd known a long time and she might as well tell.

She turned her face to the pillow then, away from him, and whispered
Six months ago. Oh, Alick!
and began to cry, soft, in the littered bed, in a misery he couldn't help, could only stare at helpless.
Where did he do it, the bastard? Up in his toff's
room in Windmill Place?

She turned her head and stared again, and he saw the flyting quean in her eyes: Windmill Place? What was he havering about? The beast was never at the Place in his life.

Alick said
Listen, you bitch, and answer me straight:
and bent over the bed and caught her wrists, crushing them in sudden, frantic nieves.
Who's the father? Be quick and tell me!

When he heard her say
Steve Selden
, he knew he'd been done, had played the fool. And Oh Christ, Ewan—if Εwan were caught ——

He tore from the room and out of the house, banging the door behind, down the steps, the old whaler captain was out in the court, lurching home and singing a hymn, Ake saw his old wife peering down in fear. But he brushed past the old carle and ran for the entrance, two chaps that he knew were entering the court, they tried to stop him, for a joke, and he flung them aside, and paid no heed as they cried was it daftness or dysentery? And out in the Cowgate he started to run, dodging in and out the ash-cans on the pavement, a black cat ran across the street in front, that for luck, hell, there was a bobby.

So he slowed to a walk going by the bobby, if a childe were seen by a bobby running in the Cowgate he was sure to be
chased and caught and questioned. Out of range Alick took to his heels again and gained Alban Street the same minute as a tram.