A Scots Quair (95 page)

And he did, and her arms went up round his neck, fun, thrilly: you'd often wondered what men's necks were for. And the two of you would stand still, so cuddled, not kissing, not moving, just in blessed content to touch, to hear the beating of each other's hearts, each other's breathing, know each other's being, content and lovely, without shelter or shyness one from the other, blessed minute that was hardly equalled in all else, not even the minutes that followed it later.

But first she made tea on Ewan's gas-ring with the kettle and teapot they'd bought together in a Saturday evening scrimmage at Woolies, China tea, Ellen kneeling to make it, having made Εwan sit and be quiet and not fuss, tired out with haunting the streets for a job. And he'd say
But I'm not
, and she'd say then he ought to be—
Sit still and read and don't
argue
. Εwan would laugh and drag down a book, silence in the room but for the gas-hiss, Ellen drowsy as she watched the bubbling gas-flame and the kettle begin to simmer and stir. Housekeeping comfy and fun, alone in a room with Εwan: though the house wasn't theirs, nor the room, nor the furniture, nothing but a sixpenny kettle and teapot and cups and saucers at a penny a piece!

She'd glance up at him, deep in his book, and not heed the book, but only him, nice arms bare and the curve of his head, strange and dear, nice funny nose, lips too thick, like her own, brown throat—she could catalogue them forever, over and over, and know a fresh thrill every word every time—oh, damnable and silly and lovely to be in love!

And they'd drink the tea in a drowse of content and talk of his books and the men of old time, the Simple Men who had roamed the earth before Civilization came. If ever men attained that elemental simplicity again—

And Ellen would rouse:
But then, what's the use? If we don't
believe in that we're just—oh daft, as you Scotch people say,
wasting our lives instead of
—And Ewan would ask
Instead of
what?—Saving up to get married?
and laugh and hold her face firm between his hands, young rough hands, the look in his eyes that made her responses falter even while at his laugh and the thing he laughed at something denying struggled up in her, almost shaped itself to words on her lips. Sometime, surely—Oh, sometime they'd get married when the Revolution came and all was put right.

And sometimes, she'd feel just sick and desolate the way he would talk of that coming change, he didn't expect it would come in their time, capitalism had a hundred dodges yet to dodge its own end, Fascism, New Deals, Douglasism, War: Fascism would probably outlast the lot. Ellen said that she didn't believe that a minute else what was the good of all their struggles, what was the good of dissolving the League and both of them joining the Communist Party? And Ewan would smile at her:
No good at all. Child's play, Ellen, or so
it'll seem for years. And we've just to go on with it, right to the
end, History our master not the servant we supposed
….

He'd fall to his books again, dryest stuff, economics she never could stick, she would reach up and catch the book from him and his eyes meet hers, blank a while, cold, blank and grey, horrible eyes like a cuttle-fish's—like the glint on the houses in Royal Mile, the glint of grey granite she thought once, and shivered. And he asked her why and she said she was silly and he said he knew that, eyes warm again, and they fooled about, struggling a little in the fading June night: and then were quiet, her head on his knee, looking out of the window at summer-stilled Duncairn, little winds tapping the cord of the blind, far off in the fall of the darkness the winking eye of Crowie Point lighting up the green surge of the North Sea night. And Ellen would say
Oh, aren't we
comfy? Fun, this
, he'd say nothing, just cuddle her, staring out at that light wan and lost that bestrode the sky.

In bed, beside him, breathing to sleep, the little sleep after those moments that she still thought fun, she would tickle his
throat with her hair, feel sure and confident as never in the light, here in the dark he was hers unquestioned, hers and no other's, breathing so, sweat on his brow, hair curling about her fingers from the dark, sleek head. He would stroke her with a swift, soft hand, like a bird's light wing, into that little sleep till somewhere between two and three she would awake, he wakeful as well, and they'd kiss again, cool and neat, and slip out of bed, slim children both, and stand hand in hand and listen, all the house in Windmill Place silent. Then they'd pad to the door and lug it open and peer out, nothing, the lobby dark below, no glimmer about but faint on the landing the far ghost-radiance of Footforthie. Ewan would open her door for her, sleepily they'd hug, and yawn at each other in the dark, giggle a bit because of that, and Ellen close the door and slip into her bed, asleep before she had reached it, almost.

But one morning she saw his hands cut and bruised and asked why, and he said oh that was from his new job, up at Stoddart's, the granite-mason's, he'd been taken on there as a labourer.

The table looked at him, the first any had heard: Chris asked if he liked it, were the other folk nice?

Miss Murgatroyd simpered she was awful glad he had found Respectable Employment, like. Such Pity not to be in the office though; they were awful respectable folk, the Stoddarts.

Mr Piddle said
he-he!
and ate like a gull landed famished on the corpse of a whale.

Mr Quaritch cocked his wee beard to the side:
You'll be
able to study the proletariat at first hand now. Tell me when you
get sick of them, lad. I might be able to find something better
.

Ena Lyon sniffed and said she Just Hated gravestones.

Ellen sat and stared in blank, dead silence, feeling sick and forgotten while they all talked. Oh goodness, hadn't they heard, had they all gone deaf? Ewan—
EWAN A LABOURER
!

July came in slow heat over Duncairn, and with it the summer-time visitors. John Cushnie took his feeungsay
down to the Beach every night that his mecks would meet, in to hear Gappy Gowkheid braying his jokes in the Beach Pavilion, awfully funny, Christ, how you laughed when he spoke the daft Scotch and your quean beside you giggled superior and said Say he was sure the canary's camiknicks, she was awful clever and spoke a lot like that that she'd heard at the Talkies—though if you had mentioned
her
camiknicks she'd have flamed insulted right on the spot.

Or you'd take her down of a Wednesday afternoon, when Raggie's had closed, birring on the tramcars loaded for the Beach, wheeling out from Footforthie, there glimmering and pitching and reeling in the sun the Amusements Park with its scenic railway, Beach crowded with folk the same as the cars, you and your quean would sit and listen to the silly English that couldn't speak proper, with their 'eads and 'ands and 'alfs and such. Then off you'd get and trail into the Amusements Park, you'd only a half-dollar but you wouldn't let on, your feeungsay was so superior and you only the clerk in Raggie Robertson's. She was fairly gentry and said
how
she'd enjoyed her holiday away with her Girl Friend, they'd gone for a week out in the country, and the farmers were awful vulgar and funny. And you said Yes, you knew, hicks were like that, and she said
You've spilt it—with their awful
Scotch words: Tyesday for Tuesday, and Foersday for Friday,
and no proper drainage at all, you know
. And you said again that you knew; she meant there weren't real wc's but rather would have died than say so right out.

So you asked if she'd like the scenic railway, and she said
It's okay by me
, on you got, she screamed and grabbed you and the hair got out from under her hat, you were awful proud of her but wished to hell she wouldn't scream as though her throat were chokeful up of old razor blades, and clutch at her skirt, and skirl
Oh, stop!
Christ, hadn't she legs like other folk and need she aye be ashamed of them? So you gave her a bit grab about the legs and she screamed some more and hung on to you: but when the ride finished she was real offended and said she wasn't that kind of girl,
Don't try
and come it fresh on me
.

You said you were sorry, so you were, and were just trying to make it up with her when she saw her friend and cried
Cooee, Ena!
and the quean came over, all powder and poshness, and who should it be but Miss Ena Lyon that you'd known at the lodgings in Windmill Place. She said she was just having a stroll about, and no, she hadn't a boy with her. And your quean giggled, and Miss Lyon giggled and you felt a fool, queans were like that; and as you followed them into the tea-tent you wished a coarse minute they'd stop their damned showing-off and be decent to a chap that was treating them—wished a daft minute you'd a quean who didn't care about Talkies and genteelness or was scared at her legs being touched or her feelings offended—one that would cuddle you because she liked it, liked you, thought her legs and all of herself for you, and was douce and sweet and vulgar and kind—like a keelie out of the Cowgate…. Christ, it must be the sun had got at you!

Your quean and Miss Lyon were at it hell for leather talking about their holidays and where they had bade, and how much they paid for digs in Duncairn. And Miss Lyon said she thought she'd move hers, the landlady had once been a minister's widow but now she had married an Awful Common person, a joskin just, that lorded it about the place and wasn't a bit respectful at all. Worse than that, though, the landlady's son was a Red…. You said that you'd known that, that's why you'd left, Raggie Robertson was dead against the Reds…. And your quean said
Don't be silly. Go
on, Ena
.

And Miss Lyon said that another of the lodgers was a schoolteacher, Red as well, and she was sure there were Awful Things between them. She'd heard—and she giggled and whispered to your quean and you felt yourself turn red round the ears, what were the daft bitches gigg-giggling about? And your quean made on she was awful shocked and said she wouldn't stay there a minute, the place was no better than a
WICKED HOUSE
, just.

Miss Lyon said that she'd got no proof, of course, and your quean mustn't say anything, and your quean said she
wouldn't but that Ena could easily get proof and show up the two Reds and then leave the place. And then you all talked together about the Communists, coarse beasts, aye stirring up the working class—that was the worst of the working class that they could be led astray by agitators, they'd no sense and needed to be strongly ruled.

You told the queans that but they didn't listen, they were giggling horrified to each other again, your quean said
What,
did you really hear the bed creak?
and Miss Lyon said
Yes,
twice
, and their faces were all red and warmed up and glinting, they minded you suddenly of the faces of two bitches sniffling round a lamp-post, scared and eager and hot on a scent…. But you mustn't think that, they were real genteel.

For your quean was the daughter of a bank-clerk in Aberdeen and Miss Ena Lyon's father had been a postmaster, some class, you guessed, you didn't much like to tell them yours had been only the hostler at the Grand Hotel, what did it matter, you were middle-class yourself now and didn't want ever to remember that you might have been a keelie labourer—Christ, living in some awful room in Paldy, working at the Docks or the granite-yards, going round with some quean not genteel like yours but speaking just awful, Scotch, no restraint or knowing how to take care of herself, maybe coming into your bed at night, smooth and fine and kissing you, cuddling you, holding you without screaming, just in liking and kindness…. Your quean asked
Whatever's
come over you, red like that?
and you said
Oh, nothing, it's stuffy
in here
.

And home you all went on the evening tram, your quean and Miss Lyon sitting together and your quean telling Miss Lyon what fine digs she had, the landlady so respectful, a perfect old scream: and Ena should wait about tonight and catch the two Reds and show them up, and then leave the place and come bide with your quean.

And Miss Lyon said that she would, too, she was sick of the place, anyhow—the dirty beasts to act like that, night after night…. And they giggled and whispered some more
and for some funny reason you felt as though you'd a stone in your gall, sick and weary, what was the use?—what was the use of being middle-class and wearing a collar and going to the Talkies when this was all that you got out of it? And your quean, whispering some direction to Miss Lyon, turned round and said
Don't listen a minute
, and you nearly socked her one in the jaw—och, 'twas the summer night's heat that was getting you.

Chris's roses were full and red in bloom, scentless and lovely, glowing alive in the Sunday sun as she herself came out to the little back garden. Εwan and Ellen were out there already, their backs to the house, one kneeling one standing, their dark hair blue in the sunlight, young, with a murmur of talk and laughter between them. And she saw indeed they were children no longer, Ellen a woman, slim, a slip of a thing, but that pussy-cat dewiness lost and quite gone, Ewan with the stance and look and act of some strange species of Gallowgate keelie who had never hidden or starved in a slum and planned to cut all the gentry's throat, politely, for the good of humankind…. And Miss Ena Lyon was no doubt right in all she had said: Chris must tell them somehow.

But standing looking at them she knew that she couldn't, not because she was shamed to speak of such things to either but because they were over-young and happy to have their minds vexed with the dirty sad angers of Miss Ena Lyon, poor lass. She'd never had a soul slip into
her
room of a night, maybe that was the reason for her awful stamash about Ellen and Ewan exchanging visits…. She'd bade up last night, she had told to Chris, and waited on the stairs to confirm her suspicions. And sure enough it had happened again, oh, Disgusting, at Eleven o'clock Miss Johns slipping into Mr Tavendale's room. And she couldn't stay on any longer in a place like this, it was no better than a Brothel, just.