Agnes Owens (26 page)

In her cracked voice she sang the whole verse and continued singing it over and over again. She stopped once when she thought she heard footsteps outside.

‘Is that you, Albert?' she called, but when there was no reply she simply carried on singing, enjoying the sound of her voice and only breaking off now and again to put the bottle to her mouth. She finally stopped when it grew so dark that she couldn't see a thing. This gave her a creepy feeling. She picked up the bottle and discovered it was empty. Immediately she felt horrifyingly sober. The only thing to do was to try and sleep if she could.

‘Dear God,' she prayed as she sometimes did when desperate enough, ‘just let me sleep through this night and I'll not touch another drop. Or at least,' she amended, not wanting to commit herself entirely, ‘I'll cut it down a bit.'

After that she lit a cigarette, inhaled deeply, and as if in answer to her prayer her eyelids began to droop. She settled back against the wall and fell asleep, the cigarette dangling from her lips. It dropped onto her coat. The smouldering tip touched particles of fluff which eventually burst into flames.

I
t was a raw March morning when Ivy came into the village hotel where she was employed as a cleaner. Sometimes she served in the public bar, but at present she wasn't needed there, for trade was always poor after the New Year. In summer, though, the hotel did well. It stood on the main road and was a good stopping point for tourists on their way to the mountains and lochs beyond. The village itself could be described as sleepy. Some folks said it was merely dull. On the side of the road near the hotel was a long stretch of mansions; on the other, a grocery store and a small scheme of neat, one-storey council houses. Behind the scheme stood a church dated 1894 and refaced with pink modern brick. There was no school in the village. The kids, big and small, travelled by bus to the small town of Blairmaddie five miles away.

There were only two customers in the public bar: Geordie Forsyth, the builder, and Sam Ferguson, who was elderly and toothless. Geordie Forsyth watched Ivy wipe the bar counter. She was tall and angular-faced with an abundance of dark curling hair and a slim figure under a green nylon overall. Though almost forty, older men – including Geordie Forsyth – found her attractive.

‘Ye look fair scunnered,' Geordie said.

‘That's no crime,' said Ivy, tossing her head. Her mind was on Dennett, her seventeen-year-old son. He had refused to get out of bed when she called him up for work and he'd only started the job on the farm two days before. Admittedly, it was on the side and the wage was poor, but added to his social security money, she thought he would be doing fine. When she called him a lazy
bastard, he'd said, well, it wasn't his fault if he was a bastard, was it? The remark had rankled. It still rankled.

‘Gie us a smile,' said Geordie, when she lifted his glass to wipe under it. ‘Ye're braw when ye smile.'

‘I'm no' in the mood for smilin',' said Ivy; nevertheless, her mouth softened. She liked Geordie well enough. He wasn't bad-looking, in a coarse way, and he had a steady job, which said a lot in his favour, but she didn't trust him. He was a hard drinker. Everybody knew that was why his wife had left him. Anyway, she'd never had any time for men since Dennett was born.

‘Whit she needs is a man,' said old Sam, wheezing with laughter.

‘That I don't need,' said Ivy, rubbing away furiously. ‘Besides there's no men in this place, at least no' what I'd call one.'

‘Come roon the back and I'll soon show ye,' said Geordie.

Sam laughed again. Ivy tutted and said to Geordie, ‘You should be at your buildin' instead of standin' here drinking. I don't know how you get away wi' it.'

‘Because I'm ma ain boss,' said Geordie complacently, just as Jim Carr, the barman, came in.

‘Hurry up wi' that counter so as I can get servin',' he told Ivy. Geordie put down his empty tumbler on the counter and walked out. Old Sam faded into the background, holding a glass which still contained an inch of beer.

‘Who is there to serve?' snapped Ivy, and headed for the kitchen. It was almost ten o'clock and time for her cup of tea. Going down the hallway she met Walter Sproul, the manager. Although he barely glanced at her, she noted the bags under his eyes. Likely been on the bottle last night, she thought, and fighting with his wife. They could be heard first thing in the morning, either brawling at each other or thumping on their bed in a frenzy of lovemaking. Ivy despised Sproul and also that wife of his. She did absolutely nothing in the hotel except come down the stairs in the afternoon, her hair all frizzed up and her make-up thick, and drive off somewhere in her blue Mercedes. Of course when
Shankland came it was a different story. Then you'd see her hovering behind Sproul as he spoke to Shankland with a smarmy smile on his face. Albert Shankland had been manager when Ivy first started work twenty years ago. She had been taken on part time as a waitress, then full time when he'd asked her to clean. The hotel had done well in those days. It had always been a pleasure to work for Shankland. Eventually he had bought the hotel and then another one farther south. Soon after, he'd moved south himself, appointing a new manager in his place. It had been a bitter blow, but that was a long time ago. Many managers had come and gone before Sproul took over. Sproul, though, was the worst. She wished Shankland would pay the hotel one of his flying visits to study the books and give a pep talk to the staff. He always took her aside and spoke to her in a warm and friendly way. Once he even enquired about Dennett. ‘He's fine,' she'd answered, not knowing what else to say.

In the big kitchen, Babs, the cook, was pouring out two cups of tea. Ivy began to spread butter thickly on a roll.

‘That Sproul gets on ma goat,' Babs said.

‘What's he done this time?' said Ivy.

‘He says we'll have tae put less meat in the sandwiches.' Staring hard at Ivy's roll, she added, ‘He'll go mad if he sees that.'

‘I'm no' takin' any meat,' Ivy pointed out.

‘I've got tae account for the butter as well,' said Babs, her voice aggrieved.

Ivy shrugged then sat up on a high stool with her back facing the table and her legs crossed. Babs frowned at the sight of Ivy's slim legs. Her own were short and fat. In fact she was fat all over, with a stomach that bulged out under her white overall. Her broad face was red from the heat of the kitchen.

‘By the way,' she said, ‘are you goin' tae the dance in the church hall on Saturday?'

Ivy wrinkled her nose slightly. ‘I don't know. They're gettin' awful stale nowadays.'

‘Ye always get a laugh at somethin', and the punch is free.'

‘I'm no' that desperate for a drink,' said Ivy.

‘There's nothin' much else happenin' in this dump,' said Babs bitterly.

‘If I go, it means that Dennett's in the house by himsel' until dead late.'

‘Surely Dennett's auld enough to stay in by hissel'?'

‘I'll have to think about it,' said Ivy, picturing Dennett bringing his pals in and drinking cans of lager.

Ivy was washing her cup when Jim burst into the kitchen and asked her to take the bar while he had some tea, since Betty, the lounge bar waitress, hadn't come in yet.

‘I don't know how she's kept on,' said Ivy. ‘She's always late.'

‘And she's that bloody cheeky wi' it tae,' said Babs.

‘Yous two are just jealous because she's sexy lookin',' Jim said.

Ivy and Babs laughed simultaneously. ‘She's as sexy lookin' as a coo lookin' ower a dyke,' said Ivy.

There was nobody in the bar except old Sam, still holding his tumbler with its inch of beer.

‘Finish that pint and get anither one,' said Ivy. ‘This is no' a bus shelter you're staunin' in.'

‘I cannae afford anither one,' said Sam. ‘I've only got ma pension tae keep me.'

‘Aye, I know,' said Ivy sighing. She was about to give him a free half-pint when Betty came in, her blonde hair spiked at the top and long and flat at the back.

‘I slept in,' she explained, as old Sam gave her a startled look. He finished his beer and walked stiffly away.

‘I'm sure that hair-do must have taken a good hour to fix,' said Ivy.

‘No' really,' said Betty. ‘It's quite easy when ye know how.'

Sensing that Betty was about to launch into a long explanation about why she'd slept in, Ivy said quickly, ‘Now that you're in, I'm away to clean the toilets.'

The day passed slowly for Ivy. Business was still poor in the afternoon, apart from a few young lads from the community programme who came in to order coffee. She looked at them enviously as they came through the hotel door wearing their donkey jackets. She wished Dennett could have been one of them. Of course he was too young for the community programme which mainly consisted of doing old folks' gardens. In bad weather they hung around the hotel entrance, laughing loud and inanely, but at least they were obliged to get up in the morning. Dennett had still been in bed when she went home at lunch-time.

Sproul's wife left as usual in her Mercedes and Sproul went prowling about the hotel like a pregnant cat, his face sullen and brooding as if looking for someone to lash out at. Ivy affected to look busy by polishing the hallway twice before she went through to the kitchen to scrub the big table. Babs had gone off duty at four o'clock and the room was empty. Ivy stared up through the kitchen window at the tormented-looking sky, thinking that it wouldn't be long till summer when the place would be packed out.

On her way home she stopped at the grocery which sold everything from a packet of pins to a jar of boiled mussels. The freezer near the door was filled with all sorts of frozen packets and half the counter was taken up with rolls, pies and doughnuts, all in separate cardboard boxes. Scarcely four people could stand inside the shop comfortably.

‘My, it's a right cauld day,' said Mrs Braithwaite, the owner, from behind the counter. She was a small, stout, elderly woman who always wore a hairnet over her blue perm.

‘I'm fair roastin',' said Ivy, and went on to ask for two pies and a tin of beans.

‘It'll be a' that hard work ye dae in the hotel,' said Mrs Braithwaite. She put two pies in a poke, then without turning round, lifted a tin of beans from the shelf behind her. The shop was so cramped that she scarcely needed to move an inch to put her hand
on any item, except those in the freezer to which folk helped themselves. ‘I've heard the manager's no' very easy tae work for,' she added.

‘He's no' bad,' said Ivy, reluctant to say anything that could get to Sproul's ears.

‘They tell me the wages are no' very good,' said Mrs Braithwaite, when Ivy handed over a pound note for the purchases.

‘They're a lot better than what ye get off the social,' said Ivy promptly.

‘That's true,' said Mrs Braithwaite, opening the till, ‘though I've heard there's plenty on the social and workin' forbye.' She looked directly at Ivy. ‘I don't think that's fair, dae you?'

‘I don't suppose it is,' said Ivy, wondering if the storekeeper knew that Dennett had worked two days on the farm. She asked for ten king-size Regal before Mrs Braithwaite could pursue the subject any further and headed for the door.

Outside the wind blew cold but invigorating in her face. Old autumn leaves stirred at the side of the pavement and in the distance she saw the peaks of the mountains covered in snow. She walked up the neat path of her council house noting the snowdrops under her window and reflecting that the village would be a nice enough place to stay in if it wasn't for some of the folk.

When she came into the living room Dennett was sitting in the armchair facing the television with the gas fire turned up full.

‘So, you've managed to get up then,' she said, turning the fire low. He stretched his legs and kept his sharp profile fixed ahead. She noticed with distaste that his hair was uncombed. It lay on his shoulders, light brown and straggly. ‘You might have washed yersel' at least,' she muttered, as she went through to the kitchenette to put on the kettle. A minute later she was startled to see him towering above her, looking anxious.

‘Did ye get my fags?' he asked.

‘They're in my bag,' she said, exasperated. ‘Do ye no' think it's
terrible I should have to buy you fags and you'll no' even make an attempt to earn money to buy them yersel'?'

‘I wisnae feelin' well this mornin',' he said, ripping the Cellophane from the packet. ‘I'll go tae work the morra.'

‘Well, ye'd better,' she said, a bit mollified by this statement. ‘But mind,' she added, ‘don't go near the store on your way to the farm. If auld Braithwaite thinks you're workin' she could report ye. She's that type.'

‘Aye,' he said, then, ‘Are ye makin' chips?'

‘No,' she shouted, thinking that Dennett never seemed to give a damn about anything that really mattered.

‘Did ye hear that Shankland's comin'?' Babs said to Ivy when she came into the hotel kitchen next morning.

‘When?' said Ivy, trying not to look excited.

‘Either Friday or Saturday,' said Babs. She added morosely, ‘I hate when he comes.'

‘He's OK – a lot better than Sproul,' said Ivy. ‘If Shankland has anythin' to say he tells ye fair and square, no' like Sproul wi' his snidy remarks for no good reason. Shankland doesnae bother me.'

‘It's a' right for you,' said Babs. ‘You're mair familiar wi' him than me.'

‘Whit dae ye mean “familiar”?' said Ivy, her voice sharp.