Gift from the Gallowgate (18 page)

It was almost half past three by this time, so when he learned of my predicament he said, ‘I’ll take you home . . . as long as it’s not too far.’

I ought to have recognised the signs, but I was dog tired, so I got into his car and off he drove – up the little bit of Craigie Loanings, along Westfield Terrace and across the ragged
junction at Mile End into Mid Stocket. That took longer to type than it took the good doctor to drive. He could have been on a racetrack, the speed he was going, and it was lucky that we met no
other drivers under the influence. The Stocket is a long, almost straight hill, so we shot up there like a bullet from a gun until we reached the part where a small road goes off at the side to a
row of three old, low houses. This was likely the original road, before it was straightened out.

This was when I recognised how inebriated he was. Slowing down only a little, he drove into this side road, then – and this is not one word of a lie – he wove in and out of the trees
that separated him from the road he should have been on. Back where he should be, we had only to pass the Lovers’ Lane and Oakbank School (a reformatory) and I was home. I told him when to
stop and I got out of the car on shaky legs, well aware now that I was very fortunate to still be in one piece.

It was two days before I saw Dr Fraser again. He slouched into the office from the street door just after midday, nothing like his usual bouncy self, and bent over the counter to rest his head
on his arms. ‘Christ, Ginger, I feel bad.’

Guessing that he was suffering from a hangover, he’d likely been drinking since I saw him last, I said, sympathetically, ‘I hope you didn’t catch the cold when you took me home
the other night.’

His head lifted a little, and he looked at me with bleary eyes. ‘Did I take you home? I can’t remember.’

‘You did, and I was really grateful. You saved me having to hike up the hill in the pitch dark on my own.’ I have never lost my fear of the dark.

He was frowning now, apparently dredging his memory. ‘I’ve been having this queer picture of me driving through trees – like I was going in and out the dusty bluebells. Would
that be right?’

‘Yes, just after Richmondhill Road there are three old houses . . .’

‘On a side road. Was that where I was . . .those trees?’

I couldn’t help giggling at him. ‘You shouldn’t be working today. You should be in bed.’

Another groan. ‘I’m just out of my bloody bed, Ginger. There’s nothing wrong with me that a nip of whisky wouldn’t put right . . .’ He broke off, shaking his
head.

‘No, I couldn’t even face a hair of the dog that bit me. I was paralytic last night, and the night before, but never again. I swear to you, Ginger, never again.’

He heaved himself up as nearly erect as he could. ‘I’d better go and get the jalopy out. I’ve patients to attend to, and I can diagnose just as well drunk as sober.’

‘You’re not fit to attend . . .’ I began but he was on his way into the garage. I opened the hatch into the washing bay where one of the drivers was hosing down his Rolls.
‘Bill, get round and stop Dr Fraser from taking his car out. He says he’s got to attend to his patients, but he can hardly stand, he’s so drunk.’

Fortunately, Bill was able to persuade him to get in the passenger seat to be driven home, and it was another two days before he came in again, stone-cold sober.

There was one mechanic in the garage and one apprentice, as well as six drivers and a garageman, and Ian, of course, so I was the only female among all those men. Most of them
teased me, but not one made any advances, for which I suppose I should have counted myself lucky. The thing was, we all got on very well together. Then Mr Thomson engaged another girl for the
office. Kathleen was a great help, a cheery well-built girl who also had the gift of the gab, and we became really good friends.

When Jimmy Balfour offered to teach her to drive, she talked him into giving me lessons as well. He had an old Morris, with the starter button on the floor, and I never felt easy with it. It
became the routine that I drove myself home and Kathleen then drove herself home . . . to Rosemount Place. I was a nervous wreck each time I’d to take the wheel, but Kathleen wasted no time
before she applied to sit a test. The day before she was due to try, Jimmy B. asked me if I would mind letting her drive me home as well, and on the way up the hill, he barked at her to stop.

This ‘emergency stop’ almost had my head going through the soft roof and Jimmy B. flying through the windscreen. Then, as my house was also on a side road apart from the main
thoroughfare (another part of the original road), he told her to go in from the upper end and face downhill. This meant that she had to manoeuvre the small car round a hairpin bend, and both her
passengers had their hearts in their mouths when she almost didn’t make it, stopping within half an inch of a low garden wall – a neigbour’s, not ours. There had originally been
railings on top, but they had all been removed to make munitions during the war. The promise to replace them when the war was over was never kept.

Despite those near mishaps, Kathleen sailed through her driving test, while I decided to put an end to the lessons that scared me out of my wits . . . and, I’m sure, had the same effect on
Jimmy B. As a matter of interest, he emigrated to Australia not long after that. Two mechanics were taken on in his place, coincidentally both called Bob, and then, to replace Kathleen, who found a
job with better pay, another two girls, Annie and Priscilla, known as Pat. In our teabreak one morning, I discovered that Annie’s father knew most of the Forsyths and wanted to meet me.

I was invited to her home for tea, a quaint, round, little building that had once been the lodge to Woodside House. It turned out that her dad had practically been brought up by my
father’s sister Maggie, and I became a regular visitor there, with Sheila.

Bob C. had taken a shine to Priscilla, and I went out with Bob W. several times, but he, strangely enough, also emigrated to Australia. Why was it that men couldn’t seem to get far enough
away from me?

The hectic pressure of work at McDonald’s was beginning to tell on me, even with two girls to help, so I applied for a job in Cordiner’s Garage on North Esplanade
West, where I started early in 1952. This was much farther away from home and I had quite a long walk from the bus – down Bridge Street, College Street and South College Street, then under
the arches of the railway line to emerge onto the Esplanade itself, a beautiful wide street alongside the River Dee. There was only one other girl in the office and although she was younger than I
was, we settled into a friendly, easy relationship. There was only the garage to worry about, no taxis, and we sometimes spent time looking out on to the river, even going outside to watch the
university boat crews practising in the sunshine.

There was one blot on the landscape, however . . . isn’t there always? Most of the businesses near us were fish-curing yards, and you had to watch your step because of the fish
‘bree’ sloshing about on the pavements. Not only that, in the summer especially, the stench was terrible. But, like everything else, you got used to it after a while, and the fish girls
were a cheery lot.

Irene lived in Torry – once a fishing village on its own separated from the city by the Dee – and she often asked me to walk along to the Victoria Bridge with her, for company
really, but as she put it, ‘Just for a laugh.’ It meant that I had much farther to go to catch my bus – along South Market Street, passing Jamieson’s Quay where I had worked
at one time, and up the steep hill of Market Street, but I didn’t mind. It was good exercise for me.

I’d been working on the Esplanade for almost a year when I had the biggest (and best) surprise that I could ever have had. A solicitor’s letter informed me that my
husband had applied for a divorce and that the hearing was set for such-and-such a day in Edinburgh. I did not need to attend unless I wanted to contest it. Contest? Why should I want to contest it
when it was what I’d been longing for since 1947, the action that Sandy had sworn he would never take. (It transpired that he had met someone else – someone he wanted to marry.)

The big day came a month or so later; the wonderful day when I received the actual notification that I was free. The final decree, because there is, or was at that time in Scotland, no
decree nisi
to come first. I floated on air down the long slope to work that day, and went into the office waving my piece of paper Chamberlain style, wishing that I could tell Jimmy there
and then, but suddenly wondering if he, too, had met someone else by this time. The more I considered it, the more positive I became that he had, but there was no way of finding out. I had no idea
where he was living.

Life carried on, but I wasn’t interested in anything. What had I to look forward to now?

Whether or not Johnny Elphinstone felt guilty for the mayhem he had caused in our household – knowing him, I shouldn’t think so – shortly afterwards he
suddenly decided to emigrate to Australia. My mother had now to find two new lodgers. Placing an advert in the
Evening Express
, she was very lucky in the two young men she chose out of the
many replies she received.

Alex and Raymond were trainee dispensing opticians. Clean-cut and well dressed, they were like a breath of fresh air after the strained atmosphere that had been hanging around us for so many
weeks. They were nearer Bertha’s age than mine and gave us ongoing accounts of the girls they met, why they asked certain of them out and whether or not they wanted to continue the
relationship. Alex, from Dundee, very musical, joined the Lyric Opera Company, and although none of us were keen on opera, we thoroughly enjoyed their presentations of
The Bartered Bride
and
The Merry Wives of Windsor
.

He also played the trumpet, rather loud for our living room but we didn’t mind. In fact, both Bertha and I made an attempt at playing it, but only succeeded in making horrible sounds that
had Mum shouting, ‘Stop that row this minute, before you burst my eardrums.’

Now I come to what can only be called a string of coincidences. It was June 1953, a time when the whole country was celebrating the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth (Second of
England, but only First of Scotland). Then came Derby Day. I always had a wee flutter on this classic race and also the Grand National, the only two I bothered with, and had made my choice from
reading one of the storemen’s
Daily Record
racing page. To be sure that I wasn’t too late, I took an earlier bus back to work so that I’d have time to go into the little
newsagent in College Street to place my bet. The buses ran, I think, every fifteen minutes, so I was allowing myself plenty of time. The man looked at me in a pitying way when I told him to put a
shilling each way on Pinza – probably the favourite, though what did I know? – but he gave me the betting slip without saying a word.

‘I’m sure this is going to be a lucky day for me,’ I told him as I went out.

My business had only taken a minute or two, and it was a glorious summer day, so I ambled the rest of the way to work. It wasn’t what anybody could describe as a perfect setting. College
Street continues as South College Street, with a high wall on both sides; Pirie Appleton, Notepaper and Envelope Manufacturers, on the left, and the Gas Works on the right; something to do with
gas, anyway . . . or electricity. I was astonished, but quite pleased, that there was so little traffic. As a rule, that stretch of road was very busy – leading to several fish yards and also
to the Suspension Bridge over the Dee to Torry. (Less romantic than
Over the Sea to Skye.
)

Well, there I was, having a slow stroll on my own with nothing to distract me from my drab surroundings, when a small grey van came shooting through the arch. A small grey van? My interest was
aroused. A Rubislaw grey van. It must be a William Tawse’s van, the place where Jimmy worked. (I’ve never found out whether the firm called this colour Rubislaw Grey because their yard
was in the Rubislaw area of the city, or because it was right next to Rubislaw Quarry, but it doesn’t really matter, does it?)

These thoughts took a mere instant and I was delighted to see that the driver
was
Jimmy, so I waved my arms frantically to draw his attention. But things never work out that easily, do
they? The small van flashed straight past me. My thumping heart took a nosedive as I turned away to continue my journey. Had he honestly not noticed me, or had he seen me and didn’t want to
speak to me? Had he found somebody else and got away from me as fast as he could?

So deep in despair was I that I didn’t notice the movement at the other side of the street, and it wasn’t until the vehicle door slammed that I looked up.

‘Oh, Doris I’m sorry,’ Jimmy gasped as he ran towards me. ‘I was thinking about . . . oh, nothing important, and I was well past you before I looked in my rear view
mirror. I couldn’t see your face, but I was sure it was you, and I was scared you’d have gone out of sight under the arches and disappeared if I took time to turn round, so I reversed
all the way back.’

Thus we stood, saying nothing else for a while, just drinking each other in as if we hadn’t seen each other for twenty years – which it felt like, to be honest. Young people of today
likely wouldn’t understand why we didn’t hug and kiss since we’d been apart for a such while, but hugging and kissing in the street was not done in those days, not even if there
wasn’t a soul in sight and there were high walls on both sides of you.

He did say, ‘Why didn’t you wait for me after I was called up?’

This question had never come up before. ‘You never asked me to,’ I hedged.

‘I’d nothing to offer you. Not a thing. I was only twenty and . . . we were far too young. Besides, I didn’t know what would happen. I might have been killed.’

‘Thank heaven you weren’t.’

We fell silent again, our emotions too ragged to let loose, but after a while, a clock in the distance struck three. ‘I’ll have to get back,’ he said, ‘or they’ll
be wondering where I am. I was sent to Cordiner’s Garage to collect a radiator for a car we’re working on, and they’re waiting . . .’