Shoes Were For Sunday (19 page)

Over the year we saved our precious pocket money to buy little things to give to Grannie and my mother. Acid drops for Grannie, or a wee bottle of Eau-de-Cologne. A quarter pound of chocolates for my mother or a hankie. One year I sent away to a magazine for a linen square about six inches by six inches, complete with transfer and coloured silks. The transfer was of a little crinolined figure, with poke bonnet and curls, and I thought it exquisite. I sewed it up in the hothouses of the public park, so nobody would know what I was doing. The materials cost two shillings – a fortune – and it took me months to finish it with its tiny stitching, for I had to do it so secretly and in my spare time after school. My mother was enchanted with this gift, especially when
the park-keeper told her afterwards how it had been managed.

One useless gift, which I loved buying, but which cost me a whole year’s savings, was a pale blue silk handkerchief sachet for my mother. I had to climb up on to the chair in the shop, so that I could gaze on the selection spread out for my inspection on the glass counter. I was dazed with the splendour laid before me, and refused to be persuaded to buy something more practical. I had run messages for a neighbour for a year to acquire this nest-egg, and I was determined that my mother should have something frivolous and beautiful. She didn’t spoil it by telling me I had wasted my money, but somehow when I saw it in our tenement setting I knew I had, and I never saw her use it. It was kept in a drawer. The hankies my mother stowed in her dungarees’ pocket were ill-suited to a pale blue silk sachet, and I know it now.

But if we didn’t decorate the house for Christmas, we had a positive orgy of cleaning for Hogmanay. Grannie and I shone the steels on the range, the brass covers on the dresser, and the brass gas-bracket, door-knob and letter-box till they sparkled like gold. The flues were cleaned. The floor polished. My mother washed all the furniture in the room with vinegar water, polished the tiles on the fireplace till they looked like amber, and rubbed the polished mantelpiece – solid mahogany she assured us – to a gleaming satin. The ‘room’ was the best room in the house, and was in fact
the only room apart from the kitchen where we ate, and lived, and where Grannie and I slept, and we were well disciplined to accept that in the ‘room’ we must not romp or play. We thought it beautiful, and it had for us the special air of a museum-piece. We shared our mother’s anxiety that it should be kept nice for ‘folk coming’ and for special occasions, and the most splendid of all special occasions was Hogmanay. This was the only time food was brought into the room. At other times, nobody would have dared risk dropping food or drink on our best things. But at Hogmanay – ah! that was different. A table was set near the window, spread with our best white cloth, lace-trimmed, and on it was laid the best china. Plates were laden with Genoa cake (my mother’s favourite), cherry cake, Dundee cake, a round cake of shortbread and shortbread fingers. There was a wee bit of black bun for those who liked it, but it was only the very oldest members of the company who seemed to enjoy nibbling it. We children never touched it. There was a tray with bottles of port, sherry and ginger wines. However poor the tenement people were, they could always manage a few bottles for Hogmanay. Glasses sat on another tray. On the sideboard the best crystal bowl was filled with oranges and tangerines for the Hogmanay visitors, and we gazed at them enviously, but would never have dreamt of touching them. I remember one Hogmanay a stray cat wandered into our best room just after my mother had arranged everything to her satisfaction, and when she
went through later to have another peep to make sure she’d forgotten nothing, there was the brute sitting on the white tablecloth, clawing at the black bun! Her screech of horror brought us all running, and the cat disappeared in a streak of terror as we all leaped to rescue the rest of the food. Nobody got black bun that year.

When it grew dark my mother put a match to the fire in the grate, and soon the blaze was reflecting itself in the amber tiles, and everything was poised, in lovely cleanliness, waiting for the magic hour of midnight when the New Year would be ushered in.

We children were in our pyjamas by this time, and the minute the bells were announcing midnight, we were given a wee sip of home-made ginger wine and a bit of shortbread, then whisked off to bed in the kitchen. We would lie listening for the first-foots arriving, and we’d fall asleep to the sound of conversation and doors opening and shutting, and shouts of ‘Happy New Year, an’ mony o’ them’. Occasionally a voice could be heard in the lobby, asking, ‘Are the weans in their bed? Och here’s something for their pocket. Gi’e it to them in the morning,’ and sleepily we would wonder if it would be a threepenny bit or a sixpence that we’d have for our darkie bank when we wakened up.

On New Year morning I always took Grannie down to see her ‘chum’ a short tram ride away. But before we went, we made sure the room was tidied up, and the tables re-set with the food and the wines for the folk
who would drop in during the day to wish us a Happy New Year. My mother would be at home to welcome them, for she didn’t have to go to work on New Year’s Day, which was always a holiday.

I helped Grannie to put on her good black shoes, and I fastened the pin of the black cameo she wore at the neck of her best black silk blouse, and saw that the blouse was tucked in right the way round inside the waist of her long dark grey skirt. Then on top went her dark coat, and last of all her hat with its winter trimming of cherries was set carefully on her silvery hair, at an angle which wouldn’t disturb the wee bun at the back. She looked entirely different from our workaday grannie, and I was transformed from my schoolday self in my navy blue reefer coat, long black stockings and, best of all
shoes
, not boots. The shoes, I felt, gave me a most ladylike appearance. My black velour hat was held on with a good piece of elastic, which kept it firmly anchored at windy corners, and my curls were brushed neatly over my shoulders. When we reached the tram, where it stood waiting at the terminus, there always seemed to be a drunk man sitting inside, half-asleep, softly singing ‘The Star o’ Rabbie Burns’, and for ever afterwards I always associated the name of Burns with New Year revelries. When she heard the man singing, Grannie would smile and sing herself, ‘We’ll a’ be prood o’ Robin’. The man’s heavy lids would lift to Grannie, delighted by her approval, and he would be encouraged to break into a spirited rendering of ‘Robin was a rovin’
lad’. The variation in names, Rabbie, Robin, puzzled me, but Grannie assured me that both applied to our poet Burns, and she herself was gey fond of the name Robin for him, as she felt it suited him better.

We told the conductor where to let us off, and he stopped the tram long enough to let us get down without splashing our stockings or Grannie’s skirt, and then we crossed the road to the tenement where Grannie’s chum lived. We reached a beautifully polished door on the landing and rang the bell. A soft shuffle told us she was coming, and then I was being embraced in a flurry of soft arms and incredibly soft face and we were bustled into the kitchen. At this time Grannie was about sixty and her friend about seventy-five, so she seemed truly ancient to me. She wore a snowy white cap with a fluted frill, and her black dress was protected by a large white apron. When she spoke, her voice was so soft I had to lean right forward to hear what she said. She might have stepped straight out of the pages of
Little Red Riding Hood
and I was fascinated. She in her turn was filled with wonder over me, and how lively I was, and how quick, and she kept turning and looking at me again and again as she got out plates and glasses and wine.

The kitchen was full of knick-knacks and shining brass, and there were little lace covers on all her chairs. Occasionally, to Grannie’s horror, I seized the poker as a prop when I sang them a song from a pantomime, but their favourite was ‘Bonnie Mary of Argyle’ which always brought a tear to their eyes, I never knew why.

There was an old-fashioned horn gramophone which wheezed out the songs of Harry Lauder, and I’d reduce the two old ladies to scandalized laughter when I imitated him afterwards. It must have been a long time since the old lady had entertained children, for she seemed to have no idea of what was suitable. I was handed a glass of port to sip when she poured out one for Grannie and herself. Grannie either didn’t notice or was too polite to interfere, and I was forced to take tiny sips of this horrid-tasting liquid and pretend it was as nice as my mother’s delicious ginger wine. Later, the strong tea nearly took the skin off my tongue, and Grannie frowned at me when I screwed up my nose. But the sandwiches and cakes were delicious, although the two old ladies didn’t seem to have much interest in them. I was amazed that they seemed to get more pleasure from that terrible wine and the strong tea.

Afterwards, I brought Grannie home, taking great care to see that she got on and off the tramcars safely. She only went out twice a year, at the Fair and at Hogmanay, so she wasn’t used to traffic. I nearly burst with pride at being her escort, and we had to stop every few yards for the neighbours to admire her outfit and to wish her ‘Happy New Year’. When we got home her lovely shoes were put away in their cardboard box. Her coat was hung up and left to air before being stowed at the back of the wardrobe, where it would stay until it was brought out for her to wear at the Fair. Her skirt was folded over a hanger, the black silk blouse put away
with tissue paper, and there was my dear familiar grannie again, picking up her knitting needles and getting on with a sock while she told my mother all about our outing. When my mother asked if I’d behaved myself, I held my breath and wondered if Grannie would mention how free I had been with the poker, but she just glanced at me, and assured my mother, ‘Oh aye, she did fine. She’s quite gettin’ to be the lady.’ I gazed at her gratefully, but wondered if Grannie
really
believed I was getting to be a lady. I had heard her say often enough that folk were inclined to live up to the descriptions they heard of themselves, and maybe she hoped I’d try to be a lady, and leave other folks’ pokers alone in future. Yes, that must be it.

The magic of the New Year lasted quite a long time, with even the postman being invited in for a glass of something and a piece of cake. But we knew it was over when one day we went into the room and the tablecloth and the food had vanished. It was back to school for us then, and back to the workaday world for the tenement, but our pleasure in the Hogmanay revels kept us warm for many a long winter day afterwards. In the tenements we accepted cheerfully that it had to be auld claes and parritch after the feasting.

I remember vividly my first deliberately social visit to ‘the town’, as we called the centre of Glasgow. Not for messages. Not with the gird. But just to be part of the grown-up world. Until that day, the boundaries of my world stretched from Bishopbriggs to Castle Street, with sometimes a dizzy venture to Campsie on holiday Mondays, when the route was filled with wonder. The long stretches of untenanted country, the wee row of miners’ cottages, so different from our high tenements, the canal flowing placidly below fearfully averted eyes. We had been well warned to fear this canal. Terrible tales were told of disobedient children who had fallen in, never to be seen again. These stories of the dangers of water made such a strong impression on me that once, when crossing the ‘steps of Kelvin’, which were just large boulders to let us cross the river at that point, I took off my long-legged boots and slung them round my neck, so that if I did fall into the water, the weight of the boots wouldn’t drag me down. As I stood on one of the boulders, it wobbled, and I shrieked and fell to my knees. To my horror, one of my new boots fell into the river, and floated away. I was about to leap after it, when a man on the bank shouted, ‘Let it go, better a
boot than a child.’ These dramatic words shocked me back to my original terror of the water, and he had to wade out and guide me over to the bank. I raced down the path, and could see my boot, so near and yet so far, and I wept as I wondered what my mother would say. I was so distraught that instead of leaving both boots off, and going about in my bare feet till I could get home, I put on the one boot I had saved, and hopped about now on a bare foot, now on a boot, until my legs ached from the uneven progress. Later that night when I told my mother what had happened, she sighed, and weakly agreed it was better to have let the lost boot perish. She knew that a twenty-five and sixpenny pair of boots bought the previous day now had to be replaced from her two pounds ten a week pay, and maybe in her heart of hearts felt that in the interests of economy I might have attempted a brave little rescue of the boot, without too much danger to life and limb. I sensed her divided feelings when, on repeating the man’s words, ‘Better a boot than a child’, for the third time, she cuffed me on the ear and said irritably, ‘Oh, don’t be so dramatic. Go to bed.’ My poor mother. Half a week’s wages lost because of my carelessness.

At the other end of my boundary was Castle Street, with its unknown back courts, and evil-smelling chimney dominating the chemical works. In between, lay romantic sounding Fountainwell Road, where I wept at an old lady’s sink when I heard the story of how her only son had been killed on the very day of the Armistice
of the First World War. This seemed to me a fate too cruel to be borne, and I wondered how she ever laughed again. Although I was a staunch Rechabite, I couldn’t find it in my heart to condemn the old lady for seeking comfort in the ‘bottle’ when she thought of her poor son. My mother found out about those visits and stopped them at once. I was sorry, for I found the proximity of Fountainwell Road to the graveyard very mysterious, and somehow a fitting background to the sad story of the soldier son.

Nearby was another strange piece of territory known as the Hunts. The full name was Huntingdon Square, and this was a large square courtyard quite different from our oblong affairs, and providing limitless expanses of concrete for ball-beds, skipping ropes, peever, and all the childish games dear to my heart. And although we were timid about invading other back courts, the concrete courtyard of the Hunts was an irresistible temptation with its perfect surface for these games. Never was peever manipulated so skilfully, never ball stotted so high, as in the courtyard of the Hunts. It was worth the risk of being chased by the big boys and girls who rightfully played there, to know the fulfilment of such expert playing.