The Good Provider (42 page)

‘And still they are hungry for the blessing of His love,’ said Nessie Frew. ‘Your mother and father will be bitterly disappointed.’

‘It’s their life, Aunt Nessie. Fanshi is their citadel, not mine.’

‘They gave up everything for God’s work.’

‘Including their children.’

‘David, that’s cruel.’

‘Uncle George, you too, Aunt – you mean more to me than Mother or Father. Jack and I have never been important to them.’

‘You are important to them. You’ll inherit the Mission, the new hospital—’

‘Make it bigger, make it better, make it more famous. Convert more benighted heathens than the Berlinners or the Evangelicals. Cure more cases of goitre and St Vitus’ dance. Perform more surgical operations—’

‘Please.’ She raised her left hand. ‘That’s enough.’

‘I thought you might understand, might – might help me.’

‘Help you?’ said Nessie Frew.

‘Help me to find out what’s really in my heart.’

‘Have you prayed, David?’

‘Often, and devoutly.’

‘What did God say to you?’

David did not answer her.

She said, ‘Did you not listen to Him?’

David said, ‘They’ll have Jack. He’s twice the man I am, anyhow.’

‘They want both of you.’

‘I know.’

‘For God’s work.’

‘For the glory of the Fanshi Mission, you mean.’

‘They must be told,’ said Mrs Frew.

‘When I reach a final decision, one way or the other, I’ll write to them,’ said David.

‘I think you’ve already made up your mind.’

‘Aunt, if I stay, will you give me room here?’

‘What?’

‘If I decide to become a minister—’

‘Not a doctor?’

‘– and to apply for a parish—’

‘Here, do you mean; in Glasgow?’

‘There’s nothing wrong with Glasgow,’ David said ingenuously.

‘Well, certainly, yes, there must be plenty of work to do in this city, that’s true.’ She drank her sherry in a single swallow, made a wry face. ‘Preaching. Serving the spiritual needs of the populace. But I thought that you—’

‘I didn’t say that I had lost faith, Aunt Nessie, only that I had lost my inclination to return to China.’

‘The ideal is—’

David said, ‘My one regret will be that I’ll be letting Jack down.’

‘You won’t try to change his mind for him, I trust.’

‘Absolutely not.’

She turned the sherry glass in her fingers, looking at it and not at the young man.

David said, ‘Will you give me shelter, Aunt Nessie, for a while at least?’

‘Yes, you
have
made up your mind,’ said Nessie Frew.

‘Sort of, I suppose.’

‘Very well,’ she said. ‘I’ll give you room here. When will you come, do you think?’

‘In April,’ David said.

He had been up very early and, dressed in a soft tweed sports coat and flannel trousers, had seated himself at the kitchen table with Craig; Craig in dark serge uniform with buttons gleaming and the belt already clenched about his narrow waist.

Kirsty had seen them in apposition but not, as now, in contrast; it made her uncomfortable. She concentrated on cooking and serving breakfast and listened to their stilted conversation without comment. She sensed Craig’s distrust of the ‘toff’; he answered David’s questions about the arduous nature of police work with a curtness that was almost impolite. He, Craig, finished his meal and hurried off, helmet in hand, with no more than a nod of farewell.

David said, ‘He doesn’t like to talk about it, I see.’

‘Not to anyone, not even to me.’

‘I wonder why?’

‘He doesn’t want to worry me.’

‘Is it dangerous, do you think?’

Kirsty shrugged. ‘Things happen.’

‘Violent acts?’

‘Yes.’

Kirsty felt strangely reluctant to discuss details, those that she had gleaned, of Craig’s occupation. David gave a little nod, as if he understood. A strand of fair hair stuck up untidily from his crown and Kirsty had to resist the temptation to smooth it down.

She removed the plates and ran them under the cold-water tap and put them in the basin in the sink. There was a wash to do and she studied the band of sky, tinged with daylight, that showed over the rooftops. In the window glass she could see David’s reflection. Now that she was not looking at him he wore a serious expression, grave, not surly. When she turned around he started.

‘I must be off too,’ he said.

‘Did you see your brother?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is he farin’ well?’

‘Well enough. He has to be examined at the end of this month and the prospect makes him nervous.’

‘Were you nervous when you were examined?’

‘Of course,’ David said. He finished the tea in his cup and got to his feet. ‘Will my aunt be out of bed yet?’

‘She should be,’ said Kirsty.

‘I want to say goodbye.’

‘Will you be back soon?’

‘No, not for – some time.’

‘I’ll say goodbye too, then.’

‘The new house?’

‘Aye, in a fortnight,’ said Kirsty. ‘When do you sail for China?’

‘At the end of May – if I sail at all.’

‘I thought—’

‘No, it isn’t settled; not quite.’

He offered his hand and she took it awkwardly. His skin was dry and warm and smooth, the grip strong. Questions clamoured in her mind but she bit her lip and held them back.

‘Well,’ he said. ‘Goodbye again, Kirsty.’

Sergeant Byrne had a brother who when he retired from the Force supplemented his meagre pension by doing removals. He stabled his cuddy and a four-wheeled cart in Whiteinch and pulled two or three hands from the street corner when he needed muscle to hump heavy furniture. He was a careful man, honest and dependable and Craig left the flitting to him.

Every inch of space in the four-wheeler was needed to take the Nicholsons from Walbrook Street back to Canada Road for Mrs Frew, in a fit of generosity, had scoured her attics and basement and had come up with an amazing number of items which, she declared, were superfluous to her needs and just cluttered up the place. Kirsty, she claimed, would be doing her a favour by taking them away. Tables, chairs, a double bed with mattress and a walnut headboard, brass oil-lamps, a brass coal scuttle, a brass log box, three Indian rugs with some wear in them still, a selection of vases in pretty glazes and a big box full of cutlery, Best Sheffield, and china. Kirsty protested, of course, but Mrs Frew was adamant and Craig hefted and hoisted the lots single-handed into the hallway from which, after he had gone off to do his duty, Sergeant Byrne’s brother lifted them away into his cart.

It was an emotional farewell, as if she, Kirsty, were going to China and not just along to Greenfield.

Mrs Frew shed tears. Kirsty shed tears. They might have hugged each other half the morning if brother Byrne, with a delicate cough, hadn’t indicated that he was ready to help Mrs Nicholson up on to the cart and wanted to be speedy in case the weather changed to rain.

Mrs Frew came out on to the step, discarding ‘respectability’ for once, and waved her lace handkerchief as the cart trundled off. Kirsty looked back over her shoulder and wept too as Walbrook Street slipped away from her and Mr Byrne and his three rough assistants exchanged glances but preserved a decent silence.

That night Craig came home from Ottawa Street to his own home at No. 154 Canada Road and found it, for the most part, all spick and span. He had already spent three evenings there doing a spot of painting and revarnishing, though the house had been left spotless by the departing tenant, had been inspected as a Police Dwelling by the appropriate committee man and signed off as sound and sanitary.

In view of Kirsty’s condition, however, Mr Byrne and his boys had donated an hour of their time to putting up a bed in the front room, setting out rugs, tables and chairs just where Kirsty had wanted them and had even helped her unpack and stack away the stuff from the boxes. One of the lads slipped out and found a coalman who lugged three bags upstairs to the bunker in the hall. Though Mr Byrne had been paid in advance by Craig, Kirsty tipped him an extra two shillings, for so quick and thorough had they been that all was squared away by mid-afternoon and she even found time for a bite of dinner and a wee rest before she went out to shop.

It was strange to return to Canada Road, to look down its diminishing perspective and see, in the haze, the place where Craig and she had first lived as man and wife. She was apprehensive about meeting old neighbours but, that first afternoon, she did not. She came back with her shopping from Dumbarton Road and paused, looked up at the nice clean façade of the almost new tenement with its large windows and neat net curtains and roller blinds, with the sharp clean smell of lysol solution coming out of the close and the half-inch steps in front of each door on the stairs as white as snow. It was the same place, the same stretch of the Greenfield – and yet it was so very different.

She went on up, fumbled with the key and let herself into the apartment and stood for a moment, the basket and purse still in her hands, and looked into the rooms in the afternoon light and waited for the elation to catch her up, for the feeling of delight that she had anticipated in being a wife in her own home to rise within her. But, to her sorrow, it did not. She went into the kitchen and unpacked the basket and set about the business of preparing Craig’s supper as if she had been here for months or years, as if the fine new house held no novelty at all. It would be different, she decided, when the baby came for it was a fine house in which to raise a family, spacious, clean and respectable, though it wasn’t Walbrook Street and never would be, no matter how she worked to make it so.

Craig came home early. He was only five minutes’ walk from the station now, and miles from Cranstonhill Baths. He found the fire blazing brightly and the table covered with glistening new oilcloth and the kitchen warm with the smell of supper. He gave Kirsty a big hug even before he removed his tunic and boots and he glanced at the list of eight things that she required him to do – repair the pulley rope, change the gas globe in the hall, and the like – and grinned and winked at her.

‘Aye, Mrs Nicholson, I see you’ll be keepin’ me busy now we’ve a home of our own.’

Kirsty, at the stove, managed a smile.

‘Oh, I’ll find plenty for you to do, Craig Nicholson, never fear,’ she said.

He wrapped his arms about her waist and laid his palms lightly on the apron that covered her stomach. He kissed her neck and watched over her shoulder as she ladled broth into a bowl.

‘It’ll be all right now,’ he told her. ‘You’ll see.’

‘Aye,’ said Kirsty.

He gave her a gentle squeeze. ‘Don’t you believe me?’

‘Of course I do, daftie,’ said Kirsty, the ladle dripping in her hand.

She inclined her head and bussed him on the cheek and Craig, reassured, nodded and made his way to a chair at the table and waited to be served.

Seven families, in addition to the Nicholsons, occupied the close at No. 154 Canada Road. Mr McGonigle, tenant of the ground floor right, was a fireman at the Cyrus Street station. He had been a police constable until the Extension Act of 1891 at which time he had elected to transfer to the Fire Department to which he had been attached for six years. Mr Chapman, second floor right, was an inspector in the Office of Weights and Measures and had been employed in that capacity for twenty-three years. All the other breadwinners were coppers.

The Walkers, third floor left, had a sergeant for a daddy and an eldest son already in blue and four more pups all keen and eager to reach an age when they too might don uniforms and strut the streets of the Greenfield. Father’s rank made the Walkers kings of the close and bestowed on Jess Walker all the airs and graces of a potentate’s wife. Nobody seemed to like her much. Young Mrs McAlpine hated her and was quick to buttonhole Kirsty and try to enlist her as an ally in the sniping war. Kirsty was cautious. By discreet enquiries she learned that Joyce McAlpine’s husband, Andy, was on his last warning for ‘the drink’ and would be summarily dismissed if caught boozing on duty again; learned too, from Mrs Swanston, the close gossip, that Andy McAlpine was prone to thumping his pretty little blonde wife but that he put on boxing-gloves before he did it since he did not want the neighbours to see bruises. The McAlpines had two small girl children and Joyce McAlpine confided in Kirsty, as if she was a bosom chum, that she would bear the bugger no more, would not let him near her when he was in an amorous mood, no matter what he did to persuade her.

Constable John Boyle and his wife Morven, leading lights in the Free Church, were humourless and unsociable. Upon their one child, Graham, they lavished the best education that money could buy. The boy marched off every morning in the distinctive uniform of a pupil of Kelvinside Academy and every morning endured the taunts of the hoi polloi with the stoicism of a martyred saint, his long foal-like face implacable, vengeance already simmering in his heart.