The New Breadmakers (9 page)

It was obvious, even to her, that she was pregnant – to her own father. It was too terrible. It was the wicked result of the sin of incest. Only one course of action seemed possible. She had to get rid of it on her own. There was no use speaking to her mother again. She wondered how she could do it, how she could cleanse herself of the wickedness. She searched her memory for anything she might have read in books or magazines belonging to girls at school. The girls had even picked out bits from the Bible to whisper and giggle about. She remembered something that had been said about drinking gin and swallowing laxative tablets and having boiling hot baths. She decided to try all three and bought a half-bottle of gin and some laxatives. The gin had to be bought from another district, in case she was seen going into a local licensed grocer’s.

It worked the miracle she needed. She thought she was going to die from the pain but death held far fewer fears than going on living the life she was now condemned to. She crouched on the shop toilet, groaning in agony as blood gushed from her. She began to feel faint. Then she heard voices in the front shop. One of them sounded like Catriona McNair. In a desperate panic, she managed to stagger up so that she could pull the plug and get rid of the clots of blood filling the lavatory pan. No one must know that it was anything more than her usual troublesome periods. Gratefully she saw the clots flush away and only a pale froth of pink remain. She struggled to clean herself and flush away the paper but, despite her struggles, she felt herself sink to her knees. The lavatory pan and the cramped, windowless confines of the lavatory shimmered before her eyes, then faded away.

When she awoke she was on a stretcher in an ambulance and Catriona McNair was sitting beside her. Sandra could see her lips moving, but her words sounded faint and far away. ‘Sandra, you know you don’t have to come into work when it’s your time of the month. Even Melvin understands and doesn’t mind. You shouldn’t have struggled out.’

‘What’s happening?’ Sandra tried to sit up.

‘No, no, just you lie still and relax. You’ll be all right. I panicked when I found you and phoned for an ambulance. One of the customers kindly offered to go and tell your mother. She’ll take a taxi to the hospital and see you there.’

‘I’m all right now. I don’t need to go to the hospital.’

‘Well, it won’t do any harm to have a check-over. It’s surely not right that you’ve to suffer like this every month. Maybe the hospital doctor will find some way to help you.’

Sandra’s heart was beating fast and she was praying that the doctors would not be able to find out the truth of what had happened. It occurred to her then, for the first time, that what she had done might even have been illegal. She could hardly breath for the thumping of her heart.

They carried her into the hospital. Doctors examined her and before she could grasp what was happening, she was in an operating theatre and being anaesthetised. When she regained consciousness she was in bed in a ward and her mother was sitting, white-faced and wide-eyed, beside her.

They gazed at each other in silence until her mother blurted out in a tragic voice, ‘They said you’d had a miscarriage.’

Tears blurred Sandra’s vision and all she could say was, ‘I’m sorry, Mummy.’

‘It’s not … No, it can’t be. Have you had a boyfriend we didn’t know about? Is that it?’ A pleading note crept into her voice. ‘That’s it, isn’t it? Tell me, Sandra. I won’t be angry with you, I promise. Just tell me who it is.’

Sandra could think of no one, even to lie about. She didn’t know any boys. Never had done.

‘Sandra,’ her mother repeated. ‘Please.’

Sandra just gazed helplessly back at her.

‘Oh, dear God,’ her mother said at last. ‘What’ll we do?’

‘It’s all right now. The doctors have cleaned it all away.’

‘Oh, dear God.’

‘Please forgive me … I didn’t know what else to do.’

Her mother took her hand and held it tightly. ‘Don’t worry, Sandra. It wasn’t your fault. I should have listened to you. But it was so hard for me. I mean, how could he?’

‘It’s all right now, Mummy.’

‘No, it’s not all right. This can’t be allowed to go on. You need help – we need help. This isn’t only a sin, it’s a crime. As soon as you’re able, we’ll go to the brothers. We’ll report him to Kingdom Hall and ask for their help and support.’

‘Oh, Mummy.’ Sandra was saddened beyond measure at the hard and bitter expression on her mother’s normally gentle, pious face. It was all her doing. Guilt heaped upon guilt, shame upon shame. How could she face not only her father but all the brothers in the Kingdom Hall?

With all her heart, she wished she had died on the operating table.

*    *    *    *

‘You what?’ big Aggie Stoddart gasped. ‘Left your good job in the Co-op?’

‘That’s what I said.’

‘Don’t you be cheeky to me, madam.’

‘You asked me.’

‘Are you mad or what?’

‘What’s wrong with being a librarian?’

‘Fancy flinging up a good job in the Co-op!’

‘I never wanted to go into the Co-op in the first place.’

‘I always knew hanging about that Springburn library so much wouldn’t do you any good.’

‘Being a librarian is a good job.’

‘Fancy flinging up a good job in the Co-op!’

Chrissie cast her eyes heavenwards, at the same time giving a sigh of hopelessness. There was never any use trying to explain anything to her mother.

‘Wait till your daddy hears about this, my lady!’

In response to her mother’s warning, Chrissie nearly said, ‘What can he do about it?’ But she stopped herself just in time. Her mother could be violent and many a blow across the head had been delivered in the past. Even now that she was seventeen, there was still the danger that she could be the recipient of her mother’s fist.

‘It’s a good job, Mammy,’ she repeated. ‘Honestly. And it’s not just a job, it’s a career. I’m so lucky to get a start in Springburn. One day I might even make it to the Mitchell. That’s my ambition.’

The Mitchell Library in North Street, off Charing Cross, had come into being originally on a different site, by the good offices and money donated by a tobacco manufacturer called Stephen Mitchell. It had to move several times as its numbers of books rapidly increased, until now its stock exceeded one million items and it was claimed to be the largest public reference library in Europe.

‘You could have had a good career in the Co-op.’

‘Mammy, I’m telling you, I’ll have a good career in the library service.’

‘It’ll no’ pay you any dividend. It’s the Co-op divvie that’s kept clothes on your back and shoes on your feet all these years.’

‘I never said anything against the Co-op.’

‘Well, then …’

‘I just didn’t want to work there all my life.’

‘You’re a lassie. You won’t need to work at any job all your life. You’ll get married.’

Chrissie wanted to say that she didn’t want that option either. At least, not if she had to conform to the generally accepted idea that once a woman got married, she had to give up everything to concentrate on being a housewife and mother. Monday the washday, Tuesday the ironing. Each day had a specific job, every week the same, ad nauseam. Although things were beginning to change a little. At least for folk who could afford the new luxury inventions like washing machines and refrigerators and Hoovers. Her mother still took her rugs out to the back green, hung them over the clothes rope and beat the hell out of them. There was a wash boiler in the scullery of this house though and washing didn’t need to be carted down to a wash house in the back green. It had been like Shangri-La coming to this Corporation house. For the first time, they had a bathroom – they were actually able to have a proper bath! They had to endure sub-zero temperatures in the narrow strip of a room but it was still the height of luxury and much appreciated.

Wee Jimmy Stoddart arrived home from work then. It wasn’t that he was small. Everybody knew him as that only because he was a good head shorter than Big Aggie. He did shifts on the buses.

‘Jimmy, you’ll never guess what this silly ass has done.’

‘Who?’

‘Chrissie, of course. Who else?’ So far, Maimie, the younger Stoddart girl, had never caused them any worry or trouble.

Jimmy stripped off his uniform jacket and loosened his tie. ‘What’s she done now?’

‘Just given up her good job in the Co-op.’

‘Have you gone mad or something?’ He addressed his daughter. ‘You’ve given up your good job in the Co-op?’

‘Oh, for pity’s sake!’ Chrissie almost laughed. What a pantomime! ‘I’ve got a better job, Daddy, and one that I’m really excited about. You know how I’ve always loved books.’

‘You haven’t gone and got a job in that Springburn library!’

‘What’s wrong with the Springburn library?’

‘If it had been the Mitchell …’ Jimmy thought for a moment. ‘The Mitchell’s a grand big place.’

‘Jimmy!’ Aggie protested.

‘It used to belong to a tobacco lord. That’s his big statue high up in front. They don’t build places like that nowadays.’

‘Maybe I’ll get to the Mitchell eventually …’ Chrissie began.

She was interrupted by her mother. ‘Be quiet, you. What’s a building got to do with anything? She had a good job in the Co-op. See in that big Springburn Co-op, she could have worked her way up from the grocery to the millinery if she’d have put her mind to it.’

Big deal, Chrissie thought, sarcastically, but wisely kept the thought to herself. It wasn’t that she had anything against the Co-op. She just wanted to work among books.

‘I’m going out,’ she announced.

‘Where are you off to now?’ Her mother eyed her with suspicion.

‘For goodness’ sake, Mammy. I’m just going down to the Wellfield.’

‘With a boy?’

‘No, a girlfriend.’

‘What girlfriend?’

‘Just a girl from work. You don’t know her.’

In actual fact, she was meeting Ailish O’Donnel from upstairs. Her mother would not have approved of that. Her mother was worse than her father about Catholics. She passed the time of day pleasantly enough with Mrs O’Donnel or old Mrs Gogarty if she met them on the stairs or in the Co-op but she always said in private, ‘No good comes of socialising with Fenians.’

As a result, the O’Donnels or the Gogartys were never invited to any of the Stoddarts’ parties. Even at Hogmanay, the Stoddarts never first-footed the O’Donnels or the Gogartys, and vice versa. Although, if any of the Stoddarts happened to see any of the Catholic families after Hogmanay, they’d call out, ‘Happy New Year!’ They even shook hands.

They were always friendly and civil, in fact. They had to be, all living up the same close. It was only on special occasions like football matches or Orange Walks that hatreds erupted and spilled over. The day after the Walk, Jimmy and Aggie would be all shamefaced and apologetic for their ‘Fuck the Pope’ shouts and other abuse.

‘Och, it wisnae me talkin’, hen,’ Aggie would say to Teresa O’Donnel or old Kate Gogarty. ‘It was the whisky.’

Chrissie and Ailish were the same age and shared a love of books. Ailish worked in Copeland & Lye’s, a job she enjoyed. It was a lovely shop with a balcony tearoom, where an orchestra gently tinkled while you sipped your tea and ate dainty wee sandwiches and cakes and scones from a three-tiered silver cake-stand. Nevertheless, Ailish was excited about Chrissie landing a job in the library.

‘Gosh, what a bit of luck!’

‘Yes,’ Chrissie nodded. ‘As Mark Twain said – “the harder I work, the luckier I get”.’

Ailish giggled. ‘Right enough.’

They met round the corner at the Balornock Co-op before linking arms and making their way down the Wellfield hill. They weren’t going to ‘the Wellie’, as Chrissie’s mother thought, but to the much classier Princes Cinema in Gourlay Street, off Springburn Road. Chrissie remembered one time, when she was still at school, she had secretly met Sean O’Donnel and they’d gone to the Princes. It was her first date with a boy and, although he was two years older than her, she suspected it was his first date too. He had bought a bar of Fry’s Chocolate Cream and carefully halved it between them in the pictures. They had sat in rigid silence all through the film, both shy and nervous and not knowing what to say or do. She remembered their mutual relief when they parted. Her mother had found out afterwards and boxed her ears for stooping so low as to go out with a ‘Pape’.

She could imagine poor Sean getting much the same treatment. Nowadays she sometimes asked Ailish, ‘How’s Sean getting on?’

‘Fine. He’s still working in McHendry’s. He’s in the office and doing really well. I wish I could say the same about Dermot.’

‘What makes Dermot so aggressive, do you think? He always seems to be in fights. But maybe they’re not his fault,’ she added, without much conviction.

‘Haven’t a clue,’ Ailish said. ‘Sean and I are always trying to talk some sense into him but it’s no use. Blokes sometimes even come to the door asking for a fight with him!’

‘For goodness’ sake!’

By the time they reached the cinema they were discussing in detail the new book of 1958 fashion that had been added to the Springburn library shelves. There were pointed-toed shoes, pillbox hats and suits with short, boxy jackets, three-quarter sleeves and wide, boat-shaped necklines.

They were still chatting after they were seated in the cinema and the film had started. People all around noisily hushed them and someone gave Chrissie a painful prod in the back.

She and Ailish liked to talk. They particularly enjoyed discussing novels they’d read. They were steadily working their way through the classics and had just finished Jane Austen. Ailish preferred the Brontës. They had argued about Austen and the Brontës quite a lot. Although outwardly Ailish appeared a quiet, sober-natured girl, Chrissie had come to the conclusion that her friend had hidden depths. Chrissie wouldn’t be a bit surprised if Ailish had just as passionate a nature as her Brontë heroines.

‘Anybody you fancy?’ she had asked Ailish recently – meaning boys.

‘Not really. I’d prefer a man, not a boy.’

‘Ooh! You’ve better be careful and not get yourself into trouble.’