The Nickum (2 page)

‘Aye, but …’

‘Nae buts, Emmy. Forget aboot everything else except enjoying your sister’s wedding. You micht never get another chance to see the inside o’ the Caledonian Hotel.’

‘No,’ she nodded. ‘You’re right there.’

As soon as her son and daughter-in-law had left (driven away by the farmer’s son in a big Austin) Williamina Fowlie lifted the
People’s Friend
she had taken with her to pass the time. The two girls would keep an eye on wee Willie, for she was dying to read the last instalment of the serial by Annie S. Swan. Connie at twelve years old was already really dependable and would try to make Becky, still a bit of a flippertigibbet at nine, behave herself. In fact, it looked more than likely that the younger girl would always be a feckless cratur, so it would be a good thing if she found a steady-going husband when the time came.

Having reached the heart-warming conclusion of the story in about twenty-five minutes, Mina nodded off, and was going over the plot with herself as the heroine when she felt somebody or something pulling at her sleeve. Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, she looked round and let out a scream at the sight of the black-faced dwarf by her side.

Two pairs of feet came running through from the other room. ‘What’s the matter, Gramma?’ Connie was asking when Becky let out a great skirl of laughter.

‘Look at the bairn!’ she spluttered. ‘He’s covered himsel’ wi’ blake.’

Indeed, this was exactly what had happened, as was proved when Mina ran through to the back porch, where every available inch that the toddler had been able to reach – and some that he’d climbed on a chair to reach – was streaked with the black shoe polish, the tin still sitting open on the floor.

‘Oh my God!’ Mina exclaimed. ‘Your Da must’ve forgot to put the lid back on. What a bloody mess!’

Connie frowned her disapproval of the word. ‘You shouldn’t say that, Gramma. What if Willie picks it up and says it. Mam wouldn’t be pleased, I can tell you.’

‘No, my lambie,’ Mina said, ruefully. ‘I’m sorry I said it, but this is an affa mess. We’ll ha’e to hurry an’ clean up afore your Ma gets hame.’

It was easier said than done. The makers of Cherry Blossom Boot and Shoe Polish had made quite sure that their product would stay on for as long as possible, waterproof, sunproof, snowproof and any other things that needed to be made proof from. Becky got the job of scrubbing her little brother in the big zinc bath that was generally used only on Friday nights, but no matter how hard she wielded the scrubbing brush the blackness seemed to spread further instead of disappearing. Connie had been told to clean the stone floor, which also proved impossible, while Mina took herself in hand to get the child’s clothes clean, another futile task.

An hour later, and making it all so much more difficult, little Sambo Willie was slithering about naked doing his best to help but getting in everybody’s way, while Becky was sitting beside the bath yelling her head off with frustration, and, possibly, fear of what her mother would say when she came home. It would have been no comfort to her to know that her grandmother and sister were feeling exactly the same.

A little after two o’clock, Mina decided that enough was enough. Her back was killing her and the scrubbing board had practically left her knuckles red raw. All the hairpins had worked loose from the knot at the nape of her neck, her white hair was doing its best to keep her from seeing. Added to which, young Willie was girning because he was hungry, and the two girls were definitely the worse for wear – blonde wavy hair striped with black, the neat print dresses their mother had made for them now so distressed they looked more like rag dolls than nice little girls.

The pot of tattie soup Emily had left for them was soon heated up, and the four exhausted beings sat down to sup it, bolstered by the oatcakes they always crumbled through any soups they were given. This was followed by a cup of milk each for the children and a nice strong cup of tea for Gramma Fowlie to which she had added a good slosh of the whisky Jake always kept, just in case.

Their hunger assuaged, they looked at each other and saw the funny side of things at last. Willie wasn’t the only one to look like a darkie, or at least, a white actor made up to look like a darkie, bits of pink skin showing through. The only difference from actors was, of course, that their own clothes were also unevenly covered with the shoe polish. Becky was the first one to laugh, but Connie soon joined in, followed, wryly, by their grandmother, and wee Willie chuckled merrily, not understanding, as the old woman did, that this period was exactly like the French revolution, with the aristocracy pretending not to be afraid before they were to be beheaded.

Strangely, Emily did not lose her temper when she came in. While she had enjoyed her day out, and was glad that she’d experienced the cuisine of the Caledonian – the best hotel in Aberdeen – she was glad to be home, and the sight of the little group of semi-niggers made her love them all the more.

The novelty wore off, naturally, when she had to spend a large part of every day trying to reduce the size of the blackened areas. Willie’s skin needed less effort, as the colour was gradually replaced by his usual covering of dirt and grime, but the floor and the other areas that had been affected stayed stubbornly blackened, fading to a dirty grey only after a good few weeks. This episode made Emily determine never again, ever, to leave her family in someone else’s hands – not even the usually dependable Gramma Fowlie’s.

Willie kept everyone on their toes. Nobody knew what he would do next to upset the household, and Emily learned that not only could she not trust anyone else to keep track of him, she couldn’t even trust herself. There were lines across her brow, her waist had thickened a little, her fair hair had several strands of silver through it and she was forced to admit that bringing up Willie was fast putting years on her. Jake didn’t have any of the worry; he never seemed to notice anything and his sandy hair, always brushed straight back, was still the same colour as when they had married.

Brought up in Balmedie, only a few miles from Aberdeen, she had privately felt herself slightly better than her cottared neighbours. It was a comforting thought for her, but, no matter how hard she had tried to made Jake stop using the Doric – something her mother had always told her was common – he carried on in his own way. Connie nearly always remembered to speak properly, but Becky sometimes forgot and Willie, being Willie, was speaking fluent Burnton. It was a hard life for a woman trying to better her family.

In May, Emily seemed to have caught a really bad summer cold and was feeling quite unwell one afternoon. Two and a half years old, Willie was playing outside and when she looked out of the window, he was engrossed in trying to kick a ball into a toy fishing net that Jake had found in a rubbish dump some weeks before, but his son had lost interest in fishing after standing for some time at the edge of the Bandy Burn without even catching one bandy. So his father had jammed it up against the wall of the coalshed, and Willie spent a lot of time counting how many times he could kick his ball into it. Since his aim was not particularly good, nor his ability to count, it was sheer rugged determination that kept him going at it, so his mother knew it would occupy him for some time. For long enough at least for her to have a wee sit down before making the supper. How was she to know that the boy’s luck had changed and that he’d had a run of what he felt were twenty consecutive goals?

Having reached his target at long last, Willie kicked the ball around the backyard for a few minutes until he spotted the hens foraging around at the far end and wondered how many he could hit if he aimed for them. Still not three, it didn’t occur to him that he might hurt the poor creatures, so he set about this new game with gusto. The hens, naturally enough, took exception to their space being invaded by a young hooligan, and ran hither and thither, flapping their wings as they squawked their heads off. This reaction made Willie whoop with delight, and fortunately his control of the ball had reverted to practically nil, so none of the fowls were harmed.

He must have been at it for almost half an hour before the noise penetrated his mother’s senses and she came running out to see what was what. ‘Willie!’ she yelled. ‘Stop that this minute. You’ll put them off laying.’ Her forecast later proved to be true.

His wide blue eyes regarding her curiously, he said, ‘Mam, why does hens lay eggs?’

‘Because they do,’ his distracted mother replied, trying to fob him off.

He did not accept this as a proper answer. ‘The eggs come out of their backsides, I ken that.’

Emily ignored him in the hope that he would give up and go out to play again, but his next question made her recognise the direction his brain was taking, and she prayed that he wouldn’t, but he did.

‘Mam, have we got a hole in our backsides like the hens?’

What could she say? ‘Yyyes.’

‘So fit wye can we nae lay eggs and all?’

She decided it might be a good thing to correct his speech and make him forget the question. ‘It’s not “fit wye”, Willie, it’s “what way”. Or better still “why”. “Why can we not”, that’s what you should have said.’

‘Well, why can we not lay eggs like the hens?’

Thoroughly exasperated now, having driven herself into this corner, she snapped, ‘For goodness sake, go and play at something else and leave the hens alone.’

As usual, she left her husband to dish out the boy’s punishment, but when Jake heard what had been happening, he could do nothing for laughing

‘It’s not funny!’ his wife said, sharply. ‘You let him off with everything. He’s needing to be held in about.’

‘Ach, Emmy, he’s only a bairn – nae enough sense to ken what’s richt and what’s wrang.’

‘Well, it’s time you learned him the difference. He’ll never ken if you never tell him.’

‘I will, Emmy, lass. I will, when he’s a wee bit aulder. Afore he starts the school.’

‘That’s years yet, Jake, and he’ll need to know how to behave before that.’

The subject of their argument was listening with a smile. ‘Am I gettin’ a real schoolbag when I start the school, Dad?’

‘Aye, my loon.’

‘A real leather ane, Dad?’

‘A real leather ane.’

Emily decided that this just wasn’t good enough. ‘I’ll tell you this, my lad. If you don’t behave yourself, you’ll not get to go to the school. They don’t want ruffians there, you see.’ She turned to frown at her husband as he opened his mouth, presumably to point out that the law said every child had to go to school when they were five years old.

Emily appealed to her mother-in-law the next time she came visiting. ‘Jake was never as bad as Willie? He couldn’t have been.’

‘Oh, aye was he. You’ve nae idea the tricks he got up till, Emmy.’

‘Tricks maybe, but it’s not just harmless tricks with Willie. He could’ve killed some of the poor hens.’

‘He could’ve, but he didna.’

This episode with the fowls, much as it upset and irritated his mother, did not seem to affect young Willie, who continued to kick his ball into the net, or as near it as he could, without a thought to the hens, who soon learned to stay out of his way. He was growing rapidly now, and was taller even than five-year-old Poopie Grant who lived at the other end of the row of six houses and had had his nickname bestowed on him for obvious reasons. He had taken to coming inside the Fowlies’ backyard to play with Willie after he came home from school, but Emmy wasn’t too happy about it. The holidays were coming up, and she had no wish to be saddled with Poopie for days on end. For one thing, he was still prone to accidents, and Willie often came running in to tell her, ‘Poopie’s shit his breeks again, Mam.’

She wasn’t sure how to deal with these emergencies, and generally just told the boy to, ‘Run away home now, Willie’s supper’s ready and then it’ll be time for his bed.’ She felt quite sorry for the boy when she watched him making his way homeward on legs splayed open in the manner he’d obviously perfected to save them from being absolutely ‘clarted’.

At times, Willie went home with Poopie to play at his house, and it was Tibby Grant who attended to running noses, scraped knees and torn breeks.

‘It’s a good job you twa are nae twins,’ she sighed, one afternoon. ‘I’d never get naething daen for sortin’ the pair o’ you oot.’

The summer of 1925 was a good one – long hot days with a gentle breeze now and then to make them bearable, and cool evenings, light until after ten o’clock, when Jake and his wife sat at their front door and enjoyed the peace; Willie in bed and the girls allowed to go to the ‘moorie’ to play with their chums.

Of course, there was no peace for Emily during the days. Her son seemed to be hell-bent on proving that he was a ‘nickum’, and she had to be on her toes from dawn to dusk. However much she disliked having Poopie Grant seeking Willie’s company, she did realise that he was better to have a companion of some kind. Being too much on his own could make him introverted, as Gramma Fowlie often pointed out to her.

In any case, Poopie seemed to have more or less learnt to control his bowels, and stopped Willie from doing many of the wild things he proposed doing, which was a great boon to her. There were, however, the occasional hiccups, as if her son was making sure she didn’t get too complacent.

For instance, there were the two days that Poopie was sick from eating green apples – whether at Willie’s behest or not was never established – and Willie was on his own. Emily carried out all her chores with one eye on him, but there came the time when she had to get supper ready for her family of three, the girls being with their Gramma McKay in her new house in Aberdeen for a week. Willie had not been invited, but in any case his mother wouldn’t have felt happy if he had been. Her own mother was not accustomed to boys of any kind, particularly not of Willie’s kind. Maybe when he was a little older and had settled down.

She prepared all the vegetables, having got her son to help her get carrots, turnips and onions, glancing out of the kitchen window every now and then to make sure he wasn’t doing anything stupid, and seeing him sitting on the edge of the drying green making a daisy chain, she was lulled into a false sense of security. She had just put the vegetables into the pan where the beef was already simmering nicely, when the back door burst open and a strange, horrifying apparition stumbled in.