The Nickum (28 page)

‘Oh, Dad, I didn’t think you’d notice.’

Margaret seemed stunned. ‘I didn’t notice that.’

Millie looked expectantly at her father. ‘What are you going to say about it, then? Are you angry?’

‘Of course I am angry. What will William Fowlie do next to undermine my family? Not only has he filled my daughter’s belly, he has ruined your chances of getting on with your career, and he will not be here to support you when you give birth. He has never behaved in a really responsible manner. I could overlook his faults before, because of his outstanding brain, but this … this is deplorable.’

‘But Herbert …’ Margaret began. Ignoring the slight interruption, he went on.

‘He should have known better.’

‘I wanted to have his baby,’ Millie burst out. ‘I made him do it.’

‘Then you, too, were old enough to know better.’ He briefly pondered over his next move and then said, ‘Are you sure the child is his?’

Both women gasped at this, followed immediately by Millie spitting out, ‘That’s a horrible thing to say. You’re accusing me of taking up with someone else?’

‘I did not say that.’

‘It’s what you meant, though, and if that’s what you think of me, I’d be as well leaving right now.’

Her heaving bosom and flaring nostrils warned him that he had gone too far, but before he could make reparation, his wife soothed, ‘Calm down, the pair of you. There was no need for that, Herbert, and no need for you to think of leaving, Millie. Whatever your father thinks or says, this is your home, and this is where you will have your child.’

‘Thanks, Mum.’ The girl was so overcome with relief, swamping her so quickly after her hopes had been dashed, that she swung round and ran upstairs to her room. Husband and wife looked at each other; he still seething with anger and bitter disillusionment over his daughter’s immoral behaviour, as he saw it; she disgusted at his handling of the situation.

‘How could you, Herbert?’ she spat out. ‘Your own daughter! Yes, I know she’s done wrong, but it’s done and nothing can undo it.’ She paused for a moment. ‘Or were you intending to order her to have a termination?’

He glared back at her. ‘It would be the best thing all round, would it not?’

‘Best for who? Only you; not Millie, and certainly not me. I am longing to have a grandchild.’

His scowl did not lessen, but Margaret could detect a frisson of doubt in his voice as he said, ‘In spite of the gossip and rumours such a thing will cause?’

‘Gossip and rumours don’t mean anything. As we used to say when we were children, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.” If they are miscalling us, they are leaving some other poor souls alone. In any case, you’ve never worried before about what people said about you. Or is your skin not thick enough nowadays to shrug it off?’

‘Margaret,’ he sighed, ‘what am I going to do with you? Your only child is going to produce an illegitimate child in a few months, yet it does not seem to have bothered you at all.’

‘No, no, don’t think that – not for one minute. It’s just that, being a mother, a woman, I can tell fairly early when a girl is pregnant, so I have had some time to come to terms with it.’

‘You knew? And you didn’t tell me?’

‘I knew how you would react. Normally, you are a decent, easy-going, gentle man, but if anything riles you, you can be like a raging lion. We are not living in Victorian times, Herbert, and although I know there is still much stigma attached to an unmarried girl having a child, it is not as much of a disgrace as it used to be when we were young. And I can bet that in years to come – maybe fifty or even less – it will not be regarded as a disgrace at all. It will be as normal as …’

‘Apple pie?’ Their eyes locking, they burst out laughing, the tension of the previous few minutes making them see this as far more humorous than it actually was.

Both Emily and Millie were growing really worried. It was three months since Willie had gone overseas, and they still had no idea where he was. ‘Does it matter?’ Jake asked his wife. ‘Wherever he is, he’ll be in the thick of the fighting – the Middle East maybe, or the Far East. There hasna been ony troops got into Germany since Dunkirk.’

Emily regarded him with a jaundiced eye. ‘Some comfort that is. He’s in as much danger from the Arabs or the Japs as he’d be if he was in Germany.’

Somewhat shamefacedly, Jake nodded. ‘Aye, I’m sorry, Em. I wasna thinkin’.’

‘He hasn’t written a proper letter since he was recalled. Just that silly cards.’

‘They’re meant to let the folk back hame ken they’re a’ richt.’

‘How could he be well enough, if all he can manage to do is put a tick here and there and sign his name? That doesn’t tell anybody anything.’

She voiced a different opinion when Millie Meldrum came to see her again, obviously pleading for reassurance. ‘He’ll be kept busy wherever he is, maybe nowhere near the enemy at all. It’ll be a different kind of countryside from Scotland, or even England, or Ireland or Wales, and they’ll have to learn all about it.’

Millie’s sigh was not of conviction. ‘I suppose so. But it’s just … He should have got my letter by this time, though, shouldn’t he?’

‘The letter telling him about the baby?’

‘Yes, and you’d think he’d answer it as soon as he could. I want to know what he thinks. I have to know, Mrs Fowlie, or else I won’t be able to plan what to do.’

Afraid to ask what the girl thought were her options, Emily wisely said nothing, and Millie went on, ‘It’s too late for an abortion.’

‘You weren’t really thinking of doing that, were you?’

‘Not really. My father wanted me to, at first, anyway, but Mum talked him round. No, what I meant was – who’s going to look after it? I’ll have to earn my living to provide for it – I’m not going to give Dad any reason to think he’ll have to support us – so thank goodness I’ll have my degree behind me.’

‘You’re going to carry on studying, then?’

‘I don’t see why I shouldn’t. Nobody’s said anything, so far, and they must know – I’m as fat as one of Johnny McIntyre’s pigs.’

They both laughed, although Emily couldn’t help but feel sorry for her, as well as harbouring deep resentment that her own son had been so careless, so headstrong, that he couldn’t control his passions. Of course, he never considered other folk’s feelings, always acting on impulse. But this was no childish prank. He was a grown man, not the wee nickum he had once been. He had definitely developed into the devil incarnate she had suspected him of being. Thank heaven Gramma Fowler had died before this disgrace overtook the family.

There was an air of resentment among the Gordon Highlanders now. As one well-built lad from Nairn commented, ‘How the hell could they mislay sack loads o’ mail? My God, a letter frae hame’s what keeps us goin’, so how do they expect us to knuckle down to their bloody rules when we dinna ken what’s goin’ on?’

A low murmur of agreement went round his listeners, then another voice said, ‘What if they’ve lost the mail that’s supposed to go out? Our folkses’ll think we’ve been killed, or something, an’ they’ll stop writing.’

Willie turned to his friend. ‘It’s months since I’d a letter from Millie. I hope she’s OK.’ Although he was also anxious to know if his action on that last night had had any repercussions, he did not mention it.

May 1943 saw the most vicious part of the battle so far, and, because all radio links had been destroyed, Willie, having volunteered to replace a wounded despatch rider, was sent to Headquarters with an urgent request for reinforcements. Coming back, the urgency off him, his mind turned to thoughts of his girlfriend. He’d been bloody stupid to stay away from her. She couldn’t possibly have understood his reasons and must despise him by now. Well, he would write to her as soon as he could and tell her how much he loved her, and that he still meant to keep the promise he had made to marry her after the war. Or if he was lucky enough to get home leave before that, he’d take the plunge then.

Spotting something lying in the middle of the road some yards ahead, he slowed down and came to a halt before he reached it. Recalling rumours of booby-traps set for unwary travellers, he approached the thing warily, to be shocked into haste when he realised that it was Pat Michie. How he had got there was a mystery, but he needed help, and who better to give it than his closest friend? He was kneeling down trying to find out the extent of his pal’s injuries, when his ears picked up a faint rustle and his eyes caught a slight movement in the neighbouring bushes. Too late he realised the danger, but at least he’d had time to tell that Pat was still alive. Flopping over his friend to save him from further harm, he thanked God for being given this chance to make up for abandoning Poopie.

If this May weather was any indication, Millie thought, it would be a scorching summer. She was so hot, even at 3 a.m., that she had thrown down all her bedcovers and removed her voluminous nightdress. She had been lying for a few minutes like this before she noticed that she could see the movements of the child she was carrying; small ripples in her skin, but along with that there was also a horrible nagging pain in her back. It was still ten days until the birth was due – according to the doctor – but quite possibly it was going to be earlier.

In the lulls between the well-spaced-out pains, her mind turned to the other person who should be – was – involved. Why hadn’t she heard from Willie for so long? Why hadn’t he answered the letter about the baby they’d inadvertently made? He must know she’d be impatient to learn his reaction; had he been pleased, or angry, or just numb? Yet it wasn’t something you could remain numb about. He’d have to decide. If he was angry, he’d likely tell her he was finished with her because he didn’t want to be saddled with a child after the war as well as her, but if he was pleased, he’d be assuring her that he still loved her, that he could hardly wait until he was able to marry her and make the child legitimate.

The agony gripped her again, for only a few seconds, and she resumed her troubled thoughts. What she knew of Willie – and she knew him very intimately – led her to think he’d be delighted, that he’d sit down as soon as possible and write her a letter expressing his undying love. She did, of course, realise that in a war the mail for servicemen was not dependable, but even so he must have received the important letter at least within two months of it being sent. Which would have been around five months ago. It couldn’t be possible that he hadn’t had some spare moments in all that time? Could it?

After another few fraught spells, Millie managed to fall asleep, so exhausted and upset that she didn’t surface again until nearly lunchtime. Her mother could recognise the signs of stress on her daughter’s face, but jumped to the conclusion that her worry about her young man was the root cause.

‘Did you get enough sleep, dear?’ she asked. ‘I had a look in before and you looked out for the count, so I didn’t waken you for breakfast.’

‘Thanks, Mum, but I’m fine now.’ Recalling various tales she had heard about the hours it took for a baby to come into the world, Millie had made up her mind not to let her mother know about the pains she’d had. They might have been false pains anyway, and she hadn’t had one for a while. There was no need for alarm.

‘Do you feel able to have a little walk in the garden after lunch?’ Margaret Meldrum asked now. ‘It’s a lovely day and the fresh air should do you good. And the little fellow you’ve got in there,’ she added, smilingly patting the girl’s hugely swollen belly.

Millie nodded. ‘Just a wee while, then. I get so easily tired. Was there any mail today?’

‘Nothing, but look on the bright side, lovie. No news is good news. Besides, the baby won’t be long in coming now. Only a few more days, I’d say.

‘I hope so.’ Millie had also heard from more than one source that sometimes a child could be as much as three weeks behind schedule, with the poor mother carrying perhaps nine or ten pounds of extra weight around with her. But that wouldn’t happen to her, she was sure of it. The little fellow inside her – as her mother jokingly called it – was in a hurry to get out. He’d been limbering up last night, getting ready for the epic journey.

Jake hadn’t slept much. Apart from being too hot, he was reliving his time in the trenches over twenty-five years ago; the mud, the stink, the rats, the dead bodies, left where they lay sometimes until they rotted. The more he told himself to stop being morbid, to stop being silly, the more his thoughts centred on his son. Not that Willie, or any of today’s infantry, would be fighting in trenches in this war, but he was in action against the enemy, be they German, Italian, Japanese or whatever. He’d had this peculiar feeling since he came to bed, like nothing he’d had before, so insistent that it made him wonder if God was giving him a warning that his son was in danger?

He rose at his usual time in the morning, telling his wife not to get up, because he was well aware that she, too, had lain awake for most of the night. He was to be furring up the tatties today, the field nearest to the house, so he wouldn’t need to carry a ‘dinner piece’. He’d be able to come home for his dinner.

Emily heard her husband closing the outside door. He had told her not to get up yet, but what good would it do to lie in bed on a lovely day like this? She’d be as well up and moving about, and maybe getting a bit of fresh air in the afternoon by tending her small herb garden and pulling up the weeds. Having worried all night about not hearing from Willie for so long, she knew that Jake had also lain awake, but it was something other than letters that was bothering him. The few odd times he had drifted off, he’d been thrashing about and moaning. At one point, he’d even screamed out, ‘Christ, that’s the buggers started already. Do they never sleep?’

She had realised then that he was dreaming about the war, his war, and wished that he could have told her more about what had happened to him then. He’d never said a word about it, and now it was eating at him, making him think that his son was facing the same hardships. But Willie wouldn’t have been in a trench, and he wouldn’t have been fighting hand to hand with whoever he had to fight. The modern army was up-to-date. There would be fewer casualties than last time because there was less danger.