The River Flows On (11 page)

Neil Cameron shot the waiting helpers a look of haughty disdain, his soft Highland accent underscoring the contempt in his voice.

‘Be off with you,’ he said again. ‘There will be no eviction here today.’

To huge applause, the removal men left, the sheriff’s officer making a series of blustering threats as he departed which convinced no one. Strange, thought Kate, nothing other than peaceful resistance had been offered. Yet a distinct threat had hung in the air - along with something much more wholesome. The little family had been given the protection of the community. Neil, Robbie, Agnes, the other men who had surrounded the mother and her children - they had all quite literally been prepared to stand up and be counted.

‘Lizzie! Lizzie!’ There was a frantic voice from behind them and the crowd parted to let a young man through. Neil Cameron set the boy down off his shoulders so that he could run to his father. The young man, who also looked little more than twenty, scooped up his son with one arm and stretched the other around his trembling wife, baby and other child. The girl breathed his name, looked up into his face and sagged against him. Her relief at his presence was palpable. His arm tightened about her thin shoulders.

‘Lizzie,’ he said. ‘Och, Lizzie.’

‘Well,’ said Agnes Baxter, her voice ringing out, ‘are any o’ you lazy lot gonnae help us put the furniture back in the hoose?’

Her question signalled a change in atmosphere. Men were shaking hands and clapping each other on the back. Women began laughing and chatting, going over what had happened. Agnes reached up and kissed Neil Cameron on the cheek - at which point he blushed furiously and told her not to be so daft. He turned, his face bright with laughter, and spotted Kate in the crowd. She pushed her way through to him.

‘Och, Daddy, you were,’ she paused, searching for the right word, ‘magnificent!’ she burst out.

‘You think so, lassie?’ He was grinning broadly. ‘Magnificent? Well, it’s a fine word.’ He spied Robbie and gestured to him to join them. Then he struck his forehead.

‘Och, Kate, I nearly forgot. How did you get on?’

‘She’s got the job, Mr Cameron,’ said a proud Robbie. ‘She starts in August. And she got top marks in the exam,’ he added for good measure, beaming at Kate as he said it.

Neil’s face, happy already, broke into a beatific smile.

‘Och, Kate, my darling lassie. Och, Kate,’ he said again, squeezing her shoulders. ‘My girl going to be a tracer.’ His eyes were wet. ‘It’s only the really clever lassies that get taken on for that.’

His pride in her achievement made Kate ashamed of herself. It was a good job and she was lucky to have been taken on. She ought to be counting her blessings instead of feeling resentful that she couldn’t go to the Art School. Her father turned to Robbie.

‘We’ll have to do something to celebrate. Shall the three of us-‘

‘Neil, man,’ came a shout. ‘We’re off to Connolly’s for a dram. A wee celebration, like. Are you coming wi’ us?’

Kate held her breath. He’d been making heroic efforts to stay off the drink. Being one of the Vigilantes had helped. It had given him a purpose, despite Lily’s constant nagging that he was going to get himself in trouble with the law, and then where would they all be?

Behind her back, Kate carefully crossed her fingers - only those on the right hand, of course. Everyone knew it didn’t work if you crossed both. If you were telling a wee fib you could cross both, but not if you were wishing for something. And she was wishing for something. She was wishing so hard...

Neil, his attention caught briefly by the man who had shouted the invitation to him, bent his gaze again to Kate. He flung the next words over his shoulder, never taking his eyes off his daughter’s face.

‘Another time, Bill. I’m away to take my daughter for an ice cream and a glass of ginger. For our own wee celebration, like. She’s just got a start at Donaldson’s. As a tracer,’ he added, unable to keep the pride out of his voice.

There were shouts of congratulation and Kate’s hand was seized and shaken several times.

‘That means there’s going to be a new ship then?’ asked the man called Bill.

‘Aye, Mr Thompson,’ said Kate. ‘Good news, eh?’

She smiled furiously at him, screwing up her eyes to hold back the tears. Her father had been offered whisky - and he had chosen to go and drink lemonade with his daughter.

When they got home an hour later, the girls were out in the back court, playing at beddies. They had marked out the hopscotch court on the paving slabs with chalk. Robbie joined in with the game - to hoots of laughter from his sisters and Jessie Cameron. Deftly nudging the peever - an old shoe-polish tin - with one foot, he hopped up the beddies court to where it had landed.

‘Help! I’m gonnae fall over!’ he yelled, pretending to lose his balance, waving his arms wildly in the air.

‘Och, Robbie,’ giggled Barbara Baxter, ‘you’re daft. You’re on four and five. You’re allowed to put both feet down there.’

Neil Cameron, leaning on his elbows against the wall which divided their back court from the next, smiled and turned to Kate, who’d hoisted herself up to sit on the wall beside him. She’d been on the point of going in when her father had suggested staying out for a wee while to enjoy the sunshine.

‘Well, lass,’ Neil asked, ‘how do you think you’ll get on at Donaldson’s?’

‘Fine,’ she said cheerfully. The pay’s not that great,’ she told him how much, ‘but I think I’ll earn more in a year or so. It’s not exactly what I wanted to do-‘...

She broke off. Neil Cameron was nothing if not quick on the uptake. He was also stone cold sober, with nothing more than ice cream and lemonade inside him.

‘Kathleen... I’m sorry, lass. About the Art School.’ Leaning against the wall beside her, he seemed to slump, become once again the defeated man of that dreadful scene in the kitchen, not at all the magnificent warrior of an hour ago. She wanted that man back. The tall, brave, laughing man she remembered from before the war. Oh, how she wanted that man back!

It’s all right, Daddy;’ she said. ‘I don’t mind. Not really.’

She should be crossing all her fingers and toes for that one. She should be crossing every part of her anatomy.

Silence fell between father and daughter. It was punctuated by the yells and shrieks coming from the girls and Robbie, still busily - and tactfully - playing the fool. Somewhere, not very far away, a blackbird was chirping. It sounded like a warning. Mr Asquith must be out on the prowl.

Neil Cameron spoke, his voice low and hesitant. ‘Could you not maybe go to evening classes, once you’re working? I’ll make sure your Ma doesn’t take all your pay off you,’ he added grimly.

Kate, her head bowed, shrugged. Miss Noble had given her the Art School prospectus to look at on her last day at school. Her heart had leapt. There were so many different subjects you could study: sketching, water-colour painting, oil painting, life drawing, still life, ceramics - she’d had to read the class description to find out what that was - pottery, which was making things out of clay and decorating them with your own designs. She’d love to have a go at that, but it was all out of the question. Staring at the ground, she bit her lip, and was unaware how Neil Cameron’s face softened when he saw the gesture. His voice grew gentler still. ‘How much does it cost, lass?’

‘Two guineas,’ she said flatly. ‘Two guineas for the year’s session, and then there’s all the materials.’ She lifted her face to the sun and gave Robbie, who was glancing across at father and daughter, a tight little smile.

‘Oh,’ Neil said.

She turned to him. ‘It’s all right, Daddy, honestly. It’s all right.’

‘It is not all right,’ he said fiercely, ‘Kathleen, it is not all right. Let’s see now, if the Black Squad get taken on again for this new ship, and with you working yourself...’

‘Och, Daddy,’ burst out Kate, ‘I’ve done all the calculations. It still wouldn’t work. If I save really hard, I might just have enough money for my tram fare up to Glasgow every week!’ She bit her lip once more, struggling to hold back the tears of disappointment.

Miss Noble had made a tentative offer of a loan. Kate, of course, had stiffly thanked her, but refused. The Cameron family had had enough of charity. If she couldn’t pay her own way, she couldn’t do it at all. It was hard, but there you were. Life was hard.

She thought of the young woman who’d almost been put out of her house. Life was harder for her. Three children to look after, a husband out of work and an eviction order hanging over her head. Kate straightened her shoulders. She was an ungrateful bisom. She was young and healthy and she had a job. A good job. She ought to be counting her blessings. She turned to her father.

‘See me?’ she told him. ‘I’m going to be the best tracer Donaldson’s have ever had. And,’ she added, ‘I thought you were a hero today, Daddy. I really did.’

‘A hero?’ His voice was very dry. I don’t think so. But you’re a good lass.’ She turned towards him. The smile didn’t quite reach his tired eyes, but he leaned forward and kissed her gently on the forehead. ‘I don’t know what I did to deserve-’

‘Barbara? Barbara?’

Robbie’s voice was shrill. Turning round in alarm, Kate saw Barbara in mid-hop on the beddies court. The girl was swaying, her eyes closed and one hand up to her forehead. On the seven, thought Kate stupidly. She can’t put both feet down there. The swaying grew more pronounced. Her brother caught her just in time, sliding his arm around her shoulders seconds before the back of her head would have made contact with the paving slabs.

Robbie cradled the girl in his arms while Kate, Neil and the other children gathered anxiously around the two of them. Jessie Cameron’s eyes were as big as saucers as she looked down at her friend. Barbara’s eyes were closed and her face was as white as paper.

‘Barbara?’ asked Robbie again. Kate could hear his conscious effort to calm himself down. ‘Are you all right, hen?’

His anxious words were falling on deaf ears.

Barbara Baxter regained consciousness ten minutes after Robbie carried her upstairs and laid her carefully on their parents’ bed in the front room. Twenty minutes after that, Dr MacMillan arrived, fetched by Neil Cameron from his home in Yoker Mill Road. Kate and Agnes Baxter had already shooed everyone away from the bedside, and Lily had taken the three youngest Baxter children to the Camerons’ house.

Leaving Agnes and Jim in the front room with the doctor, Kate closed the door quietly behind her and went through to the kitchen. Robbie was sitting in the rocking chair by the range, staring into space. Jessie was by herself at the kitchen table, hands clasped in front of her. Kate didn’t like the way she looked. If they weren’t careful the doctor would have two invalids on his hands. She crossed the room and knelt down beside Robbie.

‘I’m going to get Jessie to help me make some tea,’ she said. ‘Unless you’d like us to go.’ He hadn’t changed position, but he covered the hand which she’d laid on his knee with one of his own.

‘I don’t want you to go.’ His voice sounded odd, not like himself at all. ‘This has happened before, you know. About three months ago. She just went - fainted, like she did the now. Why, Kate? I don’t understand it.’

Kate moved her hand, lacing her fingers through his. He loved all his family, but there was something special between him and Barbara. Sometimes the little girl drove him demented. Sometimes he teased her, but despite the difference in their ages, there was a close bond between them. They sparked off each other, made each other laugh.

His hand felt cold and clammy. He was scared. Kate squeezed the fingers she held. He looked up at that, doing his best to snap out of it.

‘Tea would be fine. I daresay the doctor will be wanting a cup when he’s finished.’

‘I daresay,’ she said. ‘And Jessie needs something to do,’ she added quietly.

That roused him, as she had hoped it would. He turned to look at the girl sitting so still at the kitchen table. ‘Aye. On you go, Kate. Thanks.’ He cast his eyes down to their linked hands.