The Walk Home (10 page)

He always had a roll of his own pictures lying ready for her on his bureau: whatever he’d been working on that fortnight. He’d fumble, a bit nervy, while he uncurled the papers, pinning one side down with the teapot, the other with his palm, but he still looked glad of having Lindsey there to look at them, beckoning her over, then standing to one side while she leaned over his drawings. Some visits he even tacked them up on the wall for her.

That was Lindsey’s idea
—go on, you know how great they are
—and Eric was shy of it at first, starting with just scraps and torn-off corners, building up slow to sheets of best cartridge. He took slow pride in what he drew now, and Brenda liked to see that; the way her brother took to pinning his sketches on the far side of the big room, so as they’d catch the best light.

Eric still drew people, mostly; people and Glasgow. But he was putting more time and care into getting them done right. Sometimes her brother would sketch the same places and faces all across the paper, and when he showed Lindsey, he asked her which ones she liked, and why. Nice to be asked. To find common ground like they had.

Eric had never shown Brenda his drawings, but she didn’t hold that against him, or not for long anyhow. Lindsey knew her Bible, much better than she did, for all Papa Robert’s efforts, and the folk in Eric’s pictures just looked like strangers to Brenda, standing alone or talking, in kitchens or close-mouths. But the way he and Lindsey spoke, it was like they knew them, the whole story. Eric had to feed Lindsey a line on occasions, or find a verse for her to read, but the girl had a quick mind, and she was always quick to nod then, and to go with what he was getting at. Who else did she get to talk with like this? Back and forth, different ideas and thoughts; Lindsey and Eric could go on like that for hours, and Brenda tried, but she couldn’t see what they saw in those sketches.

Stevie couldn’t join in with that either, so he’d get restless. He’d slip off his Mum’s lap and into the kitchen, and then Brenda would hear him, even over the noise of the hoover, rummaging through Eric’s cupboards to get at the biscuit tin. Or she’d find him kicking idle about the rooms. She’d caught him in the hallway, not long back, with his fingers busy in a tray of Eric’s postcards, and Brenda knew how easy boredom spilled into mischief, because all her sons had done the same, back when she used to bring them. So she hadn’t shouted, just turned out Stevie’s pockets, all empty, and then she’d shooed him back into the big room.
Leave your Maw an Eric be, mind; they’re nearly done now
.

Stevie wandered along the shelves, running his fingers along Eric’s files, a rattling noise, and Lindsey frowned at him.
No touching
. But Brenda thought her grandson had chosen well there, right on target. Because she saw the way Lindsey looked at Eric’s boxes too sometimes: sharp-eyed, like she wanted to tug them out and get at what was inside.

Lindsey always wanted to hear more about Eric, so Brenda half expected some questions from her this morning, about his younger days and if he’d always been different. Lindsey liked to hear about Franny too, and if she’d been like him; Franny wasn’t from Drumchapel, and it tickled Brenda, how Lindsey thought that was exciting. If they snatched some cleaning time together these days, the girl mostly had something to ask, and it was just nice, all round, how interested she was, so Brenda looked forward to their talks, especially when they were about her sister-in-law.

Franny was a rare person. Thirty-two the first time Brenda met her, she’d been earning her own keep for years. Franny was a secretary in Eric’s shipyard offices, and her family would have sooner she was married with a brood, but she’d called herself an old maid, like she was proud. She was older than Eric, and it had made her laugh, but then Franny could laugh about most things, even things that were hard. She’d been poorly, she’d had a couple of operations, but she was better by the time she and Eric were courting, back living in her own place. She always said she was happiest that way: no one to depend upon, just herself, so she put on lipstick and went to the pictures most evenings after work. Talking to Franny had made Brenda feel light. She told Lindsey how she was married with three boys by that stage, and she’d worried no end about her brother: Eric was pushing thirty, and he was clever with a pencil, but so quiet with people, she’d thought he’d stay a bachelor for ever. So Franny was a gift.

She was also sorely missed.

It always came down to that: final and stark. So even if most of the remembering was nice, and even though there was much, much more to tell, Brenda and Lindsey would mostly end up falling quiet.
Aye, life’s been hard on Eric
.

One time Stevie asked what that last bit meant, and Lindsey pulled him close, telling him Uncle Eric was sad.
Not a word to him about his wife, son. You hear? It’s not nice to pry. He’ll maybe tell us about Auntie Franny himself. Best to wait
.

Except Brenda could see Lindsey wasn’t good at waiting. All their snatched talks just set off more thoughts, and she hadn’t heard nearly enough yet. The girl had tapped at Eric’s box files when they were leaving, just last Tuesday, and she’d told him:

“You should put more drawings on your walls. Must be plenty great ones in that lot.”

Brenda thought she meant pictures of Franny. Else why all those questions? Lindsey wanted to see evidence: Eric’s wife and the new life they’d made, the two of them, beyond Drumchapel. Brenda reckoned the girl was right as well, Eric must have drawn his Frances a hundred times, more than.

She knew about her brother’s special picture, and Brenda thought it was bound to be of Franny, if he ever got it right. It seemed like he started another drawing of her every couple of months, but none of them made it onto the walls. Eric just kept them filed, or he tore them into pieces: Brenda had found ones he’d discarded before, in shreds or tight balls, in the kitchen bin, when she’d been tidying. She’d been tempted, but she’d never taken them out. She still hoped to be shown sometime, though.

Brenda was full of thought as they got off the bus and walked through Hyndland. Stevie dawdled round the corners and Lindsey had to chivvy him along. It was a big flat they’d be cleaning, grand tenement ground floor, main door, and most of the floors parquet, but at least the owners would be out, so they’d have peace and the place to themselves. It wasn’t too far
from Eric’s either, only a quick cut through the Botanics and along the Kelvin, so Brenda unlocked the doors, thinking they could go and see him after. But just now they had to work.

Lindsey retuned the radio and they started in on the dust.

Stevie was all fidget through the rooms behind them, same as he’d been on the way here; like he didn’t know what to do with himself. Not used to the long haul of a cleaning day any more, Brenda thought, and Lindsey gave him the bag she’d packed full of cars and Lego, but even after that he was still behind her every time she turned round, with a look on his face like he had something to tell her, except he couldn’t remember what.

“Will you stop it?”

Lindsey laughed, a bit vexed, and she steered him towards the hallway.

“Go and play, will you?”

She pointed him over to the front door, where there was space, and he wouldn’t be in the way, and Brenda promised him a trip to a swing park for after. She reckoned they could fit that in on the way to Eric’s, and it seemed to do the trick anyhow, because Stevie left them to get the beds made.

Only then she caught sight of him a bit later, crouched out in the hallway, and he still didn’t seem right. Stevie had something in front of him on the floor, except it didn’t look like one of his toys. Brenda had just made a start on the kitchen, but now her grandson had her distracted; elbows wrapped round his knees, he sat and squinted at whatever it was, like he’d been hunkered there for ages. She tapped at Lindsey’s shoulder.

“What’s he found?”

It looked like a photo, maybe, or a scrap of paper, and Lindsey stopped wiping the surfaces and smiled about him a moment:

“I wondered how he’d been so quiet.”

She called to him:

“What’ve you got, son?”

Leaning out into the hallway. Only then Stevie was on his feet, quick-smart, burying whatever it was in his armpit.

Lindsey raised her eyebrows at Brenda before she went to stand by her boy.

“I’m only asking.” She spoke to him quiet. “Not telling you off. We’ll have to put it back, though. Where’s it from?”

She pointed at all the doors, leading off from the wide hall, like she thought he’d taken something from a mantelpiece or a drawer, but Stevie didn’t answer. So Brenda stepped out into the hallway too, and then she and Lindsey were both standing over him.

“Mon, son.”

“Where’d you get it?”

Stevie coloured up:

“Eric’s.”

He told them:

“It’s only wan ae his drawings.”

And he looked like he might cry. Lindsey frowned at him, puzzled, and then he pushed the paper into her hand.

It was a picture of Franny. It stung Brenda to see it. Her much-loved sister-in-law, head and shoulders, a bit creased from Stevie’s pockets. Lindsey held it out to show her—eyes wide, guessing right—and Brenda nodded. Franny was sleepy in the drawing; early morning, turning forty, maybe, and pinning up her hair for work, all her curls; plump and pretty as she was.

“Did Eric give it you, love?” Brenda doubted her brother would do that.

Stevie shook his head, caught out, and then Lindsey launched:

“Oh no, son. You just took it? That wasn’t nice. That’s Eric’s
wife
. The one who died.”

She took hold of his wrist, but Stevie wouldn’t look at her, he just said:

“I know that.” Tight-lipped, like he was holding in tears. “I know it’s Auntie Franny.”

So Eric hadn’t given him the drawing, but he must have been talking to Stevie about her.

It touched Brenda to think that: her brother, talking to her grandson, and about something he found so hard. Eric hadn’t spoken to her about Franny in years, but she still remembered what he used to say, over and over, after she died.
She earned her ain money, bought her ain clothes, and tidied up efter hersel. Still young when the cancer caught up wae her. I didnae get tae keep her long enough
. Brenda felt herself nodding; Franny was a sad loss. Only then Stevie cut across her thoughts:

“She was a Tim.”

Lindsey blinked. Brenda caught her breath. What did he say? Stevie repeated:

“Franny was a Tim. Her faimly. They were Catholic.”

“Come again, son?”

Lindsey dropped his wrist, the wind taken out of her sails, and Stevie had his face turned up to them both, like he was bracing himself:

“It’s true, so it is. Eric tellt me.”

He could tell he’d said something that mattered, even if he didn’t know why yet, and Brenda stood and struggled not to shout, thinking Eric might have told him any number of things about Franny, but he wouldn’t have used that word. Not Tim.

“You willnae say that again.”

It came out sharp, more so than Brenda had meant, and it made Stevie flinch, Lindsey too. But where had he picked that up? Such a shock to hear it from a wee boy’s mouth, and her grandson’s to boot. It had left Brenda scattered, and she tried to gather her thoughts now, quick: Graham didn’t hang about with the band crowd any more, so Stevie must have heard it in the playground or the park. How was it that folk still talked like that?

She’d heard plenty worse, of course, back when she was Stevie’s age. There were battles most weeks, with kids from the Catholic school, across from the Kinning Park tenements. Clods of earth were thrown on the way in the mornings, and insults with them, from pavement to pavement; stones too, on occasion, and then the fighting would start, but mostly the two denominations kept to their own side of the road.
Hullo Hullo, we are the Billy Boys
. The older kids stood tall, singing out at the corner, at the parting of the ways, King William’s troops triumphant over James.
Up tae our knees in Fenian blood, surrender or you’ll die!
Brenda remembered whispering along behind them, excited and frightened, knowing her mother would slap her legs if she ever caught her joining in: her parents always told her the RC kids were to be tolerated, but preferably not played with.

Then the council tore down the tenements, and moved out the families in the long summer holidays. All those weeks, she’d been high and dry on the new scheme pavements, trying to find the old Kinning Park kids she used to knock about with. Brenda thought of the hours she’d spent, washing clothes with her mother at the kitchen sink, yapping about all those untold neighbours moving in; peering across the Drumchapel back court at all the new folk behind the windows, guessing which
were prods and which were papes. Her Mum never got tired of that game.

All that seemed an age ago, like a different life. One she’d put far behind.

Only then Brenda saw Lindsey, and how she was blinking at Franny’s picture, as though she hadn’t wanted to face up to this until now. Eric married a Catholic.