Beneath the Abbey Wall

by A. D. Scott

  “Her father was in India, not many folk visited, so very few knew.”

  This made no sense to McAllister. Whose father? Joyce’s? Chrissie’s? The father of Neil Stewart? But it wasn’t his place to ask.

  “Sergeant Major Smart’s father, a drunken eejit if ever there was one, he was the gamekeeper on the estate, and there was no keeping the truth from him.”

  She looked into the fire. She could see the man, with his gun, shouting at the bairns, threatening the boys who were only trying to catch rabbits for the pot. He grudged them even that, although Joyce had made it clear that rabbits were there for anyone to take.

  “Rabbits are a nuisance,” Joyce told him. “Anyone who traps them is doing us a service.”

  “The man hated tinkers,” Jenny continued, “and his son, Archie, even as a boy, was full o’ hate, but maybe that was because his father treated him right badly. Whenever he was drunk he would beat the boy, and often as not when he was sober too, saying it would toughen him up. It did that a’ right.”

  Spare the rod and spoil the child—McAllister had heard that excuse for brutality often enough.

  “Then, one day, when Joyce saw a poor wee tinker boy who’d needed a doctor after Auld Smart beat him within an inch o’ his life for stealing rabbits, as he put it, Joyce sacked him.

  “I don’t think she told her father why, just wrote that the Smart family had moved to Perthshire. We all hoped that was the last we’d see o’ them—but no . . . ” She did not need to continue.

  “So, not long after the Smarts left, Joyce went to the town for a few days, to see to some estate business, and the men were working wi’ the sheep in the hills, so I was on ma’ own.”

  She remembered the baby at her breast. She remembered cradling his head in her hand as he looked up at her as he sucked. She remembered that that was the way it was in those days; no bottles and milk powder, whoever had milk, fed the baby that needed it. “Then the welfare came and stole you and wee Davey.”

  She shook her head. Even after all this time, the day haunted her.

  “Stole?” Neil could not believe the word. “Stole?” he repeated.

  “You heard ma Ma.” Jimmy’s voice was as sad and as deep and as harsh as a hoodie crow.

  “Somebody reported us to the welfare saying we were not ‘fit and proper parents’—and me being a widow at the time made it doubly hard.” She was certain it was Auld Archie Smart’s revenge, but she could never prove it.

  The room was quiet, hushed—waiting for the next part of the story. But Jenny was spent.

  “The welfare took tinkers’ bairns.” She started to rush her words. “Said they were neglected. Told us they were off to a better life.”

  “And they’re still taking them. Even now in 1957.” Jimmy was almost spitting as he spoke; he knew what this better life was: in institutions or sent to the colonies, a life far worse than a life on the road with their kinfolk. “We are despised by many people, us and the Gypsies, just because we want to be left alone wi’ our own way of life. What happened in Germany to the Traveling people in the last war is forgotten by some—but not us.”

  “There is great ignorance and prejudice in Canada too,” Neil spoke quietly, remembering John Williamson, one of his school friends. Dirty tink was the least nasty of the names the children shouted at him. One time, he was about seven and knew no better, he had said to his mother, John Williamson is a dirty tink, and she had spanked him, shouting at him to never ever say that again. Traveling people, she had told him, are good people. He never forgot because it was the only time she had given him a proper smacking.

  “You were in the pram.” Jimmy was waving his cigarette at Neil. “The welfare thought you were one o’ us. How could ma Ma say you were the laird’s grandchild? No one knew o’ your birth.”

  McAllister stared. “Joyce Mackenzie’s baby?”

  “Haven’t I just been telling you that?” Jenny snapped, her heart hurting from thinking back yet again to the trauma of her son vanishing forever.

  “Joyce Mackenzie is my mother?”

  McAllister could see that Neil was shaken. But not shocked. Maybe it is all too huge a revelation too fast.

  “I’m . . . ” Neil was searching for a word that could begin to express his feeling. “I’m completely overwhelmed.” But, as ever, he could not shake the memory of that huge ship. Where does that come from?

  “This whole story—children being stolen—shocks the life out of me,” McAllister offered as a condolence.

  “I searched the parish records in Inchnadamph,” Neil told Jenny.

  McAllister noticed he didn’t say what, if anything, he had found. That was when you went there with Joanne. Although the thought hurt him, it did not hurt as much as he thought it would. In this moment, with Neil finally confronting his past, McAllister’s principal emotion was sympathy.

  Neil started to speak, filling up the empty spaces in his personal narrative.

  “The children sent to Canada, I knew of two who ended up working in the mills in Halifax. I knew they were from Scotland. I heard rumors they were given away because the parents were too poor to keep them . . . but I never knew children were stolen.”

  As Neil was speaking, Jenny was staring into the fire, half listening. She knew about stolen children, she’d made it her mission to find out; how they were scattered across the world, sent to the British colonies, as slave labor was how she thought of it; as children being given a chance in life was how the authorities saw it.

  “Single mothers had their children taken too.” McAllister remembered the stories from his days on the Glasgow newspaper.

  “You were the lucky one.” Jimmy pointed at Neil, taking out his anger on him, although he knew Neil Stewart was blameless. “You had a mother who sacrificed her whole life to take care o’ you. My wee brother, what happened to him? Eh? Where is he?”

  “No one knows.” Jenny’s voice made McAllister look at her, but her face was turned to the dying fire. Her body however showed her pain. This is aging her, he thought.

  “Joyce did her best to find ma Davey, spent a fortune on solicitors. And later, Countess Sokolov, she tried an’ all, but we never did find our wee boy.”

  “So how did I end up being with . . . ” Neil hesitated. He did not know whether to call her Chrissie or Mother.

  Jenny rushed the end of the explanation. She was tired. She needed them gone.

  “I ran to the big house the minute thon people had left wi’ the bairns and telephoned Joyce. She was out but Chrissie was in. I told her what had happened. She told Joyce. Joyce had plenty of connections. It was easy for her to find out where they’d taken you. You were both in the poorhouse in town waiting for a welfare officer to get you to Glasgow to an orphanage. Joyce told me to get to town as fast as I could but I had the other bairns to think of and it took me three days to get there wi’ Davey’s birth certificate.

  “Joyce and Chrissie had managed to get you home. Joyce had your birth certificate and said if they didn’t agree to let you go home with her she would have the law onto them, the chief constable being friends with her father. The welfare superintendent agreed to let you go because of who Joyce was—her father, her family practically Highland royalty, they were allowed to take you home. And Chrissie, she became your nursemaid and she loved you straight off as though you were her own.”

  We had to sign for him like he was a piece of lost baggage, Chrissie had told Jenny.

  “Joyce gave some money as a ‘donation’ to the poorhouse, so she told me later. Then she got one o’ her lawyer friends on to it. They were going to say we were working on the estate, we had the wee house and my man was the gamekeeper even though he was gone, rest his soul. I got to town to get ma wee Davey back, but he was gone.” My wee boy, she was thinking, he was a right bonnie bairn.

  “We found out he’d been sent to the orphanage in Glasgow along with three other bairns. Joyce did everything she could, but it was too late, they said he had been ad
opted.

  “‘That’ll be right,’ I said, ‘he was a right bonnie bairn.’ And the woman at the orphanage agreed.

  “‘Aye,’ she said when I got there to Glasgow on the train wi’ Joyce, ‘no one would take him for a tinker bairn.’ And no one and no amount of money, no birth certificate, my marriage lines, none o’ it mattered, he was gone, and we never could get us the records of what had happened to ma wee boy.”

  McAllister thought this strange; surely it took months for a child to be adopted, not days. But he lost the thought, caught up in the rest of the story of Joyce’s baby.

  “So my mother, Chrissie Stewart . . . ”

  “Took you to Canada. She loved you, you see. And you didn’t want to know about Joyce. You never took to your own mother. But you took to us tinkers.”

  Jenny laughed, but there was no mirth to it. Joyce had lost her senses after the birth, Jenny remembered. “No’ her fault, poor soul, she had a bad case o’ thon sadness some women get when they have a baby.” And there was the sadness of Don not wanting to know her. But Jenny felt it was not her place to talk about that.

  “So why Canada?” Neil needed to know every step of his journey to Neil Stewart, potential professor of history.

  “A right brave soul was Chrissie, setting off to Canada all on her own.” Jenny could see her, a wee slip of a thing, smiling into the sun when the picture was taken, the one Neil had shown her, when she had come home to say good-bye, and they never saw her again.

  “So there was no Mr. Stewart?”

  “No, lad, it was all made up to save Chrissie’s reputation.”

  Didn’t work, Neil almost said, she suffered from being a single mother and never once complained.

  “It broke Joyce’s heart to give you up. But she knew it was for the best.”

  Neil looked at her, silently asking why.

  “Women’s problems after you were born. No’ her fault, but she wasn’t up to caring for you.” And the wee baby wasn’t safe with her, Jenny remembered, but would never say.

  A quietness fell. There was so much to take in. They would all, in their own time and way, need to take the story, nurture it, make it their own, forgive if that was needed, learn, let go.

  “Joyce Mackenzie was a good woman,” Jenny finished up.

  “So I’ve heard.” Neil’s voice was harsh. He would never believe in the goodness of Joyce Mackenzie, the woman who had abandoned him. “But Chrissie Stewart, my real mother, was even more so.”

  McAllister was aware of the tension. And Jimmy. McAllister remembered, as a boy, going to a circus on Glasgow Green, watching a giant cobra sway from side to side, mesmerized by a snake charmer. He remembered the snake following the man’s head and eyes, neither giving in.

  What had passed between Jenny and Neil Stewart only they knew; knew completely—hearts, body, and soul.

  Neil was the first to break contact. Jenny gave a brief nod.

  McAllister felt the spell, the enchantment, break. He looked at Jimmy trying to gauge if he knew what had happened. But Jimmy was doing a Scottish imitation of the Sphinx.

  “I made a sacred promise to Joyce—and to Chrissie, so I’ve said all I’m going to say.” She looked up at Jimmy.

  Jimmy caught the deep lines gathered around his mother’s eyes and on her forehead and it made him think of thunder on the horizon, close and getting closer.

  “Right gentlemen, I’ll give you a lift home.” He stood, giving them little choice.

  Neil was reluctant to leave. He wanted, needed more. But Jimmy handed him his jacket and scarf and McAllister his hat.

  They left with muttered good-byes, leaving Jenny sitting back in the chair, eyes half shut, her arms wrapped around her as though the blaze of the fire was sending out ice.

  Jimmy drove to McAllister’s house first. “Do you want to come in?” McAllister asked Neil.

  “Another time. I need to think.”

  McAllister nodded. Five minutes later, as he was about to close his bedroom curtains, he saw Jimmy’s car had not left. Jimmy and Neil were sitting in the front. He watched them for half a minute, and it looked like Jimmy was doing all the talking. He could not be certain, but the conversation looked earnest.

  None of my business, he told himself. A sudden frisson of fear on the back of his neck made him pull the heavy dark velvet curtains, which had come with the house, tight shut. The Jimmy McPhee he knew was mostly benign, but he had seen the other side of the man, and it was terrifying.

  * * *

  The phone call next morning to Mr. Brodie, QC, was long. McAllister repeated the story. Brodie listened, asked few questions, mostly waiting until McAllister had finished.

  “So, let me get this clear. Neil Stewart is definitely Joyce McLeod’s son?”

  It took McAllister a moment to think who Joyce McLeod was, until he remembered. She was Joyce McLeod when she gave birth.

  “Yes.” McAllister sounded more certain than he felt. He thought there had been something not quite right in Jenny McPhee’s explanation. But he could not be sure.

  “And we must suppose that Mr. Donal McLeod, the accused, is the father.”

  “It wasn’t mentioned and I didn’t ask.”

  “You should have.”

  McAllister knew he was being scolded. He did not have a chance to reply, as Mr. Brodie had embarked on an exploration of why Neil Stewart might have killed Joyce McLeod.

  McAllister listened. Much as he resented Neil’s relationship with Joanne, he couldn’t see Neil murdering a woman. Nor why Neil would murder her.

  “The most likely reason for the murder,” the advocate summed up, “could be plain old-fashioned resentment turned to hatred.”

  “As an advocate, I’m sure you’ve seen more of that than me. But I find it hard to believe, and there is no proof whatsoever.”

  “I know. Though as a defense council I must examine every possibility. Does Mr. McLeod know his and his wife’s past is revealed?” was Mr. Brodie’s next question.

  “I haven’t had a chance to talk to him.”

  “Quick smart, McAllister”—he started to chuckle at his own pun—“And DI Dunne. Let him know everything. Then phone me with Mr. McLeod’s reaction. I’ll be up to the Highlands as soon as I can, but it won’t be before Saturday morning. Right, if that’s all . . . ”

  “I can’t think of anything . . . ” But McAllister couldn’t keep up with the speed of Brodie, and the man was gone before he could say anything more.

  He picked up the receiver and was about to dial the police station, when he saw the pile of work on his desk. I’ll phone later, he thought. Neil isn’t going anywhere until next week, then Mr. Brodie, QC, can talk to him himself.

  McAllister knew the Gazette standards had fallen, and it hurt his pride. He knew turning out a newspaper next week without Neil was going to be almost impossible. Deadline first, he decided, then I’ll have a talk with Neil. Then Don. Then I’ll phone DI Dunne. Decision made, he worked quickly, clearing most of the backlog by noon.

  * * *

  Deadline was an hour away, and Joanne was finished her work. She was waiting for Neil, who had said I’ll be about forty minutes, so she went downstairs to see if Betsy was still in the office.

  “I’m glad you’re here. I wanted to ask if you’ve changed your mind about our plan,” Joanne said.

  “No. I still want to leave the Highlands. I’m not brave like you, I’d hate it—everybody pointing me out as a shamed woman.” Betsy looked at Joanne carefully as though assessing her for the first time. “Won’t it be hard for the girls? You know—growing up without their father?”

  “We’ll manage,” was all Joanne was willing to say. She would never tell anyone, even Chiara, that life without their father was what she wanted for her girls; life without violence, life without drunkenness, life without thinking they were second best because they were female and that the height of fulfillment was to marry well and produce babies, preferably male. “And of course the girls have
their grandparents.”

  “My wee one won’t.”

  Joanne thought Betsy would show her usual teary-eyed doe face, but no; Joanne had underestimated Betsy’s determination to marry Bill, even if it meant moving to the other end of the world.

  “If Bill and I can get divorced, it will all be straightforward after that.” Joanne said this with such weariness, Betsy reached over and touched her arm. “Thanks, Betsy.” She laid her hand on top of Betsy’s. “You’re the right wife for Bill. I never was.”

  “Thank you, Joanne. But don’t say ‘if.’ This has to work.” Betsy shut the office door and locked it and put on a scrap of a flowery confection of a hat that looked pretty but gave no warmth whatsoever. “I’m sick. I’m tired. I’m scared Bill will guess before I can give him the good news. And I’m dreading next week. With Neil leaving so soon, we’ll be hard pressed to get the paper out.”

  “Sorry?”

  Betsy looked at her and saw that Joanne had no idea what she was talking about. “I’m sorry, I thought you knew.” Betsy was embarrassed. She and Joanne would never be friends, but Betsy was as soft as the baby-blue angora jumpers she loved so much. “McAllister told me to put in an advert for a subeditor. I’ve booked it into the Aberdeen papers, too. The ad says immediate start, and when I asked, he told me Neil is leaving sooner than he thought because . . . ” She didn’t finish, as Joanne was climbing the stairs to the reporters’ room.

  “Poor soul,” Betsy said, “you’ve got it as bad as me.”

  Climbing the staircase that she had climbed so many times before, Joanne felt dread instead of her usual anticipation. The sound of a typewriter punctuated the claustrophobia of the stone steps and walls. The dim light from a window high above, which she always fancied had never been cleaned since the building was erected in the eighteenth century, cast shadows on the worn stairs.