by Maggie Craig
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.
‘No bother,’ she said, her voice very soft. Sliding her hand out of his, she rose to her feet, moved across to the kitchen table and put an arm around her sister’s shoulders.
‘Come on then, Jess. Everyone’ll be wanting tea soon. Let’s get organized.’
Jessie raised huge eyes to her. ‘What’s wrong with Barbara, Kate? One minute she was fine and the next she wasn’t. What’s the matter with her?’
‘I don’t know, Jessie,’ said Kate, and then with a cheerfulness she was far from feeling, ‘but I’m sure Dr MacMillan does. Now, up you get and see if there’s enough water in the kettle.’
Over Jessie’s head, her eyes met Robbie’s. They did their best to smile at each other.
In the event, Dr MacMillan didn’t know what was wrong with Barbara. Nothing to worry about at the moment, though, he told the Baxters confidently, the lassie was fine now. Lots of rest over the next few days and keep an eye on her. It might be an isolated incident, but since something similar had happened before, they should bring her in to see him if it occurred again.
Then Barbara herself came skipping through, apparently as right as rain and none the worse for her experience. Robbie rose to his feet, glowered at her and told her in no uncertain terms to sit down and stop dancing about like a wee daftie. Barbara ran up to him, cocked her head to one side, and said, ‘Och, Robbie.’ He sank to his knees and wrapped his arms around her.
Kate, seeing that the eyes visible over Barbara’s shoulder were too bright, immediately caused a diversion, insisting that everyone sat down at the kitchen table for their. tea, and sending Jessie to fetch the rest of the family. The Cameron family came with them and the evening became one of high spirits and gaiety. They talked about the eviction and Neil and Agnes’s part in preventing it. They discussed Kate’s new job. Jim Baxter joked that his wife had pressed Dr MacMillan to stay for two cups of tea and a large buttered slice of her home-baked fruit loaf because he was a handsome young man, not long qualified.
‘But a fine physi
cian,’ said Neil Cameron in his deep, soft voice, holding out his own teacup to Agnes for a refill.
‘He is that,’ agreed Jim Baxter, ‘and a fine man, too. “I’ll get my fee the next time,” he says to me when I saw him out. “I know everyone’s a bit short at the moment.” That’s what he said. A fine man.’ Jim looked round the table for confirmation.
Kate caught Robbie’s eye and knew exactly what he was thinking. Please God, don’t let there be a next time.
Lying in the box bed that night, Kate found sleep elusive. It had been an eventful day. Faces swam in front of her mind’s eye: Miss Nugent, stern and disapproving, peering at her over those ridiculous glasses; Robbie and her father, both of them so delighted that she’d got a start; Agnes Baxter saving the day at the eviction.
How had she done that? By making fun of the man - turning aggression into ridicule. The way she had looked him up and down... Kate turned onto her back, eliciting a sleepy protest from Pearl.
Then there was Barbara, lying so still and silent in her brother’s arms; Jessie, desperately worried about her best friend, not understanding what was wrong; Robbie, staring into space...
She had felt so tender towards him tonight. Had wanted to put her arms around him and comfort him, draw his head down onto her breast and let him bury his face there and cry like a child if he wanted to.
Yet earlier, when he had stood shoulder to shoulder with her father and the other men, she had seen quite clearly that Robert Baxter was no longer a boy, but a man. And that was a most uncomfortable thought, especially when taken in conjunction with her desire to hold him to her breast. She turned once more onto her side.
‘Kate, in the name of the wee man, go to sleep.’
She stared into the darkness, towards the shelf at the foot of the bed. The thought of holding Robbie like that...well, it made her blush. Thank goodness it was so dark in here. She would never hear the end of it if Pearl or Jessie caught her blushing over Robbie Baxter. Ridiculous!
Pearl was snoring again. Kate wished she could fall asleep, too. Two other faces replaced Robbie’s in the blackness - the young couple who’d been saved from eviction. This time. The factors and the sheriff’s officer would be back, as sure as fate - and perhaps at a time when no one was around to stop them.
It was a terrible way to live. No money, no prospects, no hope - maybe not even a roof over their heads. Oh God, wouldn’t it be awful to have no home? What did that pair today have? Their children? Love?
In her mind’s eye Kate saw the woman’s face when she had seen her husband elbowing his way through the crowd to get to her. There had been love there, all right, as they had clung onto each other. They had both been so thin, their clothes so shabby. Probably, like so many people in Clydebank, they went without so that their children could have enough to eat and be warmly clad.
People with no money shouldn’t really have children, should they? But children went along with love. The thought of the mechanics of how that happened made her blush again. She was a bit hazy about the details, but she knew enough to find it a bit frightening. It must hurt...
Her own father and mother had once been in love. Look what had happened to them. Lily seemed to have nothing but contempt for Neil, and he drank too much - because of the war and because life had defeated him. Both her parents were disappointed people. She wondered if that was how love always ended up. At least for people like us?
The blankets were moving at her feet. Mr Asquith was making his way up the bed.
‘Come here, baudrons,’ she whispered. ‘Come and give us a cuddle.’ She adjusted her position as far as she could so that the cat could settle into the curve of her body at her waist. Oh, he was nice and warm. ‘You’re the only man for me, Mr A,’ she told him. The cat began to purr, a soft and comforting sound in the darkness.
Sleep was still a long way off. Try as she might, she couldn’t stop thinking about the Art School and she couldn’t stop doing calculations in her head. The trouble was, no matter how hard you added money up, it didn’t make it grow anymore.
Something came back to her, pushed out until now by the events of the day. Hadn’t Miss Nugent - the old battleaxe - said something about an extra sixpence if you went to night school? Cat and sister murmured their protests as a restless Kate moved yet again.
‘Sorry,’ she muttered, more to the cat than to Pearl. She stroked the former, a little absent-mindedly, but it was enough for him to deign to remain in position and resume his purring.
Kate barely noticed. She was on to something here. There were lots of evening classes held in Clydebank - there might even be a painting one. It wouldn’t be like the Art School, of course, but it would keep her going. The local ones weren’t nearly as expensive - between about a shilling and half a crown a session. If she could scrape that out of however much of her five shillings pay her mother let her keep, she could earn more money which she could save towards the Art School. It wouldn’t leave much over for anything else, and she was going to need some new clothes - and an overall - for work.
Her brain was busy calculating. Sixpence extra a week over fifty-two weeks made one pound six shillings. It would take her almost two years to save the two guineas - and then there was the cost of materials - so it might take three years. If she did two evening classes - maybe a dressmaking one so she could make her own clothes? She’d have to pay for the cloth, of course, that would cut into the money a wee bit... This needed careful working out, but it was a real possibility.
She laid a light hand on Mr Asquith’s smooth fur. She could do it. It might take her two or three years, but she could do it. She’d have to think of a safe place for the money she was going to save. Lily would have it off her like a shot, and if her father found it in a weak moment it would end up in Connolly’s Bar. Maybe she would ask Agnes Baxter to keep it for her - or Miss Noble.
She hugged the thought to her. It made her feel as warm as the cat under her hand. It’s going to be different for me, she thought. I don’t want the life my mother has or that girl Lizzie endures. I don’t want to have a baby every year or be thrown out of my house because I haven’t got the money to pay the rent.
I am going to make something of myself. For a start, I’m going to the Art School. Come hell or high water. However long it takes.
PART II
1926
Chapter 7
In the two years Kate had been working at Donaldson’s she had never known Miss Nugent raise her voice. She didn’t have to. By sheer force of personality, and by the position she held over them, she ruled the tracers with a rod of iron. The Chief Tracer had strict rules of conduct for her girls, and she made sure that they were obeyed.
One of the strictest was that contact with the men working in the yard was to be avoided at all costs. This was not too difficult, given that the girls worked office hours. By the time they arrived at work at ten to nine, the men had been in for over an hour, and went home correspondingly early. That arrangement, Kate had to admit, had a lot to recommend it. The girls arrived and left by the small door within the main gates which Kate had used on her first visit to Donaldson’s. For the 3000 men who worked at the yard, the gates had to be thrown open wide. When the hooter sounded at the end of the working day, no one wasted any time in leaving the workplace. Finding yourself in that stream of humanity flowing joyfully out into the street on its boisterous way home might well be an overwhelming experience for any girl.
The measures taken to prevent Miss Nugent’s young ladies from coming into contact with the trainee draughtsmen working on the floor above them, seemed, however, to have less to do with safety. They too worked office hours, but were required to be at their drawing boards five minutes before the girls started and left five minutes later than they did at night. That didn’t stop them leaning out of the windows and wolf-whistling while the girls were crossing the yard on their way home, much to Miss Nugent’s tut-tutting disapproval.
It had embarrassed Kate at first, but she
had learned to take it in her stride. Like the other girls, she soon became adept at throwing the occasional bit of banter back up at the smiling faces. Despite retaining a good measure of her own natural reserve, she was quite capable of giving as good as she got. After all, she was over eighteen now, no longer a schoolgirl.
If she did, very occasionally, meet any of the draughtsmen on the stairs, they were unfailingly polite and courteous to her, especially, it had to be admitted, a young man called Peter Watt. The other girls teased her about him - until they found out about Robbie.
He had waited behind one wild winter’s afternoon to see her safely home - a fatal mistake. Kate had told him off for it, but by then the damage had been done. All the girls had seen him, standing by the main gate and turning with a smile as Kate approached. When Bella Buchanan, one of the girls who’d started with Kate two years before, had spotted her and Robbie at the cinema two weeks in a row, the bush telegraph had swung into action. Within twenty-four hours every tracer in Donaldson’s knew Robbie’s name, what age he was, where he worked in the yard and that he and Kate lived up the same close in Yoker.
‘Childhood sweethearts!’ Bella declaimed. ‘That’s dead romantic!’
Aware of the tendency among some of her charges to hang back for that five minutes which separated their departure time from that of the draughtsmen, Miss Nugent wasn’t above coming into the large washroom where they all went to comb their hair and put on their hats before leaving, in order to shoo them home.
Nor was there much chance of meeting and chatting to the draughtsmen during the day. The drawings emanating from that office, which provided the girls with their tracing work, were either delivered to their own room, or fetched by Miss Nugent herself. Kate always smiled when she remembered how Bella had tried to circumvent that rule.