Eighteen Couper Street

by Millie Gray

  Mr Guthrie put out his right hand to indicate that Anna should sit opposite him. Once seated, Anna again attempted to speak. “I … no … what I am trying to say is …” She then blurted out, “You got two boys from the court today – Frederick and Robert Forbes – they’re only ten and eleven.”

  Mr Guthrie nodded.

  “Well, it’s all a mistake,” Anna continued breathlessly. “The guilty party is not either of the children but their father. They’re less sinned than sinned against. By sending them here they’re paying for the crimes of their father and—” she hesitated before going on in a cracked voice, “and the neglect of me!”

  Having decided it would be best to allow Anna to get her anger out Mr Guthrie sat passively, only nodding when he thought it appropriate to do so.

  “Sure,” Anna went on, “they boys are good honest laddies. Even if they’d been bad like the court said – which they are not – who could blame them for living with a degenerate father who is nothing but an irresponsible drunken waster? Do you know he lied in court today to get rid of the boys? And the only time he puts his hand in his pocket is to buy booze, pay the bookie or send one and sixpence for Jenny Greenhill to come and iron a shirt.” Anna was sobbing uncontrollably now. “And they poor wee innocent laddies, who were in need of a good feed, knew well that neither Gabby nor Jenny Greenhill owned an iron.”

  Allowing Anna to compose herself, Mr Guthrie, who did not quite understand about Jenny Greenhill and her ability or inability to iron shirts, thought, Now what is the best course of action here? He deliberated for a while before saying, “Look, if what you say about the boys’ father is true …”

  “True?” screeched Anna. “Look, I don’t lie. I’m a Christian. Albeit a lapsed from the Brethren but I attend the Salvation Army down in Bangor Road every week – and I can tell they’re not into fabricating either.”

  “Okay, I accept that the boys were wrongly accused by their father but you agree that they require care and protection so the removal from their father’s control was necessary.” Anna pursed her lips and nodded. “Now, what exactly do you know about this Home?”

  “Just that it’s for bad boys who need correction – which they do not!”

  “Believe me,” continued Mr Guthrie, “the aim of this school is to educate, feed, clothe and house. And what would you say if I told you that not all of the one hundred and forty boys housed at this school were brought here by the detention orders from the court?”

  “Were they not?” exclaimed Anna.

  “No. Over half are here because a parent has died and the other parent is unable to control or support the child and wishes him to be admitted here into our care. We also take in destitute children – those found wandering and not having a home or visible means of support. Child beggars. All they require is to be under the age of fourteen, in need of care and protection or brought under discipline.”

  Anna hung her head but was listening intently to Mr Guthrie, who then handed her a sheet listing the names of all who were members of the General Committee.

  “Not only do we guide the boys up to the age of sixteen and ensure they lead happy, useful lives, but they are also instructed in industrial skills, trained in community work, honour and responsibility. First of all, however, and most importantly, we wash, feed and nourish them when they arrive. And since this is not a large school we have what I consider to be a manageable number of children.” Mr Guthrie now pushed over a dietary table, pointing out that the boys were fed three times a day.

  “So,” observed Anna as she scanned the page, “they will have porridge every morning and cocoa and bread each night but at lunchtime they will have soup and on Sundays Irish stew, always accompanied by bread.” Better feeding than the boys had ever known!

  “We also,” continued Mr Guthrie, “have a constructive timetable for each day. Oh yes, every day the boys spend part of their time in school while also being trained in the industrial workshops.” Anna nodded. “They are also encouraged to play a musical instrument and attend band practice. Two doctors and a dentist visit the school on a weekly basis to ensure the boys’ health and well-being.” Mr Guthrie paused before adding, “And I make it a personal commitment of mine to ensure that twice-daily prayers and Bible studies are undertaken.”

  Pursing her lips Anna acknowledged that Norma’s beloved boys would be far better off here under the guardianship of this upright Christian, Mr Guthrie. They would, she knew, resent what had happened to them but in time they too would realise that it was for the best. Especially when they left the school, suitably trained and so able to work and thrive in the cruel world into which they had been born. And, of course, she confided to herself, an added bonus is that the boys will be encouraged, unlike their father, to be good Christians. What else would you expect when (and she now scanned the papers again) there are the names of not one, but at least eighteen, ordained reverend ministers on the General Committee list?

  6

  RESENTMENT

  The malevolent glares from Bella and Rachel that greeted Anna when she eventually arrived home made her imagine that they already knew the fate that had befallen Freddie and Robert. And they were laying the blame squarely at her door.

  Lately she had become aware that encouraging the girls to stand up and speak out for themselves, no matter the consequences, had resulted in their continual questioning of her actions. A wry smile crossed her face when she remembered her sister-in-law, Rosie, remarking that Rachel was so advanced in her speech it appeared that she’d been trained by Anna’s friend, Eugenie – one of the most vociferous members of the Edinburgh suffragette movement.

  In an effort to delay the eruption of the argument that Anna was sure was about to occur, she adopted a belligerent stance before saying emphatically, “I’ve had one blooming day of it. So before either of you start – one of you had better make me a cup of tea.”

  Surprised at the tone of their aunt’s voice, both girls exchanged bewildered looks before Bella stood up and went towards the fire to mask the tea. As she poured the boiling water into the teapot she retaliated, “We’ve no exactly had a picnic the day either. That’s the reason I hope you’re no expecting your usual three teaspoonfuls of sugar in your tea … as we have none left.”

  Anna glanced into the empty sugar bowl. “But it was half-full when I left.”

  Bella shrugged. “Aye, but didn’t wee Jock Preston and Iris Simpson come to have their soap and sugar poultices changed. And as you weren’t here I had to put on new dressings.”

  “Are you saying it took half a bowl of sugar to make two soap and sugar poultices?”

  “Naw! Three. You see, Jock’s other knee’s has gone aw scabby and filthy too,” countered Bella, pouring out her aunt’s tea. “So I thought it best to treat it right away as he aye takes that long to heal.”

  “Aye,” retorted Anna, taking the cup from Bella, “but a poultice just needs one teaspoonful of sugar to be effective, not half a pound!” Slowly sipping the hot tea, Anna decided it was time to put her side of the story concerning the boys. “Look,” she tentatively began, “Mrs Pratt went into premature labour …”

  “Aye, we ken,” Bella informed her as she lifted up a ham hock. “Yon policeman, Jack McIntyre, came up to tell you she’s got another wee lassie and they’re both doin’ well. And he left you this.” Bella now pushed the hock towards her aunt. “No doubt something else that got lost in the docks.”

  “He’ll have got it out o’ the Danish Bacon Company and paid for it. An honest man he is,” retorted Anna, taking hold of the ham.

  Bella sniggered.

  “Anyway, because I was tending to Mrs Pratt, I was late getting to the court and the case …”

  “What case?” Rachel asked.

  “The one where the bailie was to order your father to pay me for your keep.”

  Rachel face fired. She was just so fed up being reminded she was a charity case!

  “And?” asked Bella, who was fully aware
of the effect that Anna’s constant rowing with Gabby was having on Rachel.

  “The case was over. And …” Anna hesitated as she realised Rachel didn’t know what fate had befallen her two brothers. She also accepted that no matter how well she put her case, it was still going to prove a shock for Rachel. Swallowing hard to control her panic she eventually stammered, “Gabby lied and blamed the boys!”

  “Oh no!” gasped Bella.

  “Yes,” Anna replied defiantly. “And he also said they were out of control and he wanted them to be taken into the Industrial School for … correction!”

  Overtaken by fear, neither of the girls could speak but Bella went over and put her arms around Rachel.

  “Now, before you get upset,” continued Anna in a more conciliatory voice before being abruptly interrupted by Rachel shouting angrily.

  “Hold on a minute. Are you saying, Auntie, that my brothers, who are good laddies, are now in a home for bad boys?”

  “But listen. Next week you’ll be able to see for yourself how well-run these places are.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re thinking of sending Rachel there too,” exclaimed Bella.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. It’s a boys’ home,” Anna angrily protested. “The girls’ home is in Restalrig Road.” She now looked over to Rachel, whose eyes were wide with fear, and in desperation Anna waved her hand towards her before whispering, “But I would never send you there. You’re mine.”

  “So my brothers belong to nobody? Nobody cares about them. Nobody wants them – but me!”

  “Look. Mr Guthrie will do well by them. Teach them a trade. How to look after themselves.” Anna could see Rachel was not impressed, so she quickly added, “And he will even teach them how to play a trumpet.”

  Bella and Rachel, shaking their heads, stared at one another. There was a short pause before Bella said with deep irony, “Now, isn’t that what we’ve always needed – someone to blow a trumpet!” Without another word to Anna, Bella guided Rachel towards the bedroom door and both sisters disappeared inside.

  The girls had scarcely fallen asleep when Anna was surprised by her sister-in-law Rosie coming into the house. Swathed in her black woollen shawl Rosie was still caked in the dirty hemp dust from the Roperie.

  “Where’s Paul?” asked Anna, unable to keep the alarm from her voice. “Don’t tell me,” she urged Rosie, “you didn’t collect him from the nursery!”

  Rosie nodded. “Oh, Anna, I did go straight to the Tolbooth Nursery and …” she now opened up her shawl and there against her breast lay eleven-month-old Paul.

  “Oh no,” cried Anna. “He’s not … ?”

  Tears cascaded down Rosie’s face. “Aye. The unfeeling buggers that they are didnae even come and tell me he’d passed away this morning. ‘Sudden’ was all they said.”

  Weeping sorely, Anna went over and lifted Paul into her arms. Kissing him tenderly on the forehead, she then went on to wash and dress him to get him ready for a pauper’s funeral. “You know? Some day,” said Anna wistfully, “we just might get some justice into this blasted world of ours.” She then cradled the dead baby in her arms and promised, “And … some day I just might stop hurting Rachel in an effort to get even with Gabby.”

  Rosie nodded. Tears for her baby still ran down her cheeks as she thought, Aye, Anna, but you and I both know you’ll never give up trying to get retribution for Norma.

  Feeling she had nothing else to lose, Rosie decided to warn Anna against persisting in her vendetta against Gabby. However, as morbid exhaustion overtook her all she did was sigh.

  A short week later Rosie was prematurely gripped with the labour pains of the child she was carrying and three hours later the bairn struggled, without dissent, into the world. Unfortunately, despite Anna’s valiant efforts, the bonnie wee lassie was immediately laid out as her brother had been. Oh aye, wee Bessie never drew a breath, but at Rosie’s insistence, Anna did christen her with some drops of tap water.

  7

  CHANGING TIMES

  “Auntie, know how I … ?” wheedled Rachel as she toyed lazily with her porridge.

  “Well, as I’m no clairvoyant, not until you spit it out,” replied Anna.

  “It’s just that … remember Rosa Liston’s mother invited me over to their house for tea?”

  “Aye.”

  “And I told you how we got fried fish and mashed tatties to eat and … the cover on the table was real linen. No wax-cloth like this one,” mused Rachel, who dreamily continued to stir her breakfast with her right hand whilst running her left hand over the cracked oilcloth, “and they drink their tea out of china cups. Royal Albert at that.”

  Anna sniggered. “Aye, but then they’re bow-tows and they earn their money through fish. The father trawling out o’ Newhaven, the mother going round the doors up in posh Edinburgh town selling from a creel – even the auld granny has to sit aw day, hail, rain or shine, gutting and selling fish on the broad pavement in Leith.”

  “So, why can’t you sell fish? I mean, you sew all day but we haven’t …”

  Anna just huffed and vigorously started to work the treadle.

  “And while I remember, do you know if I have a granny?”

  The treadle stopped abruptly. “Rachel, I’m all that stands between you and the lassies’ Industrial School in Restalrig Road. Now, if fishcakes made from a cod’s head that’s been flung away by Rosa’s folk and drinking from a cup without a handle is no good enough for you – how about when we go up to see your brothers this afternoon, I ask Mr Guthrie about taking you in too!”

  “Auntie, you know fine I don’t want to live with anyone but you. It’s just that I have to ask Rosa back here for tea and what I’m wondering is …”

  “How she’s gonnae cope with a jam piece and her tea dished up in a jam jar?”

  “No. What I didn’t tell you was when I had tea at the Listons and when I said my brothers were musicians, Mrs Liston was pleased, very pleased. However, when I explained that Freddie and Robert were being taught the trumpet at the Industrial School, her face fell. Jumped up, she did. Emptied the tea in our cups into tinnies, she did, and then washed and dried all the china before putting it back in the glass cabinet.”

  “See what I mean? When dirt rises it blinds you. But there’s something’s no ringing true here. Like … why did she ask you to her braw new house round the corner from the Leith Provident Store in King Street?”

  Rachel face fired. “Um-m. I suppose,” she stammered, “that with me getting pally with Rosa when she came to Couper Street School last year and me …”

  “I’m waiting.”

  “Well it wasn’t a lie. Just letting out a secret.”

  “What secret,” Anna demanded.

  “Just the one about my granddad, my dad’s dad, having been a master mariner and when he was too old to go to sea how he taught navigation by the stars in the Nautical College in Tolbooth Wynd.”

  “Well, you’ve got that off pat, have you no? And did you also mention your other secret?”

  “Which one?”

  “The most important one, how most nights your granddad’s son, your dad, cannae navigate himself out of the Steamboat Tavern.”

  “No,” shouted Rachel. “I just said the family had come from South Queensferry and my two great aunts were schoolteachers and that makes me middle class.”

  “That right?” chuckled Anna. “And did you also say you were lucky that I, who came from …”

  “Right enough, Auntie. Where do you come from?”

  Anna turned to gaze out of the window and the clock ticked slowly by before she said, “Smithton. A wee huddle of houses half a day’s walk away from Inverness and a stone’s throw from the Culloden battlefield. Lovely wee place it is.”

  “What do you remember best about it?”

  “Just that on a clear day you can stand in our garden and look out over the Moray Firth and beyond to the Black Isle,” was Anna’s emotional reply. “Mind you, the Black Isle isn’t reall
y an isle. Och,” she continued, turning her attention back to her sewing. “That was all yesterday. And in life, Rachel, believe me, you can go forward but you cannae go back.”

  “But if you loved it that much, why did you and your brothers leave?”

  “My mother died when I was twelve, Andy and Willie were two and three years older than me. My father, who was a pillar of the church – strict Brethren, he is – decided that every night he should knock obedience and the fear of God into my brothers – and in no way were they to interfere in his life. As for me, well, I was just a lassie so I had to leave school to become the housekeeper.” Anna was now talking more to herself. “Could have lived with that but men are always hankering to have their shirts ironed. Luckily, before any …” Pursing her lips, Anna stopped, brushed her hands over her chest and shook her head before continuing, “Enough to say, that I was taken in every night to sleep with my auntie, who lived in the next cottage with my granny. Then one day they decided it would be best for my brothers and me to leave. So they packed our bags and sent us off to Leith. The boys decided to go to sea. My auntie then paid for me to go to that posh college in Edinburgh’s Atholl Crescent – but she couldn’t afford more than a year. That was where I was taught to sew and keep house. That was good because when the boys came home on leave I kept house for them until they got married.”

  “But if Smithton was so nice, why didn’t you go back?”

  “Don’t be silly, Rachel. The reason my auntie and granny sent us off was that my father got his eye on a half-wit of a lassie, just a year older than me, I might add. Took her up the aisle, he did, when he discovered she was more than happy to oblige and iron for him as often as he wanted. From the day they married my brothers and I were no longer welcome at Smithton, my mother’s folks’ house. Mind you, from time to time my auntie, who said his getting married again was really a blessing in disguise, sent me a wee bob or two to help out. And know something? I couldn’t tell you often enough how that wee handout was our lifeline. Sure miss it since she died last year – but I know sweet Jesus, who has never let me down, will somehow throw me another lifeline.”