by Millie Gray
“Well, to be truthful, three things actually. First is, did ye ken Johnny Campbell’s home on demob leave?”
Rachel shook her head.
“Well, he is. And secondly,” Robert looked about to make sure they were not being overheard, “your pal Rosa’s no got someone to chum her to Bertram’s ball.”
“But I thought she was madly in love with that buffoon who’s the projectionist in the Palace Picture House.” Rachel paused. “And she’s so crazy about him she thinks she might even consider marrying him – and that would be with or without her mammy’s permission!”
“Ah well, after darling Mammy got her lamps on him she telt Rosa to give him the bum’s rush. And Rosa, who has the backbone o’ a jelly fish, gied the poor bloke the heave ho.”
“She did?”
“Aye,” confirmed Robert. “And no only him but the twa others that followed.” Robert stopped when Rachel began to giggle.
“Now who were they?” asked Rachel, feigning ignorance.
“Don’t start, Rachel. I ken fine you’re the only one that doesn’t find it impossible to keep up with Rosa’s love life.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. Ever since she got employed as a clerkess in Bertram’s engineering, where men out-number women a hundred to one, I can’t keep the head count either.”
“I asked Bud about her flirting madly at work,” Robert hunched his shoulders, “and all he said was, right enough they worked beside her, but all she was trying to do was get one of them to partner her to the dance.”
“Well,” explained Rachel, who was trying to find an excuse for her friend’s improper behaviour, “she could hardly turn up unescorted.”
“And why for no? Ye can at the Corner Rooms.”
“But it’s okay to do that in a public dance hall in Leith – but it’s not the done thing at the posh Edinburgh Assembly Rooms.”
Robert pondered. “That’s probably the reason she even asked Bud to take her. But he said he couldnae as he’d asked you. And then when Bud found out about Johnny being home he came up with the brilliant idea of getting Rosa to ask Johnny and then everybody would be happy – even Bud’s mammy.”
Rachel, who had lost interest in her brother’s banter, suddenly interrupted. “What did you say about Bud’s mammy being happy?”
“Well, Rosa says his mammy is like her mammy, and they dinnae think their bairns should get chummy with us Couper Street folk. Anyway, it seems Johnny’s going to be asked to take Rosa, so what do you think of that?”
“The more the merrier,” quipped Rachel, thinking it would be nice to see Johnny again and more so for Auntie Anna who just adored him. “And,” she continued, wishing to forget that Bud’s mother didn’t approve of her, “what’s the third thing that you’re burning to tell me?”
“Just that,” Robert stopped, scuffing his shoe along the pavement before blurting, “I’ve met this bonnie lassie from Bowling Green Street. Bunty Rankin’s her name.”
Rachel’s laughed out loud and clear. “Robert,” she reminded, “you met each other when you both started at Couper Street Infant School.”
“Och, I know that. But she’s changed.”
“Changed? Are you saying that in fourteen years she’s no longer a snotty-nosed, undersized cry baby?”
Robert ignored Rachel’s sarcasm. “She’s wee and dainty,” he whispered, putting his arm through Rachel’s. “And she says she needs a strong man like me to help her.”
“Do what?” demanded Rachel, pulling herself free from Robert.
“Like climb up into her house when she lost the key last week,” spouted Robert.
“Oh, sugar,” exclaimed Rachel, looking in disbelief at her brother. “Robert. Robert. Please don’t tell me you risked your life by climbing up a crumbling wall to a first-floor flat in Bowling Green Street?”
“Of course I did. And why shouldn’t I?”
“Because, like us, they’ve nothing worth stealing so they don’t lock their doors!”
Robert had to think before he responded. It was true what Rachel had just said. He vividly remembered how breathless he was after climbing up the wall. His hands and fingers were all scraped and bleeding from gripping the rough stones as he scaled. The hardest part of his escapade had been trying to prise open the window that had obviously not been opened for months – probably years. Eventually he managed to get the window and sill to grudgingly part for him to lever up enough space to allow him to wriggle into the room. On setting his feet down he was conscious of a cloying, stuffy unventilated smell that would never have been tolerated by Auntie, who was a firm believer in fresh air. That was not, however, the worst of it because when he got to the door he discovered it was open and there was no lock on it!
Anxious that his sister would think well of Bunty, he giggled before saying, “She fancies me, she does. And it was all a ploy to get me to notice her.”
Rachel stayed non-committal, but she did think she would have to be careful, as she didn’t wish to be like Bud’s mother and judge people by where they were housed.
Entering the house they were surprised to see Johnny Campbell seated at the table, drinking tea. “Well, are you not a sight for sore eyes?” he exclaimed, getting up and greeting Rachel and ignoring Robert.
“And I’m here too, Johnny,” remarked Robert. “And I think she might need her hand to eat her tea – so you can put it down now.”
An embarrassing glow started to run up Johnny’s neck and to his face. Rachel coyly smiled as she noted the flush deepened his bronzed skin. Allowing her gaze to linger on him she was pleased to see how muscular he’d become. Evidently the time spent in India had made a man of him.
With reluctance he let go of her hand when she asked, “And are you really on demob leave, Johnny, or are you going to sign up again?”
Johnny shook his head to and fro. “No. I really did enjoy the army and all the places I got to see.” He hesitated. “But, you see, I was never in a war zone and I now know my conscience would never allow me to kill or maim another human being.”
“Here, Johnny,” exclaimed Robert with disdain, “does your heid button up the back?”
Johnny, shaking his head from side to side again, looked quizzically at Robert.
“I think it does,” Robert announced. “Because anybody who joins up to be a sodger surely kens they’ll have to fire their rifle and if their aim’s guid somebody will land up deid.”
Johnny was about to explain his reasoning to Robert but Rachel, who could see that if an argument developed it could end up in fisticuffs and blood on the floor, interjected, “Where’s Auntie? And what’s more important, where’s my tea?”
“Your stovies are keeping warm in the there,” Johnny said, nodding towards the fireplace oven. “And Auntie is playing midwife to Jessie Tate and Eva Green and in between delivering the bairns she’s also going to be laying out auld Bert Souter.”
When Robert rescued their tea from the oven, Rachel’s eyes espied an orange glass creation on top of the kitchen dresser. “And what’s that?” she asked, going over to inspect the sparkling object.
“Can you no see?” asked Johnny, lifting one of the small drinking glasses that were attached to the bowl by a hook. “Bet all the posh houses you’ve been in hadnae a crystal punch bowl as grand as this. And see they wee things attached, Rachel, well they’re eight wee drinking goblets.”
Rachel could have said that not only had she seen many punch bowls but that they were all more tasteful than this one, but not wishing to burst Johnny’s bubble, she just smiled.
“The minute I saw it in a market in Calcutta,” he explained with a knowing nod to Rachel, “I just knew that Auntie would want to own such a beautiful …” he stood back to let the late rays of the sun dance off the bowl and as the rainbow of colours circled the room he murmured with gushing pride, “handsome crystal creation.”
Without taking her eyes from the bowl Rachel began to wonder if it was true that the sun was so hot and b
right in India that it could affect your sense of reasoning. It was bad enough that Johnny hadn’t realised that soldiers were expected to kill the enemy but surely he could not have forgotten that 18 Couper Street was a condemned slum? And it was only now that she and Robert were bringing in a bob or two that Auntie didn’t have to be quicker than the seagulls and get any fish that fell off when the trawler men unloaded their catch onto the quayside in Newhaven. “So when, dear Johnny,” she silently asked, “do you think Auntie will throw a party and serve punch in those dainty glasses to the likes of her dear pal, Rye, who since she married Ratty drinks stout from heavy metal tankards and her loyal sister-in-law Rosie who likes nothing better than a good sniff of snuff?”
Rachel was still thinking about the ornate monstrosity (as she saw it) when Auntie came in.
Knowing Rachel as well as Rachel knew herself, Anna was aware that the punch bowl was just too ostentatious for Rachel’s refined taste. Worried in case Rachel would say something out of turn about Johnny’s present, Anna, feigning delight, picked one of the little cups off the bowl and handed it to Rachel for examination. “Have you ever seen anything quite so … so exquisite?” she simpered.
Taking the cue from her aunt Rachel responded, “No. I’m quite jealous.” Before replacing the small goblet she turned to Johnny and, adopting a dazzling smile, she asked, “And did you bring anything as handsome for me?”
Anna, realising that Johnny had only brought something for her, his adored aunt, quickly interjected, “Yes. He brought his handsome self.”
Rachel, who had taken up Bella’s offer of a long soak in the bath at Lochend Road, was now standing in Robert’s room getting herself dressed for the dance. Pulling on her very expensive, pure silk stockings she thought how much nicer it would have been if Bud had just been calling for her on his own.
For years she’d dreamed of him picking her up and then they would go off to spend a romantic night dancing with each other. “Huh,” she exclaimed out loud before going back to her reflections, “all because of the snobbery of Bud and Rosa’s mothers they were going as a foursome. Bud would call in for Johnny and then they would come for her and lastly they would pick up Rosa. Only Bud, who was to pretend he was taking Rosa to the dance, would ring the bell and bound up the stairs while Johnny and Rachel hid in the doorway of the Leith Provident Department Store.
Emerging from the room Rachel felt she was the personification of sophistication, that was until Anna looked up from her sewing and gasped, “Oh, good heavens, you’re not going out in a dress that’s only half there. Tell me you’re not?”
“Auntie, I know you like skirts to be down to mid-calf but this is now the Roaring Twenties and the Charleston can’t be danced with your legs hampered in long petticoats.”
To demonstrate her reasoning, Rachel began to dance a wild Charleston. Soon her legs were flying in all directions and as she swung her mandatory long string of beads Anna at first was horrified but as Rachel pivoted on her toes she began to relax and enjoy the spectacle.
“Like your mother, you are. Just a dare-devil too and you do look so good,” commented Anna before quietly adding, “but be careful, lassie. Don’t be like your mother and throw yourself away on a waster!”
The dance exceeded Rachel’s expectations. The grandeur of the two dance halls, which meant you could choose between conventional (“decent” as Anna would say) or modern romantic dancing, coupled with the magnificent banquet which had been served by waiters in tail coats who were expert at silver service, had left her speechless. She became mesmerised by the dresses of the ladies. Most of the designs were so fashionable just now – simple elegance and yet so comfortable to wear.
Rachel had seen the designs in magazines that Eugenie had passed on to her and she would not have been surprised if the now-famous couturier, Gabrielle Chanel, had walked into the ballroom with one of her now-famous evening scarves, of which Rachel owned an imitation of, draped around her neck. The men were attired in evening dress, mostly hired for the evening as Bud and Johnny’s suits were.
Always she would remember how she felt that she was in a fairytale when, for the first time, Bud waltzed her round the floor. She just couldn’t believe that all her dreams seemed to be coming true. Everyone who looked at them could see that they were madly in love – instinctively they looked as if they belonged together. This fact was not wasted on Johnny, who could only think that, for some, dreams never materialise.
When the competition for the Charleston was announced Rosa had grabbed Bud and dragged him onto floor. Johnny then approached a crestfallen Rachel. “Know I’m second-best but would you give it a try with me?”
Rachel laughed. She so enjoyed doing the Charleston that rather than miss doing the dance she would have been happy to accept Jack the Ripper as a partner. Johnny thankfully was not a creepy, back-street murderer. In fact, when they took the floor she thought he was as handsome and charming as Douglas Fairbanks, her favourite film star – and she had noted that his latest film, Robin Hood, was to be shown in the Palace Picture House next week and she would be first in the queue!
As the music took hold of her, thinking of Douglas Fairbanks was pushed into the background and she didn’t need to wait for the judges to ask the other contesting couples to leave the floor as they all stopped, one by one, to watch and admire her and Johnny, who danced so well together that they could have been mistaken for professionals. Indeed their expertise was such that no one could have blamed the judges for thinking they’d practised regularly together instead of them just being naturals who instinctively danced expertly together!
20
MISTAKES MADE RIGHT
A year ago Rye had been re-housed in a three-bedroom luxury (as Rye saw it) corporation tenement flat in Redbraes, just beyond Bonnington Road, but as far as Anna was concerned, a far-too-long fifteen-minute walk away from Couper Street.
Rye’s going had left a void in Anna’s life. Rachel wondered why because it was a funny week that Rye didn’t visit at least three times and she always dropped everything when Anna needed her to help as an assistant unqualified midwife or undertaker.
Rachel and Robert had just left for work when Anna had time to think about the bombshell Robert had dropped last night. The stupid laddie had managed to get Bunty Rankin in the family way and now her father, if he ever got sober that is, was threatening to … well if he did do what he threatened it would have a hidden bonus in that his Bunty’s expected bairn would be the first and last to be fathered by Robert.
Sighing, Anna looked up at the ceiling. “Sorry, lass,” she said to Norma, her late friend. “I did try to steer your bairns right but …” Still pondering she rose, took the boiling kettle off the fire. “Well,” she continued, “once Bunty got her hooks in him there was nowt I could do. And I know you’ll be disappointed because he’ll do the decent thing and marry her and then it will be bairn after bairn and he’ll never get out the bit. Poor soul will be so weighed down with debt and …”
“That’s no you speaking to Norma again?” a shrill voice interrupted.
Turning Anna was relieved to see Rye. “Aye, just telling her about last night and wondering if she’d any comments.”
“Oh, so you know?” Anna nodded. “Well,” enthused Rye before sitting down, “they might make a go of it – plenty of us have. Look at your Bella.”
Anna quickly masked the tea and brought it over to the table. Pulling out two chairs she sat on one and indicated to Rye to sit down on the other. “I know that you’re a good friend, Rye, and want to cheer me up but looking at Bella right now will only make me want to throw myself off the swing bridge.”
Fishing in her bag Rye brought out two bran scones. “I buttered them afore I came over. And eh, what’s up with your Bella now?”
“She’s away again.”
“Och, that’ll make five she’ll have. Quite a handful for her.”
“I know that. But she says I’ve no to worry as, and you’ve to keep it se
cret too from the men and the church,” Anna leaned closer to Rye and whispered, “a woman doctor is starting one of those Maria Stopes-type clinics in Edinburgh’s south side. You know that woman who advises women about … birth control.”
“I know about some of they methods. Ratty and I tried the rubbers twice last week. And they do work.” It was now Rye’s turn to bend over and whisper to Anna. “But Ratty says it’s like chewing a caramel with the paper on. So we just … anyway since wee Duncan came along I think I’m … well ye ken … past the change.”
Anna got flustered. “Oh, my Bella was only saying she might get fitted with a Dutch cap.”
“What?” exclaimed Rye. “And what use would there be in going to bed with a frilly hat on yer heid?” She let out a bawdy chuckle before spluttering, “And you have to admit that frilly caps have no done much to keep the family sizes doon in Newhaven, have they?”
“No. Not a frilly hat for her head, a cap for putting …” Anna’s face was burning with embarrassment and she blustered, “you know,” as she waved her hand over the top of her legs.
Rye was stunned into silence. She knew Anna claimed she was still a virgin but surely with all the bairns she’d delivered she realised that putting a cap on down there would do nothing but get in the road.
Realising there was no use in trying to further explain the objective of the Dutch rubber cap, Anna changed the subject. “But Rye,” she confided, “birth control’s no the real worry – hasn’t Gus gone and lost his place on the boat.”
Rye gasped. “Eh. But I thought he was the one keeping them aw afloat?”
“Now,” said Anna, nodding in agreement, “I’m no, as you know, his biggest fan but he did sort out all their problems. And okay, after a year went by and he knew they realised they couldnae do without him he demanded and got a full share of the profits. But him being so efficient, well … did it no stick in the craw o’ their young grandson they’d given the title of skipper to.”