A Cut Above

by Millie Gray

  ‘Everything? How wrong you are! I spent my life pursuing an impossible dream. Do you know that it was only recently that I – fool that I am – accepted that I could never replace Freda? He will love her always.’ Angela shrugged. ‘Do you know what I would have given to have been able to talk to you or Freda about my hopes, my secrets, my disappointments . . . ? But you were a duo. I was always kept at arm’s length.’

  ‘Oh Angela, we don’t . . . I mean, we didn’t mean to shut you out. You always seemed to know where you were going and how you were going to get there . . . You made Freda and I feel like we were not in your league.’

  ‘You were both also so lucky to have your mums.’

  ‘But you seem to be so happy with Ewan’s mother?’

  ‘Yes, she likes me and I am her first choice for Ewan . . . but that will never be.’

  ‘I think you could be wrong, Angela. Freda being’ – Hannah gulped – ‘killed changes everything. It is true that he loved her, but it was always a non-starter. She would never have left Robin or—’ Hannah stopped abruptly. She must never, ever tell anyone about the children’s parentage; Freda had sworn her to secrecy. ‘Look,’ she continued, ‘you are clever and attractive, and he will turn to you. Okay, you will have to accept that you are not his first choice or the love of his life, but would that not be a price worth paying?’ She hesitated. Then, looking dreamy and faraway, she added, ‘Angela, the cost is of no consequence when it means you achieve your dream.’ Angela nodded. Hannah linked her arm through Angela’s, before saying, ‘And let me add, there is a vacancy in the friendship department and I would like to offer you the job.’

  *

  Ewan had just reached the top of Marionville Crescent when he heard Ellen call out, ‘Ewan, wait for me! I need to get some fresh air too.’

  Naturally, once they were inside the park gates, the children scampered off towards the duck pond.

  ‘Ellen,’ Ewan said, once he was sure that the children were out of earshot, ‘I am so very sorry about what has happened.’

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘Last night I got to thinking about what would happen to the children and I just want to say . . . I will be asking for custody of Poppy.’

  ‘Just Poppy?’

  ‘Well, I just thought that as the twins are older, you could probably care for them.’

  ‘I could. And by the way, no one will need to support them financially – the family salons will more than provide for all their needs. At the present time, there are able people in place to manage the business side of things, but someday one or all of them may wish to be involved. They have been left well provided for.’

  ‘I accept that, but I am thinking of Poppy’s emotional needs . . .’

  Ellen stopped. Before she answered, she looked towards her scampering grandchildren. ‘Ewan,’ she began, ‘first things first. We must get through the funerals. They will be hard to cope with. Then, and only then, will we be able to access Freda and Robin’s wills.’

  ‘They made wills? Did they expect something to happen?’

  ‘No. But Freda was very young when she lost her dad and I know that some things that happened after caused her much anguish and regret. She wanted to be prepared. So Ewan, there are wills, and the solicitors at the foot of Leith Walk are already—’

  ‘Beveridge and Kellas?’

  ‘Yes. Anyway, the wills will be watertight. Freda and Robin will have named a guardian for their children, and soon he or she will be appointed.’

  ‘But if you get custody, you could—’

  ‘No, Ewan, there is no way that Freda left the guardianship of her children to me. Sorry son, but like me you’ll just have to hope that the guardian is someone you can get along with.’

  ‘But I am Poppy’s biological father!’

  ‘Are you?’ Ellen chuckled. ‘That may be so but, until the new test comes into being, who else’s word do we have for that?’

  Fifteen

  July 1979

  The first Saturday in July signalled the start of the Edinburgh trades holidays, a favourite time for weddings. It was therefore no surprise that thirty-two-year-old Angela McDonald decided that Saturday, 7 July 1979 would be her long-anticipated wedding day.

  Angela knew that most people would have expected her to purchase a bridal gown in the very latest fashion. However, instead she had climbed up into the attic of her father’s home. From a chest, she had taken out the home-sewn dress her mother had worn when she married Angela’s father in 1945. In wartime style, it was a sleek, satin creation that her mother had created from a shell-pink evening gown.

  Just like her mother, Angela was good with a needle. She modernised the dress herself and when she walked into the church on her father’s arm, her dream dress stunned all into silence.

  Hannah, who had been given the honour of being the main attendant at the wedding, felt near to tears when she escorted Angela to her groom’s side. Then, when Angela turned and smiled as she handed her over her wedding bouquet, Hannah thought about how it had been a long three years. During those three years, she and Angela had had to cope with losing Freda, and the subsequent startling events that no one could have foreseen.

  As Hannah stepped back, she instinctively put out her free hand to take the charming five-year-old flower girl’s hand in hers. Poppy, however, had a very different idea. She turned around to wave to her grannies in the congregation.

  Before Hannah could chastise Poppy, the other bridesmaid, who just happened to be Jackie, loudly whispered, ‘Poppy, you have been told that this is not your day. It is Aunt Angela’s, so pay attention to what you are supposed to be doing!’

  Not wishing to see his adored sister Poppy getting into trouble, the kilted pageboy dug into his sporran and pulled out a sweetie, which he handed to her.

  ‘Thank you, Harry,’ Poppy said. ‘I’ll do it all right now.’

  For Angela, there was no reception in the Kintore Rooms in Queen Street. This was the most important day of her life, so there was to be no expense spared and the setting had to be opulent and glamorous. Her father had booked the prestigious and luxurious Prestonfield House Hotel. This was an old stately home built by the architect Sir William Bruce for the Dick family, who owned the vast estate. The added benefit of situating the house in the upmarket area of Duddingston was that it looked over to Edinburgh’s extinct volcano, the majestic and historic Arthur’s Seat. Since the 1960s, when it was opened up as a small five-star hotel and wedding venue, those and such as those had held their receptions there. Hannah had laughed when she heard that the function suites had once been the stables, but Angela had assured her that she would be amazed at how well the conversion had worked. Looking coquettish and sensuously licking her lips, Angela went on to confide to Hannah that she would also be spending her first night of wedded bliss at the hotel, possibly sleeping in the same bed that people such as Winston Churchill, Sean Connery, Margaret Thatcher and Elton John had once used.

  Hannah didn’t care who had slept in what bed at Prestonfield House, but she was bowled over by the sheer luxury and decadence of the hotel. It was like being transported to another world – a world far removed from Norton Park Secondary School, which she and her five old classmates had left in 1962. She gazed around her, her head full of memories. However, before she could get completely carried away, she met Ewan’s mother in the ladies’ powder room and was quickly bumped back down to earth,

  ‘Oh Hannah, you must be green with envy,’ gushed Mrs Gibson.

  ‘Should I be?’

  ‘Yes, you should. You see, my dear Angela is so sophisticated and . . . oh! Just look at the opulence . . . the finesse . . . even here, in the powder room of the venue she selected! And did you note the detail in her dress, and the way she glided down the aisle? Do you know that from the moment she told me that she was going to marry Bruce Ogilvy . . . ’ Mrs Gibson leant in closer so that she could whisper to Hannah, ‘You do know that he’s a distant relative of the Buccleuchs? You
know, the dukedom down in Bowhill, in the Borders.’

  ‘Yes, I do know that Bruce is a very distant relative. So distant, he told me, that his dad is employed there to clean out the stables.’

  ‘Rubbish. Anyway, I just knew that Angela wouldn’t be letting that superior family down. No way would she be slinking into a registry office dressed in a knitted cardigan!’

  ‘Mummy,’ a little voice called out, and Hannah was glad to see Poppy being pushed in the door. ‘Daddy says you are to hurry!’ Poppy called, as she espied the soap and hand cream dispensers. ‘Oh, nice creams! Can I have some on my hands?’

  Without even saying goodbye to Mrs Gibson, Hannah smiled at Poppy and said, ‘Of course you can. Then we must be going.’

  When Hannah emerged from the toilet, clutching Poppy by the hand, she came face to face with Ewan.

  ‘You look a bit . . .’ Ewan began, but stopped at the sight of Hannah’s face. ‘Well, you do!’

  ‘You would too if you had just spent ten minutes with your mother!’

  ‘Oh, so we are back to my overlooking the gold again?’

  ‘You’ve got it in one,’ Hannah sighed. ‘She never comes out and says it directly, but I know she means that you picked up the dross when you married me, because I have no class and turned up to marry you in a cardigan.’

  Ewan’s laughter reverberated around the room. ‘But didn’t I get a bargain? Along with you I got three kids, a dog and a budgie!’

  ‘Ewan, your mother’s attitude to me is no laughing matter. We have been married for two and a half years! Is she ever going to accept that we are a couple?’

  ‘Calm yourself. Nobody in their right mind ever pays any attention to what my mother says. You should have told her that it was not a cardigan that you wore to get married; it was a Grazia knitted coat, a piece so popular with the upper crust that the Queen has one!’

  Hannah was about to respond, but Ewan winked at her and they both started to laugh. ‘Right, let’s get our brood together and get ourselves home. See, if our next-door neighbour has not gone in and taken Jet for a walk, the poor soul will be standing at the back door with her legs crossed!’ He didn’t add anything more, but he thought that it was time he was truthful with her and tonight, after the children were tucked up in bed, was probably the right time to do it.

  *

  It took longer than usual to get the children settled. It had been a big day for them. Hannah allowed a warm smile to light up her face as she remembered how Angela had given the children pride of place in her big day. Angela had been such a good friend to the children and Hannah since they lost Freda and Robin.

  Freda and Robin’s wills were identical in every way: if one outlived the other, then everything was to go to the survivor, with no strings attached. Hannah would always remember that when the wills were read out, Angela was first to nod in agreement. Freda, being Freda, had also stated that if by some unusual circumstance neither of them survived, all of their worldly goods were to be divided equally between their three children, after Ellen, Moira and Stevie had each received one thousand pounds. However, if the children had not reached adulthood and still required a guardian, then custody was to go to Hannah Lindsey, and to her alone. She would be responsible for rearing them into adulthood and was to be given all the financial means that she required in order to do so.

  The stunned reaction of all those who had gathered in the antiquated solicitor’s office on Leith Walk would haunt Hannah always. From some of them, she could feel resentment. Susan and Autumn had thought that they would be given a senior management role in the business, but that decision was left to the solicitor and Hannah, who were the trustees, and would depend on whether the two young women measured up. Ewan had come along in the hope that Freda had left him Poppy, but there was no way that she would have allowed her children to be split up.

  Freda had been right about her decision for the children. They needed each other. Harry was protective of Poppy and it was important to him that he told her stories of what life was like when Mum and Dad were alive. Jackie withdrew into herself and would constantly put her left hand over her right shoulder, like she had seen her mummy do when she was worried. The first six months had been so difficult for the children that Hannah resigned from her job at the Council so that she could be a full time ‘mum’. To be truthful, the children were so used to her that, before the accident, they had always called her plain ‘Auntie’. Auntie tried her best, but she was not their mother; if Ewan had not spent all his free time assisting her, Hannah knew that she would not have been able to go on. She now tittered when she remembered the first time she had made macaroni cheese for the evening meal. Harry had sorrowfully announced that it was all right, but no one could make macaroni cheese like his mum. Angela had also been so very helpful. She became Hannah’s confidant. When Hannah confided to her that there were times when she was sure she could not cope with the children’s grief, anger and sense of injustice, Angela always held her hand and urged her to sleep on it, assuring her that whilst it might be raining today, the sun would shine again tomorrow.

  No one was more surprised than Hannah when, after a long and yet somehow very short six months, Ewan made a proposal. They had just got the children to bed, and were relaxing in the living room. In a matter-of-fact way, whilst stirring his coffee, Ewan said, ‘Look, don’t you think it would make more sense if you and I got married?’

  Hannah’s response was to let her mouth gape.

  ‘I mean, I have just bought the house on Argyle Crescent, so I have enough room for us all.’

  ‘You mean, take the children away from their home?’

  ‘Yes. But only if they agree, and I am sure that Poppy won’t raise any objection—’

  ‘At just coming up to three years old, I’m sure she wouldn’t but—’

  ‘And Harry will be pleased to move near Portobello beach because Jet loves it.’

  Hannah started to wave her hands about. ‘Just a minute, Ewan. I accept that you think us marrying would give more stability to the children but’ – she swallowed hard and lowered her face – ‘there is something you should know about me. Something that may – no, will – change your mind about becoming involved with me . . . Ewan,’ she stammered, as her face fired, ‘I am not all there.’

  ‘Yes, I know that, or you would never have agreed to take on the children and the dog!’

  ‘No, no, no. Not in my mind! You are a doctor so I will not have to draw you diagrams, but I was born with no uterus and an underdeveloped vagina.’

  ‘Yes, I know. Freda confided that to me years ago and, like her, I didn’t think you deserved that.’

  ‘No, I don’t. See, when any of my boyfriends decided they would like to make love to me, I would tell them of my problem and soon I wouldn’t be able to see them for the dust!’

  ‘Well, we could live a celibate life if you would like. Or we could just . . . try?’

  So, to everybody’s amazement, Ewan married Hannah. However, before they had publicly announced their forthcoming nuptials, Hannah had asked Ewan to wait until she had told Angela personally.

  ‘Why?’ Ewan queried.

  ‘Because, Ewan, when we were all at school together, Freda, Molly, Angela and I were all hopelessly in love with you. Molly was the first to get over you, Freda never did but she married Robin, and Angela, who I would not hurt for the world now, has always hoped that you would one day ask her to marry you . . . You see? I must tell her first, before someone offers her their smug condolences.’

  Hannah’s meeting with Angela brought another revelation that Hannah had to deal with. Before she actually faced Angela, Hannah had rehearsed and rehearsed what she was going to say. When Angela arrived at Marionville Crescent, Hannah invited her into the back room where they would not be disturbed. ‘Angela,’ she began, ‘you will probably be a bit put out but . . . well, there is no easy way to tell you. Oh Angela, please try and understand that I do not wish to hurt or humiliate you, but Ewa
n has asked me to marry him . . . and I have accepted.’

  An uneasy, stony silence invaded the room. After a few minutes had elapsed, Angela’s facial expression relaxed. Taking Hannah’s hand in hers, she said, ‘Hannah, Ewan asking you to marry him has at last set me free. What a fool I have been! Know something, a lovely man, Bruce Ogilvy – you know him?’

  Hannah nodded. ‘Yes, he is a dishy senior solicitor in the Council.’

  ‘He is all that. Now listen, I met him when I attended one of those Council Christmas parties you invited me to. He has been courting me ever since, but I have kept him at arm’s length. Your news today has made me realise that I would be better off marrying a man who thinks that I will always be the love of his life, so that is what I am going to do. As to you, please, please, Hannah, think very carefully about marrying Ewan . . . the love of his life was Freda. When she was killed, I hoped that he would turn to me to console him, but it was being involved with the children that brought him solace.’ She pondered for a moment. ‘Or, to be more specific, it was being involved with Poppy, who is so like him in every way that I think he may be her father?’

  ‘He is.’

  ‘Then you know that he is only marrying you so that he can have full access to the child – his child – borne by Freda, the one and only woman he has ever truly loved?’

  Hannah’s chest surged with mixed emotions. Time ticked by as she contemplated. Eventually, she wriggled her hand free from Angela’s grasp and, looking her directly in the eye, she whispered, ‘Angela, believe me when I say that I accept what you are saying is true, but Ewan is not all bad or selfish. After all, without being asked to, he has stood in for Robin and he is a good surrogate father to the three children. As I can never have children of my own—’

  ‘You can’t?’

  ‘No, just a wee problem like not having a womb! Right now, though, it has its compensation in the fact that Freda’s children will never be superseded by any offspring of mine.’