by A. D. Scott
They were almost done, the final proofs all that was left. McAllister shooed them all off with “I’ll finish up here. See you in the Market Bar in half an hour or so.”
Don needed no encouragement. Rob neither. As he was halfway out the door, he turned back and asked Joanne, “Join us for a drink?”
She looked doubtful.
“Come on, we can smuggle you into the back bar.”
“All right, just this once. I’ve a night to myself, the girls are with their grandparents and Bill has gone out west. But if I’m seen, there goes what’s left of my reputation.”
“Blame it on me.”
“Always,” she solemnly promised. Then she stopped, lifted her head, stretched her neck and stood for a second, like a stag at bay, and sniffed.
“Burning toffee.”
Rob laughed, “Halloween,” and tucked her arm under his to walk down the rain-slick cobbles of the brae.
That week, the last in October, the town smelled of toffee and turnips. Treadle sewing machines clunked as children changed their minds a dozen times on what to wear but settled on whatever their mothers could produce, old clothes being at a premium, cloth and clothes rationing a not-too-distant memory for most. In Annie’s case, it was less what to wear than who to be. And that Wednesday night a final decision had to be made.
“Now you be careful with that knife. It’s sharp. I don’t know what your grandad’s thinking of.”
Granny disapproved of everything, thought Annie, but Wee Jean ignored the warning, continuing to carefully, messily, carve out the insides of her turnip, chewing a chunk of the raw neep as she worked.
Grandad had taken over the kitchen for turnip-lantern carving. Granny Ross stood over the boiling sugar for toffee apples. Carved turnips covered the sideboard and the top of the pantry and were all over the draining board. Another group of grinning gargoyle faces, finished except for the candles, were waiting in the galvanized washtub.
The lanterns were one-upmanship on Annie’s part. She had not been chosen for the Halloween concert, although she was by far the most theatrical of the troupe. The Brownies and Girl Guides, the Cubs and Scouts, were part of the entertainment for the night. Joanne knew why Annie had been left out of the Brownies’ concert group. Her grandparents had no idea, her father neither. Annie knew, cared, would never show it and would never forget the slight.
There was still a lot to be done, two days before Halloween night. Fabric, cut and ready to sew, lay on the sitting room floor. A crown, or a hat and bow and arrow, were yet to be made.
“Will you make my crown next, Granny?” Annie kept pestering.
“I keep telling you, Maid Marion didn’t wear a crown.”
“She did so. She’s a princess.”
This conversation had been going on for about two and a half weeks. Grandad intervened. “I’m sure she was a princess.”
Annie looked up triumphantly.
“Aye,” he continued, “a princess all right. Mind you, didn’t she have to disguise herself as one of they forest folk so the bad king wouldn’t know she was a princess? And of course, princesses don’t have bows and arrows.”
It worked. One crown forgotten, one set of arrows to be made. At least it stopped her questioning him about the funeral. And took his granddaughter’s mind off the infernal topic of a television set.
Television! That’s for those with more money than sense, was Grandad Ross’s opinion of the newfangled device.
McAllister walked into the Market Bar twenty minutes later, his hair and coat damp from the fine persistent rain.
“All finished.” He looked at Joanne. “A dram?”
“Why not?” She had been drinking ginger beer.
Now, settled deep into a chair, the leather of which looked and felt like it had been tanned from the hide of a mastodon, Joanne propped her feet up on the fender of the stone fireplace, once part of a forge, and warmed her toes. Cozy, she thought. I could get to like this. Don and Rob were in the public bar, forbidden to women by custom and fear of public denunciation as a harlot.
She accepted the drink from her boss, thinking herself a very modern woman—first a job, now a whisky.
“Right. Hoodie crows?” McAllister settled deep into the chair with his whisky and a cigarette.
“I can’t believe you’re still interested in that wild fancy.”
“I was reminded of them again this afternoon at the funeral.”
They both looked into the fire for a moment.
“They get all this from their grandad.” Joanne explained. “He’s a known storyteller, has a great reputation at the ceilidhs, and he’s always filling the girls’ heads with tales of faeries and bogies and hoodie crows pecking out eyes, golden eagles snatching babies. Not that I mind; it’s good for them to know the old legends. I just wish they weren’t so bloodthirsty.”
“That’s the Scots for you.” McAllister raised his glass.
“In the Highlands, there are so many superstitions I can’t keep track. But if I spill salt, I always throw some over my left shoulder to keep the devil at bay.” She laughed at herself.
“Aye, I do the same. Can’t get out of the habit.” He smiled. “And Halloween, only two nights away, is another of our fine traditions. I loved going guising as a boy.” Next day is All Souls’ Day, he remembered, but didn’t say. That was an anniversary of another funeral. “So all the ghosts and ghouls and lost souls will be out in force and the devil will be on horseback. Woe betide poor Cutty Sark.” They laughed, enjoying the whisky, the fire and the company.
“But surely you must have a feeling as to whether your daughters were telling the truth—or the truth as they saw it?”
But Joanne had an instant flash of that awful night, of Annie’s sobs, her accusations and the unhealed wound still between mother and daughter. Joanne knew that the common belief was that when your husband hits you, you must have done something to deserve it. When a parent hits a child, it’s for their own good; a teacher hits a pupil with a leather belt, it’s to teach them a lesson. A dispute over business, a bet, an altercation of any kind—there’s nothing that can’t be fixed by a good fight. And she knew that she could no longer hide her disgust at these accepted conventions. There must be a better way.
“A penny for them.”
Joanne shook herself back to the present, to the novelty of breaking all the rules, of being a working woman, wearing trousers, having a drink at the end of the day, in a bar, with a man who’s not her husband.
“Sorry, I was away in a dwam.” She finished her glass, refused another. “The hoodie crow—well, for them, the bird stands for anything nasty, anything that can’t be explained.” She glimpsed the clock through the serving hatch.
“Heavens, it’s a quarter past nine, I have to go.”
Joanne cycled home through a very dark dark, no moon, no stars, the rain alternating with sleet. She seldom drank, and whisky was not her tipple—too many bad associations—but tonight it fortified her from the worst of the weather. Wheeling her bicycle around the back of her house, she was surprised to see a light on in the kitchen. Maybe her father-in-law had come around to collect something for the girls, left it on to help her in the dark. She struggled with the key, having trouble finding the lock. The door opened.
“Oh, it’s you.” The outline of Bill stood in the doorway. “I thought you’d be out west by now,” she continued blithely. “I didn’t see the van.”
“Where the hell have you been?” Followed by, “You stink of whisky.”
“That makes a change. It’s usually the other way round.” The whisky had lessened the extra fraction-of-a-second gap between brain and tongue that, through the years, she had cultivated, to avoid riling her husband.
He slapped her straight across her left cheek, catching the corner of her eye. Dizzy, face burning, ears buzzing, she stumbled backward into the kitchen, hands held in front of her. But his anger was spent. Or maybe he had heard an until-now-unheard outrage in her yell. �
��Don’t you dare!”
She leaned into the sink. A wave of nausea rose. It passed. The stale taste of whisky coated her tongue. She turned on the cold tap, full force, lapping the crystal-cold water from her cupped palms, splashing in her eye, over her face, feeling it running down her arms, cold sobering water. The nausea evolved into plain simple heartsick; sick of violence, sick of the contempt and sick of his need to control and humiliate. But he had heard right. Her overwhelming emotion was new, as fresh and cold and clear as the water she splashed on her face. Defiance.
“I will not put up with this anymore,” she shouted at the closed sitting-room door. “I’m sick of it. Do you hear me? I’ve had enough.”
Silence. Then she surprised herself. I am not going to say sorry. I will not grovel. I will not take any more of this shite. It was probably the first time in her life that she had used a swear word—even though it was said to herself. This time it was she who slammed the back door, she who stormed out of the house. It was not until halfway down the street that she became aware that one eye was closed, that she had forgotten her coat and that she had no idea where to go.
Pedaling half-blind through tears and rain and a throbbing headache, she found herself at the river. Pedaling across the bridge, pedaling hard up the hill, on through the empty town, past the closed bars, the shuttered shops, struggling over the wet cobblestones, she could pedal no more. She lugged the bicycle up the brae, pedaled past the Academy, round the crescent, arriving at McAllister’s house. Why here of all places? She flushed in humiliation. But the bone-chilling, wet-right-through cold, and a shivering she couldn’t control, and a headache so bad she could hardly see through the one good eye, left no other option. She rang the bell.
No lights showed at the front of the house but in answer to the ring, a dim light came on and footsteps came to answer. He stared at her, standing there on his doorstep, trying to hold on to her dignity and her bicycle.
“I don’t suppose a nightcap is on.”
He took her arm and led her through to the kitchen. He asked no questions; she didn’t explain. A towel, aspirins and a drink later, a suggestion of a hot bath refused, directions to the spare room given, still he asked no questions. Then alone in the dark, toast-warm under an eiderdown, safe, exhausted, humiliation dismissed until the morning, she slept. And the tears that soaked the pillow didn’t wake her.
THIRTEEN
McAllister rose at eight o’clock and it was still dark, being October. He presumed their first encounter would be awkward so he raked the still-glowing cinders in the kitchen range, added coal, found the heavy plaid dressing gown that his mother had bought in a sale on Sauchiehall Street seven years ago and that he had never worn, left it neatly folded outside the spare bedroom door, wrote Joanne a note saying he would be back later, left it on the kitchen table, and using his key instead of banging the door to, he left as quietly as he could, then, feeling strangely cheerful, he strode off into a watery dawn, down the brae and along the High Street to the Gazette office.
For the first time ever, he was the first in the reporters’ room. Mrs. Smart from downstairs brought him tea. He paused to smell the new edition of the newspaper before reading it. Hands around the mug of thick peat-brown tea, he went through the Gazette page by page and was reasonably satisfied with what he saw.
Don arrived about an hour later, saw McAllister at a typewriter and heard Rob clattering up the stairs whilst still carrying on a conversation with Mrs. Smart downstairs. But no Joanne.
“Joanne won’t be in today.”
Don read between the lines of McAllister’s frown and didn’t say a word.
“Not too bad, this.” McAllister waved the paper, then rose and tucked it under his arm and left with a “Catch you later.”
He and Rob jiggled around each other in the doorway and Don folded onto a chair, staring at the vacuum left by the departing editor.
“What?” Rob stared at Don.
“McAllister. He said he liked the paper.”
McAllister walked down to the covered market, to the butcher with the best bacon and the baker with the best rolls. He fetched the milk in from the doorstep, glad to see it was not frozen and that the birds had not attacked the gold foil top. He opened the front door, again making as little noise as possible in case she was till asleep, and made for the kitchen. It was the smell of frying bacon that awoke Joanne. He heard the toilet flush and poured another cup of tea. She came through wrapped in the dressing gown.
“I didn’t know what to do with your things,” he started, “soaked through, so I put everything to dry on the boiler, but they’ll probably be a mess.”
He kept his back to her as he spoke, busy with the frying pan.
“That’s your tea on the table.” He shoogled the pan to coat the eggs with bacon fat. “One roll or two?”
“I couldn’t manage a thing.” Even the smell made her queasy.
“Fine, have a plain roll instead, they’re still warm.”
He kept busy. She kept still. But sooner or later they would have to look at each other. He made up his own rolls, put them aside and went over to her.
“Here, let me see.” Confront it straight on was the best way. “That’s a real keeker. Purple, shot through with delicate shades of black, red and green, as a poet would say. Just as well I gave you the day off or you’d never hear the end of it in the office.”
She tried to smile but it hurt. “McAllister …”
“Only tell me if you want to. No need for explanations.”
“Thanks.” And that was that.
McAllister left after tidying up the kitchen.
“Pull the door to. I hardly ever lock it.”
Joanne felt that she had no right to ask, but Chiara was the only one she could call. Shivering in the drafty hallway, she picked up the phone.
“I’ll be right over.”
No hesitation, no demands for an explanation; the reaction made Joanne deeply ashamed of the neglect she had shown her friend.
When they were settled together in McAllister’s kitchen and after Chiara had whistled at Joanne’s black eye, Joanne began to apologize.
“I am so sorry, I didn’t heed you when you called, when you needed a friend, I … Chiara, I feel so terrible I didn’t help you, I was so caught up in my own problems. I am so sorry.”
“No, it’s fine. I was hurt. But looking at you, I understand. And I have Peter.”
This was not said to offend Joanne. Chiara was just stating a fact. Joanne hugged herself in envy, the prickly plaid of the dressing gown making her eyes water.
“I don’t think walking out to my car in your boss’s dressing gown is a good idea.” Ever-practical Chiara smiled. “Think what the neighbors will say.” She said this in a pretend-shocked broad Scottish voice. “Give me your keys and I’ll fetch something from your house. It’ll only take me half an hour.” She held out her hand. “I’m presuming Bill’s at work?” She didn’t fancy running into him. She thought she might kick him in the goolies. Not that Joanne had told her anything.
“He’s gone to the west coast for a few weeks.” I hope.
“Good. When you’re ready, come back to our house. Papa always says ice cream is the best remedy for falling off your bike.”
That did it. Joanne started to cry. She put her arms on the table, leaned over and sobbed and sobbed. Chiara stood by, patting her on her shoulders crooning, “I know, I know,” almost in tears herself.
“I’ll make you tea before I go.” Chiara waved the kettle at her. “I don’t suppose there’s coffee in this heathen household.” She was banging the cupboards open and shut. “Tea it is then.”
In the warm solitude of the kitchen as she waited for Chiara to return, she understood what her friend had meant. It doesn’t really matter what story is told, it’s a matter of saving face. Everyone knows but no one wants to confront a battered wife; look the other way, pretend it isn’t happening, sweep it under the carpet, and worse, worst of all becaus
e this came from women, and usually from the woman herself, “She must have done something to deserve it.” But her complicity in her own fate was shifting.
She looked around, aware of the silence and the warmth and the clean sparse kitchen. She got up and wandered into the sitting room. Again, there was little furniture besides a deep comfortable armchair and a reading lamp, but hundreds and hundreds of books. No bookcases, but books stacked all along the walls at a height just below toppling point, leather bound, cardboard bound, Penguins, manuscripts, notebooks, an atlas open on the floor at the map of countries surrounding the Baltic Sea, the Oxford English Dictionary—the complete set making its own stack—bird books, nature books, paleontology, history, philosophy (at least that was what she thought, because she only recognized a few of the names), journals, magazines, old newspapers. She examined the titles, picked up a volume here and there; she had never heard of most of them and many were in French, some in Spanish.
John McAllister, I hardly know him. She was grateful to and fascinated by the man. He was an enigma. And she wished that long ago, in another lifetime, she had had the chance to meet a man like him—a man who could be a friend, whom she could respect.
When Chiara returned it took almost an hour for them to sort everything out, to make their confessions, to make amends, to forgive and then recover from the rift in their friendship. Chiara was never one to hold on to a grudge. Not like us Scots, Joanne thought, we hold on to grudges as though it was character forming never to forget a grievance.
“The worst thing for me,” Chiara told her, “is watching Peter. He is so confused. He can’t bring himself to believe his fellow countryman, Karl, could do something so awful as to kill a child. Even accidentally.”