The Gourlay Girls

by Margaret Thomson-Davis

  ‘I know, but don’t worry. I’ll say nothing to Malcy about this. And I’ll slip away just now while he’s with Erchie through in the back workshop. I won’t be long and I’ll be able to tell you exactly what he owes Mrs O’Donnell, or if he owes anything at all. If necessary, I’ll warn Mrs O’Donnell that her men had better not lay a finger on Malcy or I’ll go to the police.’

  ‘Oh, thank you, Wincey, and tell her if he does owe her something, I’ll pay it. Oh hurry, Wincey, in case he comes back to the machine room and sees you.’

  ‘It’s all right even if he does see me, Charlotte. He knows I often go out on business.’

  ‘But the sooner we know about what’s going on, the better.’ Charlotte was getting more and more agitated. ‘I mean, what if we’re too late and something happens to Malcy. Oh please hurry, Wincey.’

  Wincey struggled into her coat, eyes averted from Charlotte in case Charlotte might detect the dark hatred she was nursing. It would be the best thing if, on this occasion, Malcy was telling the truth and he did get set upon by Mrs O’Donnell’s hard men. However, for Charlotte’s sake, she vowed to do her best to get things safely sorted out.

  The moneylender’s close was only minutes away from the factory and Wincey ran inside the close and up the stairs. At the door with the brass name plate which said ‘Mrs Frances O’Donnell’ she both pulled the bell and rattled the letterbox. There was no reply. Wincey tried again, this time battering at the door with her fists. Still nothing happened. She peered through the letterbox, she shouted through it. ‘Mrs O’Donnell.’ She knocked on the other door on the landing and after a few minutes, she heard the shuffling of slippers along the lobby. The door opened to reveal a frowsy looking woman with uncombed hair and a sallow, unhealthy looking face. She seemed to be having difficulty in breathing.

  ‘Whit dae ye want?’

  ‘I’ve been trying to get hold of Mrs O’Donnell. It’s urgent. Have you any idea when she’ll be back?’

  ‘There’s aye folk comin’ an’ goin’ there. Her as well. Ah couldnae keep track o’ them aw, even if ah wanted tae.’

  ‘You’ve no idea where she could be?’

  ‘Naw.’ And she shut the door.

  Wincey decided to try the other neighbours, just on the off chance Mrs O’Donnell might be visiting any of them. Again she drew a blank. Eventually she stood at the close-mouth wondering if she should look in at the local shops. Mrs O’Donnell might be out for her messages. But then she happened to glance at her watch. ‘Oh God,’ she thought, suddenly agitated and apprehensive. Soon it would be closing time at the factory. She could well believe on this occasion that Malcy might be telling the truth. He might well be in immediate danger. Not that she cared what happened to him but she cared terribly, urgently, about Charlotte. She began to run back along the road.

  31

  Nicholas circled Virginia in admiration. ‘Yes, very smart. Sexy as well.’

  She rolled her eyes at him. ‘Don’t be daft. How can a Red Cross uniform be sexy? But it is smart, right enough.’ She went over to the full length wardrobe mirror and, hands on hips, surveyed herself this way and that. She liked the well-cut navy-blue costume and crisp white shirt, dark tie and navy cap with white bands and Red Cross badge and stiff peak. The cap had also a thin leather chinstrap. Navy stockings and shoes completed the outfit.

  ‘The first aid course was interesting,’ Virginia said. ‘I quite enjoyed it. They had actors and actresses made up to look like injured people—blood and everything. It was very realistic. We learned how to do dressings and how to put on splints and all sorts of things.’

  ‘Come away from that mirror. You’ll be getting so big-headed your cap won’t fit you.’

  ‘I volunteered to do some nursing training in one of the hospitals. You don’t mind, do you, darling?’

  ‘Mind? Why should I mind? I have a job that I enjoy and find fulfilling. Why shouldn’t you, Virginia?’

  Virginia smiled lovingly at him. ‘Not every Scotsman is as liberal as you, Nicholas. I remember so many husbands where I lived who regarded their wives as part of their goods and chattels. All the poor women did was bear children and slave in houses that weren’t fit places for animals. They struggled endlessly to keep their homes clean and respectable and to feed and clothe their families. The husbands—even the best of them—would never dream of washing a dish or doing anything to help in the house. It would have been considered unmanly. Maybe that’s still the attitude, for all I know.’

  ‘I wonder why that’s so much the case in Scotland,’ Nicholas said thoughtfully. ‘I don’t think it’s like that in England. I must remember and do some research on that.’

  Virginia laughed. ‘You never stop being a writer, do you? Always curious about what makes people tick.’

  ‘I know what makes you tick.’ He made a lunge at her and, squealing with laughter and protesting, she struggled out of the room.

  ‘Get your hands off my good uniform, you sex maniac. I’ve a Red Cross meeting to go to.’

  In the hall, they bumped into Mrs Rogers and nearly upset a tray of dishes she was carrying.

  ‘Sorry, Mrs Rogers,’ Nicholas said. ‘I didn’t see you. I was too busy trying to ravish this woman.’

  Mrs Rogers flushed, hurried past and disappeared into the dining room, dishes loudly clinking.

  ‘Get back to your book,’ Virginia said, ‘and behave yourself.’

  ‘I’ve done my stint for today.’

  ‘Well, go to the Mitchell and do some research or something. Visit your mother. Or go and have a drink with James. I won’t be more than a couple of hours at most.’

  She blew him a kiss before leaving. Outside she got into her car and drove away down the terrace and onto Great Western Road. Her thoughts now took a serious turn. Despite their happy banter, both she and Nicholas had been concerned for some time about the way things were going in the country and in the world. So was Mathieson. They all agreed that it looked as if there was going to be another war. Above all, she was worried about what might happen to Richard. Losing one child was bad enough. To lose both children would be far, far too much to bear. She had told Nicholas, ‘If anything happened to Richard, I’d die. I mean it, Nicholas. I know I just wouldn’t be able to bear it.’

  He’d tried to soothe away her fears. ‘Nothing’s going to happen to Richard, darling. If there was a war, it wouldn’t be like the last one. There wouldn’t be fighting in the trenches. There wouldn’t be hand to hand fighting or anything like that. And Richard is a pilot, remember.’

  She didn’t see how that could make him any safer, and she was sure Nicholas didn’t either. They tried not to talk about it but the subject of war was inescapable. Germany and Italy had made their pact of steel. Germany and the Soviet Union had signed a non-aggression pact. Two thousand Nazi guards had arrived in Danzig. Attacks on Poles had become a regular occurrence. Virginia felt as if she was living on the edge of a nightmare that was gathering in horror as each day passed. There could be no ignoring it, even at Red Cross meetings where they discussed every eventuality and what their role might be if the worst came to the worst. These days Virginia was often reminded of the well-known verse Robert Burns had written after witnessing a thanksgiving service after a victory in battle:

  Ye hypocrites, are these your pranks?

  Tae murder men an’ gie God thanks.

  For shame, gie ower, proceed nae further,

  God won’t accept your thanks for murder.

  Then let us pray that come it may,

  As come it will for a’ that,

  That Sense and Worth, o’er a’ the earth

  Shall bear the gree, and a’ that.

  For a’ that, and a’ that,

  It’s comin’ yet for a’ that,

  That Man to Man, the warld o’er,

  Shall brothers be for a’ that.’

  * * *

  At the Red Cross meeting, Virginia was given a list of things she would need for her nursing du
ties. It consisted of a light blue dress, a white bibbed apron (to be kept crisply starched at all times), a white ‘butterfly’ cap (also to be kept starched) and a broad navy belt and white cotton elasticated cuffs. The cuffs were to be worn over sleeves if and when the sleeves were rolled up.

  After the meeting, she went straight into town and bought the lot. She had to report for duty in a couple of days’ time at the Royal Infirmary, so instead of going home with her parcels, Virginia decided to go and have a look at the Infirmary. She’d seen it many times before, but just in passing, and had never paid it much attention. When the huge new building had been opened in July 1914 by King George V, it was the largest public building in the United Kingdom. It probably still was, Virginia thought, as she viewed its enormous bulk, blackened by the smoke that had belched out over the years from Glasgow’s tenement chimneys.

  Virginia parked the car, and in a few minutes found herself in the emergency outpatient department, where a disturbing number of real-life patients—no actors these—sat around or milled about in various degrees of bloody injury and obvious suffering. Virginia beat a hasty retreat, somewhat less confident in her ability to cope with the duties that awaited her. She had enjoyed the make-believe of the Red Cross classes where she’d ministered with such ease and success to the actor patients. Now she could see that enjoyment would definitely not come into it. However, she was undeterred. She had never shirked hard work, even dangerous hard work, and she remembered only too well her time working in the munitions factory in her youth. If she could survive that, she could certainly survive Glasgow’s Royal Infirmary.

  Thinking of the munitions factory reminded her of her poor brother. Ian had been killed in one of the many explosions in that death-trap of a place. Losing him, and then her other brother Duncan, had broken her mother’s heart. And to think that munitions factory had been owned by George Cartwright, Nicholas’s father. Who would have thought that the charming, smiling old gentleman of his later years was that same ruthless capitalist? Indeed, he’d always appeared to be the more kindly and reasonable half in his marriage. Mrs Cartwright was the one feared and hated in the Cartwright household, by all the staff at least.

  As Virginia drove back to Kirklee Terrace, her mind kept slipping into the past. Her mother, her father, her brothers returned to her like ghosts. And Wincey. Poor shy Wincey, with her straight red hair and fringe, and her dear freckled little face. Had she lived, she would have been a young lady now, married probably. Virginia sighed and tried to banish all such gloomy thoughts from her mind. She drew up in front of her house, then gathered her parcels together.

  Once inside, she greeted Nicholas cheerfully. ‘That’s me all organised. I’m starting at the Royal on Saturday.’

  ‘In at the deep end, then,’ Nicholas said.

  ‘How do you mean?’

  Nicholas shook his head. ‘Darling, you are so innocent sometimes, despite your tough upbringing. Saturday night in Glasgow?’

  ‘Oh, you mean the drunks. I know, but don’t worry, I can cope with all that. Drunks don’t worry me. It’s the poor women who’ll come in after being battered by their drunken husbands. That’ll upset me, but I suppose I’ll just have to get hardened to it all.’

  He gathered her into his arms. ‘I can’t imagine you ever being hard, darling. You’re the sweetest, softest, most sensitive and caring person I’ve ever known.’

  ‘Ah,’ she smiled up at him, ‘but you’re prejudiced. You love me.’

  ‘Yes, I do. More than anybody or anything in the world.’ He held her close. ‘God knows what’s going to happen to the world. It seems to have gone crazy. Again,’ he added.

  ‘You really do believe there’s going to a war, then?’

  ‘Oh, there’s going to be a war, all right, Virginia. The whole of Europe’s mobilised. Children are already being evacuated from the cities.’

  ‘Oh God!’

  ‘By the way,’ Nicholas said, ‘James was on the phone. I’ve invited him to join us for dinner. Is that all right?’

  ‘Yes, of course. He’ll be upset about all this.’

  ‘Yes, he’s worried about what’s going to happen to all the young men he’s been teaching. War’s such a waste.’

  ‘I hate violence,’ Virginia shuddered. ‘I always have.’

  32

  ‘She wasn’t in,’ Wincey told Charlotte breathlessly. ‘Where’s Malcy?’

  ‘Did you not see him? He left a few minutes ago. I wanted to lock up early and walk back with him but he said he didn’t want to put me at risk. And anyway, he thought if he left early, he’d be all right. He said he’d be able to run home in a matter of minutes. He said no-one could catch up with him, even if they came early and saw him.’ She took a bundle of keys from the desk drawer. ‘But I’m still going to lock up early. I’ve already told the girls and the other men to go.’

  ‘I saw them leaving right enough. I wondered what was going on.’

  ‘I told Malcy I’d pay what he owed but that I’d go and see Mrs O’Donnell personally tomorrow. I was hoping you’d be able to tell me if he did owe her anything. But when he left early just now, I saw him racing away down the street. I knew then he must have been telling me the truth. She really must have threatened him. Quick, Wincey, I must go after him and make sure he’s all right. I’m in such a state now.’

  Wincey followed Charlotte out of the building and they’d barely turned the corner onto Springburn Road, when they heard the commotion. Women were screaming. Someone shouted, ‘Ye never see the polis when they’re needed. There’s a man bein’ murdered along there.’

  ‘Oh dear Jesus,’ Charlotte cried out and began to run.

  Wincey ran too, heart pounding. They could see ahead on the other side of the road three men kicking the figure of Malcy who was curled up on the ground in the fetal position, arms trying to protect his head.

  ‘Malcy!’

  Before Wincey could stop her, Charlotte had suddenly shot out into the road. It happened so quickly. One minute Charlotte was by her side, the next she had darted away. A car was coming along, and didn’t have time to stop, or even swerve to miss her. Rigid with horror, Wincey saw Charlotte’s body hit the car, fly into the air and land with a sickening thud on the cobbles. Wincey couldn’t move. People were milling about … somebody had run to the doctor’s surgery, the driver of the car was being sick, then the police arrived. The next thing she remembered was Robert kneeling down beside Charlotte. He was gently closing her eyes.

  Wincey remembered no more until she came to in Houston’s surgery. ‘Oh Robert,’ she wept, ‘tell me it was only a dream. It was only one of my nightmares.’

  ‘No Wincey,’ he said, ‘it wasn’t a dream. Charlotte was killed instantly. Malcy’s in the hospital but he’ll survive.’

  ‘Do Teresa and Erchie and Granny know yet?’

  Houston shook his head. ‘There hasn’t been time. I’ll drive you home now. I’ll probably have to give them a sedative. You too. It’ll at least help you all to get some sleep tonight.’

  ‘Oh Robert, I can’t bear it. It’s not fair. It would have been far better if it had been me, not Charlotte. She’s never hurt a fly, or said an unkind word to anybody in her life. Could you tell the family?’

  ‘No, this is something you must face, Wincey. They regard you as part of the family. It would be better coming from you.’

  Normally Wincey would have walked the short distance home but now she was glad of being able to sit in Houston’s car. On the way up the Balgrayhill, she dried her tears and struggled to find the strength to face the ordeal that awaited her.

  With a trembling hand she opened the front door with her key and, followed by Houston, she went through to the kitchen. Erchie was sitting at the table reading his Daily Record. Granny was in her usual place beside the fire and Teresa was stirring a pot on the gas ring over at the range. She looked round, smiling.

  ‘Oh hello, dear. You’re early. And Robert …’

  Her smile f
aded at the sight of the tragic expression in Wincey’s eyes and the doctor’s sad, sympathetic look.

  ‘What’s wrong? What’s happened?’

  ‘You’d better sit down, Teresa,’ Houston said.

  Teresa did as she was told, her face as pale as Wincey’s now.

  ‘It’s Charlotte,’ Wincey said. ‘She’s been killed in an accident.’

  ‘Naw!’ Erchie shouted. ‘Ah said cheerio tae the lassie jist a wee while back. She let us away early the night. She wis fine.’

  ‘She saw men beating up Malcy and she ran across the road to try and help him. She didn’t see the car and the driver didn’t have time to do anything.’

  Wincey went over to Teresa and put her arms around her shoulders.

  ‘She didn’t suffer,’ Houston said quietly. ‘She died instantly.’

  Suddenly, they became aware of a whimpering noise that turned into a terrible wailing. ‘Oh Granny.’ Both Teresa and Wincey ran over to try to comfort the old woman.

  ‘She wis such a good wee lassie,’ Granny sobbed, ‘an’ aye that nice tae me.’

  ‘I know.’ Wincey hugged and kissed her, while Teresa held and patted the gnarled, misshapen hands. ‘And she wouldn’t have wanted you to get all upset, Granny.’

  ‘How can ah no’? She had aw her life before her, an’ you say there’s a God.’ She turned a tragic gaze at Teresa. ‘What kind o’ a God’s that?’

  ‘God works in mysterious ways, dear.’

  ‘Don’t ye gie me any o’ that claptrap. There’s nae mystery aboot a lassie bein’ run doon by a car.’

  Erchie blew his nose. ‘Teresa’s only tryin’ tae comfort ye, Ma.’

  ‘Well, she’s no’ daein’ a very good job o’ it.’

  Houston had opened his black medical bag. ‘I’m going to give you all something that’ll calm you and help you to sleep tonight.’