The Shadow of the Sycamores

by Doris Davidson

  So Fay did her best to emulate Maggie Tyler, keeping up appearances in front of others but giving way to her sorrow when she was alone.

  It may have comforted Fay had she known that she had a daughter-in-law and a grandson – they would have given her something to live for – but Daphne, now Mrs Jeremy Rae, had given up trying to find where her husband’s parents lived. ‘He can’t have been killed,’ she had wailed to her mother when they were celebrating her infant son’s first birthday. ‘His mum would have written to me.’

  Lil shrugged her bust a little higher because the busks of her corsets were digging into her. ‘I think you’re right. He’s just turned his back on you, that’s what. The war’s over so he can’t be fighting the Germans now. He seemed such a decent young man at first but … how could he just walk out on his wife and son? You should write and ask the authorities for an allowance for you and the boy.’

  ‘I’ll manage on my own without any help from Jerry or anybody else. As long as you’re willing to look after Ollie while I go out to work.’

  ‘You know I am. That child is the light of my life, no matter what kind of father he had.’

  It was well into 1920 before Daphne gave up her secret hope that Jerry would come back to her. Only then did she start to lead a normal life.

  ‘I think we should encourage her to go out more,’ Lil told her husband. ‘It would be nice if she could find a boy …’

  ‘Stop trying your hand at matchmaking,’ Rob growled. ‘Your first attempt didn’t end up too well.’

  ‘It wasn’t my fault! How was I to know he’d desert her as soon as she bore his child? Though I suppose I should have realised – after what he did before.’

  Rob said no more. His wife was always saying things like that but young Jerry had been a decent boy and he wouldn’t have walked out on his wife and son. If he had been killed in action, it was possible, going by the post-war accounts of the slaughter and mayhem on the battlefields, that records had been lost or maybe hadn’t even been kept. It might be worth writing to the Ministry of Defence or whoever to find out more. They might give out the name and address of his next of kin.

  It wasn’t up to him though. Lil would go mad if he interfered. She was so bloody positive Jerry was a rotter.

  And … maybe he was, at that.

  PART FOUR

  1935–1943

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Henry Rae was beginning to feel his age. The braes were getting steeper, both up and down, and the roads were getting longer. There had been more houses built – whole estates with stupid names like Valentino Gardens, a film star popular long before Ardbirtle had a cinema at all. The old names were best – heroes of the past: Nelson Street, Wellington Road, Kitchener Place, right up to Haig and a few lesser known participants in the war.

  His other duties were almost non-existent now. There had been no court case for a long, long time, so no villains to usher in – most of the culprits had only been petty thieves, in any case and the worst crime had been forging a signature on a stolen chequebook. The last public announcement had been the death of Edward VII and the accession of his son, George V. The smart uniform he’d been so proud to wear had then hung in the closet for twenty-five years, with mothballs to preserve it. It certainly had no moth holes when Fay took it out and pressed it for the Silver Jubilee celebrations last year – but the reek of camphor had nearly choked him and anybody who came near him.

  He might not get another chance to wear it. The king could live for another ten years yet and he himself was bound to be put out to pasture any day now.

  ‘I’ve been waiting for the Provost to give me my marching orders,’ he told his wife one morning at breakfast. ‘It’s a whole month past my sixty-fifth birthday.’

  Fay looked alarmed. ‘But you are still fit enough for the job – are you not?’

  His smile was somewhat wry. ‘Some days I’m fitter than others but I suppose I could go on for a while yet.’

  ‘Well, there you are, then,’ she said, triumphantly, nodding her silver head at him. ‘You know it and I know it and I’m sure the Provost knows it as well.’

  ‘Aye, well, maybe I should just carry on, then.

  ‘No maybe about it. There’s no sense in walking into trouble.’

  Provost Leslie Main took his place at the council table and looked round the familiar faces, most having been there since he first took his place as an ordinary councillor – donkey’s years ago.

  ‘Nae much to speak about the day, lads,’ he boomed – his usual manner of addressing them in his mixture of broad Scots and English. ‘It has been brung to my attention that our Town Officer, T H Rae or Henry, as most of us ken him, has reached the grand age of sixty-five, as have some of us and all. But his job’s a lot mair taxing than ours.’ He halted in embarrassment. ‘Mair physically taxing, I should say. He works wi’ his hands but we work wi’ our brains. The point is should we retire him? We’ve certainly nae fault to find wi’ his work yet but you never ken, do you?’

  ‘What are you getting at, Provost?’ muttered one of the braver souls. ‘Are we to retire him or no’?’

  Main, kicking seventy himself, scowled at the impudent upstart. Some of these youngsters took too much on themselves. ‘If you would learn to have patience, Mester Watt …’ He stopped to let this sink in. The ‘Mester’ was intended as an insult since it could be interpreted as Master as well as Mister. ‘If you will just be patient,’ he went on, ‘I will tell you. I propose that we leave things be the now but, if we see the job’s getting too much for him, we could suggest retirement to him. Mind you, it strikes me we’d ha’e a bit o’ a job finding a replacement. It’s nae a job to mony folks’s liking.’

  Mr Watt got to his feet this time to have his say, his round boyish face already red in anticipation of another rebuff. ‘I wouldn’t say that, Provost. The job’s not as bad as it used to be. There’s not many horses fouling the roads these days.’ A light murmur of agreement from his fellow councillors giving him confidence, he puffed out his chest. ‘The law of the land states that the retirement age is sixty-five and there should be no exceptions to the rule.’

  This last sentiment was met with loud gasps from those council members who were already past the limit. ‘As long as the body’s fit and the brain’s clear,’ said the man on his left angrily, ‘I don’t see any need to take a man’s pride away from him. Henry Rae has given about thirty years’ service to the town, if not more, and I propose we employ a young lad to give him a hand. Then we could wait till he says he wants to retire.’

  ‘Seconded!’ came a roar from several others.

  Leslie Main got to his feet again. ‘All those in favour?’ He didn’t bother to count the waving hands and smirked as he looked at the young troublemaker. ‘Carried near unanimously! You’ll put an advert in this week’s Advertiser, Jack? School-leaver required for outdoor work.’

  Jack, the editor of the local weekly, took a note of this and then said, ‘I shouldna think there’ll be much bother about getting a laddie, Provost.’

  ‘No, I suppose you’ll get a shoal o’ answers so I’ll leave it to you to pick oot the best. Noo, if there’s nothing else on the agenda, gentlemen, we should catch The Doocot afore it shuts. All those in favour?’

  A rousing chorus of ‘Aye!’ was accompanied by the scraping back of chairs.

  The advent of a helper did little to raise Henry’s opinion of himself. This was just the thin edge of the wedge and, in a few months, when young Billy had proved his worth, one of the council would be promoting him to official Town Officer or maybe they would do away with the job as such and change it to Road Sweeper.

  Henry had foreseen some weeks of training the lad, likely getting the height of cheek from him for youngsters nowadays thought they knew everything, but he was pleasantly surprised. The boy was always respectful to him – in fact, it was almost as though he looked up to him – and he was, indeed, a great help. For the first week, they traversed the st
reets together. Then Billy was given his own ‘district’ and insisted on doing all the steep hills. They would meet up just after the parish kirk clock had struck twelve, at Henry’s house, where Fay had always some kind of soup ready for them and big chunks of the crusty bread she still made herself.

  Although extremely shy at first, Billy Webster was soon won round by Fay, telling her that he had been brought up in the Aberlour Orphanage and was now in lodgings in Waterloo Road. She was horrified at this and, without consulting Henry, she told the boy he could lodge with them. It had to be arranged through the proper channels, of course, so it was more than two weeks later before he moved in with a small bundle of clothes, which constituted all his possessions. Fay quickly put this right, buying at least one item of clothing for him each week and assuring him that it was included in what she charged him for his board.

  It soon became evident to Mara that Billy worshipped her mother but she felt no jealousy. As she told Leo, ‘She looks years younger and she’s happier than she’s ever been since we lost Jerry. It’s doing her good to have somebody like him to look after. I just hope he doesn’t get a job somewhere else and leave.’

  Her husband shook his head. ‘Your mother is a loving soul and, from what you say, I think he’s beginning to look on your parents as his parents too. I’m sure it would take something drastic to make him leave them.’

  Although Mara was easier in her mind about her mother and father, she had an ongoing worry about her husband. His doctor had warned her, before they left Edinburgh, not to expect a long married life. ‘Five years at most,’ the man had said sadly, yet they had celebrated almost twenty years together a few months ago. It had been hard going for her at times, though Leo had fought against the black moods that took possession of him, almost as if he knew what Doctor Perry had told her and was determined to prove the man a charlatan.

  However, since their fifteenth anniversary – at which his father had been present, along with her parents and a few friends who had taken to visiting him – it seemed that he had lost heart. The spells of deep depression, which had grown less and less frequent over the years, had recently accelerated into one or more every day.

  He somehow managed to hide them from everyone else – it was she who bore the brunt of his tempers, of his whiplash sarcasm, of the accusations he flung at her about seeing other men when she was out. So far, she had taken his jibes and the swearing by just ignoring them and finding some heavy work to do but it had begun to tell on her. More than one person, her mother most of all, had commented on how tired she looked and she was tired – utterly, totally exhausted. It was an effort to rise in the mornings, a bigger effort to stop herself shouting back at Leo and she didn’t know how long she could keep going.

  She was fully aware that he couldn’t help himself and she still loved him as much as ever – in spite of what he said and did. She spoke the truth when she told him she would never look at another man. She would never, ever, meet anyone else that she would want to share her life with. No matter how Leo behaved now, they’d had many long years of almost perfect bliss, much more than she had expected. God had been good to her.

  Strangely, it was Henry who got the first hint of change in his son-in-law. He, like Fay, had seen, and been concerned about, the change in their daughter, often discussing what might have caused it, but he had not dreamt of the real reason. Leo had always appeared to be a calm, easy-going young man, accepting his lot stoically and showing his gratitude to his wife for all she did for him. But it had not been like that!

  Henry’s day had started with Fay complaining of feeling sick and she was no better at noon so, when Mara popped in as usual, he had asked her to stay with her mother for a while to make sure there was nothing seriously wrong with her. ‘I’ll get Billy to bike … no! I’ll go myself to let Leo know. Can he manage to make something for his dinner himself?’

  ‘I made a salad. It’s on the marble shelf in the larder and I told him to help himself if I was late.’

  ‘That’s all right, then. When I get to the end of Waterloo Street this afternoon, I’ll see if Jack Rennie’ll run me out to Corbie Den. That’ll be about two o’clock, or just after, but I don’t suppose Leo’ll mind.’

  He did notice a faint, and quickly stifled, look of what he took to be anxiety for her mother on Mara’s face, and wrote it off as natural. He was worried about Fay himself and felt a lot easier knowing that Mara was with her.

  It was after two when Jack Rennie drew his Austin up at the end of the long, winding path up to the Fergusons’ door. ‘You go on up, Henry,’ he told his passenger. ‘I’ll bide here and have a draw of my pipe.’

  ‘I’ll not be long.’

  ‘Nae hurry, Henry. Tak’ your time.’

  Not wanting to keep his friend waiting, however, Henry walked smartly up the garden and walked in without knocking.

  ‘Where the hell have you been till this time?’ Leo roared, not turning his wheelchair round. ‘I know damn fine you’ve been with somebody, you slut! I heard the car stopping. Has he got a house you can go to? Do you get a thrill out of making him be unfaithful to his wife? Well? What are you standing there for? Say something, damn you! Tell me the truth! I’m sick to death of your lies so tell me the truth!’

  His insides churning with the appalled realisation of what his daughter had been suffering, Henry walked silently forward, taking up his stance in front of the crippled man. He said nothing, just looked at him in disdain.

  ‘Oh, God!’ Leo exclaimed, his hands going up to his face. ‘I didn’t know it was you, Henry! What’s wrong? Has something happened to Samara?’

  Henry kept his voice and his temper under control. ‘Nothing has happened to your wife. I asked her to stay with her mother. She’s not very well.’

  His anger at being left alone for so long was too much for the younger man. ‘Oh, I see!’ His voice dripped now with sarcasm. ‘Her mother’s not very well so she chooses to leave her disabled husband for hours. That’s a bloody fine attitude to take! I could have died and she wouldn’t have cared a fig – the whore!’

  This proved more than Henry could take and he slapped the other man across the face. ‘If this is how you treat her, you selfish bugger, I hope she does find herself another man!’

  Even the shock of the slap did not stop the accusations. ‘So you encourage her, is that it? Have you been covering up for her for years? I often wondered at a young woman in her prime staying with a wreck like me but she’d been getting satisfaction elsewhere, with her father’s help.’ He scowled as a new concept struck him. ‘Maybe it’s been you? Eh, Henry? Is your Fairy Fay getting too old for you? Do you prefer a …’

  Enraged himself beyond all control, Henry stopped the flow of vindictiveness by punching the sneering mouth. ‘And I’m not apologising for that, Leo Ferguson! If you weren’t in a wheelchair, I’d have knocked you out! When I think of all the years my daughter has sacrificed herself to look after you and accusations like that are all the thanks she gets, I could kill you! Well, you’ve fouled your own nest, as the saying goes. I’ll go through and get some of Mara’s clothes but I’ll be back for the rest, don’t you worry! She will not be coming back here, I can assure you of that, and you can please yourself what you do.’

  He swivelled round, did as he had said and was back in a few moments, carrying a bundle of clothing. ‘I have a car waiting for me.’

  ‘Please, Henry,’ pleaded the younger man, cringing away, ‘I didn’t know what I was saying. I’d been on my own for hours, and I’m always scared something happens to me and …’

  ‘There’s no excuse for the things you said! I feel like leaving you here to rot but I’ll send the doctor up. He can maybe arrange for somebody to come in or he could get you into a nursing home.’ He went to the door, his legs shaking, his heart thumping dangerously, and strode out, ignoring the sound of weeping as he slammed the door behind him.

  When he reached the car, he muttered, ‘Don’t ask, Jack. Just take
me home.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  The past year had been hectic for Henry Rae, in more ways than one. Firstly, in his own family circle, there had been the trauma of getting Mara to settle in. In spite of what Leo had put her through, she swore that she still loved him and was quite prepared to carry on looking after him. Her father did his best to convince her – without giving her the exact details of his fateful afternoon visit – that Leo was past the stage where he could be cared for at home. It was fortunate for all concerned that Doctor Berry endorsed this opinion and, after corresponding with James Ferguson, had had the young man transferred to a very expensive private nursing home near Edinburgh.

  Mara’s shame at deserting a husband who needed her was eased by the letter she received from his father shortly afterwards, thanking her for all she had done over the years and assuring her not to feel that she had let Leo down. Wanting to be near her ailing mother, she refused his offer of making Corbie Den over to her and acceded to his request that she should not visit his son.

  ‘It would only upset you,’ Ferguson had written. ‘It seems that the piece of shrapnel that had been lodged near his brain and has slowly shifted over the years, putting more pressure on it. He is past recognising anyone now.’

  It was not a satisfactory situation for the poor woman but she occupied herself in looking after her parents and young Billy, who helped by chopping sticks, taking in pails of coal and anything else that needed to be done. It took time but they eventually got into a regular routine.

  The old king, George V, died in February, and Mara had to spruce up her father’s official uniform for the proclamation of the death and the accession of the Prince of Wales as Edward VIII. There were several events to be organised now for his Coronation but circumstances changed with the news that he wished to marry Wallis Simpson, an American divorcee, who was still married to her second husband.