She landed badly but got to her feet and hared across the fifteen yards of lawn to hurl herself up the wall, clawing for a handhold on top of the coping stones. It was as if she had wings. Her legs flailed madly for the few seconds it took to find a toe grip until, knees grazed and inner thighs torn and bleeding, she was over and dangling by her hands. Below, laughing up at her, was a dark-haired sailor lad who had come running towards her as soon as she appeared on the wall. He was shouting. ‘Greg! Help the lass!’
She fell in a gawky, heavy, noisy and squirming tangle of long limbs and red hair and near hysteria and struggled to get away from the lad, who held her.
‘What’s all this?’ he said as he put her down on her feet. ‘You nearly broke my neck.’
‘Oh! Help me, please … Help me …’
She was in a state. She’d never known such terror. Her hair was wet with sweat and fear, and straggled all about her face and neck. She couldn’t stop shaking, crying and trying not to scream as she pulled away from the lad, who held her even tighter, pinning her arms to her sides.
He said, ‘Steady on! I’ll help you. What happened?’
‘I hit her. They’ll send me to prison. Oh … help me …’ Even her words were coming out all shaky now, on stuttering breaths. ‘Don’t let them get me.’
The sailor loosened his hold but held her hand. ‘Come on then,’ he said. ‘Run.’
‘My belongings . . .’ She was rooted to the spot, shaking all over – legs, arms, head – and in a voice cracking on the edge of hysteria and with tears streaming down her wet face said, ‘They’re on the balcony … a parcel …’
‘The balcony facing the wall?’ the other sailor said. ‘I’ll get ’em. You two run ahead. I’ll catch you up.’ He swung himself on to the wall and disappeared.
The dark one held fast to her hand. There was devilment in his eyes. ‘Come on then! Before they send for the police–’
Fear must have given her wings, for suddenly she found herself running like the wind, zigzagging from one side of the road to the other at the lad’s orders, turning to look over her shoulder as if expecting a posse in pursuit.
They rounded the corner and finally were out of sight of Guthrie’s. The sailor pulled her in beside him to lean against a high stone wall. Heart thumping, Flora dragged air into her lungs noisily, clinging for dear life on to his hand until the other sailor came tearing round the corner and ran straight past them. Her sailor, as she now thought of him, laughed and whistled. He had dark curly hair and a wide, generous mouth with strong white teeth, and he was laughing uproariously now because his friend, Greg, was twenty-five yards down the street.
Greg stopped in his tracks and looked back. Then he came bounding up the hill to stuff the parcel into Flora’s hands, saying, ‘That was good. An old woman was on the grass, squealing like a banshee.’
‘Miss McNair,’ she said. ‘Did anyone follow you?’
‘No. They were all going wild. The old woman was yelling to stop the girls going over the wall after you.’
She’d let go of the sailor’s hand and he grinned as he took in her appearance. He said, ‘If they send the police after you, they’ll spot you a mile off in that garb. Haven’t you anything else to wear?’
‘In here.’ She held up the parcel. ‘Not a lot. I didn’t want to steal anything I’d made with their cloth,’ she rushed on. ‘I’ve got a black skirt and a white cotton blouse, a mackintosh and a pair of shoes.’
‘If they’re looking for a girl with two sailors …’ Greg began.
‘Over the road.’ Her sailor was a fast thinker. ‘Behind that hedge. It’s a big house. Nobody will see you in the bushes.’ He took her arm and steered her across the deserted road. He said, ‘I’ll keep watch. Change your clothes. Stuff that grey dress in the hedge. Have you a comb?’
She shook her head and, with great politeness, he handed his own comb to her. Flora knew then that he would not harm her. She took the comb and ran across the road and deep into the dark green shrubbery.
Once she was out of sight, Greg asked, ‘What are we going to do with her?’
‘If you can run at that speed,’ said Andrew, ‘you can cut behind the houses and over the fields to your house. Bring my civvies. I’ll change and you can take my uniform back.’
‘Then I get lost?’ Greg grinned. ‘And you get the girl?’
Andrew was annoyed by Greg’s assumption. ‘I don’t want the lass caught and taken back there. I’ve no designs on her.’
‘What about Pearce?’
‘We’ll get him later. I’ll be back before five.’
‘Right. Watch this for gold medallist, Jesse Owens.’ Greg thumped Andrew’s arm, then ran, streaking up the road, crossing into the fields close to the hedge at a speed Andrew was sure could have beaten the Olympic runner.
‘Where’s he gone?’ The lass was beside him, neatly dressed, hair combed and loose; under her arm a rolled mackintosh about her belongings. She looked a treat but her eyes held the fear of a hunted animal. ‘Are you going to leave me?’
‘Greg is. He’s got a date but he’s bringing my civvies. Hide behind the hedge while I change, then we’ll catch a tram at the foot of the brae. I’m taking you to Portobello, to the beach and the funfair. Nobody will find you there and you can tell me all about it.’
Twenty minutes later, with the girl sitting beside him on a rattling tram crammed with holidaymakers, Andrew asked, ‘What’s your name?’
‘Don’t laugh?’
‘I won’t.’
‘Flora Macdonald.’ She looked at him quickly then away again as if expecting him to respond with a laugh and a cruel joke. She was pretty though – even when her face had been tearful and sweaty with effort and her hair clung damply to her neck and brow. She had enormous eyes of aquamarine that you felt you could drown in, and now Andrew saw a blush come poppy red into her cheeks. He took her hand and above the whining noise of the dynamo said, ‘Then we’re meant for each other. My name’s Andrew Charles Stewart.’
Her eyes sparkled with laughter. She leaned over and whispered, ‘I was singing “Over the Sea to Skye” when the laundry woman went for me.’
‘And you hit her?’ Andrew grinned.
She smiled back. ‘Aye. I’m not sorry.’
‘Sometimes you have to do it,’ he said.
Then, subdued and with those beautiful eyes suddenly distant, she said, ‘If they catch me, I’ll go to prison.’
He took her hand again, held it fast and felt it relax, small and warm, and rough-textured from all the scrubbing. ‘Over my dead body,’ he said softly.
She let him hold her hand, turning her head to give him a shy smile every so often, and he felt all at once very protective of her. A happy, warm bubble seemed to fill to bursting inside where his heart lay. But he knew nothing about her. He squeezed her hand and turned to look at her again. ‘How old are you?’
Flora squeezed in return. She liked the feeling of her hand being held, though she couldn’t remember it ever having happened before. But then she had never in her life met anyone she’d taken to so fast. She didn’t want to deceive him, but what if, when he found out how young she was – not yet fifteen – he didn’t want anything more to do with her?
He repeated, ‘How old are you?’
She couldn’t look him in the eye and lie, so she looked through the window where the clamour of Princes Street was a distraction. She said, ‘Seventeen. How old are you?’
‘Nineteen.’ He was smiling broadly, as if pleased she was old enough for him. ‘Where’s your mother and father?’
‘There’s nobody. I belong on a little farm down the coast,’ and saying this, her heart sank. Would she ever belong to anyone or any place? A lump of self-pity came into her throat but she said, ‘I can’t go back there. I’ll have to find a job and somewhere to live. There’s a girl I know. Jessie Fairbairn. In Leith. She said she’d find me work.’
‘Leith? You can’t go to Leith.’
�
�Why not?’
‘It’s a rough place. Full o’ thieves and drunks – and loose women.’ His brows had drawn together until they met in the middle.
‘Well. Temporary. So I don’t have to sleep rough again.’
He held her hand tight. ‘How much money have you?’
‘Five and sixpence.’ But five and six wouldn’t last much more than a week, even sleeping rough.
‘There’s plenty of rooms to let in Portobello,’ he said with conviction. ‘I’ll stop with you until you’re fixed up.’
‘Thanks.’ She stole admiring glances at him as they rode in silence on the whirring, clanging, noisy tram. He was very handsome and tall and he had a long straight nose that he’d touch now and again with a hand that was broad and strong. She could see the hairs on his arms when the sleeves moved up. ‘Sure you don’t mind?’
He smiled, showing his straight white teeth. ‘I’ll enjoy it.’
The tram came to a halt at the working man’s playground of Portobello beach, on the widest part of the bay of the Firth of Forth. There they found an empty bench on the esplanade, overlooking the sands. The beach was packed solid with families, children playing noisily, their parents relaxing in deckchairs, barely a foot apart from strangers. Andrew claimed the wooden bench seat. ‘Keep me a place. I’ll get us a bag of fish and chips.’
They ate hungrily from the paper parcels, talking fast, telling little details of their lives as if they were catching up after a separation. It was two o’clock before Andrew ate the last scrap and screwed the paper into a greasy ball ready to drop into one of the litter baskets. ‘Right. Let’s get cracking. What do you want to do? Find a living-in job in one of the boarding houses?’
She got to her feet. ‘As long as I’m not shut up in a factory. But I’d rather that than be shut up in Guthrie’s. Are you coming with me?’
‘Where shall we start?’
‘We’ll start at the other end of the Esplanade.’
It turned out that casual work was easily picked up. Most of the boarding houses needed help, and Flora found herself a job as a morning chambermaid at one end of the Esplanade, and afternoon and evening work as cook’s help and serving girl a few doors away. But there was not a spare bed to be had, not even where there was a ‘Vacancy’ sign in a window. Andrew was doing the asking; he said it would look better, coming from a man, but they were dealt with very brusquely when he said, ‘Have you a room free?’
By six Flora was weary. The crowds had gone and only a few local children ran, shrieking, along the water’s edge. ‘I’ll sleep on the beach – or a bench in the park,’ she said.
‘You will not!’ Andrew was horrified at the suggestion.
She did not tell him that she’d done it before, not wanting him to know she’d once been a vagrant. ‘I didn’t really mean it.’
Andrew smiled at her, fondly. ‘It won’t come to that. I’ll stay with you till you find somewhere.’
‘You have to meet Greg. You have an appointment.’
Andrew laughed. ‘He won’t mind. I was going to beat up Pearce.’
‘Don’t!’ she said quickly. Andrew had told her how he’d got the scars on his neck. ‘It will make trouble.’
‘That’s the idea. Only this time it’s Pearce who’ll be in trouble.’
‘But two on to one? It’s not fair. It’s cowardly.’
Andrew’s upper lip tightened as it did when he was opposed. ‘Greg won’t hurt him. This is my fight.’
‘Please. Don’t get into trouble. Don’t fight.’ He’d told her all about the Commander, who was responsible for his being a sailor instead of a simple farm lad. He’d told her that he wanted promotion to justify the Commander’s good opinion of him. She said, ‘If you won’t do it for me – refuse to fight – then do it for the Commander. He’s been like a father to you. He’ll want to see you get promotion. Don’t let him down.’ Then, ‘Funny. The Commander’s a Campbell and I’m a Macdonald, and here I am telling a Stewart how to behave with my old mortal enemy.’
Andrew went quiet and she saw that he was thinking on what she’d said. She tried not to move or blink until she saw a little smile replace the tight-lipped look. He said, ‘If you’ll be my girl, I’ll leave Pearce alone.’
‘You mean, your sweetheart?’ she asked, then blushed, since it sounded as if she were being forward.
‘Yes. Will you write? And put kisses and a sign, like S.W.A.L.K., on the envelope flap – so the others will see? You don’t mind, do you?’
Flora was flattered that he thought her grown-up enough to write love letters to him. She said, ‘I will. I’ve never had a real boyfriend …’
‘And I’ve never had a real girlfriend.’ He laughed as he said it. ‘Come on. Let’s get cracking and try to find a room for you.’
Their luck changed. The first house they came to without a ‘Bed and Breakfast’ sign hanging from the gatepost had a card in the window that read ‘Room to Let’.
A brass plate beside the bell bore the inscription, ‘John Davidson LRAM ATCL Teacher of Pianoforte’. A piano was being played in the front room. Flora indicated to Andrew that they should not ring the bell for a few minutes so as not to interrupt the lively playing of ‘With catlike tread … Upon our way we steal …’ from Pirates of Penzance. Finally they rang. After a few seconds there was a noise of bolts being drawn, before the door was opened by a severe-looking middle-aged man whose first words were, ‘Who is it?’ He was blind.
‘I’m sorry,’ Flora said, embarrassed now. Then, realising that she should not apologise for his blindness, she felt her face growing red. ‘I was looking for lodgings. I want something permanent. I’ve been searching all day.’
Andrew said, ‘Was that you, playing the piano?’ as bold as brass.
‘Yes. I used to give recitals. Now I give lessons.’ A smile crossed his face. It made him look less severe and he seemed in no hurry to close the door in their faces. He said, ‘Are you married?’
Andrew reddened as it came to him in a flash that of course all those others must have thought they wanted a bed together. He glanced at Flora, whose cheeks were glowing. He said, lying so as to secure a chance for her, ‘Oh no. Nothing like that. Flora is my sister.’ He felt Flora’s hand slip into his with a little squeeze of gratitude. He said, ‘I’m a sailor – Andrew Stewart. We must find lodging for her before I go back to sea.’
Mr Davidson turned his face towards Flora. ‘Your parents?’
‘I’m an orphan.’ Then her cheeks blazed that amazing poppy red because of the mistake, and she added quickly, ‘So is Andrew.’
‘Come in,’ said the blind man.
He took to them quickly. Ever since his mother died he’d been unable to manage the house, he told Flora. He was looking for a good, honest and God-fearing lodger – one who would uphold his good reputation and would take him to the nearby church three times on Sundays, so that he could continue as organist. Could she cook? For he could not.
Andrew said, ‘My sister is looking for work as well as lodgings. She has been offered two part-time jobs, but a job with accommodation would be better.’
Then, said the good man, if Flora would do what he requested and look after him, cleaning and cooking for both of them, she could have the whole upstairs of the house. She would also earn a small wage, from which he would deduct two shillings a week for piano lessons.
Chapter Five
April 1939
The wind was roaring, lashing sleet before it, howling through the trees, sending branches cracking to the ground, alarming the horse from whose back Ruth had watched the Armstrong Siddeley turn in at the South Lodge gate. One of the few conditions Gordon had ever made was that, to keep the grass clean, the horses were not exercised in the park. He had come to rely on her to keep everything working smoothly in his absence. She was in control of everything on the estate: the farm and cottage rents, the servants’ wages. Though there was no money for repairs and maintenance, the estate was at last viable now
that Elizabeth’s legacy had come to the rescue. And Ruth knew that things ran more smoothly with Gordon away than when he was present.
But Gordon must not learn that she flouted the few rules he insisted upon. He did not allow smoking in the house, and that was one rule she kept. She smoked occasionally, when riding. The rule that the park be kept free of animals was regularly broken, but always when Gordon was away. ‘Go on!’ she shouted over the wind as she dug her heels hard into Heather’s flanks and headed for the stable. The animal leaped forward. They would easily outrun the motor car. Gordon wouldn’t see her. He had only returned to his ship a couple of weeks ago. Why was he home again so soon? Preparations for war were in hand. The government had built more weapons factories and army camps, but that and the Czechoslovakia problem – Hitler had marched into Prague – could have no bearing on the British Royal Navy, surely?
The cold wind raked her cheeks as she glanced back and saw Gordon pull up at the front of the house, but the roar of the wind would mask the sound of hooves and Heather’s snorting, so she sat back in the saddle and tightened the reins to slow the horse down from a canter as they came into the yard.
‘What the hell d’you think ye’re doing?’ Mike roared over the wind that was lifting the corrugated-iron roof sheets and crashing them on to the timbers as if they were cardboard. ‘I told ye not to take her oot.’
‘She needed exercising,’ Ruth shouted. She slid down, landed with practised ease and gave him the reins. ‘Will you see to her? I have to get back to the house.’
‘No. Ye’ll damned well look after your ain horse. You treat this thoroughbred like a carter’s beast.’ The mare was frothing at the mouth, drenched with sweat and rain, as he took the reins and led her into the big box. He held the door open so Ruth would follow, then in the relative quiet of the loose box he bolted the half-door and said, ‘Why do you have to go back?’
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