Highland Sisters

by Anne Douglas

  ‘What’s a haar?’ she asked, thinking that these towering buildings were made of tough, solid stone and were not going to change. ‘It sounds foreign.’

  ‘Does, doesn’t it?’ Daniel laughed. ‘It’s a mist, that’s all, but somebody told me the name is German – meaning hair. Should have cleared by now, anyway.’

  ‘So, where’s Princes Street? That’s what I want to see.’

  ‘Coming up now, just round here – and look, it’s almost clear! Just right for your first view of it. Famous street, you know.’

  Thank the Lord, she was thinking, for letting it not be grey. Except for the castle, maybe, but that was very different from the buildings back in the streets she’d just seen. Truly grand, wasn’t it? Quite majestic, perched on its rock over the extensive gardens where there were trees and rolling grass, flower beds and a few memorials she’d have to come and read one day. All of that was on their right, whereas on their left were the handsome facades of Princes Street’s famous shops: department stores, hat shops, dress shops, even an exotic-looking fruit and flower shop.

  And pavements, of course, filled with elegant shoppers who probably wouldn’t have to worry about how much they might want to spend, which was something so unusual in Rosa’s experience, she wished she could have seen more of this most famous of streets and the people who used it. Already, though, the van was turning right and beginning to ascend a steep hill which Daniel told her was called the Mound.

  Something artificially made, it seemed, as one of the links between the Old Town and the New, formed when a large amount of earth was excavated in the creation of the New Town, which had come about when the well-to-do of the city gave up living next to the poor folk in the Old Town and built elegant homes in the new Edinburgh of the eighteenth century.

  ‘All their houses are still there,’ Daniel went on, ‘built to a plan that’s as good today as it was back in 1767. You’ll enjoy walking around the area when we’ve settled in.’

  ‘Will I?’ wondered Rosa. Walking round pavements, looking at terraced houses?

  She was beginning to ask herself if she could enjoy anything at all as an old, familiar pain began to build up in her chest, reminding her of how she’d suffered when she’d first left home for Inverness. Homesickness. That was its name and it was a good one. Summed it up. Sickness. Yes, it was a sort of sickness, and something else to be concealed from Daniel, who seemed to be already at home in this city he had obviously come to know quite well.

  Rosa was listening to him now, pointing out the views from the Mound over the city as far as Calton Hill, wherever that was, but suddenly interrupted him.

  ‘Daniel, when are we going to get to our flat? I want to see it.’

  ‘I know you do,’ he said quickly, ‘and it’s not far now. But you won’t’ – he gave her a quick sideways glance – ‘expect it to be, well, like Princes Street.’

  ‘What a thing to ask!’ she cried. ‘I’m not stupid! I know what we can afford.’

  ‘Right, then, here we go – to our new home!’

  And a determinedly cheerful Daniel and a somewhat fearful Rosa made their way through the Old Town to what was to be their first home together.

  Twenty-Five

  Along George IV Bridge and into Chambers Street, on to the South Bridge, then straggling Nicolson Street, into Clerk Street, Minto Street, and still keeping on – how did Daniel know so well where they were going? Rosa wondered. That she would ever find her own way about this maze of streets seemed to her impossible, and she had now given up even looking at names in the hope that one would be Ingram Terrace, relying, as she must, on Daniel to deliver them to their new home.

  Couldn’t be long now, surely? Oh, God, she prayed, let it be nice. May I like it and not upset Daniel. As though she would! But she was so weary, so desperate to arrive, all she wanted was to get the first sight of the flat over with, to know what she’d come to, and make, if possible, a cup of tea. But would they have a kettle?

  Round and round her thoughts went, and she’d begun to believe they would never arrive, when a sudden cry from Daniel made her start and stare as the van suddenly turned right and she saw, at last, the name they were looking for: Ingram Terrace.

  ‘This is it,’ said Daniel. ‘Here we are! Didn’t take too long, did it? Now we want number eight, which is just here, if I remember – and there it is. Rosa, we’re home!’

  ‘Not quite,’ she answered, her eyes going over the house that held their flat which, like the rest of the terrace, was tall and built of the grey stone she had already come to know, with a variety of curtaining at square windows, a front door in need of paint and steps that had never, in Rosa’s opinion, ever been scrubbed.

  Where were the maids to do the necessary work, then? Nowhere, of course. Tenements didn’t have maids, they had tenants who had to do their own cleaning, just as Rosa had cleaned back home, but here folk had to take their turn at the communal stairs and pity help them if they didn’t, so much Rosa knew, for Daniel had told her. But he’d had chances Rosa had not to talk to the landlord’s agent and their next-door neighbour on the landing, who was at present holding their key.

  ‘Come on, then,’ Rosa heard Daniel say, urging her to move as he leaped from the van with their two cases and a great bag of odds and ends. ‘Let’s go in and get the key from Mrs Calder – a nice young woman, Rosa, you’ll like her.’

  And with another of their bags under her arm and her face trying not to show her apprehension, Rosa left the van for the last time and joined Daniel on the unscrubbed steps at the front door.

  ‘But shouldn’t we knock?’ she asked worriedly. ‘We’ve no key for the front door, Daniel.’

  ‘Mrs Calder said we didn’t need one – the door’s never locked. They reckon there’s nothing to steal. Can you manage that bag, Rosa? We’re on the second floor, remember.’

  ‘I can manage,’ said Rosa, her heart sinking fast as she stepped into the hallway of eight, Ingram Terrace and breathed in the smell of a place never reached by fresh air. All she wanted to do then was to drive the walls apart and let in the air and the wind, for how she was to live here, even with Daniel, was beyond her imagination.

  ‘There’s the stair ahead,’ Daniel was murmuring, moving with the cases towards it, when suddenly two boys of about eight or nine, dressed in faded jerseys and short trousers, came banging down each step as though they wanted to make as much noise as possible, and Daniel could only laugh. ‘Watch out – looks like a couple of young tenants are already coming down!’

  At least they’ve got boots even if they do make a noise, thought Rosa, remembering that she’d already seen children in the streets who seemed to have to go barefoot. But why weren’t these two at school? As she and Daniel drew to one side, the boys stopped and stared, then cheekily asked in such broad Scots accents they found hard to understand, ‘You coming tae stay here? Wha’s your name, then? Got any weans?’

  ‘Weans?’ repeated Rosa, glancing at Daniel to see if he could translate.

  ‘Children,’ he whispered and, to the boys, gave a smile. ‘No, we’ve no weans.’

  ‘Och, nobody new tae play with,’ one of the boys was saying when a young woman in a cotton dress and apron with her hair tied in a duster came hurrying down the stairs.

  ‘Jackie! Donnie! You come right back up wi’ me the noo! You ken fine you’re no’ allowed out wi’ your colds!’

  Pulling the duster from her head, revealing a thick and untidy mass of brown hair loosely knotted at her neck, she gave an apologetic smile at Rosa and Daniel while clutching the two boys by the arms.

  ‘I’m aye sorry, Mr MacNeil, that you’ve had these laddies pestering you and Mrs MacNeil, but I’ve got your key already if you’ll just come up the stair. Jackie, Donnie – on you go, then.’

  ‘It’s very kind of you,’ Rosa murmured, grateful that this young woman who must be Mrs Calder was easier to understand than her sons. ‘We appreciate all you’ve done.’

  ‘Och
, I’ve no’ done much! But give me one o’ your bags ’cos this is oor floor, eh? Ma door’s right here – in you go, laddies, it’s open – and there’s you, eh, Mr MacNeil, Mrs MacNeil. Wait till I get your key.’

  The room into which Mrs Calder showed Rosa and Daniel was large and, though lit by high windows, appeared dark and, to Rosa, depressing. It was well furnished from what Daniel had owned in his rented flat, some of which he’d made, and provided a spare bed for a visitor set back into the wall close to the range, where a kettle was already singing.

  ‘Grand sound,’ Daniel commented with a smile as he set down the cases he had been carrying, which it might have been, but it did nothing to raise Rosa’s spirits that were already making her feel guilty.

  Why did she feel as though a great cloud had descended over her? Why not look on the bright side? Because another great tide of homesickness was swallowing her up, because she felt she could never get used to this room, because it just wasn’t home. Nor, it was true, had the Fordyce house been home, but that was different because it had just been a place to work, not somewhere she must welcome as her first home with dear Daniel.

  ‘Is this not pleasant?’ he was asking her as she tried to concentrate, looking round at the furnishings – his table and wooden chairs, his two upholstered armchairs, his couch with cushions, all from his flat and now being exclaimed over by Mrs Calder.

  ‘Everything’s that grand!’ she was exclaiming, adding she couldn’t think what the Dobsons (who’d lived in the flat before) would think of it, she really couldn’t. Why, they’d never recognize it, would they?

  Her broad, good-natured face, so lit by smiles, made Rosa wish she could have been smiling too, and with all her heart she longed to look happy for Daniel’s sake. But he was busy thanking Mrs Calder again for all she’d done.

  Why, she’d even dusted his old furniture, eh? And lit the stove, got some fuel in, as well as tea and sugar and a jug of milk.

  ‘So how much do I owe you, Mrs Calder?’ he finished, at which she smiled and said that everyone called her Molly and she wished the MacNeils would do the same. But as to what he owed her, it was nothing, for the landlord’s agent had paid for it all.

  ‘If there’s anything you want, though, just say, eh? Everybody’s that friendly here – you could niver have picked a better place!’

  ‘We’re beginning to see that already, aren’t we, Rosa?’ Daniel asked genially, at which Molly Calder smiled from his face to Rosa’s but, seeing Rosa’s look of exhaustion, declared that she would make them tea, and it was all Daniel could do to persuade her just to leave and let them settle in. If they needed anything, they knew she was right next door.

  ‘Aye, right next door!’ she repeated, giving them a wide smile as she left, closing the door behind her, after which Daniel sighed and smiled and said he’d make the tea, eh? Rosa must be exhausted.

  ‘I’m all right,’ she tried to say. And burst into tears.

  Twenty-Six

  ‘What is it?’ Daniel cried. ‘Rosa, what’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing. I’m just tired, that’s all. We’re both tired, I think.’

  ‘If that’s all it is,’ Daniel said in a low voice.

  For a moment, Rosa met his eyes, then lowered her own. ‘I’ll be all right when I’ve had some tea.’

  ‘Which I’m making.’ After a long moment, Daniel looked away from Rosa and, fishing out his own teapot from one of the bags, rinsed it from the kettle and put in tea from the packet Molly Calder had left. ‘Just need a couple of cups—’

  ‘On the dresser,’ said Rosa, rising. ‘Could you pass me that jug of milk, Daniel?’

  When the tea was made and poured, they moved to the couch and sat down to drink it, Rosa still in her hat and outdoor jacket, Daniel now in shirtsleeves. For some time neither spoke, then Daniel, fixing Rosa with his blue eyes, said, ‘Is that all the tears were for, Rosa? Being tired?’

  ‘What else?’ she asked, setting her cup on the floor and taking off her hat.

  ‘Maybe you don’t like the flat. You haven’t said.’

  ‘I haven’t seen it all yet. I’ve yet to see our bedroom.’

  ‘Do you like what you have seen, then?’ Daniel persisted, his blue gaze never moving from her face.

  ‘Yes,’ she answered at once. ‘Well, I mean, it’s fine for us as it is, but there’s a lot I can do to improve it – make curtains and such.’

  ‘You’re not unhappy about being here?’

  ‘Of course not! It’s just that, well – I’m a bit homesick, that’s all.’

  ‘I know, I know.’ He seemed understanding, yet his expression was as dark as she had rarely seen it, and she knew she had not convinced him she was happy about the flat he’d chosen.

  ‘Why don’t we look at the bedroom?’ she asked, rising. ‘I’ll have to get the sheets out and make up the bed.’

  ‘I’ll give you a hand,’ he told her and led her out to the one other room the flat boasted, then stood aside to watch her as she looked round.

  ‘The bed seems fine,’ she remarked cheerfully as she felt the mattress. ‘And I see there’s a chest of drawers. Anywhere to hang things?’

  ‘Sure.’ Daniel pulled aside a curtain, behind which was a row of hooks. ‘This all right?’

  ‘Oh, yes. That’ll be perfect.’

  ‘Perfect.’ He laughed shortly. ‘You don’t think anything’s perfect here, do you? It’s not as though we’re going to be here for ever, you know. It’s our first place – there’ll be others.’

  ‘So why are you so upset with me?’

  ‘Who says I’m upset?’

  She hesitated, turning aside. ‘It’s just that I’ve never seen you like this, Daniel.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Well, like I say – upset.’

  ‘I’m not upset. Disappointed, that’s all. That you’re not happy with what I found for us.’

  ‘Daniel, you said yourself, this is just our first place – it’s sort of temporary – and fine for that. I’m not complaining, really I’m not.’

  Still, the dark look that had taken over his handsome face lingered and she had to admit to herself that this was a side of him she had not seen before. But then she herself had not been as she usually was when with Daniel. Perhaps, as she’d said, they were both tired. Too tired to be their radiant, happy selves.

  ‘Let me get something for our tea,’ she said quickly. ‘I saw some eggs Mrs Calder had left and some bacon. Then we’ll make up the bed, unpack our things and get everything sorted out. We’ll feel better then. In fact, I’m feeling better already.’

  ‘Me too!’ cried Daniel, and to Rosa’s infinite relief, she saw that the darkness had vanished from his face and he was her own Daniel again. As he held out his arms to her and she went into them and stood for some moments, her head resting on his shoulder, she was already putting from her mind the difficult time they had been through and was wondering instead if was there a frying pan somewhere so that she could begin preparing tea.

  Twenty-Seven

  After the shaky start to their move into the flat, things quickly improved, with Daniel genuinely happy in his work for Mr Lang and Rosa so busy improving things, her homesickness began to fade. With a second-hand sewing machine bought through an advert in the local paper, she made new curtains for the living room as well as a bedspread, and from a length of towelling bought cheaply at one of the big stores, stitched fresh towels for use with the jug and basin that was the substitute for a bathroom. The WC on the landing was shared with the Calders, which Rosa didn’t mind too much, for she did like Molly, and her husband, Ralph, who worked for the council, was pleasant, too. As for the other people in the tenement, they were still friendly faces without names, except for an older, hawk-eyed woman named Mrs Flett, who soon made herself known to Rosa to make sure she knew when it was her turn to clean the stairs.

  ‘We’re very friendly here,’ Mrs Flett informed Rosa, ‘but we ken fine we ha’ to take our turn at w
hat’s to be done. You being a Highlander, as I’ve heard, you’ll no’ be used tae living in a tenement and stair cleaning, but you’ll no mind taking your turn, eh?’

  ‘Not at all,’ Rosa assured her. ‘I just want to do what’s expected.’

  ‘Aye, well, that’s grand, so you’ll be ready to do the stair every other Friday, eh? Washin’, mind, no’ just sweepin’.

  ‘Just as you say,’ said Rosa, finally escaping into her own flat and closing the door on Mrs Flett before making a cup of tea to calm herself down.

  ‘Take no notice of her,’ Molly told her later. ‘Edie Flett just likes to think she’s in charge. If you take your turn at the stair, you’ll be fine. I think we all worry too much about it, anyway, but the main rows folk have are over the stair. Apart from when some o’ the fellas drink too much on a Saturday night, o’ course.’

  ‘I don’t think my husband will be drinking too much,’ Rosa said quickly. ‘He’s not one for alcohol.’

  ‘That lovely man o’ yours?’ Molly laughed.

  ‘I’m sure he’d be too perfect to need it!’

  At Rosa’s slight frown, Molly patted her arm. ‘Only joking, pet. Nobody’s perfect, eh?’

  Only a short time ago, Rosa would not have agreed, believing then that Daniel was indeed perfect, but after their recent argument she’d very slightly changed her opinion. There was, she knew now, a side to him that made him, well, more like everyone else. And that only made her love him even more.

  Admiring her husband as she did, it pleased Rosa to know that others admired him too, especially Frank Lang, who owned the cabinet-making business where Daniel worked. In his late fifties, Mr Lang was a friendly, fatherly figure to the young couple from the Highlands, even inviting them to his home where his wife, Martha, was equally welcoming. It was when she was at Mr Lang’s home, while Daniel was helping Mrs Lang to bring in her tea trolley, that Mr Lang told Rosa of Daniel’s artistry in his work and of how he was already becoming known.