Blue Above the Chimneys

by Fraser, Christine Marion

  When we returned home we were eager to share the ‘takings’ with our parents. Da was very fond of apples and at Hallowe’en we were able to give him some big rosy ones which he sniffed appreciatively before putting them away in his drawer. This was where he kept all his little bits and pieces. It was kept locked so that our prying fingers wouldn’t discover his secrets. When he unlocked it glorious smells tumbled out – tobacco, apples, leather, all mingled together to produce an oddly pleasing fragrance.

  As soon as Hallowe’en was over we began to prepare eagerly for Christmas. The table was pulled out from the wall and we gathered round to make paperchains and sparkling balls from silver paper. In those early days we couldn’t afford the luxury of a tree, but the house was made jolly with our home-made decorations.

  We were very responsible travellers for young children and now that I was eight I was allowed to go into town with Alec for Christmas shopping. We were both experts at dodging our fare on the tram. During the journey we were angelically quiet and sat with our noses pressed against the window. Cunningly we always chose a nice comfortable housewife to sit beside so that her many shopping bags and voluminous clothes would swallow us into anonymity. Frequently the ruse was successful. When it came to our stop we quickly hopped from the vehicle, unable to resist shouting after it, ‘Ha! Ha! We never paid our fa-are!’

  Armed with shopping lists we mingled with the crowds in the big stores, our course of action well planned. Removing my large pixie hood from my head I dropped it over some small article which I picked up inside the hood. To put it bluntly, I was a little thief. Alec sniffed nervously at my side, but I marched along with confidence, bullying him into being my accomplice, daring him to say anything that might fall on the ears of authority.

  I had few feelings of guilt. The things I took were for a family I loved. There were so few luxuries in our lives yet there seemed to be so many everywhere else. My philosophy, as an eight-year-old, rather poor child, was that Christmas was a time for giving and, no matter how, I was going to give to my beloved Mam the things she deserved to enrich her humdrum existence.

  I can remember the Christmas of 1951 very vividly. On Christmas Eve our excitement was tremendous. We plagued Da for a loan of his longest socks even though we knew we would be lucky if they were only partially filled. The stockings were hung carefully at the end of each bed and we lay in the dark room talking about the magic of Christmas. Later, when our ponderings and anticipations were exhausted, my mind was in a suitably productive state to recount a magical tale to Alec and Margaret.

  Kirsty no longer slept in the room with us. She shared the double bed in the kitchen with Mam, and Da slept in our old brass bed just inside the kitchen door. This arrangement had no doubt been made by Mam for fear of adding another to the family, but thoughts like that didn’t enter our heads. It was just another arrangement and, as far as I was concerned, a very satisfactory one. I now slept quite alone in a single iron bed, a hand-down from a neighbour. It was an old bed but very comfortable and I felt so important I might have looked down my nose at royalty if it had chanced along.

  Margaret’s chair-bed was alongside mine and Alec still slept in the recess.

  Most nights I spun yarns for their benefit, always beginning, ‘Once upon a time there lived a family called Fraser. They were of noble blood and lived in a castle with spires that reached up into the sky, so high that they tore the clouds to pieces and made the rain come.’

  At this point I knew to expect the usual cries of protest from my audience.

  ‘We don’t live in a castle,’ said Alec unfailingly. ‘We live in a tenement with a cludge on the landing and sometimes fleas on us from Mick Mulligan!’

  ‘That’s right,’ Margaret added eagerly. ‘We don’t have fairy spears.’

  ‘Spires,’ I corrected scornfully, knowing that their objections were merely a dare to my abilities as a story-teller. It was up to me to take them out of reality into realms of fantasy and my stories so convinced them that Margaret would cry with the beauty of her imagined life in a fairy castle and Alec would sniff for a few moments then plead eagerly for more. At Christmas my tales had to be extra special and I spun yarns about snow and magic stars till I fell asleep with sheer exhaustion.

  We were too wise in the ways of the world to believe the fable about Santa Claus. Nevertheless we pretended to each other there was ‘something in it all’ and on the Eve of Christmas tried to stay awake long enough just to find out what that something was, but we never could keep our eyes open long enough to see the shadowy figure of Mam creeping about filling our stockings.

  On Christmas morning we grabbed the bumpy exciting stockings, thrilled to find tangerines, apples and perhaps a pencil case or a book. Right at the toe there was usually a silver sixpence or a pencil sharpener.

  Still in vests and knickers we trooped through the lobby with our eyes shining, hoping to witness the grand opening of our parents’ parcels. We always insisted they hung stockings too and really Da must have been quite a sport to allow a long woolly sock to dangle from his bedhead.

  That morning of Christmas ’51 Da was sitting up in bed, dressed in his ‘simmit’ and a pair of long drawers, smoking his pipe, and looking not the least interested in finding out the contents of his stocking.

  We had scrimped for weeks to get him an ounce of his favourite tobacco and a large box of matches, and our annoyance at his lack of curiosity was intense.

  Mam was entirely different. She poked and delved with great enthusiasm and we watched with bated breath while she pulled out a cheap bottle of perfume and a new apron.

  ‘From Alec and Chris,’ she said quietly and I saw that her eyes were very bright, the way they went when she was about to cry.

  ‘I got you something too, Mam,’ said Kirsty, handing over a brightly wrapped package. She looked at me suspiciously, obviously wondering how I’d managed to get Mam the gifts. She wasn’t in the secret of the ‘magic pixie’, the fable I’d invented to salve my conscience. I’d likened my red pixie to the hen that kept on laying golden eggs, only my pixie needed a little help from me to get it working.

  The week after Christmas was busy and jolly. New Year was Da’s favourite time and he liked the house to be clean. We scrubbed shelves and polished dusty corners, Da cleaned all the windows and got out big tins of distemper to brighten the walls. Mam washed the floors under the bed recesses then Da painted them with paraffin. This was done to keep away bed bugs, horrible little insects with the feeding habits of vampires. We were seldom bothered with them because of Da’s diligent applications of paraffin. The house reeked with the strong fumes but it was far better to suffer that than the other menace.

  The day before Hogmanay Kirsty got out the black lead and polished the range till it gleamed like black satin.

  The house was full of the smells of baking. Every day some new fragrance titillated the senses. Trays of shortbread, black bun and fruit cake were set on the table to cool. Oh to savour just a scrap, but it was all to be kept for the big night.

  On Hogmanay all the glasses were brought down from the shelves to be washed and polished till they sparkled. The table was set with mouth-watering goodies and a bottle of whisky gleamed amber in the firelight. Da had bought it with money sent from a son of his former marriage who lived in the awesomely far land of Australia. He was older than Mam. We had met him several times when he came back to Scotland for a holiday and we simply called him ‘Uncle Jack’, the thought never entering our heads that a man older than Mam was actually our half brother.

  The evening was gay and festive. The kitchen resounded with Scottish dance music and we whirled about to the merry tunes.

  Much to our chagrin we had to go to bed as usual, but we made it a policy that year to stay awake till the bells heralded in the New Year. Sleep threatened but excitement kept it at bay. Tunes from the wireless floated through the walls, then the chimes of Big Ben struck out the hour. I couldn’t understand the strange choked-up fe
eling that welled into my throat. Another year, a new year, lay ahead. The room door was thrown open and Mam came in, sparkling-eyed, her auburn hair falling in waves around her face. Behind her came Da, jovial and kind, all the sternness gone from him as the first glass of whisky warmed his blood. But we knew he wouldn’t get drunk. He never did at New Year, which was odd; it seemed such a perfect opportunity for him to indulge. It may have been that the first-foots would be arriving soon. He kept his good side for friends and relations. As man of the house, he perhaps felt it his duty to set a good example.

  We wished each other a happy New Year. Mam kissed us, Da shook our hands brusquely. Kirsty came through and sat on the end of my bed while Da poured fruit wine and Mam handed round slabs of black bun and fingers of shortbread.

  Solemnly we clinked glasses together, but before we could take a sip of the ruby wine in our glasses we waited patiently for Da to raise his glass in a toast, one he gave us every year. Raising his glass to the ceiling he intoned, ‘May ye have roast beef when ye’re hungry, whisky when ye’re dry, pennies when ye’re hard up, and heaven when ye die.’

  ‘That’s good, Da,’ we murmured in dutiful appreciation, then sipped quickly at our wine before he could think of another toast.

  Left in the dark room once more we wished each other the season’s greetings over and over till Da bawled at us from the kitchen. We fell asleep in crumpled heaps, but all night we were aware of people clumping in the lobby and laughing in the kitchen.

  In January the snow came, turning the dingy tenements into the beautiful fairy palaces of my imagination. Huge snowmen dominated the backcourts, decorated with old bonnets and long scarves, precious bits of coal and clay pipes.

  The snow didn’t stay clean for long in the well-trodden play areas, but we hurled grey snowballs, made grey snowmen and slithered about joyfully till the rain came and washed the snow away.

  Indoor pastimes were many and varied. Sprawled on the room floor we made intricate jigsaws which kept us amused for hours. When we tired of this we went into the kitchen to settle round the table to draw. Mam invariably offered a threepenny bit for a prize and the clock ticked quietly as we concentrated on winning.

  When Ian was home the rest of us didn’t stand a chance. He was a meticulous artist, giving his drawings a look of realism that none of us could match.

  But I had perfected the character of Mighty Mouse till my drawings were in great demand at school. The hours spent in the classroom were a great trial for me. I enjoyed English, art, and spelling – I was frequently the winner of a small prize in spelling competitions – but all other subjects came up against a mental block. I particularly dreaded mental arithmetic when the class was taken by Miss Black, the headmistress. She was an ogre in the disguise of a homo sapiens. She was small in stature, with greying hair cut in a mannish style and odd, amber eyes that sent red-hot sparks into space.

  I was always incurring her displeasure because of my untidy appearance and once I had nearly died of humiliation when she came marching into my class with Kirsty attached to her arm. Miss Black placed Kirsty squarely in front of the class and asked us to look at a perfect example of neatness. Kirsty was lovely, from her neatly plaited hair to her polished shoes. Squirming several inches down in my seat I endeavoured to polish my scuffed shoes on my socks and nearly broke my legs in the process. Miss Black’s eyes sought me out and a shower of sparks descended on me.

  ‘Kirsty Fraser,’ said Miss Black tightly, ‘is an example of the neatness I would like to see in all my children! There is utterly no need for untidy hair …’ Here she glared at my locks escaping the ribbons Mam had tied in them that morning. ‘No need for sloppy clothes, no matter how old they may be they ought to be worn with dignity.’ Here I writhed inside a jersey I had torn at playtime. ‘And only a tramp has an excuse for dusty shoes.’ At this point I tried to make my shoes disappear by sticking my legs under the seat of the desk in front.

  ‘Come along, Kirsty,’ said Miss Black hustling my red-faced sister from the room. An audible sigh of relief escaped the class. Miss Black was widely respected throughout the school, her method of administering the tawse being feared by even the toughest of pupils. She always handed out a ‘Doubler’, which meant getting the belt with the hands crossed. If reflex action made you draw your hands away she made you rest them on a desk so that she could get a direct hit. So heartily did she swing the deadly weapon that her little skirt billowed outwards at the back and the fortunates who weren’t receiving punishment very subtly tried to get a glimpse of her long-legged knickers. It was a slight satisfaction to know that while you squirmed under the stinging blows of the tawse, she was exposing her baggy drawers with every move of her muscular arms.

  When she fired mental arithmetic questions like bullets from a gun I came out in a cold sweat. Up, down, up, down, we went, fumbling over a question which, if not answered immediately, was passed on to the next pupil. Always I prayed that my neighbour would be unable to answer a question because it gave me a chance to get my curdled grey matter into focus. Oh, the joy of giving a correct answer! The incredible feeling of disbelief at earning some praise from that awesome little woman! She was the witch in my bedtime stories, only I added four feet to her height and endowed her with several warts. But being a cunning little beggar I made sure Miss Black never found out about my drawings of Mighty Mouse. All the boys wanted one and I perfected them under cover of school books, charging the magnificent sum of a halfpenny for each one.

  I was constantly racking my brains for ways to make money, and it was at this time I decided to try my hand at making counterfeit money. Our district abounded with poky little shops, the kind of places that sold everything. If I had been led into one blindfolded I could have identified it because each one had a distinctive smell. One in particular had a delightful odour of apples, bacon and biscuits. All the smells were fusty, but that only added to the attraction. It was to this shop we were sent for Da’s tobacco. The owner was a Miss Carmichael, more ancient than an Egyptian mummy with her rounded shoulders, salt and pepper hair frisking out from a scuffed felt hat held in place with a fearsome pin, and yellow skin liberally sprinkled with warts of different size. One of these was extremely large and balanced so precariously on the tip of her nose that we lived in the hope one day it would fall off and go tumbling amongst the newspapers on the counter. The hat pin was also held in awe; we all felt convinced she was capable of using it to stab cheeky children. The tinkling of her bell brought her shuffling from her back shop to peer suspiciously from short-sighted eyes. The big black cat who sat like a statue on the counter also wore this wary look, an unblinking stare with narrowed pupils squinting in moon-like green orbs.

  Da’s brand of tobacco was kept in a round tin; a little axe-like machine cut a length from a fragrant black coil. It was a fascinating shop altogether and I enjoyed going there for messages, though Mam wasn’t too keen to purchase the fusty-smelling goods. Miss Carmichael seemed a perfect recipient for my counterfeit money. Her eyesight was poor, she peered at everything, the spectacles on the end of her nose seemed to afford little aid. It wasn’t unusual for her to ask the value of the coins we pushed over the counter. There was no doubt that she was the perfect victim for my hard-hearted little scheme.

  I spent an intensely laborious evening covering a penny with silver paper, making the marking come through by rubbing carefully with a thumb nail. The finished product looked very like a half-crown and I crowed with satisfaction.

  Next day, Da told me to go to the shop. ‘An ounce o’ thick black,’ he ordered. ‘Make sure it’s off the roll. I’ve only a poun’ so make sure that blin’ wee bat gies ye the right change.’

  ‘Ay, Da,’ I said meekly and raced to the shop with Alec at my heels.

  ‘An ounce of thick black,’ I said respectfully. Snap! The little axe cut a neat portion and tobacco and change were pushed towards me. Deftly I collected the change, then with a quick sleight-of-hand I placed my ‘half-crown’
on the counter, requesting sweets which I knew would come to two and sixpence exactly.

  Breathlessly we watched the whole transaction. The sweets were placed before us and the penny picked up, receiving no more than a cursory glance before it was put in the drawer.

  I gathered up the sweets, keeping an anxious eye on the cat which I fancied was glaring with more malevolence than usual. Out from the shop we flew into a nearby close to stare at each other with mingled triumph and shame.

  ‘What if the polis come after us?’ whispered Alec nervously.

  ‘Och, don’t be daft,’ I said scornfully, angry at him for daring to voice what was already in my own mind. ‘How could they trace the penny to us?’

  ‘To you!’ said Alec quickly.

  ‘Right! I’ll eat all the sweeties if that’s how you feel,’ I growled, but after a few moments of argument we shared the spoils between us then ran home. Mam was in the scullery and I gave her a bar of chocolate, telling her I had found a shilling. She looked at me suspiciously and I began to have terrible misgivings about the whole affair. What if the police really did come to our door? The awful shame it would bring to my innocent mother was beyond thinking about. I was unable to enjoy my share of the sweets. Any moment I expected a knock at the door heralding the arrival of a big burly policeman complete with notebook. I would be interrogated, asked to account for my doings that day.

  I began to make up all sorts of alibis and recounted them to Alec so that his lies would coincide with mine. It was no use! I spent a dreadful day but night came, no policeman appeared, and I began to feel better. I racked my brains for ways to atone for my sins and finally decided to go to Miss Carmichael and offer to do odd jobs for her. Next day I duly presented myself and put my request to her but she looked at me in astonishment and shook her head. ‘Na, na, if it’s money ye’re efter ye’d best go somewhere else.’