Waters of the Heart

by Doris Davidson

  ‘Tommy,’ Hugh said, gently, ‘I think you’ve had more than you can take tonight.’

  ‘He had it all worked out. He’d been watching your shop for weeks . . .’

  ‘The old white-haired man!’ Hugh exclaimed.

  ‘That was him. Just think, though. There was me trying to save him from drowning when it was best the thing that could have happened. It was an automatic reaction, but to the end of my days I’ll be thankful I failed.’

  Hugh fell silent, and after some time, Tommy said, ‘I said nothing to the bobbies about what he meant to do to Cissie, for it would have given me a prize motive for doing him in, and it’s best she doesn’t know.’

  ‘I’ll never breathe a word of it,’ Hugh vowed, ‘to Cissie or anybody else.’

  Frantic with worry about Tommy, Cissie opened the shop at half past six as usual – she couldn’t disappoint the men who came in for cigarettes before they went to work – but she went upstairs at eight to get Ricky ready for school. She hadn’t had time to make porridge, and when he pulled a face as she gave him a boiled egg, her nerves were so on edge that she smacked his hand. ‘Eat what’s put in front of you, my lad.’

  Head down, he lifted the bone egg-spoon and dug it into the bright yellow yolk. ‘That’s more like it,’ she smiled, sorry now for being angry at him. It wasn’t his fault she was so short-tempered.

  When Hugh and Tommy walked in at ten to ten, her drawn face lit up, and Hugh said, ‘Tommy’s clothes are still damp. You’d better take him upstairs and give him something of mine to wear.’

  After he changed, Tommy told his sister how he had seen Tam and followed him, but he glossed over the reason for their quarrel, and, although she suspected that it had been because of her, she didn’t press him. ‘He let fly with his fists when I told him off for being drunk, and the next thing I knew I was on the ground and he was in the water. The witness said he’d lost his balance. He’d a gash on his head, so it looked as if I’d clouted him one before I shoved him in, but I never touched him. I even tried to save him, God knows why, but the bobbies wouldn’t believe me, not till the witness said he’d helped me to get him out.’

  ‘I’m glad you tried,’ Cissie said. ‘At least you’ll have nothing to reproach yourself for. It was his own fault for being so drunk. Drink’s been the root of all his troubles.’

  ‘Aye, I suppose there’s something in that.’ Tommy blew out his lips noisily. ‘Well, the best thing now is to forget about it – or try to, anyway.’

  Going out of the shop, he said, with his old exuberance, as if he had already put the trouble behind him, ‘I nearly forgot to tell you. Me and Marion got engaged.’

  ‘Oh, congratulations, Tommy!’ Cissie cried, kissing him on the cheek.

  ‘I’ll bring her to Edinburgh for our honeymoon, so you can judge for yourself if I’ve made a good choice.’

  ‘If she’s half as good as Cissie, she’s a good choice.’ Hugh smiled, shaking hands with him.

  ‘Maybe this next trip’ll be my last. I’ve seen enough of the world and I feel like settling down.’

  ‘High time,’ Cissie grinned, as he went out.

  Ricky came running in from school shortly afterwards, and she had no time to think until he’d had his dinner and gone out again. ‘You should have been at the wholesalers today,’ she reminded Hugh.

  ‘It won’t matter for one week.’ It occurred to him that if Tommy had not seen his father the night before, he’d have gone out as usual and come back to find . . . Shuddering, he drew his wife against him roughly. ‘Cissie, I love you.’

  The unexpectedness and warmth of his kiss surprised her. ‘What brought that on?’ she laughed.

  ‘I mean it,’ he said, earnestly.

  Cissie had just washed the lunch dishes when Richard and Phoebe made an unexpected appearance, having read about Tam in the morning newspaper, and they were even more surprised when they learned about Tommy’s arrest and release.

  They had to stop talking about it when Ricky came home in the afternoon, but when the little boy went to bed, Richard said, ‘I hope this doesn’t shock you, Cissie, but I can’t help being glad that your father is dead.’

  ‘It doesn’t shock me,’ she burst out, ‘I’m glad myself. He was an evil man when the drink was on him.’

  Phoebe nodded vigorously. ‘He was, Richard, he even . . .’

  Her abrupt, embarrassed stop made Cissie realise what she had been about to say. ‘It’s all right, Phoebe. Hugh knows.’ Turning to Richard, she explained, ‘He killed his own baby.’

  His eyes widened. ‘He had raped you?’

  ‘Phoebe promised never to tell anybody and I’m grateful to her for keeping her promise, but I told Tommy myself, and Hugh, so you may as well know.’

  Richard laid his hand over hers. ‘Thank you for taking me into your confidence, Cissie, and you have my word that it will never cross my lips. I know Phoebe’s been worried about what he would do when he came out of prison, and she won’t have to worry any longer. That’s why I’m glad he’s dead.’

  Phoebe look at her husband in surprise. ‘How did you know I was worried? I never said anything.’

  ‘The workings of your mind are an open book to me, Phoebe, my dear,’ he smiled, rising to his feet. ‘Now, we must let these good people get to bed. They have been up since early morning, remember.’

  Phoebe and Cissie both shed a few tears as the goodbyes were said, and Hugh insisted on going down to see their visitors off. ‘It’s been some day!’ he remarked, when he joined his wife in their bedroom. ‘I feel like I haven’t slept for a week. How about you?’

  Cissie heaved a long sigh. ‘I feel like I’ve been turned inside out and back again, but I can stop worrying now. I was sure he was going to kill me.’

  Hugh’s heart did a sinking somersault, but he hastened to reassure her. ‘No, my darling, you were imagining things.’

  ‘I suppose I was, and it’s all over now. I’ll make us a cup of tea, then we can . . .’

  ‘I don’t want anything. I can hardly keep my eyes open.’

  ‘I’ll not bother, either.’

  They had not been in bed long when Cissie said, softly, ‘I’ve been thinking, Hugh. With the money we’ve got in the bank now, and what we’d get if we sell this place, we could buy a better shop, and a house with a big garden for Ricky and his little brother or sister to play in.’

  Hugh’s heavy eyelids shot up. ‘Are you telling me . . .?’

  As his arms came round her, she snuggled against him. ‘I meant to tell you today anyway, but – things put it out of my head. We’ll make a new beginning, just you and me, and Ricky and . . .’ She broke off laughing. ‘We’ll have to think of some boys’ and girls’ names.’

  ‘Not right now, my dearest one,’ Hugh murmured, with a purposeful gleam in his eyes.

  ALSO AVAILABLE FROM BIRLINN BY DORIS DAVIDSON

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  The brow of the Gallowgate is where Albert Ogilvie buys his property in 1890 - the shop he has dreamed of for years, and above it, a house with nine rooms to accommodate the large family he and his beloved wife, Bathie, desire. As their babies are born - there will be eight in all - Albert employs three sisters, one after another, as nursemaids. Bathie finds Mary and Jeannie Wyness more than satisfactory, but Bella, the youngest, is troublesome and sly, and creates a set of distressing circumstances resulting in her dismissal. The years go by, with their joys and sorrows, and war splits up the close-knit Ogilvies, some of whem eventually emigrate to New Zealand. And it is there that Bella Wyness, her resentment of the family grown to black hatred, will wreak her terrible revenge...

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  The sequel to her novel ‘Brow of the Gallowgate’, Doris Davidson’s latest novel follows the fortunes of the Ogilvie family through the World War II. Olive is determined to have her cousin Neil as her husband and won’t allow anything or anyone to get in her way. So when her younger cousin Queenie is evacuated from London and be
gins to attract Neil’s attention, Olive does all she can to avert the relationship. When warnings and threats fail, Olive concocts a web of lies to blacken Queenie’s character and destroy her cousins’ love. Despite Olive’s success, her actions fail to secure Neil, who finds himself involved with other girls, finally meeting and falling for Freda. After this Olive will stop at nothing, no matter how despicable, to make sure Neil is hers forever. The consequences of her actions shock everyone and send the extended Potter and Ogilvie families into turmoil.

  GIFT FROM THE GALLOWGATE

  This is the extraordinary story of a remarkable woman. Doris Davidson was born in Aberdeen in 1922, the daughter of a master butcher and country lass. Her idyllic childhood was shattered in 1934 with the death of her father, after which, in order to make ends meet, her mother was forced to take in lodgers. In part due to her father’s sudden death, Doris left school at fifteen and went to work in an office, gradually rising through the ranks until she became book-keeper. Marriage to an officer in the Merchant Navy followed in 1942, then divorce, then her second marriage. Her life took the first of two major changes in direction at the age of 41, when she went back to college to study for O and A levels, followed by three years at Teacher Training College. In 1967 she became a primary school teacher, and subsequently taught in schools in Aberdeen until she retired in 1982. Not content with a quiet retirement Doris embarked on a new ‘career’ and became a writer, publishing her first work in 1990. Eight books later (and another one nearly finished), she is one of the country’s best-loved romantic novelists and has sold well in excess of 200,000 copies of her books. In this engaging and candid autobiography, Doris Davidson recounts her growing up in Aberdeen in the ‘20s and ‘30’s, the war years, her marriage and the unexpected paths her career has followed. With her novelist’s skill, she brings into vivid focus a life of rich experience in a book every bit as riveting as her works of fiction.

  WATERS OF THE HEART

  Young Cissie McGregor flees to Dundee with her stepmother Phoebe after her abusive, drunken father has destroyed their family. There, for a while, she finds happiness - with Bertram Dickson, son of the wealthy mill-owner who is Cissie’s and Phoebe’s employer. But, too late, she finds Bertram has not married her for love. After she bears him the son they’ve yearned for, he takes the first excuse to throw her out on the streets - keeping her beloved child. Cissie has known the worst before. She will survive and she will win through. But while she builds up her own business and fights for the return of her son, she must finally confront the consequences of those events long ago in Aberdeen when her childhood innocence was shattered...

  TIME SHALL REAP

  It is 1915, and Elspeth Gray is young, unmarried, heavily pregnant and destitute in a strange city. Having no one else to turn to, she throws herself on the mercy of a compassionate woman she once met briefly on a train. Helen Watson and her husband, themselves expecting a baby, gladly give the desperate girl a home. After Elspeth’s son is born, however, Helen tragically loses her own child, and in her traumatised state transposes the two births in her mind. With the neighbours also believing that little John is Helen’s baby, rather than the single girl’s, Elspeth gradually finds herself deprived of her own child. A second chance for happiness comes along for Elspeth through marriage to David, a soldier badly scarred by the war. But her children must survive the calamities of another war, and the tangle of secrets overshadowing her youth causes misunderstandings that eventually lead to disaster. Only when the full truth becomes clear can she and her family find happiness and freedom from guilt...

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  JAM AND JEOPARDY

  89-year-old spinster, Janet Stouter, takes pleasure in raking up scandals, old and new, about her neighbours. She also relishes refusing her two nephews the money they seek to bolster their businesses. When a retired glass worker gives her some arsenic to kill the rats in her garden, she hatches a plan to test them. She tells them about the arsenic and waits for them to prove themselves worthy of inheriting when she dies. Whoever attempts to kill her will be her sole heir; if both do, of course, they will each get half share of her substantial amount of savings. She does, however, make sure that her life will be in no danger. Unfortunately, the old lady spreads word of her newly acquired poison around the village, thus laying the seeds of murderous intent in several people. She had not foreseen that several other would-be assassins will come into the frame or that one will succeed in silencing her vicious tongue forever. This is a whodunnit in the classic style of Agatha Chrisite.

  MONDAY GIRL

  After the death of her father, 10-year-old Renee and her mother are forced to open up their Aberdeen home to two lodgers. An impressionable and romantic child, Renee grows up weaving romantic fantasies around both men, firstly the dependable Jack and later the charming Fergus, who cements her obsession with him by seducing her, then breaking her heart. With the advent of the Second World War, Renee is thrown into further turmoil as the two men of her life are sent into action, leaving her to a whirlwind of RAF sergeants stationed in the area. It is during this period that she meets and falls in love with Glynn, and the pair decide to marry. However, something remains wrong in Renee’s world... could her secret fear of Mondays be the reason for her inability to find lasting happiness?

  THREE KINGS

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off at the Howe of Denty, is not as respectable as it first appears. And one desperate act of defence from Katie is to a start a chain of despair, passion and revenge.

  DUPLICITY

  A novella and collection of short stories by Scotland’s favourite novelist. Two men sit petrified on Christmas Eve at the thought of spending it in supernatural company; a young family makes a tense Cross-channel trip in fear of some unspecified threat; an old man contemplates jumping to his death at the thought of being evicted from the house in which he has lived all his life. In this book, Doris Davidson looks back over an immensely successful writing career in a collection of twenty short stories, which also includes her eagerly awaited latest work, the novella “Duplicity”. Covering a wide range of themes and moods, these stories are a wonderful tribute to the skill and imagination of one of Scotland’s best-loved authors.