by Jane Harris
‘Well!’ she says. ‘I’ll tell you this, it was not easy. If I put one thing in the flipping papers, I must have put a dozen. Did you not see any of them? I was up and down those newspaper offices for weeks.’ She glanced around, as if to see whether I had any newspapers lying about.
I said not a word, did not want to give her even the nod of my head.
‘What happened to you, dear?’ she was saying. ‘One minute you were there. The next, you just walked out. I thought you were coming back. That’s what you said anyway. I says to Joe, she’ll be back in a minute, I says, wait till you see her. Three hours later, still no sign. And then days passed, no word. I was worried sick.’
She gave me a pained look as if to prove it and then resumed glancing with great interest at all the things in the kitchen. I stared at her in sullen shock, the blood still pounding in my veins.
‘That was a terrible shame about old Levy,’ she says, after a minute. Then she clucked her tongue. ‘And he didn’t leave you a penny piece? Miserable old bastard.’
I made no response to that. She was watching me carefully. No doubt, she would have sniffed out all the details of his will as soon as she heard he was dead. She probably knew I had come in for nothing, but wanted to be sure. I decided to change the subject.
‘So who was it seen your notice in the paper?’
She cackled. ‘Well, you’d never guess,’ she says. ‘It was an aul’ Blue-skin. Imagine that! He wrote me a letter! Dear Miss O’Toole, all this. I was maist interestet tae read your annooncement, ni-hoot ni-hoot ni-hoo! I just about wet myself when I seen his name at the bottom. Yours sincerely, Reverend Mr Archibald Somebody.’
‘Pollock,’ I says, and it was like spitting.
‘That’s him! D’you know him?’
I shook my head.
‘Well, that’s peculiar. He seems to know you very well. Very well. Wrote me all about you, so he did, how you’d settled into your job, all this, how much you were enjoying it, how much Mrs Reid was pleased with you.’
‘He’s a busybody,’ I tellt her. ‘An old goat of a busybody.’
Would you credit it, she started poking at the loaf on the table, picking off bits of bread and stuffing them in her mouth as she spoke.
‘So he writes to me, what he says is he doesn’t want the reward, it would suffice for him to know that he had helped out a fellow human being.’
‘Huh,’ I says. ‘What else?’
‘Well, he said there was a person answering the description and that she works in a house called Castle Haivers, near where he lives, but that he wasn’t sure it was the same girl because this girl went by a different name from the ones I’d mentioned in the paper. Well, right away I thought to myself, that could be my girl, given herself a new name. My wee girl.’ She smiled at me all sentimental, all this.
I thought about pushing her into the fire. And could have done it too. I don’t know why I did not.
‘Then he just wrote a lot of nosy questions,’ she says. ‘About who you were and what did your father do, all this.’
I looked at her, alarmed. ‘Did you write back to him?’
‘Of course not!’ she says, and stuffed another lump of bread in her mouth. ‘What do you think I am? Anyway, his was the only reply I got. So I just came down here to see for myself if it was you. And here you are, fine rightly! Why don’t you sit down, love? Are you worried about your Mr Reid coming back?’
It did not escape my attention that she knew master James was not at home. Which implied that she must have been waiting outside for a while, since before dark.
‘You might find it easier to talk,’ I says. ‘If you finished what was in your mouth before speaking.’
She peered at me, chewing open-mouthed all the while. ‘Eh?’ she says. ‘What are you on about?’
Missus might have taught me table manners but it should have been no surprise that my mother was probably not interested to learn them. Besides, that was the least of my worries.
‘Anyway,’ I says. ‘What is it you want?’
‘You keep asking that!’ she says, her voice for the first time reaching the high-pitched indignant notes I remembered so well. ‘I told you I don’t want anything!’ She paused a moment, then gave a little smile. ‘Although there is one thing, dear.’
‘Oh aye,’ says I.
‘You may well look at me like that,’ she says. ‘But it’s something I have to tell you and you’ll thank me when you hear it.’ She paused and looked about her, smacking her lips. ‘Have you anything to drink here, love, have you?’ she says. ‘I’ve a powerful thirst on me.’
I indicated the jug. ‘There’s milk.’
She raised her hands in horror, I may as well have suggested she drink a spittoon.
‘Milk!’ she says. ‘Is that what you drink?’
I shrugged, impatiently. ‘Look, if you’ve got something to tell me, get on with it.’
‘Disgusting!’ she says, of the milk jug. Then she looked pleased and patted the swell of her bosom. ‘Well, I have something here,’ she says, gloating. ‘Something would interest you.’
I just looked at her. She flashed her eyes at me. Then she reached down the front of her frock and after some rummaging and rearranging, she produced a folded piece of something so crumpled and well-fingered and damp that it was soft and sheeny and seemed more like cloth than paper, but paper it was. She laid it on her lap to smooth out the worst of the creases and then she offered it to me. I didn’t take it, but could see by the firelight that it was a ballad sheet. Across the top was the song title ‘Ailsa Craig’ and beside that the words ‘By David Flemyng’.
I snatched the page from her and looked it all over. But nowhere did my name appear. Bridget was watching me closely.
‘You see?’ she says. ‘They’ve been singing this on every street corner from the Gallowgate to the Byres Road. Not so much of late, but a couple of weeks ago it was all the rage.’ She stabbed her finger at Flemyngs name. ‘This man, whoever he is, has stole your song! My wee girls song! I couldn’t believe it the first time I heard it. Of course, I recognised it right away when I heard it in the street, for did you not used to drive me mad singing it all the time. I says to Joe—we were down by the Trongate so we were—I says to him that’s our Daisys song she made up! And I went up to the aul’ buck that was singing it and took the sheet off him to look for your name.’ Bridget slapped her leg and made an astonished face, to show me how shocked she had been.
‘Well! No flipping name on it except this bastard. So I asks the aul’ fella, where is she? I says to him. Where’s Daisy? What have you done with her? Turned out he knew flip all about it. He was just the song seller. You have to go to the publisher if you want to know anything. Mr Lochhead is the publisher, the aul’ buck says. So that’s what I did, went all the way to the office in Jamaica Street. But then that old scut Lochhead wouldn’t tell me anything either! He just said he didn’t know who you were, and he swore blind you couldn’t have wrote it! Only just lucky for me he happened to mention that your man thingumbob lived out Snatter way. And that was how I knew you must be out here somewhere, for him to have heard your song and all. I even put his name in a couple of the notices, but he never wrote to me, and I am not surprised for my guess is he doesn’t want to be caught. No doubt he’s plucked you and then filched your song. Probably made a flipping fortune out of you.’
A little breathless after this tirade, she sat back in her seat and gazed at me, obviously very pleased with herself. I knew what she wanted now. It was straightforward enough, a question of profits. But I had far more important things on my mind than a few bob and putting my name to a song. I did not even bother denying the rest of what she had suggested.
‘He can have the money if he wants it,’ I says. ‘I don’t care two turds.’
‘Oh!’ says my mother. ‘Well, I just thought you might be interested is all.’
She shrugged offhandedly and put the songsheet on the table. Then she glanced about her once again, s
cratching her neck. I was surprised to see how easily she had let the matter drop. She turned to me brightly.
‘Where is it you sleep?’ she says. ‘Have you a wee garret to yourself upstairs?’
At once my surprise turned to alarm. ‘You can’t stay here! You wouldn’t be allowed. Somebody would find out!’
She chortled. ‘I’ve no intention of staying here,’ she says. ‘I’ve got a room of my own, thank you very much.’
This also took me by surprise. It had not even occurred to me that she might have arrived earlier and set herself up with some kind of lodgings.
‘Where?’ I says, warily.
She shook her head. ‘Jesus Murphy,’ she says. ‘That woman should never have put herself in the tavern trade.’
‘What woman?’
‘I never met anybody worse suited to serving the public. And her inn’s a dump.’
‘What inn? What’s it called?’
‘The Gushet,’ says Bridget. ‘But for dear sake you can’t even ask for a spot of gravy or cheese or a pudding without she bites your head off.’
The Gushet! Janets place. The very thought of Janet and my mother knowing each other was bad enough. But something else was vexing me. For a moment, I couldn’t work out what it was. And then I remembered.
Gravy. Cheese. Hector running up and down the stairs. I looked at Bridget, aghast.
‘How long have you been here?’
She glanced up at the ceiling. ‘Not long,’ she says vaguely. ‘A week or so.’
‘A week?’
‘I am on holiday!’ she says, irritably. Of a sudden, she reached out and grabbed hold of my skirts, coming over all apologetic. ‘Look, dear. Sweetheart. I am sorry. I was all set to come and speak to you a couple of days ago. But then the weather turned bad and I hardly dared set foot outside until this afternoon. And then I came up and your man went out and there you were in the kitchen. It seemed like too good a chance to miss. I just wanted to see were you all right, dear. But listen here to me, I don’t know why you’re doing this.’
‘Doing what?’
‘This! Feeding hens and running about like a slave up and down the stairs and in my ladys chamber and—cleaning out the pigsty, for flip sake!’
I turned and stared out the window. Beyond the glass, I could see only blackness. It was a fortnight since I’d cleaned out the pigsty. Something was beginning to dawn on me.
‘You’ve been here,’ I says. ‘You’ve been spying on me.’
‘Not spying exactly,’ she says. ‘Just looking. I wanted to see you. And I had to bide my time, dear, find a way to talk to you, when there was nobody about. I don’t know what you’ve told them, you see. But what are you doing, love? Haring about like a lackey while that bracket-faced one with the big arse sits up there doing nothing. Does she get paid for that? And your woman with the big eyes, Mrs Reid if that’s her name, what’s the matter with her? All she does is stare out the window and read books.’
‘Have you been standing in the bushes out there?’
‘I might have been,’ she says, coyly. ‘Not just in the bushes. There’s a few spots you get a good view of the house. You know me.’ She winked. ‘In and out of the shadows.’
The truth of the situation struck me, it was like a fist grabbing my insides. There was scarcely a breath left in my body.
‘God almighty,’ I says. ‘You’re Gilfillan!’
My mother curled her lip. ‘I am what?’
I couldn’t answer, since I was struggling to breathe and to laugh at the same time. So missus had witnessed somebody lurking outside the house. But it wasn’t a delusion after all. It was my mother!
She was grinning at me now, wanting in on the joke. ‘What?’ she goes. ‘What is it?’
‘Never mind,’ I says and the laugh died in my throat. Just for a moment there I had thought that missus might not be demented after all. But the truth of it was, even if her sightings of Mrs Gilfillan could be explained by Bridgets presence, there was too much else about her behaviour that was mad, the nonsense she talked about Nora appearing in her room, the cutting up of brains, the henchman &c. Although, regarding him, a thought occurred to me.
‘Where’s Joe?’ I says.
The smile froze on my mothers face. ‘Joe dear?’ she says. ‘Joe Dimpsey?’
‘Did he not come with you?’
‘Och he couldn’t come,’ she says. ‘He was too busy. Yes, so he was. Too busy.’
There was something odd about that response, but before I could say more she’d clapped her hands together and sprang to her feet.
‘Here’s me dying of thirst,’ she goes. ‘What do you say we go down the road and have a drink, the two of us, to celebrate? I’ll tell you all the crack.’
I had no intention of going for a drink. But a thought had just struck me. ‘You haven’t told Janet Murray or anybody that you—I mean—you haven’t told them who you are?’
Bridget raised an eyebrow and gave me a look that would have scalded a cat.
‘That I am your mother?’ she says. ‘No, dear.’
‘Or my—my sister?’
She scowled. ‘I haven’t told nobody nothing,’ she says. ‘D’you think I am stupid?’
‘Yes.’
She wasn’t stupid. She just had a bad streak in her. But I wanted to annoy her.
‘For your information,’ she says, putting on the voice she used when she wanted to sound more high class. ‘I am a widow. Mrs Kirk. Mrs Kirk has never heard of you. She is come to the country to take the air for a few weeks. She is looking about her. She may settle down here. She may not.’
‘But not really,’ I says, for her words had struck me cold with dread.
Bridget smiled slowly. ‘Mrs Kirk doesn’t know yet,’ she says in a sing-song voice. ‘She hasn’t made up her Kirky mind.’
She turned and took a stroll around the kitchen, looking at every item—the clock, the scales, the big tureen—as if weighing up its value. There was a bread-knife on the table. The impulse to grab it and plunge it into her back, right between the shoulder blades, was overpowering. My fingers reached out and closed around the handle. I snatched up the knife, then jerked open a drawer and threw it inside. After that, I slammed the drawer shut.
Bridget had come to a halt at the door that led to the rest of the house. She stared at it a moment, then looked at me a bit sentimental again.
‘What did you tell them about yourself, dear?’ she says, gently. ‘Did you not need a character to get your job?’
I shook my head. ‘They think I was a housekeeper before. I didn’t need a character.’ I paused, then I says, weakly, ‘I have liked it here, you know.’
My mother blinked and looked hurt. ‘So I see,’ she says.
She took another stroll around the kitchen, I had the feeling she was working herself up to something. Then she approached me with something like concern on her face.
‘Would you look at your hands?’ she says.
She took hold of my fingers and rubbed them. I let her do it, and didn’t move away.
‘You’ll end up like a washerwoman,’ she says. ‘Look, I’ve money left from what Levy was giving me. I am not really going to stay here, don’t be daft. Sure why would I stay here? I’ve got myself a nice new place all set up back in Glasgow, in King Street. Remember King Street? Two lovely rooms I’ve took, all furnished so they are.’
‘Good for you,’ I says.
She put her head to one side and considered me, a bit wistful. ‘My wee girl, all grown up.’ Then her eyes twinkled. ‘Jesus, you’ve got the curse now and everything, by God!’
I blushed hotly, wondering how she could know such a thing just by looking at me (for it was true). But then she says, ‘Or don’t tell me—you wash and hang out the rags for her upstairs?’
I shook my head in shame. To hide my face, I turned and began to poke the fire. My mother sighed. Out the corner of my eye, I seen her glance again at the clock.
‘Grand rooms in Ki
ng Street,’ she says. ‘You’d like them, so you would.’
Fearful of where the conversation was heading, I began shovelling coal for all I was worth. ‘Does Joe like them?’ I says.
She didn’t speak for a minute, because of the noise of the coal. Then when I put down the scuttle, she says, ‘That’s what I was going to tell you.’
I turned to face her.
She smiled at me, a bit shame-faced. ‘What I said before, dear. It wasn’t quite true. Well you see, what it is, Joe’s gone. He’s away to America. To New York. He went a few weeks ago.’
‘America?!’
‘I know!’ she says, mistaking my surprise for concern. ‘Isn’t it awful? With there’s that terrible war on there and everything. He might get hurt.’
I was reasonably confident that the war was not actually taking place in New York and I said as much.
My mother looked puzzled. ‘Really?’ she says. ‘I thought New York was in America.’
‘It is.’
‘Well then!’ she says.
I might have found her amusing were I not related to her and were it not for a few other reasons. As it was, she always managed to get up my nose.
‘What’s he doing in New York anyway?’ I says.
‘Ah now, you see, he had to go at short notice. It was the polis were after him. All a mistake, of course. He didn’t do it. Anyway lucky he got a tip-off and they were too late. He’ll come back when it all dies down. But until then—I am—’
Of a sudden, and quite unexpectedly, her lip trembled and she began to weep. I felt an impulse to back away from her but that would have meant stepping into the fire, so I moved to one side. She pulled a snoot-cloot from her sleeve and dabbed at her eyes. I patted her on the shoulder, it was as much as I could bring myself to do. She wept on for a few minutes. Eventually, she sniffed a few times and dried her cheeks.
‘Listen dear,’ she says. ‘Would you ever think about coming home with me? The two of us together. Just like the grand old days.’
What grand old days she was on about, I haven’t a baldy. But at last, here was what she wanted. It wasn’t money she was after at all. It was me. She wanted me back. Without Joe, without somebody, she was nothing. She wanted company. Oh, she might well have some money left, but when it ran out she’d have me out on the streets faster than fart. I’d start taking a budge before I went, just to be able to face the night. And it would be a short slip from there back to other things, terrible things that I did not want even to consider.