Mary said, ‘I’ll post it for you tomorrow when I’m out for my messages. And if you think you need a sleeping tablet to get you through tonight, hen, I could ask Alice next door. I know she has some.’
‘No, thanks. I’ve got tablets from my doctor. I can take one of them.’
‘Aye, OK hen. After you have a bite to eat, you get a good night’s sleep. The first night’s always the worst, isn’t it, Janet?’
‘Yes but it does get better. Try not to worry.’
Later, Sandra just picked at the plate of macaroni cheese that Janet put before her. Janet and Mary finished their portions with obvious enjoyment. After the meal, Sandra said, ‘I’ll do the washing up.’
‘No, no,’ Mary and Janet cried out in unison. ‘You get away to bed. We’ll do the dishes.’
Then they were taken aback when Sandra impulsively kissed them both, before disappearing from the room.
‘Poor wee soul,’ Mary said, starting to gather up the dishes. ‘See men!’
Janet shook her head. ‘Drug addiction, it seems, is a growing problem. I was reading the other day about the amount of crime that is drug related. Even very young people …’
‘I worry about my weans. I’m no’ there to see what’s happening to them.’
‘Surely your husband …’
‘He doesn’t care about them. He just kept them to spite me.’
‘But at least they’re too young to know about drugs, Mary. And both Betty and Dorothy are doing their best to get things sorted out for you.’
‘I know. God bless those girls. And please God help them get my weans back,’ she added with much feeling.
Janet started putting the milk and sugar dishes and cake plate on to a tray as Mary carried another tray of dirty dishes through to the kitchen.
After putting the milk in the fridge, the sugar in the cupboard and the cake in a cake tin, Janet went back to fold the table cover and put it away. It was then she noticed Mary’s teapot on the little side table next to her easy chair by the fire. She wondered if Mary wanted the teapot washed out. She lifted the lid to see if there was any tea left in it. It was then she noticed a peculiar smell. She peered and sniffed closer.
Good gracious! she thought, in sudden distress, Mary had been sitting all day and every day drinking beer, not tea, under their very noses.
She must report this to Betty and Dorothy. It was her duty. No doubt it would mean the end of any attempt to get Mary’s children returned to her. It could mean that Mary would be put out of the refuge. She felt affronted at being deceived by Mary but even worse at the thought of Betty and Dorothy being deceived by her.
It was really awful!
She was shocked at Mary. Then shocked at herself. Incredibly, a suspicion of laughter was beginning to bubble to the surface of her mind. She was becoming as bad as the awful woman.
11
Mabel stood beside Cheryl as they went up in the lift. She knew she was called Cheryl because another girl standing next to her was calling her that. Cheryl was calling the other girl Alice. Cheryl looked strikingly beautiful in a white trouser suit and a red boob tube. Her golden hair was tied at the nape of her neck with a red ribbon. Mabel had seen her in the red boob tube before but the white suit, she guessed, must be new. She made a mental note to describe it to John. She modelled herself mostly on Cheryl when John asked her to describe herself. It was how she would have liked to be. All her life she’d dreamed of looking as beautiful as Cheryl.
The girl called Alice was pretty too but with short curly hair. She was wearing a fringed denim skirt and a fringed waistcoat over a pale blue T-shirt. Mabel wondered if John would like that outfit. Alice came from one of the refuge houses. Mabel had seen her on a previous occasion there before she entered the lift. Alice was telling Cheryl about a new girl – Sandra, her name was – who’d arrived to share the refuge flat with wee Mary and Janet. Wee Mary had told Alice that Sandra’s husband was a druggie and poor Sandra was terrified of him.
‘She looks a timid wee soul,’ Alice said. ‘Betty brought her in to introduce us. She hardly opened her mouth. But wee Mary said to give her time. She had opened up all right to her and Janet.’
‘About as bad as drink,’ Cheryl said. ‘Alkies and druggies – six and half a dozen.’
‘Wee Mary says Sandra’s husband sometimes goes berserk, behaves like a madman. Your dad doesn’t act like that, does he? He seems a harmless soul to me.’
Cheryl shrugged. ‘He’s just weak, I suppose. But he causes a lot of harm all the same. I’m looking for a place of my own and, as soon as I find something, I’m away from here.’
Oh dear, Mabel thought, who can I use as a model then? She’d already told John she was fair-haired. Who else was blonde around here? There was this Alice, of course, but her hair was short and curly. She’d told John that her hair was long and straight. And there was Dorothy, the children’s worker. Dorothy and Betty, the other worker, were well known in the building. However, Dorothy didn’t dress young or trendy. She had nice dimpled features but she often looked sad and tired.
Alice got out of the lift and, after giving Cheryl a quick wave, hurried over to one of the refuge houses. Cheryl and some others stayed on and the lift shot up higher and higher. Mabel’s flat was on the twenty-fifth floor. Cheryl must live even higher because she was still standing in the lift when Mabel left.
As soon as she arrived inside her flat, Mabel locked the door and, still using her stick, moved slowly through the long lobby and into the sitting room. She usually managed without her stick in the house because she could take her time, walk carefully and, if necessary, hold on to things. Today, however, she felt tired. She eased herself down on to her chair. It was a warm day and she didn’t bother switching on the electric fire. With a sigh she gazed at the worn brown carpet, the large old-fashioned furniture and thick brown plush curtains. She would like to have gutted the whole place. She had always hated her mother’s taste in furniture and furnishings. Everything was so heavy and dark and depressing. But she couldn’t afford to buy bright modern furniture or anything else for the house. The day might not be far off when she would no longer be able to afford her jaunts into town and her little treats of having morning coffee in Bradford’s tearoom. Or afternoon tea in the Willow Tea Rooms in Sauchiehall Street. Or one of her shopping sprees for food in Marks & Spencer’s.
Oh, she would miss everything so much. It looked, however, as if no matter how hard she tried to please John, nothing mattered to him now except the chance to meet her. She’d kept trying for as long as she could but her heart was heavy. She knew it was no use.
She heaved herself up and trailed through to the kitchen to make herself a cup of tea. While she was drinking her first cup, she took a tray of cauliflower cheese out of the fridge and put it into the microwave. Thankfully the fridge, the freezer and the microwave had been in the flat when her parents moved in. Otherwise, they would have had no modern conveniences. She sat hunched on a stool in the kitchen and ate her meal without tasting it. She was still thinking of John and how desperately sad and lonely she’d feel without him.
She carried her second cup of tea through to the sitting room and, after drinking it, sat half-dozing, her thick spectacles slipping down to the end of her nose, her gnarled, veined hands resting on her lap. The grandfather clock struck six. The clock had belonged to her mother’s family for generations and the ghosts of the long dead still clung to it.
The phone rang as usual, before the clock had stopped chiming.
‘Darling John …’
‘My dearest Angela.’
‘How are you tonight, John?’
‘Getting sadder and more depressed as each day passes without seeing you.’
‘Oh, my dear, why can’t we just go on as we’ve always done? We’ve been happy, haven’t we?’
‘Not any more. I can’t go on like this indefinitely. There doesn’t seem any sense in it.’
For the first time, she detected a hard ed
ge to his normally smooth, gentle voice. In an attempt to delay the inevitable, inescapable end, she said, ‘Perhaps one day …’
‘Soon?’
‘We’ll see.’
‘Why do you keep tormenting me?’
‘Oh, I’m so sorry, John. I don’t mean to torment you. You mean more to me than anything or anyone else in the world. The last thing I want is to hurt you.’
‘Well, then …’
‘I’ll try and arrange something.’
‘Soon?’
‘My dear, you don’t understand. There’s complications.’
‘Are you married? Is that what it is, Angela? There’s another man? Is that the complication?’
‘John, I’m awfully tired tonight. Do you mind if we leave it just now?’
Mabel gently, reluctantly, replaced the receiver.
John did the same. He was thinking, so that’s what it is. There’s another man. All right, I’ll soon get him out of the picture. At least he’d found the place. He had gone to Springburn and walked up the Balgray Hill and seen the park. In front of the park, facing each other on opposite sides of Balgrayhill Road, were two rows of high-rise buildings. He did not know which of these tower buildings Angela lived in but he was a patient man. He’d wait and watch every day, even if it took months. He’d wait and watch and he’d find her. One way or another, he’d also find the man and, after he found the man, he would no longer be a complication. He would make sure of that.
He began to feel elated, excited.
Mabel, on the other hand, felt sad. The time was coming. It wouldn’t be long now. Oh, how she would miss him.
*****
Sandra Elliot asked wee Mary if she would mind posting the note to her sister in Edinburgh. Sandra was too afraid to go out.
‘Aye, no bother, hen. I was going out for my messages anyway. Can I get you anything while I’m in the shops?’
‘I don’t like bothering you, Mary. I should go myself.’
‘Och, don’t be daft. You’d help me if I needed it. We all need help at first. I’ll get you all you’ll need to start off. Milk and sugar and tea and a loaf of bread. And what do you like in the mornings – cereal or porridge?’
‘Cornflakes usually but I can’t expect you to …’
‘Be quiet, will you? I’ll get a few frozen things as well. We can square up with money later on.’
‘I don’t know what to say, Mary.’
‘Just do as you’re told and don’t say anything. I’ll no’ be long.’ She turned to Janet. ‘Behave yourself, the pair of you, till I get back. Have you everything you need, Janet?’
‘Yes, thank you. I managed out to the local shops yesterday.’
‘Along the road?’
‘No, I took the bus down to Springburn.’
‘It’s a disgrace what they’ve done to Springburn.’
Sandra raised an anxious eyebrow. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Before your time, hen, Springburn used to be a really nice place with lots of great shops. I had an aunty and uncle used to live in Cowlairs Road. It’s gone now. At least, I’ve no’ been able to find it.’ She sighed. ‘Happy days, long before I met my shit of a man. Just a room and kitchen, my aunty had, with the lavvy out on the landing and no hot water in the house. Just one of them swan-necked taps with cold water. I stayed with them after my mammy died. I shared the room bed with five of my cousins.’
‘Good gracious!’ Janet gasped. ‘How awful for you.’
‘No’ a bit of it,’ Mary protested. ‘We were as snug as bugs in a rug in that wee house. And my aunty and uncle were as happy as larks. As my aunty used to say – great neighbours, the Co-op on the corner with everything to look after you from the cradle to the grave and Hoey’s department store, just to mention a few of the great variety of shops. What more could anybody want, my aunty used to say.’
‘Good gracious!’ Janet repeated.
‘But now,’ Mary shook her head. ‘What with all these motorways and new buildings, the heart’s been taken out o’ the old place. I get lost, so I do. My aunty would birl in her grave if she could see it now.’
‘Will you be able to carry everything, Mary?’ Sandra asked worriedly. ‘I feel so guilty but I just can’t face venturing out yet.’
‘I’m taking my trolley. So stop worrying. You’re an awful wee lassie. Always worrying.’
‘I know and I admit I was worrying about having nothing in to eat or drink. And of course, it’s terribly important to post the note to my sister.’
After Mary had gone, Janet said, ‘Mary is a bit …’ She paused to give Sandra a meaningful look. ‘Nevertheless, she has a heart of gold.’
‘Yes, I know. She’s been so good to me. You both have. And so sympathetic and understanding. I really do appreciate it. I feel ashamed to be such a coward and a nuisance but I can’t help it. If you only knew how terrified I am of my husband.’
‘My dear, the reason I, for one, can understand how you feel is because I’m just as terrified of my husband. I pray day and night that he’ll never find me. I’ll die if he finds me. I’ll die of terror, I assure you.’
‘I’m sorry, Janet. I didn’t realise. Is wee Mary the same?’
‘I don’t think she’s afraid of her husband in the same way as we are. What she’s terrified of is losing her children. Of never seeing them again.’ Janet hesitated. ‘By the way, poor Mary has a little drink problem.’
‘Yes, she did mention it.’
‘Don’t ever touch her teapot. She pretends to everyone that it’s full of tea but I discovered it’s actually beer she’s drinking from it all day. I ought to have reported it to the girls but … I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I just pretend I don’t know and I hope you’ll do the same. That’s why I’m warning you not to touch her teapot. If you did, she’d be worried then that you knew and would report her. She might get put out or worse, you see.’
‘Oh, I’ll not touch it or say anything.’ Sandra put a hand to her mouth and, for the first time, laughter brightened her brown eyes. ‘It’s awful but …’
‘Yes, I know. That’s exactly how I feel. What a carry on!’
No doubt Mary would be getting rid of her empty beer cans and renewing her stock of full ones while she was out. Janet had been tempted, at one point, to lecture Mary for her own good but decided that it would be no use. As long as Mary never got drunk, Janet supposed, there would not be too much harm done. If it had been whisky or gin in the teapot, that would have been a different matter.
*****
Up on the thirtieth floor, Cheryl was singing to herself. Something nice had happened. All right, maybe it wasn’t a dream come true. Maybe Tommy McKechnie wasn’t the handsome young man of her dreams, who would think she was marvellous and treat her like a queen. But he was the nicest guy she’d met so far and he was really interested in her. He had a decent job as a bus driver. He didn’t take drugs or bother about drink. He could take an occasional pint, he’d told her, but he’d far rather spend the evening with her having a meal and a glass of wine and then go to the theatre, than go to the pub with the lads.
They had gone to Pizza Parlour and then to the Pavilion. It was a typical Glasgow comedy show and they’d enjoyed a right laugh. Tommy wasn’t handsome but he had a nice face and a good head of ginger hair. He hated his hair and the freckles that went with it but she didn’t mind at all. Anyway, as she told him, it wasn’t all that gingery, more auburn. Quite a nice shade really. And he had only a very faint dusting of freckles across his nose. His eyes were grey-green. He didn’t like them either but she told him she liked them and to stop being so hard on himself. He looked cool. She told him that.
She and Tommy had been out together three times now and were getting on great. She liked the way he kissed too. She couldn’t take him into the building for a snog. It could be as busy as Buchanan Street. So they’d gone for a walk in the park before saying goodnight outside her building. She had told him that she was looking for a place
of her own or to share with someone. He lived with his mum and dad down in Springburn and he said, ‘I’m twenty-one years of age now. It’s high time I was moving out on my own as well.’
That made Cheryl begin to think and hope that it might become possible to share with Tommy. Why not, after all? She was beginning to feel more cheerful, more hopeful, by the day.
12
‘Feeling a bit better now, Sandra?’ Betty settled her firm flesh into the cushions of the chair.
Sandra smiled her gratitude. She felt so grateful to Betty, she believed she loved the big woman with the mane of auburn hair. Betty had such a cheerful, confident personality, everybody felt more secure in her presence.
‘How can I ever thank you, Betty?’
‘What for? I’m just doing my job. By the way, you were saying you had a sister in Edinburgh. Do you fancy staying with her or looking for a flat in Edinburgh? Or if you want, I could find out if there’s a vacant place in one of our refuges there.’
‘I’ve written to my sister and asked her to come through and see me so that we can talk things over. I didn’t want to try to explain over the phone. It’s too complicated. It’ll be an awful shock for her once she does find out – that this is a refuge, for a start. She never knew what my husband was like. She and her husband were living abroad for a while.’
‘Well, just let me know if and when you decide to go to Edinburgh.’
‘I told Mary and Janet I’ve never been that keen about living in Edinburgh again but I’m too nervous about bumping into my husband in Glasgow now. So, I’m beginning to think that perhaps that might be the most sensible thing.’
‘There’s no rush.You have a good talk with your sister and then let me know your final decision. She might insist you go and stay with her for a while. But you’re welcome to remain here for as long as you feel you need to.’
‘Thanks, Betty. By the way, I bumped into Rita this morning. I said it was good to see her wee ones playing happily across the landing with Dorothy. Poor Rita didn’t look happy though. She never talks about what she suffered. But it must have been terrible.’
A Deadly Deception Page 7