The New Breadmakers

by Margaret Thomson-Davis

  Betty always rolled her eyes at this. ‘Who’s to know if we burned the lot of them? What use are they to anyone now?’

  The other assistants, including Chrissie, were shocked at this idea – it seemed too reminiscent of Adolf Hitler’s orgy of book burning. Anyway, Chrissie for one loved them too much, not only for their fascinating contents, but as physical objects as well. Sometimes she took interesting ones home to read – after first asking Miss Cruikshanks’s permission, of course, and following her order to mark in the appropriate rule book the titles and date of borrowing. Chrissie would add the return date when she brought them back. Glasgow Corporation might not bother to check up on anything but Miss Cruikshanks’s beady eye certainly made up for them.

  Big Aggie Stoddart, even many months later, could still be heard to say to friends and acquaintances, ‘Fancy, she gave up a good job at the Co-op to bury hersel’ doon in that Springburn library wi’ that wee hunchback wumman.’

  Chrissie had been well warned that she’d live to regret the day she took the job. She didn’t really. What kept her going through the constant ‘ruling of the books’ was her ambition, and her dearest hope of one day getting to the Mitchell.

  As it turned out, there was indeed hope. The Mitchell had always been staffed by men. Women were the ones relegated to the local libraries. Men could be head librarian at a local library but only if it had a separate toilet. Only recently, a male librarian had been transferred back to the Mitchell when it had been discovered that the local library in question did not have male toilet facilities. Shades of ‘ruling the books’?

  Since men were called up for National Service, the Mitchell had been getting shorter and shorter of staff and requests kept going out to local libraries for volunteers to go and fill the vacancies. To Chrissie’s surprise, she’d heard they were having difficulty in finding volunteers. Let them come to me, she thought. They won’t have to ask me twice.

  Eventually, they did approach Springburn and again, to her surprise, no one wanted to go.

  ‘I’ll go,’ she told Miss Cruikshanks.

  Miss Cruikshanks eyed her suspiciously. ‘Why?’

  ‘I’ve always wanted to work in the Mitchell. It’s a marvellous big place.’

  ‘Big is the operative word, Miss Stoddart. You obviously don’t realise the amount of work that is entailed in such a place.’

  ‘I don’t mind, Miss Cruikshanks. Honestly.’

  ‘Very well.’

  Chrissie could hardly contain her excitement. As soon as her father came in from his shift, she cried out to him, ‘Daddy, they’re sending me to the Mitchell. I’m starting in the Mitchell on Monday.’

  ‘Good for you, hen,’ Jimmy said, without much enthusiasm. He was always exhausted after a shift. ‘It’s a rare big building, that.’

  Aggie groaned. ‘Whit’s up wi’ you? Always goin’ on about buildings. What do buildings matter? It’s what’s in them. That’s what I say.’

  ‘Millions of pounds’ worth of books and archives and manuscripts,’ Chrissie burst out excitedly. ‘They have a whole collection of books about Robert Burns, and books and letters written by him. They’re priceless, Mammy.’

  ‘Aye. Aw right. Eat yer fish supper before it gets cold.’

  Aggie had been out buying the fish suppers when Chrissie had arrived home. She was still in her headscarf and voluminous swagger coat. She tugged off her coat, flung it aside, then dumped the suppers onto the waiting plates.

  Sixteen-year-old Maimie, who had triumphed in getting a good job at the Co-op, was as unimpressed as Aggie at Chrissie’s news.

  ‘I bet they don’t pay as good as the Co-op,’ she managed, despite cheeks bulging with chips.

  ‘Money’s not everything,’ Chrissie said.

  Aggie let out a derisive howl. ‘Would you listen to that. Talk about comin’ up the Clyde in a banana boat!’ She splashed tarry-looking tea into the cups. ‘Ah don’t know what we’re goin’ tae dae wi’ her.’

  ‘For goodness’ sake!’ Chrissie said.

  Sometimes she wondered if she really belonged in this family. She fantasised that she’d been adopted or found on the Stoddarts’ doorstep when an infant and one day her real parents would arrive and claim her. Parents who wouldn’t mind one bit about her working in a library or having Catholic friends. She remembered how she’d been given a right walloping by her mother when it had been discovered that not only had she been consorting with girls from the Catholic school on her way home from her Protestant school every day but she’d actually set foot in a chapel with some of them. This had been an unforgivable sin in both her mother and her father’s eyes. Her father was normally not as aggressive as her mother and seldom resorted to physical violence. On that occasion, he’d bawled at her and, although not hitting her himself, he had approved of the battering her mother had meted out.

  ‘What’s wrong with being friendly with the girls at that school?’ Chrissie had asked plaintively.

  ‘You know fine they’re aw Papes.’

  ‘What’s wrong with being friendly with Catholics?’

  The severity of the battering had at least taught her to keep her mouth shut on the subject and also to be more discreet as far as her friendships were concerned. Ailish O’Donnel was her best friend. Sometimes she even had secret thoughts about Ailish’s brother, Sean. Well, quite often, in fact. She had never let on to Ailish about that. She could just imagine the shock and horror it would cause in her house, and probably at the O’Donnels’ as well, if she and Sean ever got together in a romantic way. She could never understand what all the fuss was about. What good was religion when it made people hate each other? Ailish and she sometimes spoke about this. Ailish didn’t see why it was necessary either. Why didn’t both sides just let each other be?

  ‘Makes me mad,’ Chrissie said.

  ‘Me too,’ Ailish agreed.

  But mostly they never mentioned religion. They just enjoyed being best friends. Chrissie wanted to keep it that way. So she didn’t risk doing anything about her crush on Ailish’s brother – because that was what it was becoming. She no longer thought about how she and Sean had once gone to the pictures together because they had only been children then. Now she thought of him in a different way altogether. She was beginning to fantasise about him. It was difficult to ignore him when she saw him so often – just in passing, on the stairs or in the street. He was two years older than her and rather good-looking. Clever too, she bet, with his good, steady job in an office. And he dressed every day in a collar and tie instead of a muffler like most of the other blokes she knew. His hair was smooth and a rich, glossy black, like his father’s. Although his father’s hair was now going grey.

  Chrissie sighed every time she thought of Sean. His eyes were so dark and sexy. She could not get him out of her mind. She wondered if she dared stop him one day and speak to him. Not just to say ‘Hello’ or ‘It’s a nice day’, but to really have a conversation with him.

  She began to think about how she could do it. She could perhaps get him talking about books, as Ailish said he was a great reader. She imagined what she would say. Then what he would say. In her imagination, one thing led to another.

  Her fantasies were beginning to become more vivid. Sometimes they made her blush. Sean just needed to look at her now and she blushed.

  It was terrible!

  15

  Word was spreading about her knowledge of herbs and other remedies. It surprised Catriona. She had helped her mother’s piles, so perhaps it was Hannah who was telling everyone – at least in the Band of Jesus, where she still ruled the roost.

  Certainly quite a few of the ladies from that particular organisation had come to Botanic Crescent asking for help. There had been Mrs Dawson, who had been bothered with constipation, and Mrs Green with her varicose veins. Catriona hadn’t been confident enough to risk doing anything with the varicose veins, which had been like big bunches of black grapes. She’d given Mrs Green willow herb for the pain but advi
sed her to go to her doctor. Mrs McGurk had been miserable with diarrhoea and a stomach upset, and Catriona had given her arsen alb and told her to alternate it with carbo veg every hour for a day, then every two hours the second day.

  ‘Ye’re a right wee stoater,’ Mrs McGurk had assured Catriona afterwards. ‘Ma runs stopped. Nae bother.’

  Mrs McDougal had brought her wee boy to be treated for eczema. ‘While I’m here, hen, could you give me something for my cough?’ Bryonia and drosera did the trick for her.

  Then a lady from the West End had called. She also suffered from an upset digestive system but she had added, to Catriona’s surprise, ‘I’ll pay you, of course. Just tell me what your fee is.’

  Catriona was taken aback but not so much that she needed to confess that she had never charged anyone before.

  ‘We’ll leave that until your next visit, shall we?’ she said. ‘I think I’d better see you again to check if the medicine I give you has had the desired effect. If it doesn’t, we can try something else.’

  Afterwards, she thought with gathering excitement, ‘Why not?’ She decided on a consultation fee, plus whatever it cost for the medicine. The medicine she would prescribe could be either herbal or homeopathic, although she’d come to prefer homeopathic. These were the medicines she was having most success with. Already she had a small stock of herbs, creams and ointments in the house, as well as homeopathic powders and tablets. She lost no time in stocking up with more of everything. For the first time in a long time, she felt happy. Excited too. For the first time, she actually felt glad to be living in such a large house. What was to stop her using one of the downstairs rooms as a kind of surgery? Maybe one of the rooms at the back that they never used? How about putting a bench in the passageway and using it as a waiting area?

  Hallelujah! The back door would be of real use at last. She and the family always used the imposing front entrance. Customers – or should they be called patients? – could go along the back lane and enter by the back door. That way they could be completely private and separate from the rest of the house. In her excitement and enthusiasm, she could hardly wait to tell Melvin.

  ‘What?’ His voice shot up an octave with incredulity. ‘Have strangers traipsing in and out of my house? Have you gone mad or something?’

  She quickly switched to what might appeal to him more. ‘Think of the money, Melvin.’ She had been babbling on about how she could help people. ‘I could make – we could make …,’ she hastily corrected herself, ‘… we could make a fortune at that. And no one would be traipsing through the house. Anyone coming would go along the lane and just knock at the back door. I’d take them in and keep them in that back room until I showed them out that way again. You’d never see anybody, Melvin. You’d never know and we’d make a fortune.’

  ‘How could we make a fortune? Don’t be daft.’

  ‘Well, there would be no extra overheads, for a start. I wouldn’t need shop premises and the medicines are so cheap. You wouldn’t believe how cheap – especially if we bought in bulk. You’d have nothing to worry about, Melvin. As I’ve said, you wouldn’t even see anybody. You could just forget about it and leave it to me.’

  She adopted a wheedling tone. ‘I know you always want to do your best for me, Melvin, and make me happy, and I’d be so grateful if you’d let me do this – even just as a wee hobby.’

  ‘That’s all it would be – a wee hobby.’ He laughed uproariously. ‘Make a fortune – you? What a joke! OK, have your wee hobby if that’s what’ll keep you happy.’

  She rushed at him to hug and kiss him. ‘Oh, Melvin, thank you.’

  He puffed up with pleasure. ‘Aye, well, don’t you ever say I’m not good to you.’

  ‘No, Melvin. You are good to me. I know you are.’

  She knew nothing of the kind. But she did feel a surge of happiness. It gave the previous intensity of her emotions a different focus. She’d always suffered from intense emotions – usually guilt and regret, fear and hatred of Melvin and, more recently, shame at the intensity of her sexual feelings for just about everybody else. The sheer intensity of her emotions would exhaust her and they’d fizzle out and be replaced by lack of confidence in herself. Suddenly she felt that again. What on earth was she thinking about? A fortune? For goodness’ sake, wasn’t that just like her? A few of her mother’s friends had come to ask for a bit of advice. Only one woman had offered to pay. Melvin had been right to laugh. One woman and she had immediately gone over the top and imagined herself making a fortune. She felt depressed then.

  Fortunately that didn’t last for too long. She began to think – well, surely it’s worth a try? Even if she didn’t make a fortune, maybe she would find satisfaction in being somebody in her own right, doing something she wanted to do, just for herself. All her life, she had never been allowed to be herself. Or get to know herself.

  All her life, she had been forced, first of all, to do what her mother told her and to accept her mother’s view of what she was or should be, and what she had to do. Then it had been Melvin’s turn.

  All right, even if it did prove to be no more than a hobby, at least she would be doing something she enjoyed and perhaps she could actually help a few people at the same time. Then it occurred to her that it would be a good idea to advertise. After all, if people didn’t know about the service she provided, how could they come? Word of mouth was all right, but postcards in a few shop windows wouldn’t do any harm. She spent some time concentrating on writing the postcards or, rather, printing them for the sake of clarity.

  ‘Herbal or Homeopathic Treatment can help when all else fails. Homeopathic treatment especially is a gentle, natural way with no side effects. Phone this number for an appointment.’

  She put the postcards in various windows in the Great Western Road shops. Then she gave a few to Madge to put in some of the shops in the Balornock and Springburn area. Madge thought it was a great laugh. But somehow her laughter was not hurtful or demeaning like Melvin’s. ‘Good luck to you, hen.’ She gave Catriona a slap on the back that nearly knocked her off her feet. ‘You’ll probably make a bloody fortune with the kind of luck you have. I wish I’d thought of something like that. See me? I’ll still be a slave to these weans and that big useless article I’m married to when I’m ninety – if I last that long.’

  When Catriona had asked her to help distribute the postcards, Madge hadn’t hesitated. ‘Sure, hen. Give me as many as you like.’

  She was a good friend. Catriona did feel lucky in that respect. She nearly gave some to Julie as well, knowing that she too would not hesitate to help all she could. But then she thought, what if too many patients turned up, too many for her to cope with? It wasn’t something that was very likely to happen, but still …

  She worried about the treatment – herbal or homeopathic? Again she thought that although herbal treatment could be marvellously successful, it could be a bit unpleasant to take. Some mixtures could have quite a vile taste. But that wasn’t as important as the actual mixing of it. People could cope with the taste if it helped them but could she cope with the dispensing of it? The more she thought of it, the more she wished she’d left the word ‘herbal’ out of the postcards.

  She could use the big unused walk-in larder opposite the treatment room as a dispensary but another problem was that herbs could be strong-smelling and powerful odours could spoil homeopathic medicines. The latter had to be stored safely away from anything like eucalyptus, menthol or peppermint. Indeed, she would have to warn anyone taking homeopathic treatments not to use any rubs, creams or ointments or take any pastilles, cough mixtures or indigestion tablets containing these pungent ingredients. Otherwise the homeopathic treatments just wouldn’t work. She’d have to tell people too not to touch the homeopathic tablets or powders. Powders had to be tipped straight from their special paper wrappers into the mouth. Tablets had to be tipped from their bottles or phials on to the lid and, from the lid, straight into the mouth. That way the medicine was ke
pt sterile.

  It would be awkward storing all the medicines separately. It would mean having the homeopathic medicines on shelves and in cupboards in the consulting room. There weren’t any shelves or cupboards there and she didn’t think the housekeeping money would stretch to paying a joiner to do the necessary work.

  No use asking Melvin. He would only start cataloguing all the money he’d spent on her, especially in recent years. The television was one of his favourite examples, although it was he who watched it most of the time and it was always programmes that he liked, never the ones she’d prefer. She never watched it at all, except when he was there and she had to sit with him. He never liked doing anything on his own. He was a family man through and through, he always said.

  ‘You like them as well,’ he’d say. It was one of his most infuriating habits. He had never even given a moment’s thought to her point of view. He always took it for granted or insisted that her taste was exactly the same as his.

  The new refrigerator would be dragged up and the washing machine, of course. Not to mention the various gadgets he’d bought for her. He liked gadgets.

  No, safer not to mention anything about the ‘wee hobby’ or the room in which it was to be conducted. He’d never mentioned it again. No doubt he’d completely forgotten about it. It was fortunate that he was working less and less at night – hardly at all now. Like his father before him, as he got older, the night shift became too much for him. He could only cope with the day shift. In fact, more and more, he wasn’t even doing his usual work baking the bread. Instead, he was selling it behind the counter in the front shop.

  ‘There’s enough bakers on the job and Baldy knows to keep things going the way I like them. I’m more needed to keep my eye on the shop these days.’

  He would never admit that he was no longer fit enough for the hard work of baking. Catriona began to realise that life was starting to go her way. She had several hours a day completely free of Melvin. She didn’t need to tiptoe about and try to ensure silence while he slept during the day. She no longer needed to be at his beck and call and suffer the brunt of his bad temper when he couldn’t sleep. Nowadays, she didn’t even need to go down and help in the shop. Between Melvin and the three girls in the shop, it was ticking over very nicely. Often, after his studies or at the weekends, Andrew helped out if one or more of the girls was off sick or on holiday. He made a bit of extra pocket money doing that.