She pushed the pram aside and lifted first Maisie, then Hector, Sadie and Agnes, heaved them into the hole-in-the-wall bed and covered them with blankets. The children immediately fell sound asleep.
‘My God, Alec, what a day. I didn’t even know where I was. They’ve hidden the names of every place. You can’t tell what station you’re at and there’s all those posters up: BE LIKE DAD, KEEP MUM and IS YOUR JOURNEY REALLY NECESSARY? That was a laugh!’
She sprawled out on the sofa, her big thighs tightening her skirt and rucking it up.
Looking at her like that, pink suspenders showing and milky skin bulging above the top of her stockings, he was glad she was back.
‘Come on, hen, I’ll undress you and put you to bed.’
‘Do you know what my tongue’s hanging out for?’
‘I know what your tongue’s always hanging out for.’ He laughed. ‘And you’ll get it as soon as we’re in bed.’
‘Alec, for God’s sake make us a cup of tea first.’
‘Anything you say, gorgeous. The kettle’s boiling on the hob.’
He got up, whistling cheerily.
‘It was bad enough here before we started.’ Madge scratched her breast and made it swing about. ‘All that noise and crush at the school, then the journey. God, it was awful. But it was worse at the other end. We were all crowded into a hall and this man started to separate us.’
‘Separate you?’ Alec widened his eyes in mock shock. ‘So that’s why you’re tired?’
‘Och, Alec, don’t be filthy.’
‘Separated you, you said.’
‘Give us a cup of tea.’
‘Promise you’ll let me separate you and I’ll give you one.’
She sighed.
‘He tried to take the weans away from me.’
He had never seen her nearer tears. Hastily he poured a cup of tea and handed it over.
‘Who did, hen?’
‘This billeting officer man. He said there was too many of us and we couldn’t all go to the one place. He was going to separate us, send the weans all to different places. I was only to keep Willy and Fiona.’
‘They would have been all right. He would have found them good houses.’
‘They would have cried their eyes out without me and all separated from each other.’ She took big noisy sups of tea. ‘God, I’m enjoying this. No, I couldn’t let him do it to the poor wee buggers.’
At that moment a knock at the door surprised them both.
‘I’ll go, hen.’
He went swaggering, whistling a tune through his teeth.
The landing was in complete darkness because of the blackout and he had not lit the gas in the lobby, but there could be no mistaking the small figure, the large eyes, the shimmering hair.
‘The wife’s back,’ he hissed desperately. ‘Hop it!’ She just stood there looking stupid.
‘Who is it, Alec?’ Madge called from the kitchen.
‘Beat it!’ he whispered.
‘Beat it?’ Catriona echoed.
She was the stupidest creature alive. He fervently wished he had never set eyes on her.
He was about to shut the door in her face when Madge appeared at his elbow.
‘There’s a howling gale blowing in here with that door …’
She peered through the shadows.
‘Is that Catriona MacNair?’
‘She’s come over to tell me that Ma’s not well,’ said Alec quickly.
‘All this way, at this time of night in the blackout?’ Madge gasped. ‘Come away in, hen. There’s a cup of tea made.’
‘She’s got to hurry right back, Madge. I’d better go with her.’
‘Och, don’t be daft. She looks frozen. Come in for a minute, hen.’
Back in the kitchen Madge poured out another cup and handed it to Catriona before slumping back down on the sofa.
‘What’s wrong with Ma?’
Catriona gently sipped her tea and stared round the kitchen as if it were about to burst into flames.
Alec wished he could snap his fingers and make her disappear. It was terrible that she should be here taking tea from his wife and only yards away from his children. It was downright indecent.
‘There’s no need to worry,’ Catriona quavered, before he had the chance to answer Madge himself. ‘There’s nothing wrong with Mrs Jackson.’
‘Nothing wrong with Ma?’ Madge’s tone changed. ‘Then what have you come for?’
‘What she means is … ’ Alec began, but Catriona’s wavering voice horrified him into silence again.
‘I came to see Alec.’
‘Oh, you did?’
Madge rose.
‘No, Madge, hen, take it easy,’ Alec pleaded. ‘She’s so much wee-er than you!’
‘I’m sorry.’ Catriona’s cup rocked noisily in its saucer as she replaced it on the table. ‘I feel so ashamed. I don’t know how it happened.’
‘How what happened?’
If only Madge would stop asking questions! Catriona was obviously a female George Washington. She was going to stand there in front of Madge like a wean who had pinched an apple and confess all. Alec groaned inwardly.
‘Drink up your tea, hen,’ he urged. ‘It’s time you were getting back.’
‘You keep out of this!’ Madge commanded.
‘Maybe it was because Melvin’s gone.’ Catriona was wringing her hands now. ‘Maybe it was because my mother took the children away. I don’t know. I’m so sorry, Madge!’
‘Sorry for what? What happened?’
‘Well, you see, Alec came to the door for pennies for his mother’s gas.’
Alec lit a cigarette.
‘My God!’ he said.
‘You keep out of this!’ Madge repeated, then to the girl, ‘So?’
‘I went in to get my purse and when I turned round he was at my back in the kitchen. And then … and then …’
‘And then?’ Madge prompted.
‘Well … he said …’ Catriona’s voice faded. ‘I should be friendly … I didn’t know, I didn’t think he meant …’
‘Are you trying to tell me that my Alec laid you?’
‘Oh, no,’ Catriona hastily assured her. ‘We were standing in the cupboard in the hall.’
Alec leaned against the mantelpiece to support his brow.
‘My God!’ he said again.
‘I wouldn’t have bothered him tonight only I didn’t know who to turn to. My mother said the children wouldn’t be safe with me at Dessie Street and she took them away.’
Catriona’s voice suddenly changed to a horrible wail.
‘I want my baby back and she won’t give him to me.’
Alec could not stand it a minute longer. He had been as nice as ninepence to her, chatted her up, made her laugh and gave her a bit of loving when her man was away, and this was all the thanks he got.
‘What a bloody cheek!’ he gasped. ‘I’ve a wife and six weans. I’ve enough worries without taking on yours.’
Unexpectedly Madge rounded on him.
‘You’re the only bloody worry in this house. My back wasn’t turned five minutes and you were sniffing round somebody else.’
‘No, hen, you’ve got it all wrong. You know what women are like with me.’
‘She’s only a wee lassie!’ Madge suddenly let out a broken-hearted roar. ‘And she’s worried about her weans!’
Her big fist shot out, cracked his chin up, and bounced his head back against the mantelpiece.
He slithered bumpily down into sickly blackness and the next thing he remembered was coming to with a bit of rag rug stuck up his nose. He sneezed and howled with pain.
The light was out but the fire red-shivered the kitchen.
Maisie was making little puttering noises in the hole-in-wall bed and Hector, who needed his tonsils out, was snoring lustily.
Alec pulled himself up with the help of the chair, rubbing and working his chin about.
His bottle of beer still lay on the ta
ble and he took a swig, but it was warm and flat.
He undressed in front of the fire, not feeling in the mood to strip off in the freezing room. Once naked he heated his palms and rubbed them together, bracing himself for a quick sprint through and a jump into bed.
The blackout curtains hadn’t been drawn and the front room was moon-filled with dancing grey dust.
He froze in mid-leap.
The bed was full, too.
Catriona was facing the wall, handless in one of Madge’s long-sleeved nighties, her hair spread out like a silver shawl.
Madge was a protective mountain beside her, one freckled arm over the top of Catriona, cuddling her in sleep.
He had no alternative but to race back to the kitchen fire again. He put his clothes on, cursing fluently, then took one of the children’s blankets, rolled himself in it and settled down on the jaggy sofa.
It was one of the worst nights of his life and he awoke to find life no better.
His big, cheery, always the same, happy-go-lucky Madge had changed.
She still marched about gaily making the breakfast and talking to the children and to Catriona but as soon as she turned her attention or her voice on him the good cheer hardened into cold steel.
Catriona was busily washing the children and brushing their hair.
He could have strangled her.
What right had she to come into his house and cause trouble between him and his wife?
Madge and she were as thick as thieves. Like long-lost sisters. Madge had even promised to go to Farmbank to rescue Catriona’s weans. It wasn’t fair. Why should Madge act like this?
He would have liked to remind her that he worked hard to keep a roof over her head and clothes on her back.
Instead he braved the icicles to give her a cuddle.
‘How’s my gorgeous hunk of woman this morning?’
‘Get off!’
The words had been uttered many times before but never with the contempt they had now.
He felt genuinely worried but at the same time certain that Madge would eventually forgive and forget. He knew old Madge.
There were times later when he thought she had forgotten. Busy times alone together in bed. Or if they had friends in for a game of cards or if they were out visiting with the children she talked and laughed like her old self.
Yet she was not her old self. Quarrels kept flaring unexpectedly over silly, unimportant things and each time, before he knew what had happened, she had dragged Catriona up, then resurrected every other female he had ever known.
As if things weren’t bad enough already, Catriona became pregnant.
He never could get over how such a harmless-looking creature was able to cause so much stir and trouble. He used to tell Madge he did not like using French letters because it spoiled making love: it was like eating toffee with the paper on.
Now every time he thought of Catriona he wished he had used half-a-dozen. The way Madge talked (and talked and talked) anyone would think he had planted a time bomb inside the girl.
The baby could be her husband’s, for all they knew. He wasn’t that long away.
Madge wouldn’t hear of that, though.
‘Oh, I know you. It’ll be yours, all right.’
As if fathering a child had suddenly become a sin, and no other man would sink so low.
Alec began to feel restless, hemmed in, thoroughly fed-up with it all, and on a sudden impulse one day he joined the Navy.
So far he didn’t regret it. He was a good mixer, cheerful, friendly and adaptable. In no time he was one of the lads, talking about ‘the deck’, ‘the galley’, ‘skiving’, and rolling cigarettes out of ‘tickler’ tobacco from an old tin. His cap tipped over his brow, his bell-bottoms flapping, he whistled along with his Glasgow swagger and his sailor’s roll making him look jauntier and cheerier than ever.
In fact, there was only one thing spoiling a new and hopeful horizon: the war and where it might take him.
Chapter 18
‘Put that light out!’
The shout resounded up the close and round the stairs together with the indignant clatter of feet, and the door battered and shook before Catriona had time to get to it.
She screwed up her face, fervently hoping that the children would not be wakened.
‘There’s a light from your house shining across on the Benlin Yards. You’re endangering the whole of Clydend!’
The red-faced special constable could hardly speak, he was puffing so hard for breath.
‘Oh, no, you must be making a mistake,’ Catriona assured him. ‘I’m very careful about the windows.’
This was true. She had big heavy curtains up on all the windows including the bathroom and she had followed the instructions in one of the government pamphlets which advised criss-crossing the glass with brown sticky paper to strengthen it against blast.
The special constable pushed roughly past her into the hall, hesitated for a minute to get his bearings then made a rush at old Duncan MacNair’s room.
There were two bedrooms in the house and both faced on to the Main Road. Only the sitting-room had a window looking down on to Dessie Street. The smaller bedroom, which had once been the children’s, was now the old man’s room, and the children had been moved in with Catriona.
‘Look at this!’ the constable yelled.
The bedroom window stood bare and uncurtained.
Catriona sighed with exasperation.
‘Da, how many times have I to tell you. You’ll be the death of us yet.’
He was sitting on the edge of his bed in his vest and long-johns, his goatee beard quivering.
‘What’s the meaning of this?’ His high-pitched nasal whine spluttering saliva through his ill-fitting false teeth. ‘Bursting into my room with your fancy man when I’m getting my clothes off!’
‘Da!’
The constable shut the curtains, satisfied himself that the window was thoroughly sealed, then approached with notebook and pen at the ready.
‘Your name?’
‘Away you go, you scunner. I want to get to my bed.’
‘Name?’
‘Da!’ Catriona pleaded. ‘Answer the man. You committed an offence. This is a policeman.’
‘My name’s Duncan MacNair,’ he yelped. ‘But you’re not the police. You’re too wee. The police are big fellas.’
The special constable, still heaving for breath, straightened in an effort to retrieve both authority and dignity.
‘Address?’
‘You’ve just come up the close. Do you not know where you are yourself?’
‘I’m warning you, Mr MacNair.’
‘Da!’ Catriona pleaded, ‘What about the shop if you go to jail? Things are hard enough as it is, without you making them worse.’
Old Duncan jerked on his pyjama jacket then began staggering about in a violent fight to get into his trousers.
‘It’s Number One Dessie Street.’ Catriona wrung her hands in agitation. ‘He’s just had a wee nightcap of whisky.’
‘I’m asking him the questions and he’s perfectly capable of answering them himself. What’s your nationality?’
Tangled in a trouser leg Duncan howled with rage.
‘I’m a ruddy German, you silly wee nyuck. Get out my way!’
In desperation Catriona grabbed the constable’s arm and pulled him into the hall, shutting the bedroom door behind her.
‘I’m most terribly sorry! I promise it’ll never happen again. I’ll check the window myself every night. He’s getting on in years and he feels the cold and takes a wee dram to heat himself up. He doesn’t know what he’s saying.’
‘It had better not happen again.’
‘No, it won’t, I promise.’
‘It’s for your own good. You don’t want the place bombed, do you?’ He nodded at her swollen belly. ‘Not when you’re like that?’
Her head lowered miserably and she pleated and re-pleated a piece of her smock.
�
��All right?’ he said sternly, his authority fully returned.
She nodded. Then, her head still lowered in shame, she showed him to the door.
After he had gone she tiptoed to her own room to take a peep at the children and make sure that they were still sound asleep.
She was always terrified that Fergus would waken, feel in a bad humour and take it out on Andrew. She had been tempted for the sake of peace of mind, and Andrew’s safety, to leave Fergus with her mother, but conscience forced her to take Fergus home with Andrew in case he felt unwanted.
It was thanks to Madge that she succeeded in getting either of the children back.
Madge had gone with her to Farmbank and without wasting a minute in beating about the bush announced to Catriona’s mother as they walked into the house:
‘Hello there, hen, we’ve come for the weans.’
Then when her mother had rushed to prevent her touching the children Madge’s firm big shovel of a hand had clamped over the woman’s apron.
‘Och, now, you’re not going to stop the poor wee bugger getting her weans.’ Suddenly her grin appeared. ‘I don’t want to knock your teeth down your throat, hen, but I will!’
The joy of getting the children back was indescribable. Hugging Andrew and kissing his petal-soft face and rubbing Fergus’s head against her hip she had tried to stutter out thanks to Madge but had only succeeded in bursting into tears.
She was so glad to get the children home, it was worth suffering her mother’s warnings of the retribution that would one day be heaped upon her head. As long as the children were all right, that was all that mattered. Yet the children’s welfare was so bound up with and dependent on her own, she worried in case something might happen to take her away from them.
What if she died in childbirth? The thought haunted her and she tried desperately to look after herself and to be as brave as Madge, who insisted that she too was scared of childbirth but flung back her head and laughed when she said it as if it were a huge joke.
Try as she would, Catriona could not even raise a smile. The best she could do was to keep herself as busy as possible so that she would not have time to think about it all.
She rubbed and scrubbed energetically at the washing-board; she sweated down on her knees, her belly as well as the polishing cloth rubbing the floor. It was important to keep the place looking its best. Melvin had an obsession about polish and the fear kept nagging her that one day he might walk in unexpectedly and see something wrong with the house. She could not imagine her pregnant state angering him half as much or even being noticed before a neglected house.
The Breadmakers Saga Page 30